Empty-Handed Heart

by Tymber Dalton

“Etsu! Where are you?”

  “I’m home.”

  “What?”

  “Home. No, not the apartment. Molly probably already told you I’m moving out. Not giving you my new address, either. I’m done with you. Told you, until you apologize for how you treated Aden that night, and apologize for what you’ve been doing to me my entire adult life, I’m done with all of you.”

  Her mother’s voice dropped into a tone that, a few weeks ago, would have terrified her.

  Not now.

  “You listen to me. Whatever those men have done to you has messed with your head. You are sick. You need our help.”

  “No, Mom, for the first time in my entire life, I finally feel reasonably normal. We’re done. Blocking your number now. Bye.”

  And…she did. Along with her father and brothers.

  She could always unblock them, but for now, she needed to de-stress.

  She was going to head to the shower when she heard the doorbell ring. Fortunately, there wasn’t any way to see inside the front of the house because the blinds were drawn. She peeked through the viewfinder, shocked to see her brother Hiroki standing there on the front porch.

  Shit!

  Panicked, she headed back to the master bedroom, and then into the bathroom, closing the door. There was no way to see into it from the outside, the frosted glass windows up high and providing no view inside.

  The doorbell rang again.

  She called Aden, her heart racing.

  “Hey, sweetheart. Everything okay?”

  She kept her voice low. “Hiroki’s here!”

  “What? Where?”

  “Here!”

  “You let him in?”

  “No! Duh. He’s outside ringing the doorbell.”

  “Don’t let him in.”

  “No worries, wasn’t planning on it.”

  “How’d he get my address?”

  “He’s an attorney. Probably tracked you through property tax records or something.”

  “I thought Molly didn’t have my address?”

  “She doesn’t, but she knew your name. Unless one of them followed me here one night or something. At this point I wouldn’t put anything past them.” She updated him about the conversation with her mother.

  “Good grief. I’m coming home—this is bullshit. We’ll call Ed Payne and have him file for a restraining order or something. I won’t have them harassing you.”

  “Okay.” She flinched as the doorbell rang again, followed by pounding on the door. “Please hurry, Sir.”

  * * * *

  She thought Hiroki had left, because the pounding and doorbell stopped. She’d crept back out to the living room to peek through the viewfinder.

  But then she spotted his car parked in front of Aden’s house, on the street.

  She called Aden to let him know.

  “It’s okay, pet. Keep the doors locked and stay inside. We’re on the way.”

  “We?”

  “Niall’s coming back, too. Stay calm, and wait for us.”

  Now her crazy family’s behavior was messing not only with her, but her men’s jobs.

  That pissed her off.

  She kept watch. When Aden pulled into the driveway, Hiroki got out of his car. She saw Aden, still in his car, on the phone with someone. Then Niall arrived before Aden even got out of his car, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  Until Kaz’s car pulled in behind Ro’s.

  Shit!

  She couldn’t hear what Ro was yelling at Aden, who now stood by his car and was still on the phone. When she opened the front door, Ro yelled her name and ran toward her, across the front yard.

  “Go away!” she yelled at him. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

  “Molly told us about the bruises on you. You need to let us help you.”

  Niall quickly crossed the yard to stand between Etsu and her brother. “Ye need to leave, mister. Before ye get hurt.”

  “Like you hurt her?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” she screamed. “I’m kinky! Get over it! I like to be spanked and have kinky sex! I have for a couple of years now, before I even met Aden, so grow the fuck up.”

  Kaz had run over. Her brothers stared at her, shocked. “What?”

  “You heard me. Would you like me to scream it a little louder so the people on the other side of the state can hear it? I like kinky sex! Your little sister likes to have sex, lots of it! I like fucking and being spanked. And these two damn men, gobshite here, and asshole there—”

  Niall coughed. “Eh, he’s gobshite, I’m asshole, pet.”

  She threw Niall a glare, but he was smiling.

  She hooked an arm through his. “You try to take me away from these two men, and it’s not them you’ll have to worry about—it’s me.”

  “Oh, ye’ll have to worry about us, too, mate. Fair warnin’.”

  Another car rolled up, and Etsu groaned.

  Her oldest brother, Tosh.

  Niall shifted her to stand behind him. “Bring me something from the house, love,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “The implement bag in the front room.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Whatever will help even the odds a little until the cops get here.”

  She dashed inside and the first thing she spotted was the four-foot singletail. She grabbed it and ran back outside, shoving it into his hand, which he held extended behind him.

