The Club Sin Series 4-Book Bundle (30 page)

Cora's sensual screams slammed into his soul.

Her uncontrolled quivers made Aidan have no choice but to follow her release. Heat roared up his spine, causing him to thrust faster.
Only I fuck you this good. Only I cause you to scream with such force. You only come this hard for me
.

His muscles strained and he gritted his teeth, pumping his hips with the full force of his strength. She went wild around him, and her convulsions squeezed him so tight that, without warning, his cum shot from his cock.

He roared with every pulse of his climax.

When he crashed into a state of breathlessness, Cora leaned her head against her bound arm, panting. He kissed along the line of her spine, drawing the saltiness against his tongue. With a final slide of his lips against her shoulder blade, enjoying the shuddering of the aftereffects of her release, he withdrew his cock first from her heat and then his thumb.

With wobbly legs and aching muscles, he approached the tray. He removed the condom with a tissue. Then he cleaned his thumb with an antibacterial wipe. He never took his gaze off her as he drew up his pants and pulled up his zipper.

He settled in next to the pole, and Cora's gaze held his. Trapped in a soul so loving, a frigid emptiness stuck him hard in the chest. What had he done that made Cora unable to talk to him?

Where had he gone wrong?

A hundred questions flashed through his mind as he removed the rope from her wrists. Free from the bindings, she wobbled on her feet, and before she dropped to the ground, he gathered her in his arms.

Unexpected emotions gripped him and his heart swelled when she leaned in to him. He didn't care what he needed to prove to himself during the scene. Or that he needed with desperation for Porter to see her explode under his touch.

His focus remained on the sweet woman in his arms. He stared down into her glossy gaze, knowing one undeniable truth: He couldn't endure this distance between them. “Are we okay, Cora?”

She gave a dozy grin. “Yeah, sir, we're okay.”

Dinner at the sports bar, Mickey's, on the Vegas strip had been a tradition of the Club Sin Masters. Nothing was off-topic for discussion as they drank beers and ate great pub food. Since Club Sin Master Kyler Morgan had to work a late shift for the force on Wednesday, the night got switched to this dreary, rainy Monday evening.

The dark clouds matched Aidan's mood. His workday had never felt so long, but it'd kept his mind off Cora. Now all his troubles with her flooded his mind. Wishing to be somewhere else, he watched Porter devouring his chicken wings.

The newest addition to their evening hadn't been his idea, it'd been Kyler's. Though Aidan didn't mind Porter on a personal level, sitting with the man who had gotten Cora to open up when Aidan couldn't didn't improve his day.

Aidan ate another bite of his prime-rib burger and looked at the large flat-screen displaying the football game. Even his favorite team played like shit. He wiped his face with a napkin and then drowned the heaviness in his body away with his cold beer.

Atop wooden stools in front of a thick oak table in the center of the bar, the loud noise in the pub washed over him, not nearly equaling the chatter in his mind. With Dmitri next to him, and Kyler beside Porter, Aidan grabbed a couple fries before dipping them into ketchup.

As he ate, he looked to Porter.

What was it about him that Cora trusted so much? Why could she talk to him the other night, when she couldn't to Aidan? Porter had been with her for a year. Aidan had dominated her for two years.

He tried not to allow jealousy to consume his thoughts, but he also couldn't push away the burn in his veins. He brought Porter in to help Cora because he had failed to find out the real reason behind her pain. It didn't mean he had to like it.

He didn't like it.

He fucking hated it.

“Instead of glaring at me,” Porter grinned at him, “why don't you just get it out, and then you can actually enjoy yourself tonight?”

Aidan looked from Porter to Dmitri to Kyler, who all smiled at him. Apparently, his emotions showed on his expression. He had never intended for this to get so messy. He liked Cora happy and content. He wanted her playing in the dungeon free from all reservations. Each time they played it relieved him when he made her smile more sincere.

Now it seemed he wasn't helping her at all.

His Dom instincts called to fix that issue, and fix it now. Rubbing his tired eyes, he faced reality that the choice didn't belong to him. As a submissive, Cora needed to submit and bare those thoughts to him. And she hadn't.

He couldn't stand simmering in the unknown any longer. “Is she in trouble?” he asked Porter.

“Honestly?” Porter shrugged. “I don't know.”

