Empty-Handed Heart

  Immediately, Aden pumped his hips and slid his cock deeper into her mouth. As she sucked him, it only took him a couple of thrusts before his balls emptied and she was swallowing every drop of hot cum flowing from him.

  He rolled onto his side, catching his breath, as did she. When he finally got turned around, he pulled her into his arms to cuddle. “Better?”

  “Mm-hmm. Yes, Sir. Still wish I had marks.”

  He nuzzled her shoulder. She let out a squealing moan when he bit down, hard, before letting go and kissing it. “How about a couple of those?”

  She giggled. “I guess I can deal with that.” She loved it when he got bitey, and those marks were always easy to keep hidden from Molly.

  If it wasn’t for the fact that she couldn’t afford the apartment on her own, she’d ask Molly to move out, now that she was away from her parents’ house. But on her salary, she’d have to downsize into a much smaller apartment in a complex that wasn’t a fraction as nice. And, unfortunately, working a second job wasn’t possible. She’d tried it before she’d moved away from home, hoping to earn more than enough to leave, and the stress had triggered an asthma attack so bad it’d landed her in the ER.

  And had led to another year’s worth of trying to fight her overprotective parents to let her move out of their house.

  She hated feeling so damn vulnerable. She wanted to stand on her own, but with her family eager and willing to smother her at the slightest sign of a struggle, it was…difficult.

  Aden was the first guy who’d never tried to use her for her family’s wealth, or got frustrated over their hovering. He was a sweet, self-aware sadist who took pleasure in helping her. Maybe it looked like small things to someone who didn’t know her, but they were big things in the difference they made in her self-esteem and sanity.

  All the more reason she hoped to one day meet Ren. If for nothing else than to thank him for teaching Aden everything he had, and helping her in the process.

  And, yeah, for the hot and sexy fantasies of watching the two of them together.

  Chapter Four

  Aden couldn’t deny the gut-twisting tension settling like a rock in his intestines. It was difficult to intimidate him, considering his childhood, what he did for a living, and his personal pastime, but he wouldn’t deny he felt fucking intimidated. Just a little. More because of his worry about how Etsu would handle her stress than about himself.

  It didn’t help that Etsu told him they never liked anyone she took home to meet them, which was why she’d put off doing this. She was already convinced they’d hate him, but that part didn’t seem to faze her in the slightest.

  That was something, he supposed.

  Although he wasn’t sure what.

  And he wasn’t sure if it was a good what or a bad what.

  She was more concerned about how their reactions would impact him, if it’d make him change his mind about her, no matter how he’d already assured her it wouldn’t.

  He thought about his countless hours of easy and pleasant conversations with Da, as he still called him.

  I need to call him. He hadn’t talked to the man in several weeks, he was ashamed to realize.

  That evening, Etsu had come to Aden’s house straight from work to shower and change, and they were riding together in his car. Her plan, because she wanted one less potential weapon against Aden. If he left, she would leave because she rode with him.

  She hoped it might make them behave themselves and not run him off.

  He wasn’t sure how solid that plan was, but it made her less anxious to think that way, meaning he’d go along with it.

  Her parents lived in an older, high-end country-club subdivision in the University Park area not very far north of University Parkway. He knew she’d grown up with money, which had been one of the reasons she’d had difficulty breaking free of home. Her overprotective parents had thrown every excuse in the world at her to stay, including bribing her by offering to buy her a new car, or send her back to college and pay for it so she could get a four-year degree.

  All three of her brothers were professionals—Hiroki was an attorney, Kazumi was an engineer, and Toshiro was a biochemist.

  Etsu had only gone to two years of community college to study bookkeeping. She’d had no interest in a higher degree, had wanted to start working and earning her own way. Studying and taking tests were stressful on her, which triggered anxiety and panic attacks, which, in turn, triggered her asthma. No way in hell did she want to subjugate herself to that for four years.

