Not one thing in my life is right because it’s all wrong.
I have a sick, perverted husband.
I have no other family, just me and my dying dad.
I have no friends, no one I can trust.
I have no money.
Gentry tracks my calls on the cell phone he gives me to use. He follows where I go with the app on it and the tracker on the car he “lets me drive,” too. He has cameras all over our house watching my every move. His wealthy family owns half the island we live on. I can’t even talk to anyone without him finding out. It’s obvious he has spies.
And if I step out of line and try to escape, it’s one phone call. In one calculated move, he will have my father moved to an inhumane facility.
You’d think it would be a human right. You shouldn’t have to pay to stay alive, to get quality health care. But no. Gentry’s also part of the system that makes the laws that exploit lives so a few wealthy men can profit from other people’s pain.
Sure, I could fight for my father. But that takes money. That takes lawyers and power, and time.
As my vicious husband pushes me to my knees, I have nothing.
Unzipping his pants, he’s going to relish the power he has while he keeps fucking mine away with every pathetic thrust of his little dick. And I mean… it’s little. In size. In the pleasure he doesn’t give. In the passion I don’t feel. In the love and sex that is so small in my world, it doesn’t exist.
So I turn my chin and look away.
Please get this over with.
My bite is hard, fighting back the tears. I clench my molars while he starts poking the tip of his dick into the valley of my flesh, trying to protect my heart from his invasion.
I hate this. I hate him.
“Yes, Mommy,” he starts with his perverted fantasy, and I don’t want to know what’s in his sick mind. His mom is as wicked as him. “Mommy likes this,” he jeers again, wiping his tiny crown over the crest of my breast, and I gag.
Please, someone. Anyone.
A tear escapes down my cheek while I pray to my mom. While I go so far away in my mind and remember the strongest woman I know, even in memory.
Get me out of this.
I don’t listen to him. I don’t feel him. I focus on the morning sun beaming in through the windows; my mind gets lost in the minuscule dust particles dancing to the floor… before the front doorbell chimes break the air and Gentry’s assault.
I grab a breath while he yanks his dick back in his pants.
“Fuck,” he mutters, remembering the time. “Go get the door,” he jeers while his boner quickly withers away.
Jumping to my feet, I’ve never felt such relief. It could be a delivery right now, and I swear I will hug the person holding the box. Every hour of every day I get away from my husband is a small victory.
“Cover yourself,” he barks while my sneakers eat the ground between the kitchen and the front door, squeaking across parquet floors.
Grabbing my ivory wrap sweater off the back of the antique chair in the foyer, I blanket myself. Not from any stranger on the other side of our front doors.
I cloak my heart; my emotions are raw, tears still blazing in my eyes.
Yes, my ivory yoga pants and matching sports bra leave little to the imagination. But besides my dad, yoga is the only hour of escape I have in the other twenty-three hours that my asshole husband controls.
I was supposed to have my routine this morning—take care of my dad and then do my yoga—the two things that let me survive this.
Then Gentry informed me as I dressed that I needed to stay here this morning for a meeting with the painters. Why, I don’t know. Gentry picks everything. I’m as useful as that antique chair.
So I don’t care how exposed my body may appear; just don’t let anyone see my pain. Don’t let this stranger see my pride slipping away with the tears I’m fighting back.
Turning the brass doorknob, “Hello?” I swing the front door open.
And there they stand.
Three hot men answering my prayer.
CHAPTER TWO
Weekends by Freya
Who should I stare at? I don’t know.
Standing in our living room with vaulted ceilings and a glass wall to our backyard overlooking the eighteenth hole, that is not the view to admire. Not one any person attracted to masculine flesh would give a shit about.
No, it’s these three men in front of me.
Sipping coffee, I have to hide my mouth that wants to hang open. I have to keep my lips busy because they want to declare, “Damn, y’all are hotter than Georgia asphalt in August.”
And who would I be admiring like a blubbering, horny idiot?
Any one of them.
And can I let my clit-numbing husband see how these men turn on the faucet to my pussy? Like a fire hose?
Hell. No.
“My wife and her designer want that white.” Gentry stabs his fat finger, pointing to the test patch I painted on the wall last week. “But I want the beige we have. It’s classic.”
I dare to speak up. “She said beige looks dirty and dated.” Like him.
His glare whips around. “Shut up. The men are talking.”
I shrug, muttering, “Oh, small talk.”
The look Gentry gives me? I’ll pay for that comment tonight, but I had to do it, especially in front of these men. I had to show them I’m not a complete doormat.
Did it work?
The tallest man, who shook both our hands as he introduced himself as “Ford Alexander”; he’s the boss. Nodding, he glances over his shoulder at me.
Even standing next to my powerful husband, all air surrendered when Ford entered the room.
The man doesn’t even smile. He doesn’t need to. His perfect face provides all the pleasure you need.
I’ve never seen a jaw so granite and a chin with such a sexy cleft. Even under his groomed beard, I can see it; I want to kiss it. His nose and cheekbones are strong, angling up to the bluest eyes under thick eyebrows that match his dark hair with gray peppering his temples. He lets his gorgeous waves grow casually while nothing else on his imposing frame looks easy.
It's all hard. With broad shoulders under a rugged, army green jacket, he looks like he’s about to go camping alone… and kill something.
But that can’t be so, not with that soft white Henley he’s wearing underneath and unbuttoned, exposing his dusting of trimmed chest hair.
It’s like he stepped out of a Banana Republic ad because that’s how khaki pants should look on a man’s ass.
I keep staring at it. I keep wondering about his big banana.
“Ma’am,” Ford commands my attention, and I jolt, enjoying the shock of it, “where did you get this white paint sample?”
I’m so busted, admiring his ass, praising his package before drooling rivers over his muscular frame, then landing on his—what the fuck—angry eyes? He’s pissed at me?
Ford’s a stranger, but I know an angry man when I see him; I usually sleep beside one.
And I’ve done nothing to this man.
When I answered the door, Ford stood in front. He looked me in the eye, his handsome face evaporating my private tears, and politely, I greeted him and the two men behind him, inviting them in and introducing myself.
“I’m Stacey Evans,” I said, “Mrs. Gentry Evans, the senator’s wife.” It just slipped out of my broken ego… and then Ford glared at me.