Friends with Benefits (Club Risque Book 5) Read online

  Of course, Krista had realized what had happened and had wanted to pay for Taryn's education, herself, but Taryn wouldn't allow it. It just didn't seem right to take advantage of the woman's generosity.

  And then it happened. Three years had passed. Three years of being caught up in a 'non' relationship with Christian. Three years of allowing things to just drift along and take their own course.

  Christian had been tied up rather more often than usual of late, and Taryn had contemplated looking into evening courses, not only to finish her business degree but to fill the lonely evenings she spent without Christian. If she was sad that her life revolved so completely around the man, then she still wouldn't change anything at all, except to put their relationship on a more open, permanent, and official basis. Christian was her life, and she was content to follow wherever it was that life led her. As long as she was with him, everything else was just fine.

  He seemed unaccountably strained when he came to visit her that fateful evening.

  Taryn had tried to get him to sit down so she could massage his tension away, but Christian had pulled her hands away from him and told her they needed to talk.

  Hope had blossomed in her heart so hard and fast that she had to fight to keep her excitement in check. Had he finally realized he wanted her in his life on a more personal basis? Perhaps the imposed absences had spurred him into asking her to live with him at last, so their time wasn't so fragmented.

  Her chest squeezed in delight and the love she felt for him quivered on the tip of her tongue, ready to be given freedom at last.

  Struggling to keep a lid on her feelings for him, until he had at least said his piece, Taryn sat dutifully on the edge of the couch facing the love of her life and waiting as patiently as she could for him to make all of her dreams come true.

  Christian rubbed his hands over his face. He was clearly agitated, and Taryn wished she could ease his obvious anxiety, but she guessed it was a big step to ask someone to share your life, even if they had been together for years. Obviously, he still wanted to do things right.

  "I didn't realise this would be quite so difficult," he sighed, turning more fully to look at her, only to wince when he did.

  Taryn was a little nonplussed at the expression and the way he quickly looked away again, but she placed a comforting hand on his forearm and squeezed it in support. "Just say what you need to say, Christian, I don't need a lot of fanfare."

  He gave her a slightly confused look but nodded all the same. "I want to get married," he blurted out in a rush.

  Okay, so it wasn't the most romantic of proposals, but Taryn didn't care. Her heart was full to bursting and she wanted to get up and scream and laugh and dance around the room, she was so deliriously happy, but Christian was still so quiet and serious that she kept the lid screwed tightly in place on her rioting emotions.

  The fact that she did seemed to fill Christian with relief, and his shoulders drooped into a relaxed slump.

  Taryn laughed despite herself. "There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" she teased.

  Grabbing her hands in his own, Christian turned to stare at her, his face earnest. "I guess I was stressing myself out over nothing." Christian blew out a long, noisy breath. "I really didn't expect you to take it so well."

  Taryn raised her eyebrows in surprise. Wow! Maybe he really hadn't been entirely sure about her feelings, after all, even though Taryn, herself, had always thought the way she felt about him was way beyond obvious. After all, why else would a woman put her life on hold for a man for years on end? Okay, so he wasn't aware of all the sacrifices she had made for him, but she'd come clean about some of those once their relationship took this final turn.

  "You have no idea how much easier you're making this than I expected, Tara." Christian smiled, albeit a little wanly. "I honestly thought you might freak out on me or something."

  Taryn laughed, glad she'd kept a lid on all those rioting emotions if that was all that Christian was worried about. She even bit her tongue at correcting his use of her name, a mistake he still made far too often, since this was neither the time or the place for that lecture.

  "It all happened so suddenly," Christian went on earnestly, and Taryn frowned. He thought this was sudden?

  "I wasn't looking for a relationship and I never planned to fall in love, it just happened…"

  He sucked in another hefty breath and dragged his fingers through his hair, and Taryn had to wonder if he wasn't altogether happy with his newfound revelation. He somehow didn't seem to be quite as joyful as she expected him to be at such a time and that dimmed her own enthusiasm slightly. Of course, she knew that he had always been reluctant to have a relationship, so this was a big change, and it was true that Krista was still rather clingy, but Taryn's own special relationship with Christian's mother would ease the way. Privately, she was pretty sure that Krista would be overjoyed. After all, she often referred to Taryn as the daughter she'd never had.

  "But when I met Bianca at the BDSM club I've been visiting, it just hit me between the eyes, and I knew I was lost. She understands me in a way that no one in my life ever has. When we scene together, it's just so right! Everything with her allows me the kind of control that's been missing from my life for so many years, while everything's been so up in the air and my life has revolved around keeping everybody else happy. I can't believe you're being so understanding about this…"

  Christian words droned on, but Taryn's brain had stalled. Scene? BDSM? Bianca?

  The blood drained from her face and tears threatened to erupt behind her eyes as her subconscious caught on to the implication before her active mind was ready to admit it to herself.

  Taryn swallowed convulsively past the lump in her throat so large it threatened to suffocate her. Her face tingled and she couldn't tell if she was hot or cold, pale or red with mortification. She grasped her hands tightly together to stop them from shaking while Christian kept on speaking. None of his words penetrated any more. She couldn't process them anyway. They almost didn't make sense.

