Frustration seared Rhett's chest. He'd shared sexual ecstasy with the woman now embedded into his bone marrow, but barely knew a thing about her life, especially her family. While the connection of this week was hardly going to transfer back to their real lives, the incongruity still felt wrong. "Wait." A memory blasted in. "Wasn't Brynn's mom at Shay and Zoe's wedding? The funny little thing who sat on the hay bale all night?"
Rebel's head jerked up. "Yeah," he said slowly. "Right. She was the overgrown garden gnome crossed with Kathy Bates, circa Misery."
"Only she thought that corner was her little pulpit after a while. I think she quoted every apostle in Jesus's posse, along with Paul and a few guest stars from the Old Testament too,"
"Right." Reb snickered for a second. "Thank fuck Zoe wasn't showing with the bebette yet."
"Well, that clarifies Enya's choice. A little."
"A little." Rebel used the emphasis to drive in the opposite. There was still a lot they didn't know about all this. "What the hell isn't adding up?" He dragged a hand through his hair and turned his gaze out the window, as if the towering cypress and oaks would magically give up the answer. "What are we missing?"
"Or more accurately, what can't we find?"
Suddenly, Rebel swiveled his head back around. His eyes were brilliant as cut stones. "You mean what we can't find … legally."
Rhett returned the stare with rising comprehension. "Things like health records … or sealed court documents." He tapped knuckles against his chin, thinking deeper. "Or … a restraining order?"
"Perhaps." Rhett hedged. "But filed by whom? Look at Enya's posts again. Her desperation adds the detail. She lists everything about her time with Peter except goddamn bathroom breaks. There's length of their play sessions, depth and intensity of the guy's discipline-"
"Toy types." Rhett's brows jabbed up. "Positions. Climax counts. Christ. This shit is juicy."
"And just as abundant after their breakup, only the information is different. The little Jane Austen can spin the angst with the best of them."
"Roger that." The material would've been a little comical, had the heartache beneath not been so palpable. "‘Breathe in, breathe out, but I only swallow glass … top of the world, but I'm sitting in trash … '"
"Wonder if she ever thought of selling to Nashville. Girl could stir herself up a pile of gold." He held up both hands at Rhett's censuring glance. "Just sayin', podna."
Rhett reveled in warmth from the man's casual endearment-for a moment. He shoved it aside just as quickly to focus again on the monitors. "So if Peter didn't file it, and she didn't-"
"We're still looking in the wrong place." Reb started the pencil drumbeat again.
"But still seeking something protected by the court."
The drumming stopped. As if drawn to the very lightbulb that seemed to blaze to life inside it, Reb lifted his head. "Like psychiatric care?"
Rhett pivoted in his chair. Bam. There was his lightbulb too. "A fifty-one fifty psych hold?" The words even felt right to say. "Or something else? Or both?"
"Not sure it matters. But it sure as hell slides some things into place." Rebel rose, braced hands to his hips then paced toward the doorway leading to the other den, where the rumpled blankets on the futon were a blatant reminder of what had gone down this morning for all three of them. "A lot of things."
Rhett nodded. The circuits in his brain kept snapping into place, gears hitting at high speed. "That was the reason for her meltdown, wasn't it? It wasn't all just about Zoe."
It wasn't a shocker to him-nor to Rebel, judging by the guy's unchanged posture. After a long moment, the sinews of his shoulders twined and shifted as he reached for the door frame, noticeably clenching the dark wood. "Taking on that kind of responsibility … es­pecially if her sister had a significant breakdown … "
"Because of a Dom who took ‘wham, bam, thank you, subbie' to a whole new level of ass wad." Rhett leaned forward, meshing his hands and dropping his head. "Unbelievable."
"No wonder she's fighting so violently against her submissiveness." Reb's hands glided downward, almost caressing the wood. "Though I've never met a woman more perfectly created for it." He rocked back and forth in the portal, embodying the rate at which both their brains now churned. It all started to fit. The memories of what she'd said, together with the facts they'd just learned, added to some damn confident inferences on both their parts.
Rhett tilted his head up again. "Damn. A natural submissive who refuses to submit."
"Unless her brain is forcibly locked out of the situation."
Rhett chuffed. Another unarguable point from the "Look what we learned in bed this morning" folder. The things Brynna had agreed to … the heights they'd taken her desire, once she'd just given up, given in, and surrendered to their full control …
"A situation we managed once." The argument needed to be voiced aloud. "Fat bloody chance she'll allow it to happen again. In that gorgeous head of hers, losing control doesn't just mean surrendering her body. It's a matter of losing herself."
Rebel turned around, lifting his hold to the doorway's upper jamb in the process. "Just like her sister did."
Damn. Talk about losing oneself. Moon's stretched, burnished muscles were an eyeful that made Rhett forget his own name for a second. He readjusted his position in the chair, silently cursing the events of this morning-for the thousandth time. And for the thousandth time, taking them back. The revelations they'd known and all the new things he'd seen in this man … he'd never forget any of it, and knew that in time, when the recollections melded into the places of his mind reserved for the most special moments of his life, that an image of Rebel's passion-drenched face would be there, too.
In the end, he'd be damn glad it all happened.
He wasn't sure Brynn would be joining him in that boat.
Once more, he decided to finish his musing aloud. "But her tenacity about the control … it's like clutching greased rope. The tighter she holds on, the more her grip slips."
"Which we witnessed in full, sobbing Technicolor."
Rhett stood now, too. Stuffed both hands into his pockets while battling the urge to reach out and just run his hands beneath Reb's tank. It wouldn't be for any sexual thrill this time, though. He felt the visceral need to put an outward display on the new things he felt for the man. No, not even for the man. This was just about … the person. The connection to him. The acceptance by him, for him. The better ways they could already read each other, know each other. Their synchronicity on missions, already legendary, was going to be off the fucking charts now.
But it wasn't possible. Couldn't be. If he touched just one place, he'd want more. Then Reb would want more. Then a touch wouldn't be enough, maybe not even a kiss. And it would be amazing. Conflagrating. A bonfire for the ages.
A passion he'd never be able to recover from.
Working side-by-side with the man wouldn't be synchronicity anymore. It would be hell.
And then there was the matter of the beautiful redhead sleeping across the house. The way he saw her haunting Rebel's eyes, the same way she dogged so many of his own thoughts and longings. There was so much more to uncover about her … and so few bricks remaining that could be loosened from her walls, if at all. The woman who'd tumbled away from them this morning had been spurred by one motivation alone. Fear. Her remaining barriers would take patience and strategy and time, lots of it, to scale.
Time they didn't have.
He said as much to Rebel by widening his stance and squaring his jaw. Added a twist of his lips before venturing, "So what do we tell her we know?"
Translation: How pissed do we risk the woman being, about prying into her sister's personal shit and using it to analyze her issues about submissiveness?
Rebel started with the human metronome thing in the doorway again. Pretty much expected.
"All of it," the guy gritted.
Okay, not expected. At all.
"All of-wait-whoa-Moon?" But he could've been stammering stanzas of Three Little Pigs, since his friend wasn't listening. Clearly, the decision had been made-for what reason he couldn't fathom, but Reb blowing a gasket of common sense seemed like a damn good option right now-especially now that Reb squeaked the floor from his bare-footed turn, then started toward the bedroom wing with determined steps.