“When we decided to bring Alex into our lives, we talked about it as an extension of our lovemaking. If it’s becoming something outside of that, something that breaks us apart instead of bringing us closer together, then I say we need to seriously consider what the hell it is we’re doing. After all she isn’t a toy. She’s a real person. A strong, sexy, smart woman who deserves better than to be cast as the element that comes between us. We owe her and ourselves more than that.”
“Are you saying you want Alex to leave?” Having Liam lay things out so starkly forced Daniel to really take stock of what he wanted. Having Alex leave, he knew with sudden fierce certainty was not the answer.
“I’m not saying that,” Liam replied. “I’m saying we need to step back and assess what’s really going on. We need to figure out if we can make Alex a meaningful part of our lives without sacrificing what’s so special between us. I love you, Daniel. That’s first and foremost. It’s more important than your submission or your dominance with her or anything else in my world. I want that love to stay pure. I want the trust between us to remain unsullied. If Alex’s presence compromises that, then, I don’t know, maybe she should leave.”
A small gasping cry startled them both. Daniel looked toward the open door but saw nothing. He jumped from the bed and strode to the door. He saw Alex, blond hair flying, disappearing into her bedroom.
~*~
Alex fell onto the bed in a daze. She was trying to think, to figure things out, to process what she’d heard, but her brain seemed to have short-circuited. She couldn’t manage to form a single coherent thought.
She lay still for some minutes until her mind began to function again, but the pain that accompanied it made her wish for the dazed confusion to return.
She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. She’d quickly tidied the kitchen, wondering what was going on between the two men, pretty certain she had something to do with it.
It had been strange but exciting to spend the day with Liam without Daniel’s presence. She thought of herself as belonging primarily to Daniel. Liam was a third party, someone higher up who would swoop down at night and use the two of them for his pleasure. She had created a fiction, she realized, in which she and Daniel had some kind of special relationship Liam couldn’t interfere with or control.
It had been disconcerting to watch the two of them at the table, both clearly upset and needing to talk. But not with her. She was excluded because she wasn’t a part of their relationship. If it hadn’t been clear to her before, it was brought into sharp relief at that moment.
She had come upstairs to fetch her laptop. To try to work on her novel and put whatever the hell was going on between the guys from her head, at least for a while.
When she’d passed their room the sound of her name stopped her. Are you saying you want Alex to leave? Liam had rambled on about love and trust, all very well, but what she’d homed in on was his last remark—Alex should leave.
That was it then. Two weeks of heaven and it was over. What the fuck did she expect? She had hooked up with two gay guys, for crying out loud. Yeah, yeah, they could mouth all the crap they wanted about being bisexual, but bottom line their emotional connection was to each other, not to her. Not to a woman.
Alex sighed and let the tears that had been waiting begin to flow. If only life were like a romance novel. In her novels the woman always got her man, though admittedly the path toward the happily ever after ending was never a smooth one. That’s what her readers wanted—to see the struggle and growth in a relationship, to feel the pain and the triumph along with the heroine.
But in those novels, Alex could control the scene. She could drop the scales from the hero’s eyes at last, allowing him to realize how much he loved and needed the heroine. Too bad she couldn’t write the script for Daniel and Liam.
Too bad she couldn’t make them suddenly realize that, while they still loved each other, there had been a huge hole in their hearts, one only she could fill. They would beg her to take her rightful place as not only their slave girl but their lover and partner.
Instead, they were sending her away. She was no longer an extension of their lovemaking but a hindrance. A source of friction. She punched the pillow as hard as she could. God damn it, it wasn’t fair. She’d accepted everything—all the limits. She’d slept alone each night in her bed instead of in their arms. She’d tried as hard as she could to be a true submissive.