Page 5 of Friends with Benefits (Club Risqué)

Trinity was glad to be able to help. It fed her soul, even if her service was to another submissive. It was simply the way she was wired. But it had meant dredging up a past that she preferred to keep a lid on.

It had taken a while, but Trinity had stuffed all of those disrupted feelings back into their mental strong box and locked the lid down, tight, once again.

She didn't want to dwell on them any more than she had to. It had taken a long time for her to come to terms with what had happened, and the hurt still had the power to slice her deep if she dwelled on the past for too long.

And it should have been fine. Would have been fine, if it hadn't been for Laurel.

But the club sub, known in the lifestyle as Fluff, had had her own issues to deal with and she, too, had sought out Trinity to help her work out how she should approach her own 'friends with benefits' arrangement with Master Connor.

Regardless of the consequences, Trinity could no more turn Laurel down than she could have cut off her own fingers. Especially when Laurel's situation was so heartbreakingly similar to her own. If she could help somebody else avoid the kind of heartache she had endured, then Trinity was prepared to open herself to the aftermath of her own pain. And what Laurel had said resonated so very painfully with her own experiences.

But she remembered her own advice, and concentrated on that now.

“Don't wait around trying to be somebody's perfect. Either you're right for them as you are, or you're not. Be yourself; if that's not good enough for them, then at least let it be good enough for you. No matter what you feel, yourself, you can't change somebody else's feelings for you…well, you can make them hate you, but you can't make them love you."

And wasn't that the truth!

Trinity knew one thing for certain: All that talk of the past had unsettled her so much that she could no longer keep a lid on the past, and a whole slew of painful memories were about to surge up and crash all over her like the destructive wave of a tsunami. Trinity only hoped she would be able to survive without drowning in her own misery all over again.

ChapterFour

When it all began…

She was seventeen and a half when she’d first laid eyes on Christian Knightley. Taryn - she’d still gone by her given name back then - considered herself to be mature, sensible, and grown up. She didn't go out running wild, partying, or underage drinking like many of her friends.

Instead, she studied hard and spent most of her spare time helping out at her parents' horse stud business. She had a keen interest in business, thanks to the early work ethic her parents had instilled in herself and her siblings.

Despite her age, Taryn enjoyed being involved in the day to day running of the stud and spent a lot of time studying spreadsheets, management, and marketing alongside her father, as well as a healthy physical dose of mucking out the stalls.

One look at the wealthy, sophisticated young man, who turned up one day with a beautiful mare he wanted sired, was enough to have all of Taryn's teenage hormones tripping over themselves in a completely unexpected rush which she had no experience with controlling, since that had, damn certain, never happened before. She found herself bowling backward into a coquettish schoolgirl—which, in reality, was exactly what she had been.

In truth, Christian, six years her senior, really must have found her quite gauche, but he had been charming and fascinating and also very tolerant of the teenage girl who did nothing but simper and giggle around him.

Despite everything, she and Christian had become friends. She spent a lot of time with him, and he respected her knowledge of the industry, regardless of her age—another trait that had Taryn all the more star struck and falling ever deeper under his spell.

Upon graduating high school, she had based her choice of college solely on its proximity to Christian. Not that there was anything between them but an unlikely friendship, but Taryn was completely captivated and infatuated.

There was only one word to describe Christian, and that was beautiful.

Maybe not a description most young men would appreciate, but it was always the one that came to mind. He was just so darn pretty, with his classic good looks—symmetrical features, thick, dark brown hair with just a hint of a curl to it, and whisky rich, hazel-coloured eyes which she could stare into for hours. They were mesmerising, with so many fascinating facets, which reflected luminous flecks of gold if the sun hit him at the right angle.

She had never seen eyes like them, and they might possibly have been her favourite feature. Or maybe it was his full, sensual lips that she couldn't help fantasising about tasting. Or perhaps it was just the combination of all those features combined in a face that would make angels weep.

Just looking at him made every cell in her body sit up and take notice, and her chest got so tight Taryn sometimes felt like she could hardly breathe because he stole all the air in her lungs so effectively, just by being.

A few weeks after she started college, Christian came to visit, trying to cheer her up after she had admitted in a social media message that she was missing her home and her family, and especially the horses. He drove her out to his own family's horse ranch on a promise of finding her a suitable mount.

As they trotted together quietly on the cool down from an exhilarating gallop across the wide, flower strewn pastures of the property's impressive acreage, Christian led her to an idyllic spot next to a small stream, where they tethered the horses to a nearby tree and spread out a blanket to sit on.

To Taryn's young mind, it was the most romantic gesture in the world. Her heart beat faster in her chest as she imagined Christian might be setting the scene to ask her out on a date.

She quivered a little inside. He was so suave and debonair and mature that she wondered if she could ever manage to match him on that level, but she was certain she'd do her best to try.

Of course, his actual intentions had been somewhat different, and if Taryn had been a little older, a little wiser, then she might have had the sense to bring things to a halt right there and then to protect her vulnerable heart from what pretty much anybody with an ounce of common sense would have seen coming.

But not Taryn, because she was blinded by infatuation and her own stupid desire to be close to Christian, whatever the terms.

"Taryn, I have a proposition for you,"

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