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Caught up in his thoughts, he watched another tear escape her eye before she brushed it away. “I knew you weren’t ready for a relationship. I guess I accepted that. I kept stuffing down how I felt, so that I could be there for you.” She gulped, clearing more tears off her face. “I cared about you so much that I wanted to make you feel better and not be so sad. So I turned into what you needed me to be.”
Aidan blinked, thinking back to that time of his life. He wouldn’t have noticed she had feelings for him or that she had changed. Christ, he hadn’t noticed anything except his own pain. “Cora—”
She raised her hand. “Please let me finish.” She hesitated and he stayed silent, so she added, “Part of the problem is that you’ve always been good to me, a perfect Dom and an amazing friend. A Dom any submissive would love to have, and that used to be enough.”
When more tears rushed down her cheek too fast for her to brush away, Aidan gripped the bench tighter. His fingers twitched to wipe her tears away, but he couldn’t begin to accept that this is what had been wrong with her.
No, he didn’t want to deal with what that meant.
She continued after a long sigh, “Through all this, I forgot the hope I once had that you’d love me back. I want the Aidan I went camping with, not the Dom who touches me out of duty alone.” She held his stare, her gaze drowning in sadness. “Now that I’ve experienced the real you, I can’t have you any other way. I don’t know if that makes me selfish or if it’s wishful dreaming, but I can’t keep doing what we’re doing.”
He unclenched his fingers, resting his forearms on his knees and breathing past his knotting stomach. Never had he dreamed she sensed a difference between him in the dungeon and out of it. Nor did he want to believe that her tears on their camping trip weren’t about a problem. She had cried because he had cared for her, not out of duty but out of want. His vision blurred. “What are we doing?”
“Loving each other, but pretending we’re not. Living this act that what we feel isn’t happening or that it doesn’t matter.” She leaned up on her knees, and her mascara ran down her face. “It matters to me, Aidan.” Pressing her hand against his chest, she added, “This, in here, matters. And now that I’ve seen all of you and seen the man who isn’t shielded by his pain, I can’t take anything less.”
Say something …
He knew he needed to talk to her about this, but his mind failed him. All his Dom instincts flared to protect her, but, damn it all to hell, he’d been the one hurting her. He had kept himself at a distance, and there were good reasons for that.
Reasons he didn’t want to face.
She’d portrayed happiness in their D/s relationship. He had no idea she recognized his pain but submitted to him as a way of easing it. Fuck, she had taken care of him, and he hadn’t seen it.
“When you touched me the other night in the dungeon, it felt all wrong.” Her nose scrunched. “It was fake.” Tears flooded her splotchy face. “When we were camping, how you touched me then, I wanted that, Aidan. I need that.”
Staring at her, he didn’t see her beauty; he saw only her loving soul. How had he not known she had taken care of him these past two years? What kind of Dom was he that a submissive had buried her feelings?
She wiped her tears, and her long exhale sounded rich with exhaustion. “The saddest part in it all is I cared enough for you, I sacrificed my happiness for any little piece of you I could get. I didn’t look for another boyfriend because I waited for you. I was so desperate for you that I became okay with only getting half.”
“Cora,” he managed.
Her voice shook. “I understand, Aidan, I do. You loved once and you lost her. But I’m tired of being jealous of a ghost. Of wishing I was her, or that I was what she had been so I could make you happy.”
You don’t need to be Lily …
Before he could say as much, Cora inhaled a harsh breath. “I’m tired of waiting for you and hurting.” She hesitated. “I thought I could heal you through love. I thought that would be enough …” Wiping the moisture off her face, she added, “But it didn’t, did it? Our relationship never changed. All that changed was me.”
Aidan stretched his fingers, crippled by what she’d told him, e
ven horrified by it. Cora saw right into his pain. Hadn’t he shed those demons? She exhaled slowly and glanced to her fiddling hands. “The first year we played together, I kept hoping and wishing you’d come around and see the connection between us. Then I realized you weren’t ready, so I shut down and kept everything casual, feeling nothing. I forced myself to ignore parts of me. Now that I faced those parts, I can’t go through that again.” She pinched her eyes shut, shaking her head. “I won’t.”
When her eyes opened, mascara surrounded them. “I need for your touch to have meaning. I need to be with a Dom who wants that, too. I can’t wait for you any longer, Aidan.”
At the longing in her expression, he reached for her. “Please, Cora, come closer.”
His fingers wrapped around her trembling arm and she pushed off her knees, stepping back. “You asked me to be honest.” She lifted her chin, and her features firmed, erasing all traces of vulnerability. “You asked me to tell you what’s going on. Now it’s your turn. Do you have nothing to say?”
The warm sun above overheated his body. He couldn’t think straight, emotions clouding his mind. What she had told him made him spin. Two years they had played together. Two years she had apparently loved him. She had neither said anything nor done anything about it.
She’d shut down, she’d changed, she’d hurt … all for him. How to even process that? He’d thought she had a problem. He couldn’t accept what she’d done for him. Christ, what had he done to her?
“See.” Her eyes widened, showing the whites. “If you hadn’t gotten all nosy, things wouldn’t have changed. Now everything is different and we can’t ever go back.”
“Cora.” Again, he reached out to her. “Please …”
She recoiled and snapped, “Don’t touch me. Your touches are lies.” Her skin molted, her voice cracking on a sob. “I can’t stand it any longer.”
Aidan pushed off the bench, taking a step forward. He craved holding her, making them both feel better. His scalp prickled as he tried to find the right words to soothe her. His mind betrayed him. “Please, come here—”
