Authors: Stacey Lynn
I hadn't been able to sleep. I didn't want to close my eyes and have this night end.
Maybe it was stupid, but right then I was enjoying being a little bit stupid.
I felt the muscles in Aidan's jaw begin working as he moved, and sucked in a sharp breath when his jaw brushed against the top of my head.
“He wanted you for me.”
I tensed. From my shoulders down my back to my toes, I felt every muscle go tight.
“What?” I choked out.
“Derrick.” His hand on my hip tightened, and then he moved his thumb back and forth slowly. I didn't know if he knew he was doing it, but that small gesture sent sparks flying to my core, not too far from where his thumb was still moving.
Yeahâ¦this was stupid.
“Told me to ask you out, don't know how many times, but he did. Kid was always on me about the single moms who threw themselves at me, and he thought it was nasty and stupid. Said you were pretty and nice and you'd be better than any of them.”
I couldn't name the emotion that filled me as he talked quietly, his thumb the only movement on my body. Part of me lit up in elation with the realization that he
had
been flirting with me the past couple of years, and that he'd talked about me. That all those nights among our friends or at Fireside, where I thought I saw a spark of interest, I wasn't wrong. The other part began to slowly wither. Because now it all made senseâthe reason he stopped by my house that first day or came over, or why he kissed meâhe was doing what his son wanted.
He was hanging out with me because Derrick had wanted it.
It had nothing to do with me or him or him needing me in order to get over his grief, or whatever fairy tale I'd created in my head.
God, I was such a fool. I shifted my weight, unclasping my hands to push away, suddenly needing my spaceâa whole lot of itâwhen he stopped me.
He turned his head and his eyes met mine.
His eyes flicked to my lips then back up.
“My whole head is messed up right now, my life is messed up.” He blinked, and I watched all his pain, so clear on his face, harden him. “But he wasn't wrong about you.”
As if that said everything, he leaned forward and brushed his lips across my cheek.
I pushed against his chest again, despite wanting to lean into the feel of him, as everything he'd said finally registered. I had promised him whatever he needed, and despite knowing that whatever he gave me would be good, I couldn't be used again. Not like this.
Cory might have made me feel like a half a woman when he left, but he hadn't taken my self-respect.
I turned from his lips on my cheek, pressing against his hands slowly sliding up my back, and ignored the goosebumps that followed in the wake of his touch.
My mind spun with questions and I settled on one. The only important one. “Am I just a place holder?”
“What the hell does that mean?” he growled.
With a quick grunt and a roll of his hips, he pinned me beneath his muscular frame. This time it was his legs that straddled my hips and he instantly rocked into me.
I tightened beneath him. Despite the sudden change in his emotions, he was still delicious. It took work to remain focused on my concern.
“Am I, you know, holding a place right now in your life because you don't want to be alone?” He silenced me with a glare.
“Stop it.”
“You just said you're here because of Derrick, Aidan.” I shook my head, tried to figure out how to explain my concern. “I can be your friend. I can help you and be there for you. But I can't be used, not in this way.”
“Shit.” He flopped onto his back, pulling me with him until I was once again pressed against his side. One hand held me against him while his other hand draped over his eyes. “God, that's not what I meant. It's not even okay that you think thatâ¦that you think that of yourself, or that that's the kind of man I am. I don't use women, Chelsea.”
He dropped his hand from his eyes. With his narrowed, serious eyes holding my gaze, his voice so tight with tension, I felt his honesty pour from him.
His eyes searched mine, flicking back and forth between them, and I knew he could see my conflicting emotions there. The desire to trust what he'd just said over his earlier words. The mixture of lust and doubt. Fear.
I hesitated to speak. He seemed to need a moment, and when his fingers began sliding beneath the waistband of my pajama bottoms, I forgot what I was going to say anyway. It was tantalizing, mind-numbing, fire building.
“When Derrick was a kid, I always pushed him. Pushed him to do better, to do more, to try his hardest and then try harder. I wasn't being a dick, but I told him that life's too short for regrets. I wanted him to experience everything he could and enjoy the hell out of it. I wanted him to study as hard as he could so someday he could have his choice of schools. I wanted him to work harder at sports so he could find his passion and pursue it.”
