Bound Beneath His Pain (Dirty Little Secrets 1)

“Semantics!” Gabe smiles, tucking the rag back into his pocket.

I doubt most customers in this bar realize that Gabe’s not a struggling bartender, but is a Harvard-educated multimillionaire. Yet he suits his bar, standing proud of his Irish roots. “Important semantics, however,” I remind him.

“Maybe.” Gabe shrugs, resting his arms against the edge of the bar, leaning closer to me. “What’s up?”

There’s no one in the world I trust more than Gabe, not even Levi, and that’s saying something, since I trust Levi with my life. Even so, I’m hesitant in how much I tell him. “I’ve met someone.”

Gabe’s eyes widen, a rise in his vocal pitch. “A chick has you looking like this?”

“She’s become a complication,” I admit.

I’m expecting his question when he leans in even closer to keep the conversation private. “A DC complication?”

Is this my problem, too? is what’s unsaid between us. For men who belong to the Dominants’ Council, the question is a valid one. “No.” I shake my head. “She’s my complication.” I’ll keep Allie being Darius’s half-sister to myself for now. I don’t need Gabe chastising me over this. But I admit to him, “I’m wanting something that I shouldn’t have.”

“Ah, now, that I understand.” Gabe’s eyes dance as he leans away, putting space between us. “I’ve got one of those forbidden treasures myself.” He turns his head, glancing at the woman behind the bar with him, wearing a dark pair of skinny jeans and a tight black T-shirt with O’Keefe’s written in gold across her chest. “Kenna,” he calls, waving her over to us.

She delivers a beer to her customer, then settles in next to Gabe. “Whatcha need, boss?”

“Micah Holt, this is McKenna Archer,” Gabe introduces. “She’s been working for me now for…”

“A month or so,” Kenna offers.

“Ah, yes.” Gabe grins. “And what a month it’s been.”

I see what draws Gabe to McKenna. He likes his women blond, shorter than him, and curvy, and McKenna has all those traits. Plus her eyes are intoxicating, a mix between green and amber, holding strength and sass. “Nice to meet you,” I say to her.

She smiles. “You, too.”

Gabe leans against the side of the bar, grinning boldly at her. “I’ve been asking Kenna out on a date for a couple weeks now and she keeps breaking my heart by refusing.”

“Aw, poor baby.” McKenna grabs a beer out of the fridge below the bar and cracks it open. “Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s a hundred women ready to bandage you all back together.”

Gabe’s eyes shine as he presses a hand to his heart. “See how she wounds me?”

McKenna shakes her head, laughing, and strides away.

“Like I said,” Gabe says, turning to me, “a forbidden treasure.”

“What do you want from her?” I ask, watching McKenna deliver the beer to a customer.

“I’d like to string her up and fuck her mercilessly.” Gabe hesitates, then groans when McKenna bends down to grab another beer out of the fridge, giving a perfect view of her round ass. He finally looks at me again with a frown. “Anything more than that would create problems.”

I take a sip of my beer, realizing my mistake. Allie had been a forbidden treasure, and I knew that the day I met her. Our worlds cannot possibly mix. Hers is so innocent, so pure, so untainted. Mine is something else entirely.

I’d felt the unusual draw to her, the intense pull to have her, and that should’ve been my warning to stay away. Now there’s no turning back. I had a taste of something I hadn’t had before—a woman who touches my basic instincts, as well as stirs emotion inside of me, especially the desire to claim. I keep expecting my dark needs to swell inside and overwhelm me, needing an outlet to be released, but the beast is still quiet and calm, and I believe that has to do with Allie and the warmth and kindness she offers me.

She’s giving me something different, and I want to keep it…keep her.

I sigh heavily and give Gabe the reply he’s waiting for: “That’s some great advice, if only I’d heard it days ago.” The damage has already been done. I can’tt forget her. Nor can I ignore that I want to be in bed with Allie right now.

Gabe is watching me closely, cocking his head. “This complication, it’s that bad?”

“Worse than you could imagine.”

“What are you going to do?”

Leave her alone, is what I should do. It’s what I must do. She’s Darius’s little sister, for fuck’s sake. He’ll have my head on a stake the second he hears about this. Why? Because I’m not the man he’ll want for Allie. I’m not the man she deserves. She deserves a man who works nine to five and wants to have kids with her, taking them to their team sports in a goddamn minivan.