Seth nodded. He knew. He’d seen and envied their obvious love and passion for years. Any moron could see how devoted they were to each other.
Lucky bastard.
“There’s a few things I’ve never told you. About Leah’s past. About how we met. Some of that doesn’t need to be told tonight. You’ll learn about it soon enough. Suffice it to say she was a fucking mess when we met. I probably saved her life. She had a horrible life before we got together.”
Kaden took a deep breath. “Leah’s not just my wife, Seth. She’s my slave. I’m her Master, her Dom.”
Okay, he was definitely being played. Seth fought and lost the battle against his grin, relief flooding in. “You’re fucking with me. Goddamn it, you got me again, you son of a bitch! You really fucking had me scared there for a minute, dude. That was so not funny.” That explained everything. Kaden had managed to pull the ultimate Punk’d job on him. Relief started to displace his fear.
Kaden’s eyes, his serious gaze, never changed. “I’m not fucking with you,” he softly said. “I need you to hear me out. You promised.”
The hard, cold rock in Seth’s stomach rolled over. He swallowed hard and nodded as his momentary relief retreated.
Kaden continued. Seth saw something for the first time in his life that nearly horrified him—
Tears in Kaden’s eyes.
“We’ve been into it since a little after we met. It wasn’t something we planned. It just happened. I didn’t set out wanting to do it, but she needed it. It helped her heal. I know that sounds weird, but trust me, it did. If you’d seen her before…” He paused, took another drink. “If you’d known her when I first met her, you’d know what I was talking about.
“I promised her I would protect her and take care of her. That’s what I’ve always done. I don’t have a lot of time to put things in order because even though they found it relatively early, this form of cancer is aggressive and moves fast. I need to know that when I’m gone, there’s going to be someone I trust with her life to step into my shoes and take over and keep those promises for me.” That was when his eyes did tear up, and he angrily brushed them away. “I need to know that she’s safe. I want to be sure she won’t kill herself or go looking for what she needs and end up with some asshole who will abuse her.”
Seth felt numb and wondered when the hell he’d wake up. This could not be real. His brain was not accepting that this was really happening. He knew his voice sounded soft and weak, emotional shock creeping in. “What are you asking me, dude?”
“I want you to come over for dinner tomorrow night. Don’t call Leah. Just show up at seven. I need to talk to her and break the news to her and tell her what I want to do. I don’t want your answer tonight. I want you to seriously think about this. I want you to move in with us. You can go to school and finish your degree, and I’ll teach you what you need to know to take care of her.” Kaden reached out and grabbed Seth’s arm, his grip almost painfully firm. “Please. I need you to seriously think about this for me.”
This was too much for Seth to process at one time. “You’re dropping the bomb on me that you’re dying, and now you’re asking me to, what, fucking beat your wife for you after you die? Are you shitting me?” Not only couldn’t he grasp that Kaden was dying, he couldn’t process that his respectable, successful, soft-spoken and kind-hearted friend of forty years had a secret life Seth knew nothing about.
Kaden vigorously shook his head. “It’s not like that at all. There’s a lot of stuff I can’t tell you unless you promise to help us because it’s personal between me and Leah. And there’s some stuff you won’t understand unless you see it in person. It’s not like the bullshit you see on the Internet. I mean, yeah, some people are into that, but it’s not like that for us. We’re twenty-four/seven. We live this. We’re happy living like this.”
Kaden took a deep breath. “Leah’s healed because of it. But she needs things, Seth. She’s always going to need certain things. I’m worried that when I’m gone, if she goes looking to others who don’t know her, who don’t care about her, it’ll hurt her and put her back in that bad place emotionally where she could have died. If she doesn’t kill herself to start with.”
Kaden released Seth’s arm. “I’m also a teacher. Those weekend seminars we go to? I do a lot of instructional stuff. I teach shibari.”
Alternate dimension. That was it. He’d fallen through a fucking wormhole. “Shi-what?”
“Shibari. Japanese rope bondage.” Kaden took another drink. “And a few whip classes. Please. Come to dinner tomorrow night. I can explain it better then. Show you. I’ve never asked you for anything before, man. I need you. We need you. Please.”
Seth felt a wave of guilt. No, Kaden had never asked him for anything before. Ever. Kaden, however, had yanked his ass out of the fire more times than he cared to remember.
He thought about it for a long moment. “Okay. I’ll come to dinner, but I can’t promise you I’ll tell you yes. I don’t even know what you want me to do.” Hell, he couldn’t even promise he’d be sober after this bombshell.
Hope lit Kade’s face. “That’s all I’m asking for, just to hear me out.”
“You don’t know Leah will go for this.”
“She will. Trust me, she will.”
Chapter Two
Seth finished his evening back at his brother’s house, alone in his room, with a few shots of tequila. When he awoke the next morning, hungover and blurry eyed, the prior evening’s discussion with Kaden rushed back to him.
He closed his eyes and prayed he’d go back to sleep. A nightmare was preferable to thinking about his best friend dying.
Fuck.
Dinner.
Seth stumbled through his day, changing his mind about going at least once every five minutes. He barely made it through his morning classes and was glad that at least today he didn’t have any labs.
Kaden and Leah had been his two biggest supporters when he decided to go back to college and get his nursing degree. After the Army he’d spent years in construction, but with the housing bust that was far from a great occupation. After the divorce from hell-bitch number three, he’d decided why not make a clean break in all ways? His credit wasn’t totally fucked, so at least he’d been able to get a good student loan and a couple of grants for tuition. He’d had medic training in the Army and enjoyed helping people. Besides, it was one of the few occupations where demand constantly exceeded supply, especially in Florida.
At six o’clock, Seth took a deep breath and stepped into the shower. A steady diet of Tylenol and ginger tea all day had finally eased the worst of his hangover.
The bombshell pressed into his mind every few minutes. He’d be thinking about his classes, trying to run through things in his mind, then suddenly the thought.
Kaden’s dying.
Trying to memorize something.
Kaden’s dying.
Like a horrific heartbeat in his brain.
Kaden’s dying.
What the fuck would he do without his best friend? He was closer to Kaden than he was to his own brother. Emotionally, at least. He knew Leah hadn’t liked any of his three exes. Neither had Kaden, but they’d done their best to include the women into their close triad of friendship, welcomed them in.
How many times over the years had he wished he could find someone like Leah?