My throat burned as his voice cracked. I waited in silence, assuming he wasn't done talking but needed a moment to gather his thoughts. He twisted and rolled onto his side.
“Life's too short to live with regrets. That's what I told him, and yet for years I refused to go after what I wanted. Maybe todayâ¦tonightâ¦earlier, I don't even know when, I started thinking about that. How I'd pushed him to go after what he wanted, drilled these life lessons into his head, and at the same time I've been holding back on what I wanted.”
His hand lifted, and he pressed his fingers to my temple before pushing back my hair. His eyes followed the movement, softening in a way I hadn't yet seen.
“Aidanâ”
“I'm so fucked up, Chelsea. So broken, damaged so much that I'll never be the same man I once was. I have no fucking clue what I'm doing most days anymore and I'm not lying here, making promises to you. I'm saying that I've wanted you, that Derrick wanted you for me, and that I'm tired of sitting back, not living in the way I preached to my son. I don't want to be a hypocrite, I want to live for him. Doesn't mean I want you because he did. Doesn't mean I'm here because he would have liked it, but I can't say it doesn't bring me some semblance of peace to know that he's looking down at us right now, fucking thrilled for me.”
A burning ignited in my throat and tears dripped from my eyes. I cupped his cheek with my palm and whispered Aidan's name, unable to say anything else.
In a moment, he'd shattered my heart with the way he spoke of his son and erased my doubts about what he was doing here.
I dipped my chin, pressed my forehead to the base of his throat, and let him hold me while we both lost control of our emotions. Tears silently slid down my cheeks while his shoulders trembled. When I was able to inhale a shaky breath and stop my tears from falling, I pulled back.
He rolled us again, pressing his weight into me. I felt him everywhere. The strength of his shoulders while my fingers wrapped around them, the warmth and width of his hips. His erection he didn't seem to feel the need to hide. The way his legs pressed against mine as he settled between them.
“I don't have anything to give anyone and I don't know when or if I will, but being around you, you giving me what I need, which sometimes is just another breath in the room when I want to punch the hell out of everyone and everything I seeâ¦that helps. I wish I would have done something soonerâtaken you out properly or some shit, but I didn't. And I didn't give Derrick the chance to see me with you, giving him something he wanted that he thought would be good for me.”
Holy crap.
My breath stalled inside my chest and then leapt at my rib cage like it was going to jump free.
“I want to be with you, Chelsea. I've always wanted that. You help in a way my friends can't, but besides that, I just like being with you. I can't make promises about where this is going because it's too soon. That doesn't mean I don't want to see where it can go.”
“I want that, too.”
He dropped to his elbows, his hand went to my hair, and he tugged it gently. Playfully.
“We good now?” he asked, one eyebrow arched in question.
A smile tipped the edges of my lips and I looked up. “We're good.”
I was better than that. Everything he'd said washed away my nerves and my fears, and I couldn't ask for more than the honesty he'd just laid out there so blatantly, so easily. He gave it to me, unrestrained, despite the pain I knew it brought him to talk about Derrick.
His eyebrows pulled in really quick before relaxing. Tension faded from his eyes and his lips did the same thing mine had just done.
He smiled. It was small and it was faint, but it lit up the entire room, because Aidan smiling was one of the most fantastically beautiful things I'd ever witnessed.
“Pretty inside and out,” Aidan whispered. “My son had good taste.”
I thought of all the things Derrick was good atâsports, his kindness, his smiles, his grades, the friends he chose. Everything. Derrick was just good and kind.
“He had a good heart, too,” I murmured, my throat clogged with unshed emotion that I refused to let choke me. “Just like his dad.”
This time, Aidan didn't move slowly or hesitantly.
His hand gave another tug on my hair, his head turned close to me, and his lips pressed against mine.
I felt it burn in my veins down to my toes until I felt myself squirm against him, needing to get close to him, but I stopped myself.
It was just a kiss.
When he pulled back, Aidan dropped his hand from my hair and moved it back to my hip. He readjusted us so we were lying the way we'd been at first, my front to his side, my head on his shoulder, and he sighed.
