Desire (7 page)

“But even though you could, you didn’t spend t
hat much more time together, did you?”

“Not really, no.”

“So he was distant and unavailable at first. Did that make you want to please him?”

“Maybe. Not please him,
I just wished he wanted to be with me more often.”

“And once you did please him, you got more of his time, didn’t you?”

“Where are you going with this?”

“You see what he did, right? I mean, you have to know what he was doing. I bet if you look back with your picture perfect memory, you’ll see a pattern.”

My cheeks flush. “What pattern?”

“I’m sure you’ve
heard about all that alpha male, pick up artist bullshit that college guys use in clubs. Act like you don’t want her, that makes her want you more, subtly degrade her self-esteem so she wants to prove something.”

“I was never stupid enough to fall for that shit.”

“I didn’t say you were stupid. It sounds like it was a very slow con, very subtle manipulation. You were vulnerable, you wanted him to love you.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I answer
honestly, looking away.

“So if you look back, you’ll probably see that he rewarded you with more of his time when you were ‘good’ and you got less of it when you were ‘bad’
, whatever that means for you two,” Isaac explains. I don’t answer because he’s right. How did I not see that? “Don’t feel bad about it. It wasn’t your fault.”

“You’re making m
e feel like such an idiot right now.”

“I don’t think you’re an idiot at all.
If anything, you’re too smart and way too logical for your own good. You don’t seem to value emotions in the slightest. It’s as if you despise them and they don’t appear to factor into your decision making process in any way whatsoever. I find that intriguing, but also extremely concerning.”

“You aren’t a phase, if that’s what you mean.”

“We are not going off on that tangent right now. Did you love him or was he just a good idea for your life?”

I loved who he used to be.
“I loved who I thought he was. But mainly, I felt… okay I
feel
very alone in life. I wanted the security, not in the financial sense really… I just thought he had my back. He’s a cheater, but he is loyal. To his family, his job, his friends. If he says he’s going to do something, it’s done. So yeah, he seemed like a good idea. Everything has pro and cons, and yes, all the cons were primarily hurt feelings and I just didn’t think that mattered very much.”

“And the sex obviously wasn’t that physically traumatic, right?”

“No. Well, not really, a lot of it hurt, but… Why do we have to talk about this?”

“Because if I don’t understand how he manipulated you to fall for him, then I can’t anticipate how he’ll manipulate you to
forgive him. It seems like he used Foot in the Door compliance techniques.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s basically what I’m supposed to be doing right now. Get you to agree to something minor at first, then you’ll use that as a base for future choices until you’re doing things that you never would have agreed to do right off the bat. I didn’t do that to get you to fall for me, by the way. But I am really fucking good at it.”

G
ood to know. It is impossible not to picture him enjoying other women in one of those playrooms, and he did fucking enjoy it. Isaac
loves
when I do as I’m told during sex, even when he’s being cuddly and sweet. It makes me so fucking jealous, but I don’t really have time for that shit right now. It’s over. Or so he says. “Look, Isaac, you’re probably right about the rewarding me with time thing, but he didn’t manipulate me into being with him.”

“He did some fucked up stuff to
you, but you stayed. It wasn’t just out of fear either, you weren’t afraid to come here and you were fucking blindsided by the humiliation thing. You expected a lot of pain because you were used to that. He held you down and hurt you when you were vulnerable, when he was supposed to be making love to you. That doesn’t happen overnight.”
Yes, it did
. “He’s been controlling you this whole time, you just didn’t see it.”

I swallow my temper, but it won’t stay down. “Controlling me, huh? So was he
controlling
me when I made plans with my fuck buddy on my highly monitored phone at least once a week?”

Isaac’s eyes widen as he tries to keep his jaw
shut. “Your what?”

“My
fuck buddy
.” I can’t say it’s not satisfying to watch him squirm a little. “The same guy since freshmen year. His name is Sam.”

“Were you
planning to mention this?”

“Of course. Think I want to get him killed, too?”

“Luke never called you on it?” Isaac asks, not making the slightest effort to hide his surprise.

“Nope. And guess what? I do see a pattern, I always did. The more time I spent with
Sam, the more time I got with Luke. Now he made me pay for it once he got on top of me, but he was threatened. And he was jealous. I liked it. So who was manipulating who?”

Rubbing his temples, Isaac blinks in disbelief. I will never get tired of pulling the rug out from under him and wiping that smug look off his face. “Your cooking
buddy slash sex coach is so fucking proud of you right now. But your extremely controlling and possessive boyfriend is absolutely
livid
. This should go without saying, but you won’t be talking to Sam anymore.”

“Well, that’s going to be tough because he’s in several of my classes. So my extremely controlling and possessive boyfriend
will just have to trust me not to fuck around, the same way I’ll be trusting him not to sleep with his ex-girlfriend. You know, the one he’s going to be
living
with.”

“I already explained our relationship. I’m not going over it again.”

“Then look me in the eye and tell me that you’re not leaving a lot of stuff out.”

With a huff, he locks eyes with me and starts to speak before stopping himself so he doesn’t lie. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than I have to
, Maya.”

“That’s not the only reason, though, is it?”

“No, it’s not. Some of it is actually very difficult for me to talk about because it’s a very painful subject,” he says quietly. “And it’s not fair, either. You get to know shit about my childhood and my parents, but I don’t get to know about yours? It’s not my fault that my ex is also sort of my mom. And please,
please
, fucking believe me when I say that I very much wish I didn’t have to sleep there at night, but I do. And I’m doing it for you.”