  Aden understood her rationale and respected her for it, that she was self-aware enough to know what she wanted and didn’t want in her life.

  Still, it meant her family was bound and determined to try to take care of her, even when she didn’t want to be taken care of.

  To prove herself to them that she wasn’t some fragile little trinket to be kept in a glassed-in china cabinet.

  Some of her efforts had backfired epically. Yet, she persisted. Moving out had been a huge victory for her.

  Aden could see her family’s side of things from the point of view of someone who longed to have that kind of love.

  All he had was a birth certificate, custody papers from the state, and two very old sets of arrest records for his birth parents.

  He had no idea if they were still in jail, or where they were, or if they were even alive or not.

  He honestly didn’t care.

  Not anymore.

  “Thank you for driving, Sir.”

  He patted her thigh, lacing fingers with her when she curled her hand around his. “Try not to call me Sir in front of them.”

  She took a deep breath, nodding. “Right. Good plan.”

  “This will be okay. They won’t scare me off. I’ve been through a lot.”

  “You haven’t been through them,” she muttered.

  She told him the gate code to punch into the small kiosk at the subdivision’s front entrance. His Hyundai wasn’t new or fancy, but it was paid for, ran, and looked decent.

  Still, passing driveways filled with Lincolns, Mercedes, Jaguars, and other high-dollar cars, it was hard not to feel self-conscious as he followed her instructions until they turned into their driveway.

  He had to park at the end, behind a brand new Escalade with clear-coat so shiny and perfect it could have been a mirror. Their single-story house had a towering entrance and a manicured front lawn, with exquisitely arranged spotlights in the landscaping casting impressive shadows along the stuccoed front walls.

  Game face. You can do this.

  He’d opted for khakis and a button-up shirt and tie, and his mind flashed back to the night Ren had taken him to introduce him to Ygor for the first time.

  He hadn’t felt a fraction this nervous.

  Like maybe he was going to puke any second.

  After getting out and closing the door he pinched his left hand with his right thumb and forefinger, in the fleshy webbing between his thumb and first finger.

  I can do this.

  He reached up and fiddled with the ring in his right ear before rounding the car to help Etsu out.

  Kim Faulk opened the front door before they’d even made it all the way up the walk. While Aden spotted her smile for Etsu, her gaze turned hard and cold when it settled on him. She gave her daughter a warm hug, shooting him another set of daggers while in Etsu’s embrace. Her smile faded when she finally shook Aden’s outstretched hand with the briefest of squeezes before dropping it like a dead carcass.

  “Aden.”

  “Mrs. Faulk, thank you for—”

  “Everyone’s inside.” She turned and headed in.

  He hoped his smile didn’t slip as he looked down into Etsu’s panicked green gaze.

  He gently placed a hand against her back. “After you, sweetheart.”

  * * * *

  Etsu had felt varying levels of terror throughout her life. Part of her rational mind understood these were the lies anxiety told her.

&nbsp
; Except tonight’s terror was very real and present and not some mixed up signals in her brain’s biochemistry.

  It was due to her mom opting to start off shifting straight to bitch mode, bypassing the lesser gears of coolly polite, indifferent, passive-aggressive, and hostile.

  Etsu carried the gift bag holding their gift for Toshiro, an expansion pack for Cards Against Humanity and a Starbucks gift card for fifty dollars. Coffee and sarcasm, two of his favorite things. Having just turned forty-five, he was fourteen years older than her and had always taken up arms as her protective big brother.

  To an annoying and mostly unwelcomed extent.

  When they walked into the living room, where all three of her brothers and their wives or girlfriends were gathered, everyone turned.

  She forced the smile, which wasn’t difficult since she was used to doing it with her family. “Hey, everyone, I’d like you to meet Dr. Aden Lopez, my boyfriend.”

  She’d opted to use the doctor title, even though she knew if she’d asked Aden ahead of time he would have nixed it. He didn’t like to put on airs and didn’t even have people use the title for him at work.