Still dressed in his cop uniform from the afternoon shift, Kyler took a sip of his cola, since he'd refused to drink a beer in his uniform. His messily styled light brown hair dangled over his forehead. “She seems like the same old Cora to me.” His blue-green eyes cut to Aidan, twinkling with their usual mischief. “From what I've seen, she's acting more annoyed with you than anything else.”

Aidan agreed. She was annoyed at his questions, but Kyler didn't know Cora like Aidan did. She and Kyler were close friends and had been since she'd joined Club Sin. But if Kyler thought she was fine, then he didn't know her all that well.

Even as Aidan looked to Porter, he noticed the creases in Porter's brow, a telling sign Porter thought along the same lines as Aidan. “Continue,” he said to Porter. “Tell me what you think.”

Porter wiped his mouth with his napkin as his gaze drifted to the football game and one of the teams scored. “She's hiding something.”

Dmitri dropped his finished chicken wing into the basket and asked, “What?”

“That's not for me to tell.” Porter grabbed the ketchup bottle, adding more onto his plate. “I'm not sure if it's a problem, so to speak, or if Cora will sort it out in her own time.”

Aidan straightened on his stool.
“Hrmph.”

A deep chuckle had Aidan glancing to Kyler. Even with the smile, Kyler held a powerful presence. In the cop uniform, it was only amplified. Kyler said, “You seem awfully invested in this. Why don't you just listen to her and leave it alone?”

Under the all-too-knowing stare of Kyler, Aidan narrowed his eyes. More than once Kyler had pointed out Aidan's attention to Cora. And more than once Aidan pointed out that he cared for Cora as a friend, nothing more.

He was her Dom, for fuck's sake. Of course, he gave her attention.

As Cora was tired of saying
I am fine
, Aidan was equally as exasperated with saying they were only friends. He didn't want a committed relationship. He didn't know how many times he could possibly defend that. “You know it's not like that between us.”

“Yeah, I know,” Kyler muttered.

Porter studied Aidan, giving him a look. Whatever Porter planned to say, he clearly didn't, since the intensity in his features softened. He finally said, “One thing that did surprise me, it's not like Cora to play so casually.” He looked to Dmitri. “When we broke up it was because she wanted to find love.”

“When she first joined Club Sin, she did play with others.” Dmitri's gaze zeroed on Aidan. “Now you've been with her almost exclusively, yes?”

Why did that feel more like a lesson than a statement?

His journey with Cora had been a natural progression, but he had only played with her for the last year and half. Even though there were new submissives joining Club Sin all the time, Cora gave him what he needed, as he did for her. Why search out a new play partner when he already had it great? He rubbed the back of his neck. “Only me for the last little while.”

“Wonder why that is,” Kyler scoffed.

Aidan's fists clenched on top of the table, preparing to respond with
Shut the fuck up
. He and Kyler were close, and Aidan always thought their relationship mirrored that of brothers—brothers who disagreed often. That closeness usually meant Kyler voiced his thoughts when others wouldn't. And Aidan was a second away from taking his frustrations out on Kyler's pretty-boy face.

Before he could spit out a word, Porter interjected, “It's a shame she hasn't found a Dom to love her. She deserves that—she's a good woman.” After taking another bite of his chicken wing and as he chewed he said, “I won't get into details with what was said between us, but I will tell you that it has nothing to do with me or our past.”

Aidan frowned.

The
past
grated on his last nerve. He had no reason to be so uneasy to hear and know that
Porter had once dominated Cora. Or that he had, at one time, shared her bed. Aidan's head could explain it all away, but deep inside him, it wasn't easily ignored.

He glanced to his beer bottle and spun it in his hands. Through the time that had gone by he knew how close Cora and he had become, but it bothered him to know that she had been closer with someone else. That she acted different with Aidan than she would with a boyfriend. With Porter, she was more open and felt safe to admit her deep emotions.

Porter added, “To me, she seemed like the same sassy spitfire she's always been.”

Aidan narrowed his eyes and restrained himself from punching the mouth that uttered those words.
Terrific
. That was exactly what he needed—a lesson from another Dom about the submissive he'd played with for two years.

He knew who Cora was, he liked who she was.

He also knew she was in trouble.

