A New Chapter Read online

  

  Suncoast Society

  A New Chapter

  Rom finally has his happily ever after with the sweet, handsome, snuggle puppy of his dreams. He’s looking forward to spending his future with Colton, and is especially anticipating their honeymoon week…with no interruptions.

  With Rom’s love to help heal his soul, Colton thinks he’s finally managed to put his past and the pain of his parents’ emotional abuse and abandonment behind him. Having Rom as his husband, Master, and partner for life, Colton knows he can handle anything.

  But a knock on their door one afternoon interrupts their honeymoon and sends their lives spinning sideways as a shocking and heartbreaking development from the past intrudes on their perfection. Can their relationship handle the strain of unexpected revelations and responsibilities they never dreamed possible? Or will this new chapter in their lives tear them apart?

  Genres: Alternative (M/M, Gay), BDSM, Contemporary

  Length: 25,658

  A NEW CHAPTER

  Suncoast Society

  Tymber Dalton

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  A New Chapter

  Copyright © 2019 by Tymber Dalton

  ISBN: 978-1-64243-677-8

  First Publication: February 2019

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2019 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.

  If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book or print book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at [email protected]

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  For Hubby, and for Sir. He knows why.

  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 and part-time Viking shield-maiden loves to shoot skeet and play D&D with her friends. She’s also the bestselling author of over one hundred and fifty books and counting, 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, 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.

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  For all titles by Tymber Dalton, please visit

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  Author’s Note

  This is book 91 in the Suncoast Society series. You do not have to read all the books before this one to understand the plot or characters—most of the books in the series are standalone. This book, however, picks up where You Don’t Know What Love Is leaves off.

  Colton and Rom first appeared in Numb as a Statue and You Don’t Know What Love Is. Kent, Tim, and Paul are featured in Through With Love and appear in other books.

  Some of the characters in this book appear in or are featured in previous books in the Suncoast Society series. While most of 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 can be found on the Suncoast Society series page, along with character information and other trivia, on my website at:

  http://www.suncoastsociety.com

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  A NEW CHAPTER

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  A NEW CHAPTER

  Suncoast Society

  TYMBER DALTON

  Copyright © 2019

  Chapter One

  Late Sunday afternoon, Rom lay sprawled across the couch, where he snuggled tightly against Colton’s body. Married less than twenty-four hours, he was finally starting to process everything and let it sink in that his big snuggle puppy was now officially his husband. They’d started their morning by sleeping in late, having sex, dozing off, taking a shower, having a late brunch, followed by some TV watching cleverly disguised as napping in bed, mutual blowjobs…

  And now more TV snuggling on the couch.

  “This is heaven,” Rom mumbled.

  Colton rubbed his chin in Rom’s hair. “You can say that again, Sir.”

  Come-drunk and with a full tummy from their late brunch, Rom was definitely glad they’d both opted to take next week off.

  He planned on spending it naked with his boy, probably mostly horizontal, and ignoring the outside world. They weren’t going to take a honeymoon trip right now. They wanted to save up money and vacation time—the time part more for Rom’s sake than Colton’s, because Colton set his own schedule—and go somewhere exotic.

  Or, at least somewhere that wasn’t Florida.

  On the coffee table in front of them, Colton’s cell phone started vibrating, rumbling against the table’s surface.

  “Goddammit,” Rom muttered. Being closer, he reached out and grabbed it, then spotted the shop’s name come up as the contact. “Oh, it’s downstairs.”

  He handed it to Colton over his shoulder, a flash of irritation washing through him as he did. Aunt Roberta knew this was supposed to be their honeymoon week and not to interrupt them except for dire emergencies involving flood, fire, or death.

  Well, he didn’t smell any smoke, so…

  Whatever it was she thought was so important as to interrupt their honeymoon had better be damned urgent, or he was going to get growly with her, no matter how much he loved her.

  “Hello? … Yeah, we’re upstairs. Why? … Um, wait—no, I mean—” Colton sighed as he listened for a moment. “Okay. Give us a couple of minutes though. … Because we’re not dressed, Aunt Roberta. It’s our honeymoon. We were doing honeymoon things, that’s why.” He hung up.

  Rom now felt more awake—and more irritated. “What’s going on?” He sat up.

  “I don’t know, Sir, but we need to put clothes on. She’s coming upstairs.”

