“No,” she shouted with her bright red cheeks. “I’m done listening to you talk but saying all the wrong things. No more, Aidan.” She took another step back and her chin quivered. “I can’t fucking take it.”
She paused, and at his silence, her shoulders dropped. She covered her face with her hands, letting out a cry so consumed with misery that ice laced Aidan’s veins. He fought to breathe and stepped toward her, but, in that same second, she turned and ran toward her car.
The cemetery spun around him and blurred his vision. He battled against himself. Go after her. Yet his body held no strength to follow her. Demons buried in his soul pinned him to the spot. He turned to the tombstone.
Lily Hartsworth
She walked in beauty.
A longing so intense ripped through him and stole his strength. He dropped to his knees, unable to draw air into his lungs, and pressed his hands against the soft grass below. Reality smacked into him like a freight train hitting at full speed.
The pain Cora had seen developed the day he’d buried Lily, and it was still there. He’d thought he’d overcome it. But he hadn’t beaten his demons …
They had consumed him.
Chapter Twenty-one
In the four days that had passed since the cemetery, Cora had immersed herself in work. She had received dozens of texts and telephone calls from Presley and Kenzie. Cora had told them pieces of what happened with Aidan but left off the fine details.
She needed to accept what this all meant before she could spell it out to someone else. She had to cry before she could even think. Aidan had crushed her that day at Lily’s grave, and Cora wasn’t ready to talk about anything just yet.
Though she wanted time to process, she promised she’d let them both know tonight in the dungeon what happened between her and Aidan. After the first dozen conversations, both friends let her have the time she asked for. They’d checked in daily, giving her strength. But all that seemed to matter to them was that she was okay, and Cora was slowly pulling herself back together.
While she had locked herself away from the world, she wasn’t foolish, nor was she naïve.
Life was tough.
She was tougher.
Just because two people were so right together didn’t mean a relationship was good. Mentally she accepted this, but her heart ached as if shards of glass cut into her. She’d given Aidan two years of her life. Over the past nights she’d sobbed away her pain as she’d dealt with his dismissal. A life without Aidan was upon her, and she had finally accepted it.
In the dungeon and facing the night she’d dreaded, the erotic scenes didn’t capture her attention. Cora didn’t want sex, she needed her friends. Two of her closest came to her rescue the second she entered the dungeon. She needed to admit to them what happened, so she could, in fact, face the reality of it all herself.
As she sat with Presley and Kenzie on the couch in the far corner of the dungeon, she’d told them what had happened at the cemetery. Even though she had reconciled it, she still couldn’t believe she’d misread Aidan. It wasn’t that she thought he didn’t care for her, it was that he couldn’t move beyond Lily’s death—that’s the part she’d totally misread.
He didn’t want to get over it. That couldn’t be helped. And she’d be an idiot to stick around and be hopeful anymore. The conversation at the cemetery told her all she needed to know—to wait for him any longer would only hurt her.
With a long sigh, she looked from Kenzie to Presley. “I stood there in front of him”—she glanced to her hands—“and told him exactly how I felt. He said … nothing.”
“Nothing at all?” Presley asked.
Cora lifted her head, giving a halfhearted shrug. “Barely a word.”
As a pair of Doms strode by Kenzie, she gave them a wave before she flicked her strawberry-blond curls over her shoulder. “I think it’s good that you finally told him how you feel.” Her brows rose over her sparkly hazel eyes. “How we all knew you felt.”
“I just can’t hide from it anymore.” Cora lifted her chin. “I couldn’t stand him touching me in the way he used to. I needed it to be real—hell, I needed that and more from him.”
Presley regarded her with a long look, fixing the lacy shoulder strap of her lingerie. “You deserve more.”
Cora tucked her hair behind her ear. “I thought he couldn’t admit his feelings because of Lily. I thought he wasn’t ready, but I was wrong.” The memories of him letting her leave sent goose bumps down her arms. “He’s only acting as my Dom. He doesn’t want anything more than a D/s relationship.” She looked from Presley to Kenzie. “Who knows, maybe that’s why I haven’t said anything. Maybe I always knew he didn’t feel the same way.”
Kenzie crossed her long legs, which were covered in black stockings attached to a garter belt. “I don’t know about that. You probably shocked him when you told him.” She squinted, her eyes searching Cora’s. “Everyone knows Master Aidan has an intense connection with you. I mean, really, it’s so obvious. You play only with each other.”
While Cora couldn’t deny the connection, apparently everyone, including her, had misread it; his actions spoke volumes. “It’s been four days since we talked. The shock should’ve worn off by now, so why hasn’t he come to talk to me?”
Kenzie and Presley frowned.
“Exactly,” Cora muttered.