His Contract: Legally Bound, Book 1 Read Online Free Page B

prom, Jack. Just find some clothes and put them on.”
    “Thanks, asshole.”
    “No problem. See you tomorrow.”
    Jack pocketed his phone and sighed. The liquor cabinet beckoned, seductive with its ability to drown out the past. Staying away from it was nearly impossible, but he had work in the morning, and didn’t have the luxury of showing up to his own classes hung-over.
    Forcing himself in the other direction, Jack walked down the hall and was drawn toward another vice—a door that had been closed for a long time. The one leading down to his basement, and the playroom.
    Jack laid a hand on it. Converting their basement into an apartment and renting it out was what got them through the years when he was in law school, living off Eve’s teacher salary with an infant to feed. They stopped needing the extra income by the time Josh was a teenager, and once he’d left for college Jack and Eve meandered down there, needing a different space than their bedroom to fall into their newly found roles.
    They only played on weekends, leaving behind the titles of husband and wife to become “Master” and “love”. She showed him what true submission was, allowing him to let loose his most perverse desires. When her stubborn streak came through in occasionally defiant responses, he’d discipline her by tying her up and whispering everything she liked in graphic detail until she was ravenous for him. She was able to read him so clearly, perfectly anticipating his needs, and she never needed to safeword because Jack knew her so well. He had to; he was her protector, after all.
    But he couldn’t protect her from cancer. Or death.
    She’d been willing to play after the disease hit, when the radiation made her honey locks wither down the shower drain. Apart from the gentle, easy sound of her laugh, Eve’s hair was Jack’s favorite thing about her. He’d barely been able to keep it together when the last of it fell out, or when a gentle spanking left welts on her skin that wouldn’t heal. And even then, she’d been the one to lament her failing body’s reaction.
    She amazed him every single day. How was he supposed to fulfill her dying wish when the only thing he wanted was to have her by his side again?
    He turned around and pulled out his phone. Patrick was only trying to help, but he couldn’t do this. He’d just started to dial when his doorbell rang. Jack glanced down the hallway. His niece Allegra was waving at him through the glass window by the front door.
    “Hi, Uncle Jack!” she said when he opened it. “We’re here with your dinners.”
    Out on the driveway, Samantha was pulling several tinfoil containers from the back of their Jeep. His weekly meal drop-off was often accompanied by impromptu visits from his brother’s clan.
    “That’s great. How’s the fourth grade going?”
    “Good. My spelling bee is tomorrow.” She clasped her hands together, bringing them beneath her chin. “Say you’ll come, please?”
    Relief flooded through Jack, happy to trade a night at a bar for one filled with family.
    “Of course Uncle Jack will come,” Brady said before Jack could answer, walking toward them with his other daughter, Hope, in his arms. She was six, but Brady could have lifted both his children in the same arm with ease. “That way he can’t say no to going out with me afterward.”
    Jack’s shoulders slumped. “Patrick called you.”
    “Hell yeah, he did.”
    Allegra gasped. “Daddy, you said hell.”
    “Shh,” he said as he let Hope down and glanced over his shoulder, no doubt to make sure Samantha hadn’t caught another one of his frequent slips of bad language in front of the children. “Go inside and wash up.”
    The girls stomped snow off their shoes before running down the hall.
    “So you’re in, yes?” he asked Jack. “Barrel ’n’ Flask, home of babes, beer and basketball. I can’t wait to watch Patrick work that scene” Brady’s dimples showed with his wistful smile. “The