hometown to be fully submerged.
“You think that’s funny, huh? Me burning my nuts off?” I have a full belly laugh going on now. “I swear they must have just left our room before we arrived. I instructed them to wait fifteen minutes after I left to start the bath.” He joins in with me with a laugh.
“Oh, babe. Sorry to laugh at you, but it was a sight to see. My tough, sexy guy easing into the water.”
“Your guy, huh?”
“Ugh, no. I don’t know why I said that. That’s what she called you.”
“How about your man, then?”
“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend, mister?”
“Let me explain what I’ve been keeping from you, and if you’ll still have me, then yes.”
His tone sounds ominous. He scoots so that he can slide in behind me. He then leans back against the porcelain and pulls me back against his chest. Water sloshes over the side, and I can feel his cock against my back. He scoops water in his hand and pours it over my abdomen as he begins his story.
He tells me about how he and his brother were both involved with Melissa at one time, and how she brought out their dominant traits. This first bit of news is shocking as fuck. I had no idea of Sevyn’s role in this, but that’s what they discussed that night. His brother unleashed a bomb, and he felt nobody was trustworthy.
He then continues about how she’s the one who leaked that their father was sick and threatened to leak the stuff about their kink. To make things worse, they found out that Claude wasn’t their biological father—his identical twin living in London was.
My mind is blown, and I haven’t even been the person to live through it. No wonder he was so closed off. Everything in his life was a lie. Even his mom cheated and kept the identity of their real father from them.
“I don’t understand, Phoenix,” I say, half turning toward him. “She set all this in motion. Why bring her on tour?”
“You ever heard the saying ‘keep your enemies close’?” I nod. “She was never some love interest I wanted to rekindle. I didn’t lie when I said I never touched her. I only allowed her to sleep in the bed so she thought she had a chance to fix us.”
“That interview. She’s the one you were talking about when you said some people would love to exploit that facet of you.”
“Exactly. I took away the only thing she had hovering over us.”
He continues to explain that her father was working with a man by the name of Trevor to take over his father’s company. He found out she was his daughter by accident. He wasn’t sure the part she played, only that she was feeding her dad the information she’d overheard from him and Sevyn. He was sure her trip to New York was part of it as well. He was only keeping her around until he got what he needed.
“But you kicked her out this morning. Now what?”
“Now, we find another way. Our investigation is still ongoing. I nearly lost you, and it wasn’t worth that. I couldn’t let you go yesterday.”
We sit in silence as I let it all sink in. All the sabotaging thoughts I had regarding him and her. The lie about me being stood up was to prevent blowing his cover. My heart quickens at the realization that this man, hurt and betrayed as he’s been, never really stopped caring about me. He simply lost his way for a minute by the deceit in his path. Everybody has lied to him—his parents, Sevyn, and Melissa—yet he still found his way back to me.
“I’m so sorry, Phoenix. I didn’t know. I thought I had lost you. You weren’t you—the man I fell in love with. All I knew is that you saved me once, and I was fighting to do the same for you. For us.”
“So you’re saying you still love me?” The tenderness in his eyes is back. Maybe it never left.
“Even more so now that I know what you’ve endured.”
“I love you too, princess.”
He leans down for a chaste kiss, but the ache between my legs that he’s ignited begs for more. I’m glad he got us this room because I’m not holding back.
His eyes hold mine with softness and promise. This is the man I’ve been waiting to reappear. I capture his lips with my own. I nip and lick at