Empty-Handed Heart [Suncoast Society] (Siren Publishing Menage Everlasting) Read online

  Suncoast Society

  Empty-Handed Heart

  Aden aged out of Florida’s foster care system. He built a life, bought a house…and fell in love with Niall, a blue-eyed Irish Dom who owned his heart. When Niall got a job in California, he took Aden’s heart with him.

  Niall regretted his move, but thought Aden would follow. Five years later, Niall’s back and wants to reclaim what’s his—Aden. He doesn’t expect to run into Aden while teaching erotic hypnosis at a fetish convention. He wasn’t expecting Aden to have gorgeous Etsu on his arm. He damn sure wasn’t expecting to save Etsu’s life in a malfunctioning elevator.

  Etsu grew up smothered by a crazy-overprotective family and her asthma. With Aden, she can finally be herself. She can’t help fantasizing about Niall and Aden together, or how sexy it’d be writhing in pleasure between them. The question is can they make this work, or will her family succeed yet again in driving away her chance at happiness?

  Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre

  Length: 51,560 words

  EMPTY-HANDED HEART

  Suncoast Society

  Tymber Dalton

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  EMPTY-HANDED HEART

  Copyright © 2018 by Tymber Dalton

  ISBN: 978-1-64010-928-5

  First Publication: February 2018

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2018 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

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  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  This one’s for Trish and Bill, Mark, and Steve. Because while the true elevator story wasn’t sexy at all, their shared experience helped birth the plot bunny the reimagining became. Love all of you guys! (Sorry you got stuck in an elevator, but yay, I got pics of the hot firemen rescuing you and a book out of it. LOL)

  Additionally, thanks to Traci Kanaan for the guidance on hypnosis. Any errors are mine, not hers.

  Also for Hubby and Sir. Always.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tymber Dalton is the wild-child alter-ego of author Lesli Richardson. She lives in the Tampa Bay region of Florida with her husband (aka “The World’s Best Husband™”) and too many pets. Active in the BDSM lifestyle, the two-time EPIC award winner is also the bestselling author of over one hundred and twenty-five books, including The Reluctant Dom, The Denim Dom, Cardinal’s Rule, the Suncoast Society series, the Love Slave for Two series, the Triple Trouble series, the Coffeeshop Coven series, the Good Will Ghost Hunting series, the Drunk Monkeys series, and many more.

  She loves to hear from readers! Please feel free to drop by her website and sign up for her newsletter to keep abreast of the latest news, views, snarkage, and releases. You can also find all of her Siren-BookStrand releases under all four of her pen names on her author page on the BookStrand site.

  Honest reviews are always welcomed. They help with a book’s visibility and can boost its placement on book retailer sites. Even a few lines about what you felt reading the book will help. Thank you so much, it’s greatly appreciated!

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  For all titles by Tymber Dalton, please visit

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  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  The start of this book overlaps a little chronologically with the end of Almost Gothic, which also briefly introduces Niall. While the books in the Suncoast Society series are standalone works which may be read independently of each other, the recommended reading order to avoid spoilers and to not miss any backstory information is as follows:

  1. Safe Harbor

  2. Domme by Default

  3. Cardinal’s Rule

  4. The Reluctant Dom

  5. The Denim Dom

  6. Pinch Me

  7. Broken Toy

  8. A Clean Sweep

  9. A Roll of the Dice

  10. His Canvas

  11. A Lovely Shade of Ouch

  12. Crafty Bastards

  13. A Merry Little Kinkmas

  14. Sapiosexual

  15. A Very Kinky Valentine’s Day

  16. Things Made Right

  17. Click

  18. Spank or Treat

  19. A Turn of the Screwed

  20. Chains

  21. Kinko de Mayo

  22. Broken Arrow

  23. Out of the Spotlight

  24. Friends Like These

  25. Vicious Carousel

  26. Hot Sauce

  27. Open Doors

  28. One Ring

  29. Vulnerable

  30. The Strength of the Pack

  31. Initiative

  32. Impact

  33. Liability

  34. Switchy

  35. Rhymes With Orange

  36. Beware Falling Ice

  37. Beware Falling Rocks

  38. Dangerous Curves Ahead

  39. Two Against Nature

  40. Home at Last

  41. A Kinkmas Carol

  42. Ask DNA

  43. Time Out of Mind

  44. Happy Valenkink’s Day

  45. Splendid Isolation

  46. Similar to Rain

  47. Happy Spank Patrick’s Day

  48. Fire in the Hole

  49. Pretzel Logic

  50. This Moody Bastard

  51. Walk Between the Raindrops

  52. Rub Me Raw

  53. Any World That I’m Welcome To

  54. Heartache Spoken Here

  55. Roll With the Punches

  56. See You Sometime

  57. Borderline

  58. A Case of You

  59. Reconsider Me

  60. Never Too Late for Love

  61. Blues Beach

  62. Happy Spanksgiving

  63. Our Gravity

  64. Friends in Common

  65. Almost Gothic

  66. Empty-Handed Heart

  Some of the characters in this book appear in or are featured in previous books in the Suncoast Society series. All titles available from Siren-BookStrand.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Author's Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

 
Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Landmarks

  Cover

  EMPTY-HANDED HEART

  Suncoast Society

  TYMBER DALTON

  Copyright © 2018

  Chapter One

  “How are we doing this morning, Mrs. Garcia?” She was Aden’s first patient that Wednesday morning.

  The octogenarian glared up at Aden from her wheelchair. “Fuck you.”

  He didn’t let it faze him. “Still in pain, I take it?”

  “Yes, I’m still in fucking pain. When is that supposed to stop?”

  He realized he’d reached up and was playing with the niobium captive bead ring through the upper shell of his right ear. It was something he sometimes found himself doing without thinking. “You just had your knee replacement surgery six weeks ago. It’s normal to still have some pain at this point in the recovery process.”

  “I can’t play bocce ball sittin’ on my ass! And don’t tell me yes, I can, because no, I can’t. My aim sucks sitting or using a damn walker. I already tried. Our team is supposed to go to regionals in three weeks. What can you do for me by then? I don’t want to lose to those idiots from Bradenton just because of my knee.”

  Her granddaughter, who drove the active and feisty eighty-six-year-old to her appointments, silently smirked as she studied her phone. She’d learned to keep her mouth shut and her head down and let her abuela vent.

  So had Aden. He didn’t take it personally. It was no coincidence that the PT in physical therapy was often referred to as physical torture.

  Mrs. Garcia wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last patient to swear at him, either. Although she was certainly the oldest female patient he’d had use such salty language in clinic.

  By the time he finished his session with her nearly an hour later, he sort of felt he’d like been run through a woodchipper.

  If she acted like this now, he could only imagine how take-charge she’d been earlier in her life. Before her granddaughter left with her, she pulled Aden aside.

  “Mom asked what kind of cookies you all like, because she said you’re going to earn alllll of them.”

  He laughed. “Whatever she’d like to make would be awesome, thanks.”

  He had enough time to write up his report before his next patient was due. They weren’t all as entertaining as Mrs. Garcia. Most of his patients today were mundane, ranging from surgery recovery to stroke recovery to injury recovery, with one diabetic foot amputation learning to walk on a prosthetic leg, and ranged in ages from early twenties to mid fifties. He didn’t usually do pediatrics because it wasn’t his specialty, although he’d had to fill in for one of their pediatric therapists in their practice a couple of times, and had seen some older kids.

  Aden had worked for the rehab clinic for nearly eight years now. He was one of the more senior staff members, and had finally earned his doctorate last year.

  PhD, not MD, and he didn’t make people call him “doctor”. Also meant he had more managerial duties. They were run by a physicians group that operated several clinics around the Suncoast region in a variety of specialties.

  It was good work, and he enjoyed it. It never got boring, he helped people and improved the quality of their lives, and he made a decent living in a field that would provide him with relative job security even if he had to leave his current employer for some reason.

  It’d allowed him to buy a house. He’d interned with them during college, and they’d hired him at the end of his internship when he’d first graduated. Then they’d worked with his class schedule as he’d earned his doctorate.

  Thus for the first time in his life, he’d had a permanent home of his own. After a childhood spent growing up in the foster care system, and then aging out of it, he couldn’t put a price tag on what that stability meant to him.

  He…couldn’t.

  He had a good job, he owned a home, his relationship with his girlfriend, Etsu, was going well, and in general he had few complaints.

  While there remained a six-two, blue-eyed hole in his heart where his dreams had once lain, he did his best to wake up every morning, the same as he had every day for the past five years, and pointedly ignore it.

