Initiative (Suncoast Society #31)(17)

Grant’s brow furrowed. “I don’t suppose your attorney’s Ed Payne, is he?”

Shocked, her eyes widened. “You know him?”

Darryl snorted. “Sweetie, he’s my divorce attorney. And he happens to be kinky.”

She looked at him. “Seriously?” She’d been to his house and had dinner with him and his wife and had never even suspected.

The men nodded.

Well, what the hell. Why not? It seemed dreams could come true, so why not a kinky attorney?

“There’s no one in your life romantically?” Grant asked. “Since you lost him?”

“No, Sir. Just my husband.” It was too easy to call Grant that, to let it slide from between her lips.

It would feel wrong not to call Grant “Sir.”

And she wasn’t a woman who would call just anyone “Sir” in a kinky context.

“No one you’ve submitted to or played with? No one whose protection you’re under that we need to talk to?”

“No, Sir.” Her tears came as a flood and she was unable to stop them. “Please, Sir,” she whispered. “If you don’t want me romantically, I get it. I know you’re gay. But please consider letting me be your submissive.” The words tumbled out of her in a rush, her fear that he’d reject her almost making her sick. “I hurt so bad and I’ve been alone and—”

“Shh, sweetheart.” Like that, she was in the men’s arms. They wrapped themselves tightly around her as she sobbed against Grant’s shoulder.

Hell, a replay of countless tears she’d cried on both of them in high school. Usually because of her parents.

They stood like that for she didn’t know how long, as the torrent overflowed her mental defenses and finally destroyed them.

Who was she kidding? She wasn’t strong enough to do this. Maybe other people were, but she wasn’t. Yeah, she’d put on a damned good act through necessity, but every day alone was that much more stress against her dam and now it’d finally burst.

Grant said something to Darryl that she couldn’t process, and she felt him step away from them. When he spoke again, it was from the bedroom door.

Grant picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, laying her on the bed, on top of the covers. Both men climbed in, sandwiching her between them. She realized Darryl had the whole box of tissues now and handed her more.

They both kissed the top of her head. “Cry it out of your system, sweetheart,” Grant gently said. “We’re not going anywhere. Then we need to have a really long talk once you’re feeling up to it.”





What does it say about me that what Chelsey did to me doesn’t hurt a fraction as much as watching Susie suffer right now?

It was all Darryl could do not to cry over the pain she was obviously in. He sensed Grant was barely keeping it together. Her grief shimmered off her like heat waves rising from a Sarasota road in the height of summer. It killed him that she’d been here, literally living just a few miles from them, and suffering alone all this time when they could have been there for her.

With her.

Grant finally reached across her and tapped Darryl’s arm to get his attention, handing him Susie’s key card.

“Please go to our room, pack our stuff, and bring it here,” he said. “I don’t want to leave her alone, and her bed’s bigger than ours, anyway.”

Darryl nodded, not even sure if Susie was processing what they were saying. She clung to Grant, her keening cries viscerally painful to hear.

No, they wouldn’t leave her alone ever again. Not unless she asked to be alone. She was their Susie, the girl he wished to hell they’d been smart enough to claim way back then.

Then again, he hadn’t known things about himself that he knew now. Maybe it was for the best, coming together older, wiser, more informed and less frightened in most ways. The ways that counted.

Darryl carefully got out of the bed and headed out. They were on the floor below Susie’s room. Fortunately, they hadn’t done much unpacking when they got there. It only took him a couple of minutes to gather their things, and the large rolling suitcase that was their implement bag.

This is real. This is happening.

When Grant had mentioned talking to her, Darryl had thought okay, maybe a couple of weeks’ worth of negotiations, some dating, sure.

Not…this.

She was a woman destroyed, shattered. How she’d held it together this long was beyond him, but that was their Susie. She’d always been good with the game face, even in high school. Even during the height of her parents’ divorce, he remembered sitting in her room with her when her parents had started in one time. She’d walked over and gently closed her bedroom door and tried to smile and pretend World War III wasn’t going on in the kitchen, and what was that last algebra problem again?

Only when her father had stormed out of the house later, and her mother had slammed the door to the master bedroom shut behind her, had tears finally started slipping down Susie’s face.

Grant hadn’t been with them that day. It’d just been the two of them, and he hadn’t said a word as he’d pulled her into his arms and let her silently cry on his shoulder that afternoon.

Just one of many times.

At school, though, no one would have ever suspected there was a problem. She only let her weakness show with him and Grant, when the three of them were alone together. Only with the two of them did she feel safe letting down her defenses.