My throat tightens as all the anger and frustration I was aiming at him disappears.
Of all the faces he wears, this childlike one filled with shame and just a touch of panic is the hardest to look at. “Isaac… I’m sorry.” That just makes him look guiltier. “You never ask me about my past.”

“You can’t possibly think that’s because I don’t want to know about it. I devour every single little factoid I get from you, Maya, but I can’t trade you back in that department. The words won’t come out.”

Does that mean he tries? “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Not because I guilt tripped you, though. Because I need
this information. My father knows you, and not just because of Luke, right?” I nod reluctantly. “That is a gigantic complication and to be fucking honest, it’s so terrifying I can barely think about it, but I don’t have a choice.”

I can’t tell him, I just can’t. Not the whole story, it’ll crush him.
“Maya Sheffield,” I whisper. I know his last name, he should know mine. “I assume you’re Isaac Kavanagh.”

His trembling lips curl into a sad smile. “
Yes, I am.”

“I met your father a long time ago, when I was
ten. I spent most of my summers with Piper at her parent’s lake house, even before my dad died. Baron visited quite a bit.” Clenching his fists, Isaac shudders when I say his father’s name. “He never did anything to me, he didn’t pay me much attention at all. But I think he was trying to get something out of Piper’s dad, or they had some shady business dealings, I’m not really sure.”

“Maya, you heard what he said. What did he mean?”

I’ve been doing a surprisingly great job not crying these last few days. But as soon as he brings it up, I hear her laughing. I see her standing next to Piper with that mischievous smile, goading me to get into trouble with them. It was always two against one, I never had a chance. “I can’t,” I squeal.

“Try. Please.
It is extremely important, I wouldn’t push you if it wasn’t.” His thumb taps against the table nervously as I wipe my own tears away.

“Okay,” I exhale raggedly. “Short story, there used to be another best friend, it was sort of a rich girl boarding school three musketeers situation.
My mom made me come home for my freshmen year. It was some dispute over Garrett and money with my dad’s parents, I spent the first semester at a public school in Georgia. But then…” The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. I’ll never forget the sound of Piper’s voice when she called to tell me, the rage, the hysteria. “Our friend died,” I choke. “And Piper sort of went off the rails, I guess. She got in a lot of trouble, drinking, drugs, skipping class, having sex, it was a huge embarrassment. So her parents made an arrangement with my mother to bring me back. They paid for everything, I didn’t go back home much after that. It’s almost like they adopted me. They think I stabilize her and they’re not wrong. She’s… very impulsive.”

“Do you think that
will be a problem for us?”

“Maybe. She hates Luke. A lot. And she probably
won’t be that crazy about you, at least at first.”

“But you can control her, to an extent?”

“Not really. But she would never tell him, you’ll definitely be the lesser of two evils.”

“So she’s the only child of two very i
nfluential people and her parents depend on you to keep her on the right path, correct?”

“More or less.
”

“If something were to happen to you, Piper would come unhinged, it could derail her future and humiliate, possibly devastate a person that I’m assuming is
rather important to my father. That definitely works in our favor,” he theorizes. I nod as his eyes grow darker. “Now look me in the eye and tell me you’re not leaving anything out.”

This lie is for him, not me.
He’ll forgive me eventually. “I’m not,” I say, manipulating the words to sound whiny and needy. Staring me down, he studies my face. I don’t even flinch. He lets out a relaxed breath as I swallow a twinge of guilt. I can’t tell him, not yet.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” he whispers. “And I’m
very sorry that I essentially forced you to tell me something painful that you didn’t want to talk about.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Ask me something. I want to make it up to you.”

There’s no point in bringing up Gloria and that’s the big one. I don’t want to waste it on something trivial or something he’d be likely to talk about anyway. So I scan through the memories of the past three weeks, looking for a clue. Oh yeah. “Who is Sloane?”

Isaac’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “How do you know about her?”

“Your brother said you would have spent a week together if I didn’t show up.”

“That perfect fucking memory of yours, I swear…” he grumbles. Looks like I picked a good one. “Sloane is a very good friend of mine.”

“Do you have sex with this very good friend of yours?”

Taking a deep breath, Isaac leans back in his chair and taps his foot nervously. “In a sense, yes.”
You don’t seriously think that’s all you’re giving me, do you?
I stay silent as he sighs. “She’s a lesbian dominatrix, so I don’t fuck her. Though, in the interest of full disclosure, we did discuss it briefly, but couldn’t agree on how it would go down and thought it was best not to fuck up our friendship.”

“You guys couldn’t agree who would top who?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“So in what
sense
do you have sex with her?”

“Sometimes we share her girls
. At the same time,” he confesses. “If I want sex my way, that’s where I go.” My stomach drops at the thought.

“So it’s okay for her to do what Luke does because she’s woman?”

“She’s not like them. It’s a completely different scene. Mainstream BDSM with actual codes of conduct, not the fucked up world I live in.”

“You said that you haven’t had anyone that…
he
hasn’t had. Did you lie to me?”

Isaac shifts uncomfortably. “Of course not.
She has a few permanent girlfriends. I don’t play with them. I’m the one who brings her other girls when they’re… God, I don’t know how to say this, it’s disgusting,” he spits. “When they’re used up. When none of our guys want them anymore. Typically because they’re too traumatized or heartbroken to keep going. She sort of rehabilitates them, gets them back to the real world. But most of them are straight, so I… help her take care of them.”