So what was he missing?

Aidan lifted his beer to his mouth and swallowed back four deep gulps, shaking off the rise to his body temperature. As he lowered the bottle from his mouth, Dmitri said, “Cora will face this—just give her time and support her. She is not a woman who runs from a problem. You know this about her.”

“Yeah, I do.” Which is exactly why he couldn't stand this; she wasn't acting like herself. He gazed at the men he respected around him, and he also knew why none of them would understand. They hadn't seen that sadness in her gaze, that misery that he had sympathized with. He'd lived that pain he'd witnessed in her and drowned in that hell for so long.

If Porter hadn't caused that agony in her, what caused it now? How could something so dark haunt her? And what brought it up that night with Presley? It hadn't been about a collar, of that he was sure.

Now he knew it had nothing to do with Porter.

Which had been exactly why he'd asked Porter to come to Club Sin; he was eliminating every plausible reason for her pain. Needing to rule out his remaining suspicions, he turned to Porter. “Tell me this, is it something from work, her family, anything at all to do with her past?”

Porter hesitated. “No.”

So it was something in the present. What the hell was it? Aidan stared at Porter, his insides vibrating that her old Dom knew what troubled her now. He pushed away his plate,
losing his appetite, and started thinking up excuses to leave.

Kyler sipped his cola and then said, “Have you considered that you might be the problem and that it has nothing to do with
her
?”

The men around Aidan froze unnaturally. Aidan glanced from face to face, finally landing on Kyler. “Me?”

“Yes,
you
,” Kyler said in a stern voice. “Perhaps you are her problem.”

“I already asked her that,” Aidan said through clenched teeth. “She said it was not about anything that I had done to her.”

Kyler arched a brow. “Maybe it's what you haven't done.”

“Kyler,” Dmitri said slowly.

“What?” Kyler growled. After one look at Dmitri, he drew in a long, deep breath and his voice lost its heat. “I'm just saying that have you ever considered that maybe she is lying to protect you?”

Protect him from what?

Aidan's nostrils flared, heat rising to his face. “Have you talked to her about this?”

Kyler shook his head. “Nope.”

“Then shut up,” Aidan all but spat. “I played with her on Saturday and there was no hint that she had an issue with me as her Dom.” He jerked his gaze to Porter. “Did Cora tell you that it was about me?”

Porter was drinking his beer and exchanged a look with Dmitri before he lowered his bottle. “Cora talked to me privately. I will not break that trust between us.” He gave Aidan a hard look. “You need to ask her.”

Aidan considered that answer. If it wasn't about Aidan, then he didn't doubt Porter would have just said so. But he hadn't, had he? What in the fuck had Aidan done to her? He regarded the men around him. No one would look at him, and he wondered why. They all seemed to be protecting Cora. As if they all knew some secret he didn't. As if she had told them and sworn them to secrecy.

For the first time since he joined the lifestyle, he cursed the very fact that Doms held a level of respect with others that kept private thoughts private. “Do you all know something I don't?”

Dmitri lifted his gaze to Aidan's, his eyes searching Aidan's. “We know she cares for
you and that you care for her. That is not the question. But as to what's troubling her, Aidan, I can only guess.” He placed his hand on Aidan's shoulder. “Porter is right. You need to talk about this with her. It's not our place to get in the middle of this conversation.”

Kyler sipped his drink and then banged the glass against the table. “Besides, Cora doesn't belong to you. If you're so worried about her, let me have her for a little while and I'll let you know. Maybe if I see what you see, we can figure out how to help her overcome it.”

Aidan drew in a sharp breath. He'd gone to Porter for help for Cora, but if any of the Club Sin Masters thought about jumping in to help, they'd have to get through his fist first. He pressed his hands against the table and stood, glaring down into Kyler's face. “Not. A. Fucking. Chance. Buddy.”

“Ah, what a shame.” Kyler tipped his glass toward Aidan with a knowing grin. “It's selfish of you not to share a sweetie who you're not committed to.” His eyebrow arched at Aidan's trembling hands. “And look at that, he's turning into the Hulk, ready to smash something.”

Aidan's lips flattened, his forearms flexing. “Wanna be that
something
?”

“Hmmm…”
Kyler tilted his head, then grinned. “I think I'll pass.”