Brett initiated it.

He didn't plan to. He didn't think about it. He just... moved.

They were lying tangled in the black silk sheets after Richard had put the new collar on him — RICHARD'S MISTRESS in small silver letters against white leather — Brett's head on Richard's chest, listening to his heart slow, feeling safer than he had any right to feel in his father-in-law's bed.

Richard's hand was stroking slow circles on Brett's back, under the black t-shirt, his touch lazy and possessive. He wasn't demanding anything. He was just holding him, like Brett was something worth keeping.

That was what did it. That quiet, undemanding touch.

Brett lifted his head, his honey blonde hair falling in his eyes, his lips parted, his cheeks still wet with tears. He looked at Richard — really looked at him — not as Lance's father, not as the billionaire who'd paid five million dollars for him, but as the man who'd seen him.

Who'd washed the makeup off. Who'd held him after. Who'd called him "baby" and meant it.

And Brett wanted to give him something back. Not because he had to. Because he wanted to.

He moved before his brain could catch up, sliding down Richard's body, then turning, then settling, his head near Richard's hips, his own hips near Richard's face. A perfect, mirrored tangle of limbs in the dim light.

A sixty-nine.

Richard went completely still for half a second, his hand freezing on Brett's back. Then a low, dark chuckle rumbled out of his chest.

"Look at you," Richard murmured, his voice thick with surprise and pride. "My bold little mistress."

Brett flushed hot from scalp to toes, his face buried against Richard's stomach, his new leather collar pressing into his throat. He was trembling — not from fear, but from want, from the sheer audacity of what he was doing. Initiating. Choosing. Taking.

Richard's big hands slid down to cradle Brett's hips, holding him steady, reverent, like Brett was precious. "You don't have to—"

"I want to," Brett interrupted, his voice muffled and low and completely male, the most honest thing he'd said all night. "Please let me."

And then they moved together, slow at first, then with a growing urgency that had nothing to do with performance and everything to do with need. Brett lost himself in the bliss of giving and taking at the same time, in the overwhelming intimacy of being completely vulnerable and completely powerful in the same breath.

It was during that haze — with Richard's hands gripping his hips, with Richard's mouth warm and demanding, with his own body responding without hormones, without pretense, without Brielle — that the realization hit Brett like a freight train.

Oh my God.

Richard wasn't just Lance's dad. He wasn't just the man with the money.

Richard was the alpha. The billionaire. The one who'd built Sullivan Resorts from nothing, who commanded boardrooms, who bought penthouses and planes and people and made them all better for being his.

He'd earned it all. Every dollar, every inch of respect, every ounce of power that rolled off him in waves.

And Lance...

Brett's thoughts stuttered, his mind spinning even as his body sang.

Lance... Lance is just a...

No. He couldn't think it. He loved Lance. He'd married Lance. Lance had given him Brielle, had paid for the hormones, had loved the pretty wife.

Lance is just a... omg, loser? No, he's not. Yes, he is. No, he's not. He's sweet. He's kind. He's... he's a boy playing at being a man.

The thought was terrible and treacherous and true, and it made Brett moan into the dark, his hands fisting in the black sheets.

Richard felt it, felt the change in him, and his grip tightened, his voice a low growl against Brett's skin. "Stay with me, pet. Right here."

Brett tried. God, he tried. But his mind was fracturing.

Omg omg I love Lance... I do, I love Lance...

No. No, I love Richard. Oh my God, I love Richard. I love the way he looks at me. I love the way he holds me after. I love that he doesn't want Brielle, he wants me.

The thought was a betrayal so complete it should have stopped his heart. Instead, it set him free.

Brett cried out — a broken, sobbing sound that had nothing to do with physical pleasure and everything to do with emotional surrender — and collapsed forward, his forehead pressing to Richard's stomach, his whole body shaking.

Richard was there instantly, turning them, gathering Brett up into his arms, pulling him up the bed and cradling him against his chest, the sixty-nine forgotten, the need for comfort suddenly more urgent than the need for release.

"Shhh, baby, I've got you," Richard soothed, his big hand stroking Brett's damp hair, his lips pressing kisses to Brett's temple, to the new leather collar. "I've got you."

Brett clung to him, his face buried in Richard's neck, his tears hot against Richard's skin, his mind still chanting the terrible, wonderful truth on loop.

I love Lance. No, I love Richard. I love Richard. Oh my God, I love Richard.

He didn't know if it was Stockholm syndrome. He didn't know if it was the hormones leaving his system. He didn't know if it was the five million dollars or the collar or the way Richard made him feel like a man again.

He just knew that for the first time in months, he wasn't pretending.

He was just Brett — shaking, confused, claimed — and he was in love with the wrong Sullivan.

"Say it," Richard whispered, like he could read Brett's mind, his hand cupping Brett's jaw, forcing his tear-stained face up. "Say whose you are."

Brett looked into those blue eyes — so like Lance's, and nothing like Lance's at all — and whispered the only truth he had left.

"Yours. I'm yours, Richard."

Richard smiled, slow and victorious and tender all at once, and kissed him deeply, sealing the confession.

Outside the penthouse windows, dawn was beginning to break over Whitefish Lake.

Inside, Brett Sullivan had just given his heart to his husband's father, and he didn't want it back.…