  A blessed blanket of numbness settled around her and was almost peaceful. She stared ahead, her eyes unfocused, wondering when the inevitable pain would come. Her hands were cold, she thought dully, wondering why that odd fact would be something she noticed at a time like this when her entire life was falling apart all around her.

  "Does Krista know?" she interrupted tonelessly. Would she feel more or less betrayed if Christian's mother was already aware of this development, she wondered detachedly.

  Christian blinked in surprise and paused in what he was saying, not that she'd been taking any notice. It was like her brain had switched off to save it from any more pain.

  "God, no!" he exclaimed. "I'm looking forward to that conversation even less than this one." He laughed humourlessly then realised what he had said and caught himself, looking away sheepishly.

  "You'd better not waste any more time before you tell her," Taryn said carefully, but something in her tone must have prickled Christian's conscience because he peered at her with a frown of worried concern on his beautiful face.

  Taryn knew her own expression was blank. Her whole mind was swaddled in a cloak of blessed detachment, and she seemed to be functioning on some kind of self-preservation autopilot, but she was still keen to get rid of him. Despite the way her mind seemed to have shut down, she wasn't entirely sure just how long she could hold it together.

  Realising that she was dismissing him, Christian's features grew sad and uncertain. "You'll always be my best friend, Tara."

  Ah! There was that knife…nasty, long, rusty thing that it was, as it lodged, fatally, right in the centre of her heart.

  "Taryn!" she corrected automatically. Like it was even important any more.

  For a brief moment, Christian's heart seemed to be in his eyes, and they were filled with uncertainty. "Taryn," he agreed quietly. "I'll invite you to the wedding," he said hesitantly and the knife that was still lodged in her chest raked its blunted
edges as it twisted a little more.

  "Well, you'd better go and tell your mother the news," Taryn pressed, wanting him out of her home. "You don't want her to hear this from anyone else, now that the cat's out of the bag."

  "Taryn..." Christian trailed off as if, for once in his life, he didn't know what to say. What else was there to say, anyway? Taryn wondered forlornly.

  He took a step toward her and looked almost uncomfortable as he tried to take her into his arms.

  Taryn sidestepped the gesture. She didn't want to feel his hands upon her right now. It would be more than she could bear.

  Instead, she headed for the door and opened it for him. "I hope you'll be very happy," she said stiffly, avoiding looking at him as he stepped across the threshold. For all his protestations that they would remain the best of friends, Taryn had an icy premonition that this might be the last time she saw him.

  Turned out, she was right.

  Chapter 7

  Current day…

  Trinity touched her fingers to her cheek and realized she was crying. It had been a long time since she had allowed her thoughts and memories of Christian to disrupt the new life she had carved out for herself.

  Taking a deep breath, she brushed the back of her hand across her face to remove the evidence of her tears and blinked a couple of times to clear her blurry eyes.

  Damn him anyway. She'd managed just fine without him and if she was a little warier in her relationships these days, then it was because she had learned her lesson well.

  To be fair, she was as much to blame as Christian had ever been. More so, in fact. She'd allowed the relationship to evolve the way it had, never once being honest with him about the way she felt and what she truly wanted from him, whereas, Christian had always been completely upfront about his own requirements. Well, except in the bedroom, it seemed.

  And she'd come to learn a lot of things about herself, including, ironically, that there was a classification for someone with her particular character traits. In the very same lifestyle Christian had chosen for himself.

  She was a service submissive, someone who had the type of compliant nature where they found their greatest pleasure in serving others and making their lives easier by providing whatever help they could.

  For Trinity, that meant fulfilling their every kinky desire as well. Although she usually drew the line at intercourse, she was happy enough to bring them to completion in other ways. There was more than one way to skin a cat after all, and she was an expert at most of them.

  She couldn't say why she kept sex on her soft limits. It wasn't as if she never indulged, she was just…cautious…if that was even the right term. She didn't want meaningless intercourse with the host of men she routinely played with at Club Risqué, and any connoisseur of the lifestyle knew there was much more to BDSM than an orgy of sex. But despite being a service submissive, she liked her interactions to have a higher value than simply being used as a vessel for a man to get off.

  Hmph! Maybe that was a throwback to how Christian had made her feel after all. She'd never scrutinized her feelings on the matter too closely. She had refused, gathering them up and blocking them off, dumping them all in a box to which she had hammered the lid tightly closed.

  She had continued to visit Krista for a while, but that had been bittersweet, too.

  Christian's mother had been beside herself, the first time Trinity had visited after his shocking announcement. Trinity hadn't really expected anything less, knowing that Krista would be thrown into a complete panic at the idea of losing her son.

  What had surprised her was Krista's astuteness when it came to Trinity's own feelings. "You love him, don't you?" she had enquired quietly once her anxious tirade was over and she'd calmed herself somewhat, amidst the realization that she wasn't the only one who was hurting.

  "I know the two of you were lovers, have been for a number of years…" she trailed off as if at a loss.

