Page 40 of Wanting it All

So now what?

His first thought was to bundle her up and drive her ass home to her husband the very second she walked out of his bathroom. He could ring the doorbell and leave her on the front porch like an unwanted puppy for Markus to find and deal with.

But Lukus knew he couldn’t do that. Not to Brianna and not to his friend. Lukus may have never been married, but he knew a little something about the delicate balance of successful D/s relationships and if one thing was clear to Lukus, Markus and Brianna were in desperate need of help navigating through the secrets they’d obviously been keeping from each other. Markus may have thought he wanted a divorce, but it was just his wounded pride talking. He was the stupidest man on the face of earth if he didn’t wake up and fight to save his marriage with Brianna.

Finally feeling like he had a way forward, Lukus stood and headed to the kitchen where he poured the rest of the whiskey down the drain. He was gonna need his wits about him today if he was going to navigate safely through the emotional minefield he was about to enter. He may not be following Markus’s instructions, but if he did his job right, Markus was going to end up owing Lukus a hell of a lot more than Lukus ever owed him.

* * *

Tiffany

“Hey, you feeling okay? You don’t look well.” Kennedy brushed Tiffany’s forearm lightly to get her attention.

Doing her best to put on a happy face, Tiffany smiled before replying. “Oh sure, I’m just really tired today.”

Her friend smiled indulgently, “So you still haven’t been able to get ahold of her, eh?”

Tiff should have known better than to hide the truth of what was bothering her from Kennedy. Still, she wasn’t going to go into the gory details of exactly what she was really worried about. How could she?

It’s not every day you’re worried that your best friend is either kidnapped, raped, or dead—or worse, all of the above.

“Bri and Markus were going out to dinner last night. I’m sure she’s just home, in bed, nursing the mother of all hangovers.”

Even as she said the words, Tiffany prayed they were true. When Bri had been ten, twenty, even thirty minutes late, that explanation had sufficed. Now that she was threehourslate, that excuse was out the window. Bri was often tardy, but she always answered her cell phone. And not once had she ever been a no-call/no-show to work. It had been a real pain in the ass to juggle Bri’s appointments around, especially since Tiff didn’t know if she’d be coming in at all or not.

On a normal day, she might pass it off that Bri’s phone had run out of battery or some other benign reason for her best friend going dark on her. But today was anything but normal. Knowing that Jake was in Chicago, that Brianna had planned to talk to her husband about her submissive sexual needs the night before, and add that both Markus and Brianna were incommunicado—that meant nothing today was routine.

Tiffany used a lull between appointments to hide out in the salon office to make more calls. After Bri’s phone went straight to voicemail again, she switched over and tried to call Markus for the third time. While his phone at least rang several times, it too eventually rolled to voicemail. Finally desperate, she left a message.

“Hey, Markus… It’s Tiff.” She paused, stumbling through what to say since she had absolutely no idea what Bri had or had not discussed with her husband. “I’m worried about Brianna.” Unwilling to outright say she didn’t know where Bri was, she finally added. “Call me. Please.”

Tiff pressed END before switching over to her contact list. She’d already called Brianna’s brother to try to inconspicuously ask if he’d heard from her. She flirted with another idea, but she didn’t really want to call Bri’s mom. Not only would that call turn into a talkfest, but alerting Bri’s mom that there might be a problem would be like calling in an airstrike to neutralize a bug. It might get the job done, but the extended fallout wouldn’t be worth it.

She didn’t know what to make of both Markus and Brianna going dark on her at the same time. Her mind raced with worst case scenarios. Had they been in a car accident? As bad as that sounded, thinking of Markus losing it after finding out Brianna had gone anywhere with Jake the day before made Tiffany even more upset.

Why did I push her so hard to come clean? What if Markus won’t forgive her? It’ll be all my fault.

Tiff had been furious with Bri for not only falling for Jake’s bullshit again the day before, but also for putting Tiff into the position to lie to Markus. But now that Bri was missing, all anger was gone, replaced with a growing dread.

Something is really wrong.

Tiffany looked at her Apple Watch for the hundredth time. Oddly, time was dragging and flying simultaneously. She didn’t know for sure what was going on, but she made up her mind to take action. She had a nail appointment arriving in a few minutes, but if she hadn’t heard from Bri or Markus by the time it was over, she’d have Kennedy fill in so she could get in the car and drive over to the Lamberts. If they weren’t there, she’d have no choice but to call the asshole, Jake.

One way or another, she would find out what the hell was going on.

Chapter Fifteen

Brianna

Brianna’s relief was overwhelming, both physically and emotionally. James had been right about experiencing an almost euphoric high as she finally purged the overflowing liquids from her body in a rush. It wasn’t exactly orgasmic, but it certainly had stirred dark, submissive desires within her. Her feeling of complete surrender had turned into a form of joy at the prospect of being symbolically cleansed of her sins from the inside out.

Now that the initial wave of relief had passed, Bri had the time to contemplate the gravity of what had happened to her since Lukus had taken her out of the cage. The complex emotions raging through her were beyond confusing. Her body’s deep desire to submit was at war with the part of her brain that wanted to reason her way out of the situation.

Lukus and James had been harsh, and yet on some level she accepted that she deserved what they’d put her through. So why had Lukus finally caved in and rescued her from the humiliation of having to expel out in the open in front of her husband’s friends?

Who cares why he did it, Bri? Just thank God he did.

Still, Brianna couldn’t stop herself from analyzing Lukus’s motives. From what little she knew of him, she suspected she’d glimpsed a side of Lukus few others had seen—a vulnerable side he worked hard to hide from the world.

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