CHAPTER 20
Zeke
I wasn’t one to hang around the office when I didn’t have things to do; however, I found myself not wanting to go back to my house, not wanting to face the cowboy or the pretty boy.
For the better part of the afternoon, I’d given a lot of thought to how I needed to handle the situation with them.
I figured it would be in their best interest if I cut them loose now.
The selfish side of me wanted to lock them up and keep them for a while longer.
To indulge in what they were offering for as long as possible.
Except, I wasn’t a selfish man. I knew better than to encourage something that had no possibility of ending without a fallout. They were fun to play with, but like any toy, it was only a matter of time before I would discard them in lieu of something with more glitter and intrigue.
For the past four years, that was exactly what I’d done. I had indulged my desires. Sought the fuck toys who knew the score. I had kept my distance, and it was working for me. Or it had been. Until them. For whatever reason, I was drawn to them.
And damn Trent Ramsey for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.
He was the one who had set me on this path by putting the two of them in front of me.
Before I’d found myself confronting them on Trent’s private jet, I had managed to keep my distance.
The couple of times I’d seen the pretty boy at the club, I had forced myself to limit my interactions with him.
Even the cowboy. While I wanted to beat on the pretty boy because that was what he wanted, the cowboy triggered a different desire in me.
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I couldn’t deny that I wasn’t ready for this to be over.
But, again, I wasn’t a selfish man. I had no right to keep them when I knew in the end it would all work out the same. They would go their own way, and I would be back to being alone. Stuck in my own private hell of solitude and destruction.
On the drive back to my place, I considered calling Jamie, seeing if she wanted to come over for dinner.
With her there, I could make a clean break with my fuck toys.
Let the cowboy and the pretty boy know that I had too many balls in the air to continue this.
They would understand because they had to. I wouldn’t give them a choice.
Before I dialed my sister’s number, I remembered Langston mentioning she was going to the club with Greg tonight.
If I called her now, she would think I was trying to get in the middle of that.
And while I had no desire for her to go to the club, I wasn’t that much of an asshole.
I’d set this thing in motion; the least I could do was see it through.
So, I kept my hands on the steering wheel and my eyes on the road.
Tank sat in the back seat, sighing every so often.
I wondered if he could sense my mood, the tension that had taken over my body.
Maybe I could simply hide out in my gym for a while.
I would tell the fuck toys they should pack up their things, and while they did that, I would work off some of this restless energy.
Of course, the mere thought of the basement had my warped and twisted brain coming up with other ideas. I could simply take the pretty boy and the cowboy down there and work out some of my frustrations on them. They would be willing because that was why they were there.
“This is bullshit,” I grumbled as I pulled down the long, winding driveway that led up to my house. “This is the very reason I don’t do this shit.”
I hated where my head was at. Hated that the cowboy had put me in that predicament yesterday.
Hated myself for falling for it. I had kissed him in an effort to taunt the pretty boy, and it had backfired in my face.
I found myself daydreaming about kissing him again.
Tying him to my bed, letting loose on his body while I took my own pleasure.
He would give himself freely because that was the agreement we’d made.
And all the while, he would be looking at me and wondering if I preferred the pretty boy.
Truth was, I didn’t have a preference. I wasn’t supposed to have a preference.
I wanted them equally and for different reasons.
The pretty boy struck my sadistic fancy.
I wanted to explore his pain, to see how deep it ran.
However, when it came to the cowboy, I didn’t see his pain as the end goal.
Sure, I’d spanked his ass and used various torture devices on him, but I could tell the hurt wasn’t what got him off. He enjoyed the humiliation.
Perhaps that was the reason he’d set himself up for failure? Seeing something that wasn’t there. Or was he a cuckold? Was he secretly enjoying the humiliation and degradation that came along with believing his boyfriend was being unfaithful?
When I pulled up to the house, I put the truck in park and stared out into the twilight.
I let out a dull roar, angered by the situation.