  For the first and last time in her life, Trinity had admitted her feelings for Christian. "Yes, I do," she replied softly, her voice barely audible under the heavy weight of sorrow that weighed her down. "But I can't talk about it, Krista. And I don't want to hear about Christian. I couldn't bear to hear the plans and arrangements for his wedding, so if it's okay, we need to skip those particular areas of conversation."

  "He's an idiot," Krista sobbed. "I can't believe he's doing this to either of us!"

  At the time, Trinity had wondered if things would have been any different if Christian had wanted to marry her instead of the mysterious and kinky Bianca, but Krista was as good as her word and Christian wasn't mentioned again. For a few months, at least.

  It had been five months later, Trinity recalled. The wedding had been and gone, but she had never received an invitation. Not that she would have attended, even if one had been forthcoming. She wasn't that much of a masochist that she wanted to put herself through the agony of watching the man she loved saying the vows she had craved to another woman.

  The wedding had taken place quickly. Not even three clear months from when he had broken the news of his intentions. At first, admittedly, there had been a few phone calls from Christian, but she had refused to answer them, still being too raw to talk to him in those first few weeks after his bombshell. She'd deleted the voicemails without bothering to listen to them, unable to hear his voice without breaking down.

  But the text message…well, that had flickered up on her phone screen without her having to open it, a feature of her mobile phone that she'd never even considered until it inadvertently showed her the message which shattered whatever little pieces of her heart there were left.

  'I'm sorry, Tara, but I need to cut off all contact with you and ask you to respect that wish by not keeping in touch.'

  She hadn't thought it was possible to feel any more hurt than she already was. Turned out, hurt could go on and on, even when you thought the worst of it was over. So much for her being his closest friend. She supposed that was Bianca's privilege these days. At least the woman had a name that would be acceptable in the circles Christian walked in and it wouldn't need to be bastardised into something more sophisticated and elegant, she thought with unusual bitterness.

  For the most part, Trinity tried hard not to be consumed by her negative feelings. She didn't want that pall to be hanging over her life. Not that she didn't have plenty to feel bitter about, but she tried her hardest not to let it get the better of her.

  It was hard, of course. And some things were harder than others…like the day she had gone to visit Krista for what had also turned out to be the last time.

  Five months…it had been a difficult time and Trinity had lost weight that she didn't have to lose. She knew she looked gaunt and skeletal, but she had no appetite to speak of.

  Krista fussed over her and cooked special treats to try to tempt her with. It had made Trinity happy to think that she could, at least, take Krista's mind off her worries that Christian was drifting away from her.

  That day, though, there had been no tasty titbits to tempt her. Instead, Krista was even more anxious and skittish than usual.

  Finally, she had burst into tears and Trinity had made her a cup of soothing herbal tea and sat her down so Krista could tell her what the problem was.

  "I could hate them for doing this to me," Krista ranted. "But he's my son and he's all I have left in the world."

  Trinity had stopped short of pointing out to Krista that she actually wasn't making any sense. If it helped her to get whatever was worrying her off her chest, then Trinity was happy to be a sounding board.

  "Bianca says she feels threatened by my friendship with you," Krista finally confided. "She thinks it undermines her relationship with Christian and so she doesn't like him coming here because of it," the older woman sobbed.

  "I'm so scared I'm going to lose him; he just doesn't see how manipulating Bianca is. Can you believe she actually asked me to stop seeing you, just to keep her happy!"

 
Krista wrung her hands together and took a couple of short, sharp breaths, trying her best to keep it together.

  "Except it wasn't really a request," the older woman whispered. "It was more of a threat. She said she couldn't have Christian coming to visit me if she thought there was a chance he might run into you here…she didn't quite come out and say the words outright, but it was implied. She would stop him from visiting me if she didn't get her own way."

  Tears streamed down Krista's face and her breath came in hiccupping sobs. "What am I going to do?" she implored Trinity. "He's all I have left; I just couldn't bear to lose him, too…"

  Trinity's blood had run cold, and for a moment, she had thought she might vomit where she sat, but she'd wrestled her feelings under control determinedly. It wasn't as if she hadn't had plenty of practice after all.

  She might not ask after Christian, but here, in his mother's house, she felt close to him and Krista was the final link she had to the man she still loved, even if this was one more stab wound to her already shredded heart.

  With a heavy heart, she knew what she had to do.

  "Don't worry, Krista. I'll make it easy on you," she had rasped out over a throat so constricted she was surprised she didn't choke. "I've been thinking about returning back home to the south coast anyway. I'm pretty sure that should put enough distance between us to keep Christian's wife happy."

  Trinity had climbed wearily to her feet and given Krista a hug before she headed for the door. "I'll keep in touch," she promised as the tiny crumbs, all that were left of her shattered heart, blew away.

  Unlike Christian, she had kept that promise, even if their brief and infrequent conversations were conspicuously frothy and avoided anything personal on either side.

  True to her word, she had packed up her job, her life, and her little flat, and scurried back home with her tail between her legs. Well, maybe that was a little melodramatic, but that's what it felt like. Four years on the east coast where she had gone to study, and she had absolutely nothing to show for it except a broken heart and a self-imposed isolation which had come from devoting all of her time and efforts to a single family who didn't want her anymore. Her fault again, of course.