The Absolution of Aidan (The Syndicate Series Book 3) (11 page)

I throw my hands up in frustration over it all. I’m not going to worry about any of it tonight. There’s already too much rattling around in my scatter-brained head, tugging and pulling me in every direction. Especially the man who’s entertaining our child while I’m out here pulling items out of the fridge to cook… I look down at the food in my hands. Of course it’s his favorite, my raspberry chicken. Now I’m sub-consciously as well as consciously thinking about the man.

You know what?
I say to myself.
Fuck it. I’m making it. He deserves it, especially after everything he’s done in one day to prove to me he’s going to be around to help raise our son.

I remember all too well how Aidan would praise my cooking and baking when he stayed with me. Like with everything, I need to make the chicken and maple carrots with brown butter. I begin chopping and dicing food. The feeling of having my knife in my hands is phenomenal. The smell of the spices in the air steadies my unstable mind, and I float away. Concentrating, preparing, and setting the oven and the heat on the stove. I’m so in my element that I jump when I see Aidan standing in the doorway to the kitchen, his arms spread wide, clinging onto the jamb.

“I promise to kiss you goodnight if you tell me you’re making that chicken I love.” I could totally get used to this, especially if his drop-dead handsome smile and those pulse-pounding eyes land on me every single day.

“I am making the chicken, but you don’t have to kiss me for it.” I shrug like it’s no big deal. It really isn’t. He knows from while we were trapped in my apartment last year, how much I enjoy doing this. Hell, it was the only thing that kept me from losing my mind. It was the only time we weren’t at each other’s throats.

I turn my back to him, preparing the final touches on the chicken before placing it in the oven. The heat from his stare to my backside is fiercer than the heat coming from the oven.

“Listen to me for a minute, Deidre.” He’s standing directly behind me now. I take a deep breath. He’s so close I can smell him over the scent of the spices that are engulfing my face.

“Okay,” I manage to say weakly.

“I should have asked if I could stay here instead of demanding it. The last thing I want to do is make you feel uncomfortable, especially in your own home. I’ll leave if you want me to.” Oh hell, now the man is going to be sweet.

“It’s fine, Aidan. I have to get used to it, is all.”
If you don’t move away from me though, I may spontaneously combust here on the spot.
I don’t say those words out loud. No freaking way.

“You sure?” he asks.

I turn around and stare up at him. God, he’s simply divine.

“I’m sure.” I’m not giving him any more than that. I spin back around, pick up the dish, side-stepping around him, and place it in the oven, set the timer, then turn back to preparing the carrots.

I ignore him until I know he’s left the room. Then I finally let out the air I’d been holding in my lungs, grasp hold of the glass of now warm wine, and down the rest of it.

Forty-five minutes later, the two of us are sitting down to a very tense, extremely quiet dinner, while Diesel sits on top of the table in a bouncy seat, trying his best to reach for the toys that drape across the top.

“Tell me about your pregnancy and delivery.” Aidan asks those words out of the blue. I stop mid-air with my fork half-way to my mouth.

I glare at him like he’s lost his ever-loving mind. “Seriously?” I say. Baffled.

“Well, yeah. I understand why you didn’t come back and tell me. I really do. But I want to know everything I missed.” The serious look on his face melts my heart faster than the butter melted in the pan when I made these carrots.

And this is how the rest of our first night living together goes. I tell him everything, from the first moment I woke up in my room at the retreat, to finding out I was pregnant. I even go into detail about some of my counseling, how I coped with it all. How my mom was by my side during labor. I can’t help but notice his sad expression when I tell him how it felt to hold Diesel in my arms for the first time, or that as soon as he left today, Diesel flipped himself over. Guilt claws away at my chest for not having the strength to tell him earlier. I wasn’t ready. Hell, I’m not ready for him being here. What I am ready for, though, is sharing the most precious moments of our son’s life with him.

When I glance over to our son, who’s now fast asleep, I realize none of this is or should be about me or my feelings at all. It should be about him. His needs, his life. Right then and there I know without a doubt life works in the most mysterious of ways. Sends you down a path you never thought you would go. Takes you on a remarkable journey of one day at a time. I can do this. I can let those chips fall and land where they’re supposed to. That’s what a parent does for their child. I will bury my fears, live with Aidan, and see where destiny and fate take me.