  He looked at it, then her. “Well, this’ll make things interesting.”

  Aden was still on the phone but had joined them, standing behind Niall when he’d waved her brothers back. She hoped Aden was on the phone the cops, because Tosh tried to take a swing at him.

  Niall flicked his arm and sharply cracked the whip right in Kaz’s face, making him jump and startling Tosh into backing up.

  “Next one takes yer eye out, mate,” Niall threatened in a low, deep tone. “Last chance to leave without fancy cop bracelets.”

  Ro started to step forward, and Niall nailed him in the side of the face, drawing blood.

  “I wasn’t kidding. Back off.”

  Fortunately, before her brothers could regroup, three deputies rolled up.

  An hour later, Etsu was crying but determined and pressing charges, and her three brothers were hauled off in the back of the deputies’ cars.

  Her parents had also showed up, but after a quick consultation with Etsu, a deputy had walked over to them and warned them if they so much as set foot on the property, they’d also be arrested for trespassing.

  The deputies also asked Niall for a demonstration of his whip technique. While they had heard of a kid using a lasso on an intruder, they hadn’t seen anyone use a whip on someone.

  Once they were alone again, Niall held her hands. “For future reference, love, if I ask for a weapon, I mean something…substantial. Like a heavy metal paddle or…something.”

  Aden grinned. “You did damn good with it, though.”

  “Never bring a whip to a gun fight. Did ye learn nothing from Indiana Jones?”

  “I think you mean a knife to a gun fight.”

  “Whatever. Since our day’s shot, shall we tell her the plan?”

  Aden nodded. “Yeah.”

  “What plan?” Etsu asked.

  “Ye want to do the honors, or shall I?”

  Aden held her hand in his. “Niall and I discussed this last night after crunching some numbers. His insurance is better than mine.”

  “So?”

  “Do you really want to be with us?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. For the first time in my life, everything feels perfect.” She sniffled. “Sorry, Sir. I don’t mean that as an insult to what we had—”

  “It’s okay. I know what you meant.” He glanced at Niall, who nodded.

  “You ready to put up with us for life?”

  “Life?”

  “Please marry us. We want you to be our wife. And before you say you can’t legally marry both of us, we know
that. You’ll be marrying Niall, because his insurance is better than mine.”

  “Marry?”

  He nodded.

  She looked at Niall. “You want to marry me?”

  Even while Aden still held her hands, Niall cradled her face in his. “I’ll do it in a heartbeat, pet. Like I said, I might be a bloody idjit sometimes, but I don’t tend to repeat my mistakes. My life’s been empty without him. But the more I think about it, maybe we were meant to meet ye. Maybe happenin’ like this was for the best. So I’ll even do this right despite not havin’ a ring.”

  Niall dropped to one knee in front of her, now holding one of her hands. “Please, marry me. Let us spend the rest of our lives showin’ ye this is perfect. Ye hold our hearts in yer hands, and we’re already a family. It’s time for the three of us to move forward and set the world on fire and show people how love should be done.”

  Her vision blurred as Aden also dropped to one knee next to him, holding her other hand. “What the asshole said.” His smile faded. “You know how I’ve always felt about him. After losing him, you were the first person who made me feel not empty anymore. Now I can’t imagine life without both of you in it. Please, marry us, and we’ll make sure you never regret a second of it.”

  “So I’ll have two doctors for husbands, huh?”

  Niall smiled. “Well, PhDs, love. If that’s good enough for ye.”

  She dropped to her knees and kissed him, then Aden. “Fuck yeah, it is, Sir. It’s way more than good enough for me.”

  “That’s a yes, then, pet?”

  “That’s a hell, yes, Sir.”

  What the hell? If they still wanted her after this bullshit, like hell would she give them time to reconsider.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Etsu stood in the middle of the room, blindfolded and naked except for the leather cuffs at her wrists and ankles.

  And the leather collar, which Niall had worked with her to get her comfortable wearing, setting triggers that had quickly taken hold even faster than he’d expected, and now she eagerly begged for it to be buckled around her throat.

  Her weddings rings, the band which matched the bands both men wore.

  The captive bead ring in the shell of her right ear, a niobium one very similar to Aden’s, only hers had more pinks and purples in the coloring.

  Two weeks ago, Niall had married her at the courthouse one morning with Aden looking on. Then, after work, she’d picked them both up and they’d gone to a tattoo shop with a body piercing salon in it.

