The Home-wrecker (The Goode Brothers)
The Home-wrecker: Chapter 15

I’m burning with rage. That asshole seriously knocked on my door to accuse me of being a home-wrecker, completely unwarranted.

Yes, I’ve fantasized about seducing his wife, but I haven’t actually done anything. Yet.

God, he infuriates me. Caleb Goode is the most self-righteous, arrogant, inconsiderate asshole I’ve ever met. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when I tell him how easy it was to tempt his wife. He thinks he can just bully and control anyone he wants, but he can’t control me.

I spend the rest of my night stewing in my apartment. Feeling this fired up nearly has me wanting to try to get off again. But I decide not to even bother. It’s hopeless, and my efforts would be better spent proving that egotistical asshole wrong.

I hear a car door closing outside, and I peer out my window to see Briar walking up the paved walkway toward the house.

For a moment, as I watch her, I feel a hint of regret for playing her like a pawn in our game. She doesn’t deserve to be used like that. But she also doesn’t deserve to suffer through a lousy marriage.

If I could just make her see that, she’d be so much better off with someone who could please her…

As she reaches the house, I notice the way her gaze flits up toward my window. For a moment, our eyes meet, and she waves softly up at me. I wave back.

She scurries into the house, where her husband waits for her, and I bide my time. She’ll come knocking. I know she will.

Until then, I busy myself with tidying up my tiny place. I check in on my dad with a quick phone call. He’s still up and spends at least twenty minutes complaining about the same nurse as last time. I don’t bother telling him that it sounds like he’s in love, but I keep a smirk on my face the entire time.

His mood sounds better, but his voice is raspier, and he seems to be losing his breath more. It’s almost as if his body is giving out faster than his spirit, a thought that makes me nauseous with grief.

After our call, I sit on the couch and scroll through my phone for a while. Somehow, I end up looking through flashback photos on Insta of my high school days. Most of the photos are of me and Isaac.

Seeing how happy we were only fueling my hatred for his brother. Isaac was more than my best friend. Everyone knew that. We might have started as friends, but it didn’t take long until everything changed. For me. For him. For us.

Isaac was the catalyst. It was as if my life had completely ended and then began again with one kiss.

And if there’s one truth that has kept me anchored to him after all this time, it’s this—if Isaac’s family had been different, we would have stayed together for a long time. We would have been happy. I know that in my heart.

We might have just been kids, but I meant as much to him as he did to me. He just didn’t have a choice. His father threw him out. His brothers didn’t save him. And because of them, he and I didn’t stand a chance. I couldn’t leave my father.

Even if Isaac had given me a chance, I still wouldn’t have been able to go with him.

I don’t know how long I sit on my couch and stew in my resentment when I hear the light tapping on the door. I glance down at the time on my phone, eleven forty-five.

Perfect.

I climb from the couch and rush to the front door, opening it to find Briar standing there with a bottle of wine in her hand.

“It feels weird to drink alone now,” she says with a sheepish smile.

“No one should ever drink alone,” I reply as I open the door to usher her inside. She makes herself at home, going to the kitchen to retrieve the glasses as I sit on the couch, angled toward the space she eventually takes.

The TV is on, but the volume is low, and I don’t turn it up. I want her to know she’s my focus tonight. I think that’s what she wants, too.

“You didn’t work tonight?” she asks as she takes a sip.

With a shake of my head, I reply, “Nope. I had two clients yesterday, though.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks start to turn pink at the mention of my work.

I let the moment grow more charged by the second as we stare across the sofa at each other.

“Tell me,” I say, just above a whisper. “If you could hire an escort to do anything you want, what would you hire me for?”

Her eyes widen as she puts her lips against the rim of her wineglass. After a quick drink, she averts her gaze as she responds. “I don’t know.”

“Sure you do,” I say. “There must be something.”

“You mean like…sex?” Her eyes finally meet mine, and I find myself grinning with how adorable she is. So innocent and yet so…curious.

“Not necessarily.”

“I don’t know, then. I feel like there’s a whole world of possibilities that I’m not even aware of. But…I’m married now, so…I never will.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true,” she snaps back with a chuckle. “Caleb and I don’t have that kind of marriage, and the sex we do have used to be fun, but now it’s all about trying to get pregnant. It’s like all of the intimacy and pleasure has been sucked out of the act altogether.”

Fuck, that’s sad.

“Have you thought about telling him what you want?” The words slip out, and I realize once I’ve uttered them that giving her relationship advice is the opposite of my goal right now, but I can’t help myself. Everything about Briar screams unhappy and afraid, even though she won’t admit it.