AIDAN

Staring at a woman’s plump, juicy, and tempting ass bent over a bathtub while she’s showing you how to bathe a baby is pure motherfucking torture. It’s like heaven and hell finally joined together without Satan, leaving you stuck staring at the perfect ass for the rest of your life. Tempting you to touch it. To tug it back against your aching cock. Fuck. I’m a damn pervert.

I couldn’t help myself from leaning my head from one side to the other, imagining how the symmetrical shape of her ass would feel in my hands once again. Shit, I even went as far as what her ass would feel like with my dick inside of her. I want her so damn bad.

The result of her nicely contoured lines and curves has me lying in this small bed with my dick in my hands. Right now, I’m prone to combust, and my dick is the fucking wick to ignite the goddamn flame.

The woman is incredible. I’m not thinking about just her body. It’s everything about her. The way she is with our son, the way she smells, looks, and cooks. She’s every man’s dream. I take that back, she’s
my
dream. The hard part is convincing her of that fact. I know she wants me, her body screams it. This sexual attraction between us is stronger than it was before.

I’m an asshole for demanding to stay here, interrupting her life, even though we talked for hours tonight after we both put the baby to bed. I learned more about her tonight then I did in the couple of weeks I stayed with her a year ago while I protected her.

She told me how she would love to go back to work, even if it’s only part time. Whatever makes her happy, was my response. Then she dove right in about not wanting to leave our son with a day care provider, not even her mom, who I know damn well would be more than happy to help. Nope, not Deidre. She’s bound and determined to work something out to where she can either work from home or take him with her.

The thought of her carrying my child turns me the fuck on. When she showed me pictures of her pregnant belly tonight, something inside of me caved, knowing she took care of him while he grew inside of her. I’m sorry I missed it. That’s for me to deal with, not her. She had every reason to stay away like she did. I can never fault her for that. What I can do is make life easier for her and our son.

What I need to do right now, though, is ease this sexual tension out of me before I storm into her room.

I remove the bars from my cock and place them on the nightstand next to the bed.

Bringing my hand back to my aching dick, I rub the come dribbling out of the tip, lubing up as best as I can. Stifling back the grown that wants to escape my mouth when the image of Deidre’s ass flashes in front of me, the curve of her soft hip, the soft bounce of her tits, I glide my hand up and down rigorously. The friction feels so fucking good. Deidre’s tight pussy would feel better. Hell, I know how it feels, like nothing else I’ve felt before. It’s wet, tight, and so fucking warm. And Christ, can she squeeze her muscles, draining every last drop out of me. I’ve never come so hard in my life as I did when I was with her.

“Fuck,” I roar, louder than I want to when my come squirts out of me, all over my hand and stomach. I breathe in and out, my chest rising and falling. That took less than two damn minutes. Hell, I lasted longer when I was a teenager, jacking myself off to images of my next door snooty neighbor’s older daughter.

Sitting up in the dark, I curse under my breath. I don’t have a damn thing in this room to clean up with. Fuck it. She’s in bed. Snagging my boxers off of the floor, I open the door gently, make my way to the bathroom across the hall, and quickly clean myself up.

I snag the washcloth and towel I used, shut off the light, and come to a complete halt when I hear moaning coming from her room.

Son of a motherfucker. Is she in there getting herself off? She sure the fuck is. I goddamn know it. I may have just jacked myself off to her image, but fuck this shit. No one touches her sweet pussy but me, not even her. If she’s going to come, then by god, it’s going to be me and only me who makes her.

I stalk down the hall toward her room, carelessly dropping the wash cloth and towel on the floor, including the stripped- off boxers I just put on.

Stopping outside her door, I lean my frowning forehead forward. My hand is tight on the doorknob. She’s moaning all right. I can hear her muffled gasps and the light buzzing noise from what I assume is a vibrator streaming through the thin wood separating me from her. My dick is hard once again from the sighs contorting out of her mouth, zapping straight to my motherfucking balls.

Thankful for my job and the many years of breaking into buildings, stores, and even homes, stealing people’s guns, I slowly twist the knob, step into the darkness, and shut the door without her even knowing I’m here.

