To Save Sir (Doms of Decadence 7)

But the way she watched him, with that mix of trepidation and sorrow, he knew he had to tell her the full truth. Looking away, he clenched his jaw at the memories, something he didn’t like to think about much. Jenna shifted slightly, and he cursed himself for forgetting about her arms.

“Lower your arms and come here, baby.” He sat and patted his lap.

Her eyes widened with surprise as she dropped her arms. Then she bit at her lip. “I ruined things, didn’t I? I’m sorry.”

Nope. He wasn’t having that. Standing, he grasped hold of her chin, tilted her face up and kissed her. Hard. With all the heat he had building inside him.

“You didn’t ruin a thing,” he told her. “This needs to be said and it ain’t gonna be pretty. But after, if you still want me, I’m going to bend you over this bed and fuck you until we both forget how to breathe.”

Not the prettiest of declarations but it was the God damn truth. She gave him a surprised look. “Why wouldn’t I want you?”

“Like I said, it ain’t pretty.”

She grimaced. “You forget I knew Amelia. I knew all her faults, even though my aunt and uncle might think she was a saint and you’re the devil, I know that isn’t the case. And I know you didn’t kill Amelia.”

“I didn’t kill her but I did drive her out that night. I knew she was upset and I let her get in that car. With my baby inside her.”

He clenched his hands into fists, barely noting the look of sorrow on Jenna’s face. She sat beside him gingerly, taking his hand in hers. Sweet, little subbie, always caring for other people. He bet it wasn’t easy sitting with that plug in her ass, either, but she didn’t make a word of complaint.

“You sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes. You loved her?”

“In the beginning, yes. Or I thought I did. I was young. She was beautiful, and I thought she was everything I could want in a woman. Graceful and delicate, like something out of a movie or a picture.”

Jenna winced at that description, graceful and delicate she was not. But she’d been compared to Amelia her whole life. She was used to it.

“Took a while for me to figure out those things were all superficial. The trappings might be pretty, but that didn’t matter if the inside was poisonous.”

Harsh words.

“I know she was your cousin, Jenna. If you don’t want to hear this—”

“When I was thirteen, I developed breasts,” she interrupted him. He frowned, looking puzzled. “They’re quite big.” She looked down at her generous bosom, feeling a little embarrassed by her nudity when they were having such a heavy conversation. And she hadn’t forgotten that plug in her ass. Be pretty damn hard to forget it. “Amelia told me I could make big money as a prostitute if only I wasn’t so fat. Then she told me I’d better get a better bra as they’d be down round my waist like Great-Grandma Jean by the time I turned twenty.”

She’d been horrified by that and had spent years wishing she was flat-chested.

“Bitch,” he spat out then cupped her breast. “You know they’re beautiful, right? Everything a man could hope for. And you are not fat.”

She’d spent a long time coming to terms with her body, trying to be happy with it, but it didn’t hurt to hear his compliments.

“What happened, Curt?”

“Amelia wasn’t happy being the wife of a Navy Seal. She didn’t like how often I went away. She seemed to have some ideal about what her life would be. Unfortunately, reality was a bitter disappointment. She was a master manipulator. Early in our marriage, before I learned what she was truly like, she had me so tied up in knots trying to please her that I almost fucked up a mission.”

She winced, knowing how that would have upset him.

“Nothing ever pleased her. Even when I tried to do what she wanted. I grew tired of the complaints. About where we lived, how we never had any money, and how she couldn’t buy the things she wanted without going to her daddy, which I’d forbidden her to do.”

“She listened to you?”

He snorted. “She didn’t. She liked to involve other people in our lives, but I didn’t realize how much she told other people about our private life until I attended one of those god-awful dinner parties at her parents. Every fight, every imagined slight she’d tell her friends, her parents, probably her damn hairdresser as well.”

Was that part of the reason he didn’t like the idea of living in a small town? She had to admit that gossip was rife in Haven, but there were limits to what people revealed about their private lives.

“Took me a while to figure out that the clothes she was wearing weren’t cheap knockoffs as she’d told me. The lies didn’t stop there, though. I could’ve dealt with a few lies about money. But . . .” He looked down at his clenched hands. She covered his hand with hers, and he grabbed onto it with his other, holding on tightly.

“She was cheating on me. For months, I think. The thing was, I had decided to leave the navy when I found out she was pregnant. I’d just returned home from a mission and I was going to tell her my decision when I found them together. In our bed.”