Standing from the couch with a huff, she moves toward the kitchen for another glass. “God, no,” she replies haughtily.

“Why not?”

She tries to laugh it off again. “Because I don’t even know what I want.”

I stand from the couch and move toward her. Something beyond the wager I made with Caleb is compelling me to help her. Maybe it’s my own desire or attraction to her. Maybe it’s because even in my line of work, I’ve never wanted to see someone discover what turns them on more than I want Briar to.

I want to watch her find a part of herself she didn’t know existed.

So, without thinking, I just speak, changing my tone to a deeper, steadier cadence.

“Briar, I want you to kneel.”

The hand lifting the glass to her lips freezes as her expression twists in confusion. “What?”

“You heard me. Get on your knees.”

I watch the color drain from her face. “Why?” she whispers.

“Because I want to see if you’ll do it. And I want to see if you like it.”

“I shouldn’t,” she murmurs to herself. “Dean, I won’t cheat on my husband.”

“I’m not telling you to suck my dick, Briar. This has nothing to do with cheating. I’m just telling you to kneel.”

At the mention of sucking my dick, her eyes go wide again before she quickly turns her gaze down to the floor.

“And what if I do kneel for you?” she asks.

“You’ll be rewarded,” I reply softly, wearing a casual grin.

I can see the contemplation on her face. The way she worries her lip and wrings her hands. She’s at war within herself, a raging battle between what she wants and what she thinks she’s allowed to want.

But ever so slowly, one side of that conflict clearly takes the victory as Briar moves to her knees. Her eyes stay averted from mine, almost as if I am the living embodiment of her own shame, and she cannot face me.

“Lovely,” I whisper quietly to myself as I take in the exquisite way she settles into a submissive pose, hands folded in her lap, head bowed, shoulders relaxed.

She slips on submission like a well-fitting dress, immediately flaunting how fucking good it looks on her.

“Do you like it?” I ask, hearing the weakness in my own voice. Even I’m caught off guard by how sexy she looks in a kneeling position.

“Being on my knees?” she asks as if I’m speaking a different language, and I might as well be. This is as foreign to her as Portuguese.

“Being submissive.”

She attempts a glance in my direction but immediately casts her eyes back to the floor. “I don’t know.”

“What if I was your husband, Briar? What if you trusted me enough to let me do whatever I want to you, and what if you knew that all of that would please me very much? Would you like that?”

The gentle curve of her throat moves as she swallows nervously. She deliberates her answer, almost as if she doesn’t trust it herself. But it slips through her lips regardless. “Yes.”

It rings with truth like an anthem.

“Have you ever told Caleb that?” I ask carefully as I take a step toward her, pacing around her slowly like a predator.

She shakes her head.

Reaching down, I touch her chin and guide it upward until she’s staring right at me.

Fuck, she really is so beautiful with those big blue eyes, warm and honest. Something about Briar brings me comfort, makes me feel safe, and makes me want to test her limits and play with her.

“I like your voice. I want to hear it.”

“No,” she says assertively. “I’ve never told Caleb.”

“Why not?”

“Because…it’s not that easy.”

“It’s not easy to express to your husband what you want?” I genuinely don’t understand. What is the point of marrying someone if she can’t even tell him her desires?

Briar grows flustered. “What if he doesn’t want what I want? What if he thinks it’s silly or it changes things between us?”

I crouch down to look her in the eye. Brushing her blonde waves behind her ear, I give her a soft expression. It seems such a waste to me to have a beautiful wife like Briar and never truly know what she wants because she’s too afraid to tell me. And the last thing I would ever want to do is help Caleb Goode, but I do want to help Briar.

“You know…” I say softly. “I could show you more. I could give you what you need without the sex. Without cheating on your husband.”

I’m playing with fire, and I love it. I’m offering her something that will undoubtedly infuriate Caleb. But I have a soft spot for this woman. Someone else’s wife. The wife of someone I hate.

Briar seems to lose her breath for a moment. She sways in her kneeled position, gazing into my eyes as if searching them for meaning. Then, suddenly, without warning, she scurries to her feet.

“That’s very kind of you, Dean. Really. But I can’t.”

“Briar…” I call as she moves toward the door. “Don’t go.”

“I really should. I’m sorry,” she stammers.

“Don’t apologize. If you have to go, I understand. Just think about it, okay?”

Her gaze meets mine, and I see the anxious remorse on her face. She wants what she can’t have, and I wish I could just set her free.

“I will,” she mumbles.

And with that, she’s out the door and scurrying down the steps toward her house. Even after she’s gone, I find myself smiling. I meant for that to tempt her, but I can’t help but feel like it may have had the same effect on me.