All it takes is for my name to spill out of her mouth, and the words roll right off of my tongue. Thank you, Jesus for bringing this year-long fantasy to life.

“I love being your sexual fantasy, Deidre,” I speak honestly. The room is dark, but it does nothing to shield me from the all-pervading stare of her shocked face. I can picture it from where I’m standing, which is right at the foot of her bed. She. Is. Pissed. Well then, that makes two of us, and I’m about to tell her how pissed I am.

“You seriously did not just walk into my bedroom without my permission. GET OUT!” she yells.

“I’m not going anywhere. Why the fuck would you want some plastic vibrator that does a half-ass job of getting your sweet little pussy off, when what you really want is only a few feet away?” I state with pure sarcasm. It’s the truth, though. I’m all into kink. Hell, I’ll do anything in the bedroom, but for Christ sakes, there is no way in hell a plastic toy with fucking batteries can make her come like I can. I can build a damn castle with my tongue alone. She’s done using whatever the hell she’s been using. I storm to the side of the bed, reach for the light, and turn it on. Both of our eyes adjust to the light. Mine are bulging out of my head, taking in her naked body. Hers are mimicking mine when she takes me in. Fuck me hard and ride me harder. She’s more beautiful than I remember.

She shuts the vibrator off, tosses it to the other side of the bed, and then hikes her knees up to hide her pussy. One hand flies to cover her stomach, the other hand barely stretches across one of her tits. Motherfucker. Those nipples are pink and fresh, and hell, her flimsy white t-shirt does nothing to conceal her set of mouthwatering tits. I want my mouth covering them, my dick dripping my come over them after he’s been sliding in between them. God, she is beautiful.

“I…my god, Aidan. I should be mad as hell at you for walking in on me. Just leave, please. You’ve already ruined a perfectly good orgasm.” Her face is flushed red, her eyes are focused on her hand splayed wide across her stomach. I’m a little disappointed that she’s not yelling and screaming at me like the Deidre I know would normally do. I truly don’t think she could care less if I walked in on her mid-orgasm or not. She’s hiding her body from me. She’s doesn’t want me to see what I’ve already seen. Her t-shirt is hiked up enough for me to see it all.

“What if I told you I was doing the same thing you were doing?” I cock a brow and tilt my lips in a truthful smile, those words catching her attention.

“I just came all over my hand and stomach to visions of you, Deidre. Of
you
,” I emphasize. “I went to clean myself up and heard you. I won’t apologize for walking in here and taking things into my own hands.
Literally,
sweet-tart, let me take every inch of your body into my hands
.
It may have been wrong of me, but I don’t really care. What I do care about right now is the fact you’re hiding those stretch marks our baby gave you from me.” In all of my twenty-nine years I’ve never been an emotional man. I’ve never had a reason to, up until now. Up until today. This woman lying here has turned a crappy day into one I will always remember, and I’ll be damned if she’s going to be embarrassed about anything as beautiful as the marks I see on her stomach.

I do the only thing I think is right. I sit down on the edge of the bed. There are several seconds of silence between us, in the course of which I take in her body from head to toe. Then I lay my eyes upon her stunned ones.

“Do you know what I see when I look at you?” I trace a finger up her silky thigh. A smirk spreads across my face when goose bumps caress her flawless skin.

“I see a woman I want to strip naked and have my way with. I see a woman, who’s the mother of my child, a woman, who when she barged into my apartment earlier and ripped into my mother to protect me after not seeing me for a year got my dick so hard I could drill a hole through concrete with it. These,” I lift up her hand covering her stomach, the tips of my fingers tracing the lines of the marks across her soft skin. “Make you exclusively… you. A mother. Don’t hide these from me ever again. Next to you and our boy, these are the most beautiful things I have ever seen.”

I look up to her when I hear her sniffle. Pearl-shaped tears flow from her luminous eyes.

I close my eyes. Vivid memories of the last time I saw her crying flash before me, of her hanging on for dear life, of when we were both kidnapped. Her expression tonight doesn’t mirror that same one from a year ago. She’s not full of pain or sorrow, wondering if her next breath could possibly be her last. Neither is she embarrassed anymore. I’ve broken through her strong barrier this fascinating woman has shielded herself with. She screams scared, vulnerable even. And maybe a little shocked from my compassionate words.