Sir's Redemption (Doms of Decadence Book 8) Page 16

  “So I see. Not like you to get so involved in other people’s lives.”

  James glared at him. “She’s my friend.”

  Sloan raised his eyebrows. “You don’t have friends.”

  I once had you. He bit back those words. “Kinley is my friend.” But it was more than that, and he wasn’t going to lie. He straightened his shoulders, knowing Sloan could well come out swinging again, and there was no Kinley waiting with a vase of flowers. “I won’t lie. I wanted her to be more than that.”

  Sloan growled.

  “She said no. Because for some reason she loves you and she needs time to get over you.”

  Sloan took a step forward then stopped. His jaw was clenched tight. James tensed, watching him warily. “She doesn’t need time to get over me because we are not over.”

  “Then where have you been these past few weeks?” James snapped. “She said she lied to you and hurt you, but what about before then? Why the hell have you allowed her to live in this shit hole? Why do you not have the sort of relationship where she calls you if her shitty car breaks down?”

  “None of your business.”

  “It is if you hurt her.”

  He held his ground as Sloan moved close, too close. He loomed over him, his eyes dark with anger.

  “This is between Kinley and me.”

  “She deserves better than this.” James waved his hand towards her apartment. “Her bed consists of a rock-hard mattress on top of some crates for fucks sake. She’s working two jobs, taking public transportation at night. She’s so exhausted and run-down that she became ill, and you, apparently, abandoned her.”

  Abandoned her?

  It was on the tip of his tongue to deny it. But, in truth, hadn’t he done just that?

  All these rules about safety, and he’d allowed her to live in this shit hole. Of course, Kinley would protest the word “allow” and she’d definitely not be happy with him interfering, but part of being her Dom was taking care of her, and he hadn’t been living up to the job.

  “This is only the second time I’ve been in her apartment. The first time was when she told me she’d been lying to me.”

  “About what?”

  He didn’t need to tell James. It had nothing to do with him. And he was the last person Sloan wanted to talk to, but that wasn’t quite true, was it? Because there was a part of him, buried deep, that was dying to talk to James, to see him. That part had hounded him constantly to call the other man and talk things through with him. Get some closure.

  Seeing him now stirred up all sorts of memories he wasn’t certain he wanted to remember. He ran his hand over his face with a laugh. “Is it really a coincidence that you’re here?”

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but it really is. I thought that asshole, Gary, was her boyfriend.” Sloan him an incredulous look.

  James held his hands out at his sides. Sloan noticed that there were a few more gray hairs and some extra lines around his eyes.

  “Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part,” James admitted. “Because if Gary was her boyfriend then the way was open for me to take her. He’s an asshole. I wouldn’t feel guilty about stealing her from him.”

  He held himself still, but his heart beat fiercely. James wanted Kinley. He waited for the jealousy. The anger. Kinley was his. It was there. But far more muted than it would have been had it had been anyone but James standing there. And that annoyed him more than anything. Because James was the last person he wanted in his life or Kinley’s. Or, at least, he should be.

  “It wasn’t until we arrived here today that she cleared that up. She told me you were her boyfriend. The boyfriend who broke things off with her.” There was a question in his voice. And he looked slightly doubtful, as though he couldn’t believe Sloan would be so stupid as to dump Kinley. Neither could Sloan.

  “I didn’t break things off,” Sloan growled. “I needed some time to think.”

  James was silent, waiting for him to continue.

  “She kept things from me. Lied to me. I have a problem with lies.”

  James gave him a knowing look. “I didn’t lie to you.”

  “Didn’t you?” Sloan snarled.

  The other man sighed and looked at him tiredly. “Do you really want to do this here? With Kinley lying in there?” Sloan just stared at him.

  James pulled out a card. “Here’s my private number. Call me when you want to talk. About the past. About Kinley.”

  “She’s mine.” He didn’t care how much of a caveman it made him sound; he was staking his claim.

  James nodded. “I got that. Just make sure you take care of her.”

  He didn’t say, “this time,” but Sloan heard the words nonetheless and the guilt tightened his stomach. James strode off without another word, and Sloan entered Kinley’s apartment. He looked around with a sigh and started cleaning up the flowers that lay strewn about. It would never have occurred to James, to pick them up, he thought sourly. He took a deep breath and pushed that thought aside. Nothing good was going to come from being bitter. If these last few weeks had taught him anything, it was letting the past get in the way of your future would only lead to problems. And loneliness.

  He dumped the flowers in the garbage and saw a white card on the kitchen bench.

  Beautiful flowers for a beautiful lady.

  He snorted. James was off his game it seemed. He put the notecard in the garbage too. Later, he’d go out and get her some flowers to replace these ones. For the moment, he’d see what he could do to stop that faucet from dripping.

  14

  Kinley woke up feeling groggy, and her mouth was dry. She rolled over and lay there. Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten in a while. Great, that meant she was going to have to get up when all she wanted to do was lie there and wallow in misery.

  “Hungry?”

  She screeched, sitting up. She stared up into Sloan’s face, her heart racing, her mind scrambling to make sense of his presence in her apartment.

  James bringing her home. Sloan showing up. Fighting. Flowers. A blinding pain.

