Their Virgin Secretary (Masters of Ménage #6)(116)

And not everyone had abandoned her. Kinley had still stood by her. Her grandmother had remembered her. Her father had left her a life lesson, if she chose to see it. Would he be proud of the woman she'd become or would he be disappointed that she'd closed herself off? 

If she never opened up, maybe she wouldn't feel pain, but she also wouldn't feel joy. Belle was rapidly realizing that joy was worth the risk.

So was love. Kellan had to see that.

"There are a lot of reasons I believed it couldn't work, but I was wrong. I thought I wasn't the woman who could heal you." She willed him to understand.

Kellan turned to her with a frown. "Love, it's not that."

"No, it's not. I realize that now, too. It's not that I can't heal the pain from your divorce. It's that you don't want to heal. You think you're safer in your nice little cocoon."

He frowned and sat up suddenly. "Cocoon? You make it sound like something pleasant, Annabelle. I assure you, it's not."

A hard edge sharpened his tone, letting her know that she was pushing his boundaries. He'd pushed all of hers, but she'd known he would probably react poorly. Still, she pressed on because this was too important to let go. "I don't think it's pleasant at all. I think it's lonely, but you've gotten to a comfortable place. I know because I did the same thing."

He huffed, sounding deeply frustrated. "Annabelle, you weren't wrong to think it couldn't work. You were just being realistic. Most marriages fail, and they only have two people involved. Putting four people in a relationship, much less any sort of marriage, makes it exponentially more complex."

She understood that he was attempting to protect himself, but she had to make Kell see that wouldn't lead to happiness. "So that means we shouldn't try? It's gotten easy for you to not try. I know that's the way it was for me. After my father died and my mother got lost in her own grief, I decided that I couldn't win, so I withdrew. That way I couldn't get hurt anymore. I thought it was better to be numb. It's not, Kellan."

He stood up and grabbed his boxers, shoving his legs into them. "I've never been anything but honest with you, Belle. I told you where this is going. I explained what I could give you."

The old Belle would have covered up and hidden, accepting that the fight was done. The new Belle could definitely kick the old Belle's ass.

She rose on her knees, giving him what she hoped was a spectacular view of her body. She was satisfied when he lost a bit of his normal grace and stumbled while reaching for his slacks. "You never lied to me, Kellan. But I think you're lying to yourself. I am the woman for you and you know it deep down. If you walk away from me, from this family we could have, you're going to regret it for the rest of your life. Do you want to know where this is going for me? What I intend to do?"

He jerked on his slacks, his face flushed, his every movement a testament to his anger. "Please, tell me, Belle. You seem to know absolutely everything. Enlighten me."

She ignored the sarcasm. He wasn't going to go down easy. She'd always known that, but she also didn't miss the way his stare found her breasts. And she definitely couldn't ignore the fact that he was already getting hard again. He had to carefully tuck his cock away.

"Here's how it will go, Kellan. I'm going to marry Eric and Tate, and we're going to live right here. You'll be more than welcome in my bed for as long as my husbands allow it. They'll never bar you for the same reason I won't."

A bitter laugh choked from his throat as he picked up his shirt. "And what reason is that? Because you like the D/s play, and I'm the only one whose been fully trained? You think they'll need me to train them for any length of time? Eric's already a good Dom. Tate can learn from him."



       
         
       
        

He didn't understand a thing and that made her soften utterly toward him. "No, they'll never bar you from our bed because they love you, too."

That made him stop. He stared at her, obviously at a loss for words.

Good thing she had plenty for them both. "I love you, Kellan Kent. I want to marry you and your best friends. But if you choose to hold on to what that terrible woman did to you, if you choose her over us, then I think you'll come and see us for a while. I think you'll go back to Chicago, but you'll visit. We'll come see you, too, and it could work the way you want it to … until we have babies. And we're going to have them, Kell. I want kids. I want to raise a crazy family, but I know that the minute I have that first child, you'll be gone. So I'll have to choose between you and having babies with the men I love."