“Sleep.”
He commanded it as if I had no choice but to listen and my eyes would simply close based on his voice.
He was not completely wrong. After several moments, my eyes began to feel heavy. His breathing evened out beneath me, and just as I began to fall asleep, I did what I'd wanted to do since I'd first been pressed against him.
I moved my hand and draped my arm lightly across his stomach. His muscles tightened and rippled for a brief second before he relaxed.
It felt wonderful. Perfect, really.
And then my eyes grew heavier and I drifted to sleep, with Aidan snoring lightly by my ear, and even though I was half asleep, I knew I fell asleep with a smile on my face.
After reaching over to silence the beeping next to the bed, I immediately tucked back into the warm wall of Aidan's frame behind me.
My body pulsed with warmth and need as I shifted against him, feeling his erection pressed against me.
I needed to get out of there. Last night, a wall between us had been dropped, but with the way he was holding me, tightly against him, I could feel all of him, and it felt so good.
“Um,” I whispered. “Aidan.”
His thigh shifted and he pushed against meâintentionally.
“Quiet.”
My mind swirled in early morning fog and lust. “We need to get up.”
His hips jerked. His erection pressed against my back at the same time his arms pulled me closer. Not that it was possible, I was already plastered to him. “I already am.”
Oh my. A laugh escaped my lips. He was joking. About that? My mind dipped straight into the gutter. The pressure of his thigh grinding and pressing against my groin, his coarse leg hair scratching the sensitive skin between my thighs sent sparks of pleasure to my sex.
“Aidan,” I warned, once again trying to move away. “I need to get ready for work.”
“Not today,” he grumbled. His head dipped and shifted until his lips were on my skin.
I froze as he began tasting me. Tiny flicks of his tongue that felt like flames heating my skin. Everywhere he kissed began to burn and I pressed against him, relishing the hardness of everything that was Aidan.
Still, I didn't want to move too fast, not so soon after last night's revelations. We could take our time. Be on sure footing before moving forward.
But man, did I want it.
“Aidan,” I warned again, my voice losing its seriousness. My hands moved to his in order to separate us. He didn't let me. Instead he wrapped my hands in his. They practically disappeared under his palms. “Time for work.”
“Not today,” he said again. This time with a tone. A tone that didn't bode well for his attitude and one I had recognized last night when he came over. He didn't want to talk. “Stay with me, and let's pretend today doesn't exist.”
I frowned. “We can't.”
“I sure as fuck can.”
With that angrily growled response, he let me go, turned, rolled off the bed, and was out the door to my bedroom before I could sit up.
The slamming of the bathroom door made me jump and I scrambled out of the bed, following him.
What the heck?
I grabbed my robe and was in the kitchen when he came out in the same clothes he'd worn over the night before, minus the bag.
I learned it only had a toothbrush in it and some other essentials, but it didn't contain clothes.
I glanced at him, my mouth opening to ask him if he was okay, when he raised a hand and silenced me.
“Later,” he snapped in an unusually gruff tone.
Whether he was saying see you later, or we'd talk about it later, I had no clue. I also had no time to even ask him before the front door was slamming closed behind him. I was at the door, opening it, when I heard the growl of his truck's engine and then the squeal of his tires as he pulled out of my driveway.
“What the hell just happened?”
I muttered it to myself on the way back to the bedroom, wondering if I'd somehow offended him. But that couldn't be right. We'd gone to bed, at peace, deciding to move forward.
I tried to shake it off while I was in the shower, but it was impossible.
Even when I got to school, I felt the same sense of foreboding all around me. It hung in the air like a thick, invisible fog, weighing me down all day.
I was missing something.
Something important and something that would change everything.
Yet I had no idea what it was.
“I'll be there, I promise,” I told Suzanne into the phone. It was lunchtime and while I didn't usually answer personal calls on my cell during the day, I knew my friends were concerned about my own lack of communication lately.
My run with Camden yesterday showed me that I'd been so in my own head, lost in trying to fix men I didn't even really know and had no business trying to fix, that I'd dropped my friendships.
