He reached over and grabbed her hand. “I didn’t want an out.”
Huh? Either the migraine was still making her a bit slow or he was making no sense.
“I just thought I did.”
“Um, Sloan, I don’t seem to be following.”
“You’re not the only one. I’m going to try and make sense of this, okay? The thing is, I never wanted to get seriously involved with anyone else. Not after . . . not after Sarah.”
“Sarah?” she asked quietly. This was the first time he’d really opened up about his past.
“Sarah was my wife.”
She stared at him in shock. He’d never mentioned having a wife before. Sure, there were things he hadn’t known about her. But he’d had a wife?
He nodded. “Yeah, I was keeping things from you too. Makes me a hypocrite, right?” Maybe. But she was going to try and be the bigger person and not dwell on that. For now.
“She was also the sub I shared with James.”
“You shared your wife with James?”
Holy frog’s legs. There were people at the club who were involved in ménage relationships. Roarke, Ava, and Sam for one. She had nothing against them. Each to their own, and all that. But she couldn’t imagine Sloan sharing his wife with another man.
He smiled slightly. Although there wasn’t much humor on his face. “Hard to believe, huh? That I could share? But James and I, we’d been friends for a long time. I don’t know if he’s told you much about his life—”
“No, not a lot.” I didn’t have a mother.
“His parents died when he was a baby. He was raised, and I use that term loosely, by his great-uncle. A rich old bastard who had no use for a kid. So, he sent James off to boarding school as soon as he could. That’s where we met. I was a bit older before I got sent away to school. My mom’s parents created this fund for us so we could go to boarding school. Don’t know why. It was shit. A lot of bullying went on between the students. I was big for my age even then, so everyone steered clear of me. But James was small. He got picked on a lot.”
“You stood up for him.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t all one-sided. I watched out for him, kept the bullies from beating on him, and he helped me with my school work so my dad didn’t whip my ass for my poor grades. James has always been really smart. Good with numbers. He can think outside the box. I’ve always been good with my hands.”
She reached over and grabbed his hand, unable to help herself. “There’s no shame in that.”
He gave a wry laugh. “No? Tell that to the old man.”
“I will,” she told him fiercely.
This time when he smiled it was genuine. “I believe you would. Anyway, James and I became inseparable. Even when we left school and he went to college, I followed. I didn’t want more school, so I learned a trade while he studied. I went where he led. I was always his faithful little follower,” he said bitterly.
He took a deep breath then let it out slowly. “When James discovered BDSM, I wasn’t so sure about it. I resisted for a while. I didn’t think I’d enjoy tying women up and beating on them—that’s what I thought BDSM was. We shared our women, though. Always had. So, after a while, I decided I better check it out if he was so into it. I visited a club with him and found out it was very different than what I’d expected. We played around for a while. Nothing serious. And then we met Sarah. I met her first and introduced her to James. Gradually, we started dating, and she moved in. In hindsight it probably moved faster than it should have. But her lease renewal was coming up and I offered her a place to live.” He went quite for a while.
“Sarah was . . . she was fragile. She liked that we took care of her, that we made all the decisions. And I liked having her to look after, to pamper and cherish. James, he, well, I’m not so sure what he liked the best. Maybe that he got to make the big decisions. James likes to be in control.”
“And you don’t?”
He snorted. “Back then I was a lot different, darlin’. Sarah quit her job and stayed at home. James did a lot of traveling, so I looked after Sarah, ensured she had whatever she needed.” He stared at the wall, clearly thinking back, and she couldn’t help but feel jealous of fragile Sarah. No one had ever called her fragile.
“I knew she wanted more from James. Even when he was around, he wasn’t entirely in the relationship with us. His work always came first. It started to affect her, to affect us. I thought marrying her would make a difference. I wanted James to do it.” He moved his gaze to meet hers then. “He said we could get married if we wanted but he didn’t intend to be the one to marry her. I knew then it was destined for disaster, but I went ahead anyway. I married her, and it only served to unravel things further.”
“What happened?” Where was Sarah now?
“James became very moody and closed off. I’m not the best at talking things out, especially relationship shit.”
No, he definitely wasn’t.
“I didn’t know how to fix it. Fix us. Sarah became withdrawn, depressed I think. And I guess I just ignored shit, hoping it would get better.” He sent her a wry grin. “Then I got called away because the old man was ill, he’d had a heart attack. I thought it was a good opportunity for them to talk without me in the way. A chance to reconnect. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’d been away less than a day when I got a call from the hospital. Sarah had been in an accident. She wasn’t expected to make it. I tried to call James, wondering why he hadn’t called me. When I finally got a hold of him, he didn’t know about the accident. The hospital had apparently called our home phone, but he only ever answered his cell. I told him I’d meet him at the hospital. There was this silence, and I just knew something was going on. He told me it was best he didn’t go and hung up.”