  “Sorry, darlin’, didn’t mean to startle you. I thought you knew I was here.”

  She might have remembered if she didn’t still felt groggy from the migraine. She cleared her throat and tried to slow her rapid heartbeat. “You stayed.”

  “You didn’t really think I’d leave you here alone, did you?”

  “Truthfully, I’m not really certain what I expected.”

  Instead of getting angry, he just nodded looking tired. “Can I sit?” He pointed at her bed.

  “Yes.”

  He sat with a grimace. “This bed has to be as hard as the floor.”

  “I’ve thought about sleeping on the floor a time or two to compare,” she joked.

  He ran his hand over his face. “I’m an asshole.”

  Her eyes widened. “No, you’re not.”

  He gave a small laugh. “Seriously? You’re defending me after all I’ve done?”

  “I hurt you. Kept stuff from you.”

  “And instead of sticking around and talking it out, I retreated and ran away. Part of me saw an out, and I took it.”

  “You wanted an out?” Hurt clogged her throat, and she had to blink rapidly. She would not cry. She would not cry. “You could have just told me.”

  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.”

  That didn’t seem like James. Even if he’d fallen out of love with Sarah, he wasn’t the type to leave someone he felt responsible for alone and injured in the hospital.

  “I raced to the hospital and sat by her bed for days. She was on a ventilator. They wanted me to turn off her life support, but I just couldn’t. She didn’t have any other family, and James wouldn’t come. In the end, I made the only decision I could.”

  “Oh, Sloan.” How terrible that must have been for him. Anger stirred. How could James have left Sloan to deal with that? But, then, she hadn’t been there and she hadn’t heard James’s side. She would have hugged him except she sensed he was holding onto his control by a thread.

  “James tried to offer to help me. But, at that point, I was so furious with him I wouldn’t see him. Once she was gone and arrangements were made I went home. The closer I got to the house we’d shared, the more furious I became. By the time I slammed my way through the front door, I was ready to kick his ass. I couldn’t believe he’d turned his back on her.”

  “What did he say?”

  “The bastard walked out of his study with a glass of scotch in one hand, looking like he hadn’t slept in days. I saw red. I pushed him back into his study, broke his nose with one punch, followed it up with a savage knee to the gut. He just took it. When I realized he wouldn’t fight back, I stopped. I asked him why he’d abandoned her? I screamed at him that she was ours, and he should have been there for her.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he would have been there in a flash for me, but not for her.”

  She sucked in a breath.

  “He told me that she’d betrayed us both.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. They’d gotten into a fight, and she’d been so upset she’d packed a suitcase and left. She’d been so distraught, she took a corner too fast in the dark and flipped her car. It was his fault she died. I left. I only went back later, when he wasn’t there, to get my stuff.”

  “You haven’t seen him since?”

  “No.”

  Jesus, what a mess.

  “Neither of you had any closure. Don’t you want to know what happened?”

  He stood. “I know what happened. James is a selfish bastard who always gets what he wants. He wanted her gone so he waited until I left, and he made it happen. Only it backfired on him.”

  She let out a deep breath. “Sloan, I know I haven’t known James that long—”

  “Exactly. And he’s brilliant at making people see what they want to see. There’s no one better. He takes what he wants, and doesn’t care who he hurts.”

  Wow. There was a lot of pain there, and she couldn’t blame him. She also knew there were two sides to every story, and they didn’t know James’s side. She thought about the agony that still remained in Sloan’s voice. Not over Sarah’s death. Most of the anger, the pain, was when he spoke of James.

  He might not think he needed to know everything, but he did.

  “And don’t take offence, but you’re a little naïve when it comes to people.”

  Wow. She frowned. “I’ve always thought that saying ‘don’t take offence’ was a way to say something rude without feeling guilty.”

  He looked over at her. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “You just called me naïve. And you’ve said, several times, that James has fooled me into thinking he’s a better person than he is. So, I’m naïve and stupid, right?”

  He groaned. “You’re putting words in my mouth.”

  “Am I?”

  “Darlin’, James has been manipulating everyone around him for years. I should know, he did it to me.”

  “You loved him.”

  “We weren’t involved like that.”

  “No, but you loved him nonetheless, you said it yourself. You followed him, lived with him, and shared Sarah with him.”

  “I should have left with her before he destroyed her.”

  “So why didn’t you?” She tried to ask the question gently, but he still flinched.

  “Guess I was just an idiot.”

  “Or was it that you didn’t want just Sarah? You wanted the three of you to be a family. Maybe it wasn’t just you following James. Maybe he followed you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Whose idea was it that she move in with the two of you?”

  He went very still, but she could tell he was thinking. “Mine.”

  “And it was your idea to marry her, right?”

  “Yes, but James didn’t just go along with it because I wanted her. He dominated her, slept with her.”

  “But did he love her the way you did?” It hurt to say those words. “Did he feel like he was a proper part of your relationship?”

  “I thought he did.” He looked unsure. “He left so much to me. He never came to our anniversary dinners or made an effort to be there for her birthday. He never took care of her when she was ill or sad. I always thought he was too selfish to care for someone else like that.”

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