Again. Admittedly, I had done the same thing when I'd found out I wouldn't be able to have kids, and when Cory walked away. Apparently, when difficult things happened, I turned into a turtle and curled into my shell.
Not that that was surprising; I always tended to shrink back from attention anyway.
When I saw Suzanne's name light up my cellphone, I didn't want to cause her more worry. Which was why I agreed to meet her at Fireside Grill for a pitcher of margaritas and chips and salsa on her.
How could I say no to that?
“See you at seven then,” she sang, because Suzanne was all happy all the time. Someone I really needed to spend time with. “Don't be late.”
I smiled into the phone after she disconnected. Suzanne telling someone not to be late was laughable. It was common knowledge among our group that if you showed up for plans with Suzanne and were five minutes late, you were still at least five minutes early.
As the day went on I tried to look forward to the night out. A night filled with laughter and margaritas and kicking back and relieving my stress.
I needed it. I needed to remember that there were still good things happening to the people in my life, the people I loved more than anything, and who had been there, supporting me since I'd known them.
Yet as hard as I tried, I couldn't shake the dark feeling growing inside of me.
As I got ready to meet Suzanne, I just hoped that laughing with her and drinking too much tequila could help me shake the creepy-crawling feeling I'd had following me all day.
“I didn't expect to see you here,” I told David with a grin as soon as I slid onto a barstool. “I thought you were just visiting.”
He didn't look like he was visiting. He looked like he'd made himself completely at home, working behind the bar at Fireside.
David smiled. It was an easygoing grin and one that I was certain had the power to melt panties if he wanted to.
But while he was handsome, with dark blue eyes, and nicely cropped blondish-brownish hair, it did nothing for me. I was particularly fond of a man who embodied tall, dark, and sexy-as-hell.
“Thought I'd stick around for a while, help Declan out. Be here for Aidan.”
I nodded and tapped my fingers on the bar. “You talk to him much?”
David narrowed his eyes, shot me a look filled with confusion. “I thought you did.”
“I do.” I nodded quickly. “Sort of. I don't know. We don't really talk much when we're together.”
Oh my god. I didn't mean that. My cheeks burst with heated embarrassment.
“Not what I meant,” I said, looking to the front doors, silently begging Suzanne to appear.
“No,” David said, his head dipped, and he stared at me until I brought my eyes back to his. “I thought you spent the day with him.”
My head jerked back. “What?”
That creepy-crawling feeling I'd had all day slithered down my spine, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
I rolled my shoulders, trying to get it off me. “Why would you think that?”
His eyes instantly narrowed, his jaw tightened, and he pushed off the bar, pointing a finger at me. “Don't go anywhere.”
I was stunned into silence. My lips twisted in confusion as he hopped the bar counter and barreled into the kitchen like a linebacker.
I was certain I'd managed one blink when David returned, crashing through the double swinging metal doors, and Declan was quickly trailing behind him.
He wiped his hand on a greasy-looking white apron, and when they reached me, Declan's hands flew to his hips.
He was intimidating. Large, muscular, with dark olive skin and a shaved head that I knew was that way because it made him look badass, not because he suffered from early hair loss.
One of the reasons Suzanne and Paige always wanted to come eat there was because of Declan, so they could ogle the beautiful man. We now knew he was also incredibly patient and protective, since he'd saved Trina from her abusive ex-husband and brought out a sassy side to the southern beauty, all while he made her feel safe for the first time in her life. He wasn't just large, he also had a massive heart. I thought Declan kicked ass.
Now his jaw and throat were lined with black five o'clock shadow, and I almost stopped breathing when his black eyes narrowed on mine.
He looked pissed. Panting-like-a-bull-in-front-of-a-red-cape pissed.
“Um.” I looked to David. His expression wasn't that much different, just less
I could kill you with my bare hands
scary. “What's going on?”
Declan leaned forward. “You didn't spend the day with Aidan?”
“No.” I replayed the morning in my head, the joking about getting up, the way he'd wanted to stay with me and then turned arctic when I'd told him I couldn't. “He wanted me to but I had to go to work. Why?”