  “What?” Rom knew he was p
ractically whining and didn’t care. “Whyyy?”

  “I don’t know, Sir.” He sat up and held out his hands. “Can you take my collar and cuffs off, please?”

  Rom fought his growing aggravation as he quickly removed Colton’s collar and wrist cuffs. This was the downside to living over the shop—they didn’t have as much privacy as Rom wished. On the weekends, they couldn’t make as much noise during the day as he’d like, either.

  Although it was nice, at night, being able to make as much noise as they wanted, because they didn’t have residential neighbors to hear and complain.

  They both had donned shorts and T-shirts by the time they heard the knock on their door a few minutes after the phone call.

  Rom stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, while Colton walked over to the door to answer it.

  There stood Aunt Roberta, but the anguished look on her face immediately wiped away all of Rom’s irritation as he hurried over to join Colton.

  “What happened?” Colton asked.

  She motioned to someone who apparently stood on the landing behind her, but out of their line of sight. The other person stepped in front of her, into the doorway.

  A boy who could be Colton’s younger twin stood there, his eyes red and cheeks streaked with tears.

  Aunt Roberta choked up as her hand came to rest on the boy’s shoulder. “Colton, this is your little brother, Clayton.” Her smile looked tight. “Can we please come in to talk?”

  Rom was still trying to process that, and knew Colton had to be even more deeply in shock. Rom gently grabbed Colton’s arm and eased him out of the way. “Yeah, sure,” Rom said. “Come on in.”

  * * * *

  Colton wasn’t sure he’d heard Aunt Roberta correctly, but he still let Rom move him out of the way so she and the boy could enter. “What?”

  Rom closed the door behind them. “Let’s go talk in the living room,” he said.

  Aunt Roberta guided the boy into the living room and Colton followed, his mind reeling. Sure, the kid looked…

  Just like me.

  On feet he couldn’t feel, Colton followed them all into the living room. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  The boy had started crying again, standing there with his arms tightly wrapped around himself like he’d never had a hug before. He was blond and had brown eyes—it was like looking in a mirror into the past. In fact, as if ancient scabs had been ripped from Colton’s soul, he remembered the cold, shattering fear he’d felt while on the phone with Grammy that horrible afternoon when he was twelve, sobbing so hard he could barely get the words out, when he’d called her to tell her what had happened. He’d locked himself in his bedroom, and out in the hallway his father ranted, screaming at him that he wanted him out.

  Gone.

  That he didn’t have a son anymore.

  Aunt Roberta wore a look on her face that was somewhere between grief and rage. He remembered her wearing a similar look that day twenty years ago, when she and Uncle Mike had also shown up, along with a bunch of their friends, to help Grammy move him out of his parents’ home.

  “Clayton’s your little brother,” she said. “He’s thirteen. He showed up downstairs, looking for me. He didn’t even know you were alive.”

  “What happened?” Rom asked. “How’d you get here?” Colton was glad Rom took over, because he was literally speechless.

  “He hitchhiked here from Georgia,” Aunt Roberta said. “He came out to them last night, and they threw him out.”

  “Shit,” Colton muttered.

  He watched her swallow back rage. “I need to get back downstairs, because we have a full store down there, but you two need to…talk.”

  Colton’s brain finally engaged and he stepped over to the boy, his arms open to him. “Come here, buddy.”

  Clayton started sobbing as Colton engulfed him in a hug. The boy was thin, like he’d been at that age, and nearly six feet tall, looking years older than he was. He was nearly two inches taller than Rom’s five-ten.

  “What the hell is wrong with those people?” Rom asked as he wrapped his arms around both of them.

  “I don’t know,” Aunt Roberta said in a dark tone. “But I’d sure like to beat some sense into both of them.”

  The boy was crying too hard to talk, so Colton and Rom stood there and held him, waiting him out. After a couple of minutes, Rom guided them over to the sofa and then went to the kitchen. He returned moments later with a box of tissues and a glass of water.

  “Here, drink this,” Rom said, offering him the glass after the boy blew his nose. “Have you eaten?”

  The boy shook his head as he gulped the water. “Not today,” he said, sniffling. “I was too upset.”

  “Oh, this is my husband, Rom,” Colton said.

  The boy nodded. “Nice to meet you.”

  “His bags are downstairs,” Aunt Roberta said. “In the office.”

  “I’ll come down and get them after we get some food in him,” Rom said.

