AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No, I’m not talking about Cora.” He averted his gaze to the rock. “I failed Lily.”
Kyler hesitated. “Failed her how?”
Aidan cleared his throat against the ache. “I was responsible for her death.” The words slid easily from his lips. A heaviness weighing him down seemed lifted, and breathing became a little easier.
“Lily died in a car accident.” Kyler’s voice softened. “How can that be your fault?”
Turning to him, Aidan noticed the wrinkle marring Kyler’s forehead. “If only it could be that simple.” If only Aidan could see it that way. If only he could forget the night that changed his life. “I placed Lily in that car. I kissed her good night, and she drove away.”
Silence fell between them before Kyler pressed a hand against Aidan’s back. “Fuck, buddy.”
Aidan drowned his sorrows with two big gulps of his beer. The crisp liquid gave a much-needed comfort to his throat. “If she hadn’t been working with me late that night, it never would’ve happened.”
“How can you think that?” Kyler asked, dropping his hand. “The blame is on the drunk driver, not you.”
Logically that made sense, but it never made sense in Aidan’s heart. He had replayed that moment thousands of times. He loathed himself every time. “I can’t look at it any other way. Believe me, I’ve tried.” The image of Lily realizing she was going to die in the seconds before the truck hit haunted him.
He should have been there.
The breeze whizzed by and cooled Aidan’s overheated flesh. With a deep, pained breath, he pushed past that memory. He admitted his weakness in the face of what he’d done to Cora. That he owed her.
Christ, he owed her so much more.
Kyler had been right that night—Aidan had asked Cora to bare her soul. He wouldn’t consider himself a man if he didn’t do the same. He couldn’t live with himself being that man. “As a Dom, I failed to protect my submissive.”
Kyler sighed with a thought expression. “Okay, I can understand that. But what I don’t understand is how this relates to Cora?”
Aidan shut his eyes as his thoughts shifted to wonder what Kyler would think of him. As he’d done before, he shut his emotions down and, for once in his life, faced his demons. “It’s not that I’m so damaged that I cannot love another woman, only always thinking of Lily. Or that I think foolishly in the face of love. I see Cora standing there. I know what we share. I’m not blind to it.”
“While it’s good you are finally admitting that”—Kyler sipped his beer, giving Aidan a long look—“I’m also not seeing the problem.”
“The problem is my need to control everything.”
Kyler snorted. “Buddy, you’re a Dom—that goes with the territory.”
It did, but that wasn’t the problem. “You don’t know how it feels to lose control with every sense of the word and to be helpless.” Aidan chugged half of his beer, his chest squeezing to restrain his roar. “I should have been there to help Lily. My submissive died because I put her in t
hat car.”
Awareness filled Kyler’s gaze and softness reached his features. “Ah, so that’s what this is all about—losing control.”
In part, though there was more to it. Sickness twisted Aidan’s gut as he dropped his head and looked to the beer bottle. “I failed a submissive once. I lost all control of a world I thought I held perfectly in check. What if I fail Cora, too? I can’t …” He swallowed deep. “I can’t hold that type of responsibility and go through that again.”
Kyler sighed, placing his hand on Aidan’s shoulder. “I hate to break it to you, pal. You’re already failing Cora.”
Weight carried into Aidan’s slumped shoulders as he retreated inward. “She never said anything before. Of course, I knew we had something special, but I didn’t realize she wanted more. I didn’t know she’d shut down.” How had he not seen her change? Why hadn’t he seen her reaching for more? “And I needed time to process all this.”
“She has shown you,” Kyler said gently. “You were never paying attention.”
Aidan couldn’t refute what was right in front of him. Looking back at his time with Cora, he had known she cared for him. He’d never been blind to their connection or that he loved and appreciated having Cora in his life. Somehow he had convinced himself that she didn’t want anything more from him. That their D/s relationship was healthy, and he gave her enough.
He’d never been so wrong.
Dullness formed in his chest, a feeling of heaviness at how much she’d shut down because as a submissive she was taking care of him. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. He was supposed to care for her. While he did believe as a Dom in an uncommitted D/s relationship he’d done right by her, the problem was he hadn’t been giving her all that she deserved.
She’d been by his side and helped him out of a dark time in his life. She’d forced him to live again. She’d made him undeniably happy. But the one thing that stopped him in his tracks was insecurity.
Was he ready to be what she needed him to be?