I needed to take back control. That was the only way I could operate effectively.
If they thought for a second I might be caving, they would lose all respect for me.
After all, it had happened before.
With him. The last fuck toy I’d taken as my own.
He was the reason I knew I would never fulfill anyone on a deeper level.
I was as much a sex toy as the masochists were.
He’d told me as much. I didn’t have a heart, only a deep-seated need to inflict pain.
I wasn’t allowed to feel, to want more, to need more.
If I ever stooped to that level, I was defying my role as the big, bad wolf, the evil lurking in the darkness, the alpha male, the primal seeking his prey, the man most men feared.
And that was what I was supposed to be.
According to him.
I wasn’t a man who needed love, a man who wanted to wake up to someone else in my bed. I wasn’t allowed to want those things because it negated my very purpose.
Over the years, my brain had worked diligently to blank out his face until he was merely a body I’d used for eighteen months. It had worked for him and for me.
Right up until I realized I’d fallen for him.
I’d given him more of myself than he’d ever wanted.
When I called him my fuck toy, his eyes lit up with excitement.
And when I called him by name, he shut down and sulked.
He didn’t want to be mine in every sense of the word.
He merely wanted me to use and abuse him.
I wasn’t allowed to take more than I’d initially agreed to.
And the day I told him I loved him, that I wanted every piece of him in return, he had sneered back at me, telling me I was weak and pathetic, just not in so many words.
I wasn’t allowed to love because I was a monster. That hadn’t been the deal.
For a year and a half, I’d thought I was building something real, something lasting. I gave him what he needed, and in return, he gave me … nothing.
And that was the reason I couldn’t allow this to go any further.
The cowboy was already seeking more, looking deeper than the surface.
Jealousy was an emotion I couldn’t allow.
It provoked feelings, desires that went deeper than pain.
I had to end this before it went too far.
I could never be what either of them needed.
They wanted the Sadist, not the man beneath. They were content with each other, and I had to respect that, not come between them. If I ever made the mistake of wanting more again, I would quickly learn my place.
Once had been enough for me.
It was time to move on. Back to the lackluster scenes, the submissives who didn’t want anything other than the pain I was capable of inflicting. That was my worth, the value they’d put on my head.
No one would ever love me, because if they did and I loved them back, I would no longer be the nightmare they dreamed about.
At that point, I was merely human.
The Sadist completed them.
The human was a failure.
Case (the pretty boy)
“Zeke’s home,” I told Brax when I heard the man’s truck pull into the driveway.
I strolled over to the window, watching as Zeke sat in his truck, his eyes forward, his hands gripping the wheel.
“Something’s wrong, Brax,” I muttered, unable to look away from the sight.
“What do you mean?” He stepped up beside me.
“He looks … upset.”
Brax took a deep breath. “He’s upset at me,” he said, as though that was the only logical explanation. “It’s time I fix this.”
I turned to the man I loved, watching his face, trying to read his mind. He’d been melancholy all day, sulking in a way I wasn’t familiar with. Whatever his reasons for provoking Zeke yesterday afternoon, he regretted that he had.
“What are you gonna do?”
“Apologize.” He peered over at me. “Like I said, I owe it to him.”
My attention returned to the window when Brax started undressing right there in the living room.
I watched Zeke, wondering what he was thinking about.
He’d been pissed yesterday, storming out after his scene with Brax.
He’d been prickly for the rest of the day, too.
He’d sent Brax and me to bed early, instructing us to put on the chastity devices and sleep in the cage, but he didn’t join us.
At some point during the night, he must’ve come up, but I didn’t know when.
This morning, when I woke, the door to the cage was still open.
Zeke hadn’t locked it the way he normally did.
When I finally shook off the desire to curl back up with Brax and sleep for a few more hours, I’d crawled out from under the bed to find Zeke gone.
The sheets were in disarray, as though he’d slept there, but he wasn’t.