  Now Niall owned matching pets.

  Niall had her standing with her hands clasped together on top of her head, legs spread as wide as she could comfortably maintain.

  Aden watched from where he stood out of the way, collared but no cuffs, and wearing jeans and nothing else, a four-foot signal whip in his hand.

  A whip he knew very fucking well and hadn’t seen in five years.

  One that had bit into his flesh countless times over the years.

  Hello, old friend.

  Niall was also shirtless and barefoot, his cock making a noticeable bulge in the front of his jeans as he stalked Etsu with the four-foot snake whip. Once Niall had discovered how much she loved this game, he’d punted Hide and Seek to the top of the list of favorite activities he enjoyed doing with her.

  After fucking her, having her suck their cocks, burying his face in her pussy, or teaching her how to black their boots to his particular specifications.

  As Niall loved to say, he was gay, not stupid, and it was possible to love her and be in love with her and make love to her with Aden in his life.

  Would he have felt like this about her had he met her without Aden?

  Maybe not, and even he would admit it. Just like she knew sometimes it was Aden, or thoughts of him, that primed Niall’s pump when it came to performing with her. And sometimes Niall needed to play with her first before sex, something that always got him in the mood regardless of the gender of the person he played with. And Niall was happy to watch Aden play with her, too, when he gave permission.

  But Etsu was Niall’s toy now, and he always enjoyed playing with her. More than he would have ever imagined possible.

  Aden couldn’t take his eyes off them, and as Niall’s wedding band gleamed in the light, Aden also couldn’t help running his left thumb over the matching band on his hand.

  Six months ago, if someone had told him they’d be here?

  Yeah, crazy talk.

  Wouldn’t have listened, even if his heart would have wanted to.

  Happy endings didn’t happen for guys like him. They were the proverbial Charlie Browns, the football being yanked out from under him every time.

  Until now.

  This time, he got the guy…and the girl.

  And so what her last name was now Renard? That was fine with him, because so was his. Ed had helped him file the paperwork to hyphenate it to his last name, a full-on name change being more confusion than he wanted to deal with. At least this way he matched them, and didn’t have to worry about his degree or any of his CU credits or his licensing being goofed up.

  Niall let the whip hang over his shoulder and stepped in close behind her, lightly blowing into her hair and making her flinch. Aden knew the smile on Niall’s face matched his own.

  She was so much fun to play with.

  Times two, now.

  Sometimes he co-topped her with Niall, like this, as equals. Sometimes Niall topped both of them.

  Sometimes Aden started out as equals with Niall and felt himself falling into pet mode midway through the scene. Niall always let him.

  The man smiled more now than Aden could ever remember him smiling before.

  Maybe that’s what they’d needed, time apart to really appreciate each other, and Etsu’s heart and love to glue both of them back together again, this time with her at the center, making something new, something better.

  Something stronger.

  Even though they’d dropped the charges against Etsu’s brothers in exchange for them agreeing to restraining orders against them, she still hadn’t spoken to her family since that day. Etsu had unblocked her family’s numbers, but Niall had purchased her a new cell phone with explicit orders not to give that number to her family. Her mom still called and left messages a couple of times a week on her old cell phone.

  Telling her they’d forgive her if she’d just come home and promise to never have contact with “those men” again.

  Yeah, not happening.

  She’d long since finished moving the rest of her stuff out of Molly’s apartment.

  Kate had actually become a friend. She’d also ended up filing a restraining order against Ro, when he wouldn’t stop calling her and trying to get her to come back to him.

  Except Kate wasn’t dropping it. She’d already started dating again.

  Niall smiled and waved Aden in to play.

  Aden snapped her in the ass, making her yip, then giggle. As he paced around her, he glanced at Niall, loving the possessive heat in his eyes as he watched them play together.

  The passion.

  The satisfaction and comfort that their family was theirs, built on their terms, and they were happy.

  Together.

  They toyed with her for another twenty minutes before the men couldn’t wait any longer and took her to bed and fucked her brains out. Sated and exhausted, they curled up together in bed, Etsu in the middle tonight. Sometimes it was Niall, sometimes himself.

  But the one thing Aden knew was that no matter what, these two people loved him and weren’t going anywhere.

  And for the first time in his life, he had a real family who loved him and wanted him. His soul felt healed. And his empty heart felt whole and full again.

  THE END

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  ed Heart