“He said he was going to be with you today and we haven't been able to get ahold of him.”
“All day?” I tilted my head. Why would he lie?
My head spun. Declan shot David a glare that clearly said something was wrong.
“Why? What is it?”
David cursed before his head fell forward.
Something ugly and hard sank into my gut, stealing my breath.
“It's Derrick's birthday today,” Declan explained in that growly, deep voice. Had I taken the time, I might have been jealous of the kind of man Trina had in her bed. As it was, I was too surprised to think about that.
“What?” I gasped, looking at both of them. “I don'tâ¦I didn't know. He never said anything to me.”
They glared at each other again, another silent conversation taking place in their eyes. I knew it was done and decisions were made without them ever speaking a word when Declan said, “Fucking hellâ¦that asshole. Take her with you.”
He turned on his heel and stalked back to the kitchen right as David reached for my elbow and tugged me off my stool. “Come on. Let's go.”
I barely had time to reach back and grab my purse as he led me out of the restaurant. “What's going on?”
My mind was spinning and began pounding with worryâ¦Why hadn't he told me about Derrick? Why hadn't he said anything? “Oh God. This is bad.”
The kick of a bass drum slammed against my chest as I trailed behind David, not being given much of a choice in the matter.
Once we finally hit the fresh air, my head cleared slightly, enough to at least think about Suzanne.
“I'm supposed to be meeting Suzanne,” I told David, trying to dig my feet into the cement.
He didn't look back. “Declan will keep an eye out for her.”
I frowned, looking back at the restaurant. He'd just totally left his position behind the bar and I didn't see anyone else able to do drinks.
“You can just walk out like that?”
I mean, I knew Declan and he were friends, good friends, obviously, but could he just stop working whenever he felt like it? Maybe he wasn't working at all. Maybe he was just getting himself a drink when I'd walked in.
David pulled to an abrupt stop and let go of my elbow to spin around and face me. “You worried about my job right now or are you worried about Aidan? Because Dec and meâ¦we've been with that guy through a lot. Through all the shit with that crazy bitch Mandy, and we've been there for Derrick.” He stopped, scrubbed his hand through his short hair, and swore. “We
were
there for Derrick. And nowâ¦fuck.”
The last curse was barely muttered before he turned and started walking away from me.
I quickly caught up, my high-heeled sandals clip-clopping along the pavement.
“So, why are you taking me?” I asked.
He stared at me incredulously and blinked like he couldn't believe I had the gall to ask such a stupid question.
“Because you're you.”
David turned a corner, headed down the back alley behind Fireside Grill, and pushed a button on his key fob.
Lights blared in the quickly darkening night and the horn beeped.
“I don't know what that means,” I said as he opened the passenger door to a very large, very shiny black Escalade.
He huffed and gestured for me to climb in with a wave of his hand. “It means you're Aidan's.”
The door slammed on my shocked face. My skin chilled at the words and all the blood left my face, pooling somewhere south.
It felt warm and tingly. Good. After last night, I wanted it to be true.
I didn't have time to say anything else before he hopped into his SUV, shoved his shifter into drive, and peeled out of the alley like we were on some high-speed chase.
We were silent on the short drive to Aidan's house. At least, I figured that was where we were headed as David whipped his large and shiny Escalade around the corners like Satan's minions were chasing us.
At some point along the way, my blood began pumping fasterâ¦adrenaline coursing through my veinsâ¦and I tried not to stare as David rapidly tapped his thumb against the steering wheel, or every time he sighed and quietly cursed when we hit a red light.
So many questions rolled through my head, but most of all, I was worried.
Terrified.
Fear had already dug its heavy roots into my stomach as we pulled into Aidan's driveway. The last time I was there, it hadn't gone so well. Based on the events of tonight and the information I'd just been given, I doubted the outcome of this visit was going to go any better.
If Aidan had wanted to tell me about it being Derrick's birthday then he would have.
Although it definitely explained his sudden mood swing and the way he'd stomped out of my house.
My cellphone buzzed in my purse and I dug it out as David shifted the SUV into park.
He looked at me and arched one brow when I looked at the screen.