The Bond (Unbroken Raine Falling 4)

“Yeah, with more experience than most grown men.” He raised a brow. “Anyway, before I knew it, I was packing up and heading to Harvard. My parents gave Linnet a hefty bonus for putting up with their ‘demanding child,’ then let her go. Tom soon gave his notice, and the two of them took off. I don’t even know where. They left without a single word. I thought I belonged with them, but…”

Raine’s heart twisted for him. They’d crushed Macen, whether they’d meant to or not. “Were you in love with her?”

“No. But we were bound by our ‘dirty little secret.’ No one else understood me quite so well, and I just never saw it ending.” He sighed. “I was wrong. So after licking my wounds, I conquered as many subs as I could find to give me that exhilarating power. It fed the need inside me…but I could never really sate it. Something was always missing.”

And Raine could just guess what happened next. A little bit of math told her that Macen had married young. She’d always found that at odds with the confirmed bachelor and manwhore she knew. “Enter Juliet?”

“Not quite. As I was starting my second year of Harvard, my parents flew to Barcelona for La Mercè, another giant street party. Anyway, they were standing on the balcony of their hotel room, watching the festivities, when the terrace collapsed and they fell to their deaths. I had to fly to Spain and identify their bodies, then make arrangements for them to be flown back home, plan the funeral, meet with my parents’ lawyers, and settle their estate. It was grueling and confusing and extremely frustrating. The first thing I did was sell that fucking prison on Park Avenue. The house in The Hamptons—with all those memories—wasn’t far behind.”

“Oh, Macen.” She teared up for him. The loss of the people who had given him life and should have loved him must have been tough. He probably hadn’t expected grief but felt it anyway and hadn’t been equipped to understand. She wanted to touch him so badly, but he still had more to say. “I’m sorry. You didn’t have anyone to help you through that. You deserved better.”

“They were who they were. I was nineteen and financially set for life, so that was something… It wasn’t like I was suddenly alone for the first time.”

“You’d always been alone,” she whispered.

“Pretty much. I was clueless about what I wanted to do, except quit school. I’d gone to Harvard to please them, but now I didn’t have to live up to anyone’s expectations. So I went back to New York, bought an obscenely expensive apartment in Tribeca, and started hanging out at BDSM clubs. I spent my days working out at the gym and my nights working subs to orgasm. But after a while I got bored, so I enrolled in some music humanities courses at Columbia. That’s where I met Juliet.”

Now Macen got quiet, pensive. “In retrospect, I think I was lonely and wanted family or permanence—something. So I thought I’d create that with Juliet. She was an art major but had to take some music courses to fulfill her undergrad requirements. We shared a class. Thanks to Tom’s tutelage, I recognized her submissive earmarks inside two minutes. So I turned on my charm and seduced her. Within three months, we’d quit Columbia, moved in together, and gotten engaged.” He gave a heavy sigh. “We fed each other’s worst tendencies.”

“She didn’t have boundaries?”

“Not many she’d speak aloud. And she wanted constant attention, which I was only too happy to give her as long as she surrendered all her power.” He laughed bitterly. “I thought that was love. A year later, we got married. Her mother despised me for being a controlling beast. The old woman didn’t know the half of it. The hold I had over Linnet was nothing compared to the complete and utter control I wielded with Juliet. She did nothing without my permission, not even put on a sock.”

Raine pressed a hand over her mouth. The repercussions of his words rippled through her over and over. “She was your slave.”

“In every way. I was the king of her fucking world, and she obeyed me almost without hesitation or question. In the middle of all that, I lost sight of my responsibility to guide and protect Juliet’s emotional welfare. The harder I pushed her, the more she surrendered. And the greedier I got.”

“You hadn’t been taught to be any other sort of Dominant.” And he certainly hadn’t known what love was.

“No, but I should have fucking figured it out somewhere along the way, you know? I didn’t, though. One night we were at a club called Graffiti. Juliet was watching Liam work a sub. I could tell he intrigued her. I’d been itching for a threesome for years. It was the one kink I hadn’t shared with Juliet. Suddenly, I was sure that ordering her to share my pussy with another man would prove just how much she was under my spell.” He huffed in self-disgust. “So I invited him to join us for a drink, then back to our place to top Juliet. It went well. The first time we took her together, it was like being fifteen again. The rush, the thrill, the mind-bending sensations… But it was better because I felt like I’d found the missing half of myself in Liam. We bonded like brothers instantly. Everything was great at first. Then…not so much.”