  He raised a hand and smiled. “Hi. Nice to finally meet all of you.”

  Her mom’s chin tilted up as if reappraising him. “I didn’t know you were a doctor.”

  “PhD. I’m a physical therapist.”

  “Oh.”

  Etsu practically shoved the bag at Tosh, giving him a quick hug before darting back to Aden’s side to hook her arm through his. “This is my dad, Yukio.” She pointed at her father and brothers and their others as she introduced them. “Tosh, his wife Hannah. Kaz, and his wife Georgia. And you met Ro, and that’s his fiancée, Kate.”

  She’d been in warmer walk-in freezers. “It’s nice to meet you,” Aden said. She stepped forward with Aden when he went to offer his hand to her father first to shake, but her dad slipped his hands into his pockets.

  “Took you long enough to find the time to meet us,” her dad said.

  “Okay, I’ve literally had enough of your BS,” she snapped, shocking herself most of all. “I’m the one who kept him away, okay?”

  “Why would you do that?” her father asked.

  “Why? Seriously? You’re already acting like massive jerks to him and you ask me why?” At least her brothers’ others had the decency to look slightly embarrassed. “Did you all ever stop to think that the common denominator with all my exes is that they broke up with me after meeting all of you?”

  Aden moved to hold her hand, gently squeezing. “Honey, it’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not okay!” She felt the tension in her chest winding up, the cough that wanted to break free.

  Then Aden was cupping her face in his hands, his thumbs gently stroking her cheeks, his sweet brown eyes filling her vision. “Sweetheart,” he quietly said, “I need you to take a long, slow breath for me.”

  She did automatically, giving in, wanting this, wanting him. Wanting the peace and safety and serenity she felt with him. Her parents and brothers loved her, sure.

  Except they were loving her into a lonely existence that would kill her spirit even as they tried to keep her body alive.

  She was aware of her parents and brothers starting to step in but she ignored them, focusing on Aden, the feel of his thumbs stroking her cheeks, a deeply ingrained trigger he frequently used on her when she was close to the edge of anxiety or a panic attack. He couldn’t stop the asthma attacks due to allergies triggering them, but more often than not if he caught it in time, he could calm her before panic or anxiety started one.

  “Good. Take another. Breathe in…breathe out…”

  The tension in her chest began to ease and she could swallow back the tickle that no longer wanted to turn into a wheezing cough. She let him send her deep into a trance, aware the others were there but no longer caring. She never completely lost herself with him when he put her into a trance, but she trusted him and it was easy to let the world disappear, her brain recording things around her but her attention not actually on them.

  Her total focus on Him.

  “Everything’s calm, sweetheart,” Aden said. “Everything’s fine.” His thumbs lightly caressed her cheekbones. “We’re just talking. Everything’s relaxed.”

  She was aware of her mom now within arm’s distance, and didn’t miss how Aden subtly side-stepped, making her turn with him, and blocking her view of her mom.

  “I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart,” he quietly said. “I’m right here, with you, and you can breathe easily, so relaxed, everything’s fine.”

  She took another breath, long and slow and, yes, air coming in, flowing out.

  “I want to go home,” she said, barely able to remember not to call him Sir.

  “We came here to have dinner with your family, sweetheart. We’re going to have a nice dinner with them. Everything’s fine.” He lightly skimmed his hands down her face, her neck, over her shoulders, down her arms, until he held her hands and squeezed, gently but long. “Everything’s…fine.”

  She took one last long breath and closed her eyes, the familiar routine a comfort.

  He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “How do you feel?”

  She opened her eyes. “Tired, Sir,” she whispered. She was not allowed to lie about her health, and she wouldn’t start now.

  He moved her over to the couch and sat her at one end. Before he could sit next to her, her mom slid in and plopped down.