  * * * *

  On his way home from work, Aden stopped by Publix to pick up groceries. Etsu was coming by later for dinner and hopefully playtime. She had to stop by her parents’ house first, since she’d been putting them off and had blown off a family dinner over the weekend that had resulted in her mother guilt-tripping her.

  The playtime wasn’t guaranteed tonight, either. It depended on how she felt.

  Maybe someone else wouldn’t want to be bothered with her emotional and physical baggage, but he came into their relationship with plenty of his own. He found Etsu to be a sweet spirit, always willing to try things, with complete trust in him.

  Maybe too much trust, and perhaps a bit misplaced, but he desperately didn’t want to let her down. She’d helped soothe his heart and the ache in his soul, the first person he’d opened himself up to emotionally since…

  He tried not to think about him.

  And she was so different from him that Aden wasn’t reminded of that pain every time he looked at her. They’d been dating for six months now.

  She’d eagerly taken to hypnosis, too. Super-easy to put into trance. With it, he’d been able to help her mitigate some of her anxiety, as well as amply the sensations she felt during their scenes without him having to play as hard with her.

  Aden was pretty sure he loved her. Lately, he’d been thinking about asking her to move in with him, except he hadn’t met most of her family yet. Etsu was roommates with her brother Tosh’s sister-in-law, Molly, sharing an apartment, and had been for three years after Etsu finally convinced her parents that she needed to move out and be on her own.

  It also meant Etsu couldn’t so much as sneeze around Molly without it almost immediately getting back to Etsu’s parents. Having sex there was out of the question. The one time Aden had tried to spend the night there, her mother had suddenly shown up and stayed until the wee hours, making it plainly clear she wasn’t leaving until Aden did despite Etsu repeatedly asking her to leave.

  He’d opted to be gracious and defer to the woman, hoping maybe it would earn him brownie points.

  It apparently hadn’t.

  Etsu had later reamed Molly a new one for ratting her out. Etsu was thirty-one, not seventeen, for chrissake. Then, the first several times Etsu had spent the night at Aden’s, her mother kept texting and calling until Etsu finally, firmly, told her mom she was turning off her phone.

  Likewise, Etsu had to be extremely careful in the days after they played if she had marks. Aden wouldn’t put it past her parents to call the law if they saw strange bruises on her.

  He’d met one of Etsu’s brothers, Hiroki, or Ro, as Etsu called him. At thirty-six, he was the third-youngest sibling, and four years older than Aden. The three of them had lunch one afternoon several weeks earlier.

  It hadn’t…gone well.

  Aden sensed the guy hated him on sight. While Aden appreciated the level of protective love, it was annoying to be painted with whatever brush the man was using, and likely had something to do with the way Aden’s introduction to their mother had happened.

  Didn’t help the guy was an attorney.

  Etsu had warned Aden going into this that her parents and three older brothers were overprotective. Her family’s antics had tanked every relationship she’d ever tried to have. They pointed out to her the fact that the men had broken up with her proved they weren’t worthy of her, and that they’d been right to not like them.

  All while completely ignoring their role in the me
n rightfully wigging out.

  Maybe that would have been a honking red flag to other guys, but from Etsu’s health history—including several asthma attacks that had sent her to the hospital—he understood it. That, and she was the baby, the only girl with three older brothers.

  So this time, she was taking her time and not rushing to introduce Aden to all of them.

  Aden had spent eight years with a sadist.

  Another five mourning the man’s departure.

  Her family was a bunch of rank amateurs compared to what he’d been through. He could damn sure wait them out.

  Choosing not to pressure Etsu—because pressuring her would stress her out—he’d opted to wait before taking things farther with her than he already had in terms of a relationship. Bide his time.

  Wouldn’t deny to himself it meant he didn’t have to address his own emotional issues or think about him. That metaphorical grave could remain undisturbed indefinitely.

  Wasn’t like Etsu was pushing for more right now, either. They were dating, she was his submissive, and things were good. Molly had stopped ratting out Etsu to her mom every time she slept over at Aden’s, although she’d still text the woman if she thought Etsu wasn’t feeling well.

  Obviously, Etsu had never told Molly about her involvement in BDSM. No way in hell would her family stand for that, and it was something Etsu loved and needed.

  Ironic that I had no family and am now dating a woman whose family is practically glued to her.

  More irony? He would love to have a close relationship with her loving, extended family. It killed him to be excluded from family gatherings and holiday events, except he’d never tell her that. Didn’t want to add to her stress and guilt over it. She was handling things as best she could, and he got it.