Page 169 of Governor

We have said those three words to each other many times, but not exactly in this way. I’m an idiot that it took me this long to realize it.

I finally say it. “I’minlove with you, too.” I don’t know when, exactly, lust turned into love, and turned into beinginlove with him, but it’s there, before me, in stark truth.

I’minlove with Carter, and have been for years. For sixteen years now.

On my ass, his thumbs slowly stroke up and down just behind my hips, and he’s still looking into my eyes.

A soft, relieved sigh escapes him. “You don’t hate me?”

“Carter, how could I ever hate a bastard extraordinaire like you?”

The left corner of his mouth quirks in a sexy smirk. Between us, I feel him grow harder. “You weren’t bi when we met.”

“I’m not bi now. You’re absolutely right that this wouldn’t have happened any other way.”

His gaze softens. “I wish I could legally marry you, too.”

This time,Ikisshim. “Me, too. But this is okay.”

“She’s really happy, you know. She gets the two men she loves. She didn’t have to choose between us, in the end. I can give her the Dominant stuff that you can’t, and she can give you the things I can’t.”

He grinds against me a little, his meaning crystal clear what “things” Susa can give me that he can’t, and I have to swallow back my needy moan as my well-conditioned body responds.

“Does she know?” I manage to ask. “That it was your plan the whole time?”

He shrugs. “I was open and honest with her in the beginning that I was bi and I thought you were hot. When discussing fantasies, I told her it’d be even hotter with the two of you together. Suggested it would actually make some things easier for all of us. She might have let it slip that she’d be more than a little okay with that. She was adorable, her face beet red as she blushed when she admitted it.”

“Before or after you married her?”

“Before. Wouldn’t have married her if she couldn’t love you and have both of us.” He grins. “Getting her hooked on dominating you once I saw how service-oriented you were took a little trial and error. Had to play armchair psychologist to find out how to coax her inner sadist into the light and convince her you actually enjoyed that. I knew she was capable of it. Just had to let her figure it out.”

“How’d you know? That I would enjoy that?” We’ve been together for so long that it feels like we’ve always been together. It’s difficult to remember there was a time in my life when I didn’t even know them, much less have them in my life.

He gently squeezes my ass. “You open up when you get really drunk. On your twenty-first birthday, I showed you some gay BDSM porn and FemDom porn, and knew I’d hit the jackpot.”

I wince, groaning. How could I ever forget that night? Although, to be honest, much of that night is an alcohol-induced black hole, and I really don’t remember everything that happened. What lives in my memory are the days and weeks in the immediate aftermath. “That wasnotone of my finer moments.”

He chokes back a roar of laughter. “You willneverknow how badly I wanted to go down on you that night when you whipped it out and started jerking off. Well, you knownow. I actually considered doing it, except that wasn’t consent and I might be a bastard, but I need consent to be one.”

“So what if I’d said no to you that first night the three of us were together?”

“I didn’t think you would. I was hoping I’d read you correctly and had you so horned up you didn’t want to say no. Would havereallyfucked up my plans if you had, though.” He smiles again. “I would have found a way to convince you. Eventually.”

He leans in and nips my lower lip. “You’re like a goddamned drug, Owen. I can’t get enough of you. Even all these years later.”

“Her father despises you. He told me he wishes she’d married me.”

Now he grins. “I know. Ask me if I fuckingcare.” He kisses me again, hard, deep, nothing gentle about it.

Possessive.

His fingers knead my ass and I have to fight the urge to grind hard against him and get myself off without permission.

Wouldtotallybe worth the sore ass later from the punishment caning I’d get, but I don’t want to spooge his slacks and create questions if someone sees him before he can change.

We’re well past the days of being able to take risks like that. This is serious, the big leagues, and I have a serious job to do.

We all do.