  Aden didn’t release her hands yet. “Why don’t you talk to your mom, sweetheart?” He squeezed once more and let go, stepping back and watching her.

  He’d no sooner let go than her mother grabbed one of Etsu’s hands.

  “What’d you just do to her?” her father asked.

  Aden’s voice rose to conversational levels, but his calm tone didn’t change as he maintained eye contact with Etsu. “We’ve been trying hypnosis to help with her anxiety and panic attacks. It helps her not need her inhaler as much.”

  “She never told us that.”

  “She didn’t feel a need to.”

  Dread certainty hit her.

  This is not going to end well.

  Chapter Five

  Aden knew he had two choices, to be a dick and spin her around and load her in his car and leave, which he knew was what Etsu wanted, or to man up and ask that age-old question he’d become more than familiar with over the past five years, but especially in the time he’d been with Etsu—What would Ren do?

  Ren would act charming and smile and pretend these people weren’t pretentious arses, and make it look like there wasn’t a damn thing wrong so he could keep her calm.

  That’s what Ren would do.

  And it was what he’d do, too. If he let her, she’d hide from her family rather than confront them. Confrontations usually led to her having an asthma attack from anxiety, which reinforced her family’s arguments as to why she needed them, and made her doubt herself.

  The cycle repeating every time she’d tried to stand up to them.

  Maybe they weren’t meant for forever. Maybe this wouldn’t last. But he wouldn’t be one of those past guys and stress her out and bolt on her just because her family had confused love with smothering and unhealthy involvement in her life. They wanted her to remain codependent to them, and she’d been struggling to break free.

  If nothing else, he wanted her to have coping skills that would help her throughout her life.

  He absolutely knew if they were to last long-term, if he left with her right then, it would forever drive a wedge between him and her family. Maybe they hated his guts just because, but he’d be the bigger man and know that he didn’t give them a legitimate reason to hate him.

  “I told you they were going to be like this,” Etsu said, pulling her hand free of her mom’s grip. “You all always act like this when I bring a guy to meet everyone.”

  “We love you and want what’s best for you, honey,” her mom said.

  “Then
you should accept the fact that I’m thirty-one, Mom. I’m an adult who can make decisions for herself.”

  Her mom grabbed her hand again. “But you don’t seem to understand how sick you are! You always try to push yourself and do more than you need to.”

  “Uh, hello! Thirty-one, not ten. And I’m not sick—I have asthma. I live with this and so far have managed pretty well.”

  Okay, so maybe he couldn’t charm them the way Ren could. Didn’t matter what Ren felt on the inside. Ren could be nearly sick with anxiety and no one would ever know it, except sometimes him. And only because Ren had let him see it.

  He was no Ren.

  “I’m thirty-two,” Aden said, hoping to take their focus off Etsu for a moment to give her time to process and regroup. “I own a house, I pay my bills, I have a good job helping people. I don’t kick puppies or steal Amazon packages off people’s front steps. I love Etsu, and I’m not sure what more you people want from someone. Is anyone ever going to be good enough for her?”

  “No,” Ro’s fiancée snarked, glaring at the man. “Frankly, I’m impressed you’re still here. You should have heard how they were talking before you arrived, taking bets on how long it’d take them to run you out of the house and whether or not you’d break up with Ets now or after you got home.”

  “What?” Etsu said, standing and forcibly peeling her mother’s hand off her again.

  Ro looked like he wanted to strangle his fiancée. “Kate, this isn’t your business.”

  “Uh, yeah, it is. If this is how you treat him behind his back, how do you guys treat me behind mine? I’m not part of this family yet.”

  Kate glared at the other two brothers. “You two were in the kitchen joking how you’d like to send him out of here with his tail between his legs.” She pointed to Georgia and Hannah. “And you two, going along with it like it was nothing. This poor guy’s not in the house one damn minute and you’re all acting like jerks!”

  Ro grabbed her arm and yanked her to him. “Shut up, Kate.”