Free Keeping Karly (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) by Rachel Clark

talking. Keep asking questions. Give us the chance to work through any issues rather than trying to hide them.”
    “Can you do that, little one?” Grant asks as he cuddles me closer.
    “I’ll try,” I say as a strange warmth flows through me. I’ve never enjoyed sex, so I’m not really certain that I can give them what they want, but I don’t want to walk away until I’m absolutely sure.
    “Good girl,” Bryce says as he leans over and kisses me softly.
    “Can we make love to you now, little one?” Grant asks with a soft smile on his face.
    “N–Now?” I ask nervously. The weirdest part is that the nerves are from imagining the pleasure they might give me, not from fear.
    “We can wait,” Bryce assures me. “As long as you need, baby. We weren’t planning to say anything for at least a few more months.”
    “No,” I say a little more urgently than I’d intended. “No, I don’t want to wait.” They’re offering me a chance at a relationship I actually want. I’ve spent months dreaming that they were mine. Our friendship has suited me perfectly. If I can just learn to enjoy what they like in the bedroom we could have a great future together.
    But can my friends become my lovers when I’m carrying so much emotional baggage?
     
    * * * *
     
    Bryce could feel his hands shaking. A year and a half ago, this woman stood in a hospital corridor and screamed her frustration at him. If he’d known then what he knew now he would never have let her stay with her violent, abusive husband. He still had odd moments during the day when he wondered if he’d missed some sign, if he’d maybe not seen something right in front of him, if he should have done more to help her through her raw emotions when her sister had been so ill.
    But in the end it had all come back to one single truth.
    Nobody had known.
    Not even the sister who’d lived under the same roof for nearly five months. Karly had tried so desperately to make her marriage work that she’d stayed with a man who’d gone close to killing her.
    “Promise me,” he said as he lifted her chin with his fingers. “Promise me that you will always stay true to yourself.”
    “I don’t understand,” she said, glancing at Grant, perhaps hoping for a translation.
    “I mean,” Bryce said as he helped her to stand up, “that you will do things because it’s what you want, not because you’re frightened of how we might react.”
    “But, you want me to submit”—he didn’t miss the way she shuddered when she said that word—“in the bedroom. How can I stay true to myself when it’s what you want?”
    Grant shook his head, his amusement quite annoying, his expression clearly calling Bryce an overthinker again.
    “What my brother is trying to say is that we plan to teach you how to love and crave what we can give you. Soon, you’ll submit to us in the bedroom because it’s what you want as well.”
    It was obvious that she didn’t quite believe him but Bryce had every intention of making good on that promise.
    The happy future they all wanted depended on it.

Chapter Twelve
     
    I’m so nervous I can barely breathe.
    I’ve never actually been curious about sex until I learned the details of my sister’s lifestyle. To say I am unimpressed with my own experiences so far is a major understatement. But if getting a decent orgasm means submitting to horrifying pain with possibly deadly consequences, then seriously, life can count me out.
    But I find myself intrigued by Bryce and Grant’s proposal. What would it be like to do more than lie there as I wait for my husband to finish? I know from television and books that many women enjoy sex. Just because my early experiences left me cold, it doesn’t mean it will always be that way.
    I glance at the two men leading me down the hallway and realize I actually want so much more from this experience than I understand.
    Bryce stops at the doorway to his bedroom and turns to me, barring the way.
    “We