  She nodded. “I’ll come back to check on you boys in a little while.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Roberta,” Rom said, seeing her out.

  Colton knew he should be talking, saying something, but right now all he could think to say were a lot of expletives.

  Rom returned. “Do you have any food allergies?” he asked the boy.

  Clayton shook his head. “No, sir.”

  Colton bit back the urge to laugh, because the boy—

  My brother

  —wouldn’t understand what he found so funny.

  Or that it was due to borderline hysteria trying to break through.

  Rom’s brown gaze met Colton’s. “I’ll make him something to eat,” Rom said before he headed for the kitchen.

  Old rage washed through Colton as the sniffling boy leaned over, curled into a ball, his head in Colton’s lap, where Colton stroked his head.

  “I’m sorry,” Clayton said, sniffling. “I didn’t know where else to go. I didn’t have any friends there. Mom handed me a piece of paper with this address and told me to come live with Aunt Roberta.”

  “No, you don’t need to apologize. You’re safe now, and you’re home.”

  The boy’s chest hitched as he talked. “They told me I was going to hell, and I could either take it back or I could get out. I grew up thinking you were dead. That’s what they told me growing up—that you had died. Mom screamed at me that I was exactly like you. Dad told me that they threw out one gay son, and they wouldn’t hesitate to throw out another one for it. I didn’t know you were alive until I got here and Aunt Roberta just told me.”

  Horror replaced rage. “They told you I was dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Motherfucker,” Colton muttered. He heard the microwave running in the kitchen, and the scent of food wafted out to them. “No, I’m obviously not dead. I was twelve when they threw me out. Do you have any other brothers or sisters?” He was still trying to process this was his little brother.

  “No.”

  “How did you hitchhike here from Georgia?”

  “We live in Valdosta. Not far over the state line. I met a lady truck driver and she took me to Tampa, and hooked me up with a friend of hers at a truck stop there who brought me to the exit for Venice on 75. He paid for me to take an Uber here.”

  “Jesus. Well, obviously, you’re safe here. You’ll have to sleep on the couch tonight until we get Rom’s bed out of the storage room and I clear out the office bedroom so you can have it as your bedroom.”

  “I don’t mind.” Fresh tears started. “I still can’t believe they threw me out. And I can’t believe they lied to me about you being dead!”

  “Yeah, well, they won’t believe it when I show up on their doorstep.”

  Clayton shook his head. “Please don’t make me go back there.”

  “I have to go, buddy. I need to get your stuff.”

  “I don’t care about it. I didn’t have much. Last time we moved, they made me get rid of most
of my stuff, sold my toys, and they haven’t had a lot of money to buy me new clothes. I hate that church they joined. They give most of their money to it.”

  Another wave of rage washed through Colton. “Well, we’ll still need to get papers signed to give me custody of you, regardless. Right now, I don’t have any legal ability to take care of you.”

  Someone rang the buzzer downstairs, at the back door that opened onto the hallway where the stairs going up to the apartment lay.

  “I’ve got it,” Rom said from the kitchen. He walked over and hit the intercom. “Yeah?”

  “Rommy, it’s me and Ina. Roberta called us.”

  Colton exchanged a glance with Rom before Rom buzzed them in.

  “That’s Rom’s older brother and sister-in-law,” Colton told the boy.

  Rom opened the door and they quickly rushed in, Ina leading the charge. After introducing them, Colton realized Ina was bound and determined to basically mother Clayton. She plopped down on the couch on the other side of the boy, her arms around him and comforting him as he started crying again.

  Rom brought over a plate of food and took the empty glass so he could refill it. “We’ll need to talk to Ed first thing tomorrow morning and find out what we have to get for him.” Ed Payne was their attorney, a man they’d met through Venture and the Suncoast Society. He’d drawn up their new wills for them, as well as a prenup agreement the men knew they’d never need but Rom wanted it to protect Colton and the shop, no matter what.

  “You realize I’m going to Georgia with you guys, right?” Chad said.

  “We’re all going,” Ina said. “Mom can watch the boys for us.” She looked even more enraged than Aunt Roberta had. “I want a little chat with those…people. I want them to look me in the eyes and explain to me what fricking kind of mother throws her children out, and in what Bible verse Jesus told her that was okay. Then I want to punch her in the snoot and remind her to turn the other cheek.”