He stills. “What?”
“When you walk away in the middle of a conversation, I get really frustrated.”
After a moment, he nods. “Okay. I won’t do that again.”
Encouraged, I keep talking. “And when you shut down and don’t tell me what you’re thinking, I get confused. You’re very intense in some ways, very communicative and open and right in my face, but other times you seem like you’re hiding from me.”
I pause to think again. Then I venture, “Like maybe you’re worried how I’ll react if I get to know the real you?”
He kisses me, brushing his lips against mine with a tenderness that makes my chest ache.
Then he murmurs, “What I’m worried about is giving my heart away to a woman who’s still wearing a wedding ring.”
The sadness in his voice makes my heart flip-flop. I whisper, “Oh, Aidan. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize. Or explain yourself. I don’t ever want you to feel obligated to explain yourself to me. I know you’re just taking this one day at a time.”
By “this” he means “us.” This thing we’re doing together, whatever it is. And he’s right, in a way. I am taking it one day at a time. There’s no other way to take it. He crashed into my life like a meteor falling to earth, right when I was the most broken I’d ever been.
Only I don’t feel broken when I’m with him.
Too overwhelmed to continue with the conversation in my emotionally raw state, I say, “Okay. You want to know what I need to be happy right now?”
“Yes.”
I smile up at him and tug on his beard. “A glass of wine and a hot bath.”
His lids lower. He smolders at me in silence for a moment. “I can do that for you.”
“Thank you.”
He raises his brows. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
I spread my hand over his jaw and smile wider. “Thank you, sir.”
He stares deep into my eyes for a long moment. Then he says quietly, “Kayla, be careful with me.”
Surprised by that, I ask, “What do you mean?”
“I know you think I’m strong. But the problem with strong things is that they’re brittle. They can’t bend under stress. They just break.”
Before I can respond, he picks me up and carries me into the bathroom.
I soak in bliss for an hour, up to my neck in bubbles, sipping a glass of Cabernet. Aidan comes in and out of the bathroom, bringing me little bites of cheese and slices of apple, feeding them to me from his fingers and watching me chew as if it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen.
The way he looks at me is addictive.
Because I like it so much, it’s also a little scary.
I don’t think I’m ready for this. It seems as if he isn’t, either. We’re magnets who don’t want to be magnets, pulled together by invisible elements beyond our control.
I don’t have the words or the will to tell him it would be wiser if we slowed down this runaway train before it veers off the tracks and kills all the passengers. Besides, aren’t we past that point, anyway?
The obvious answer is yes. We are. We skipped the dinner dates and polite conversation and jumped straight to kinky fuckery.
Not that I’m complaining. It’s simpler this way, and simple things are beautiful. And with my recent state of mind, small talk would be a stretch.
Wearing only his jeans, Aidan sits on the toilet with his elbows propped on his knees. “Going out to the house tomorrow.”
“Is that an invitation or are you just informing me of your future whereabouts?”
A faint smile curves his lips. “It’s an invitation, smartass. Which you already knew. What’s the answer?”
“The answer is yes. Which you already knew.”
“Don’t want to assume anything.” He glances at my ring finger, then looks away. “Don’t know your schedule.”
Tell him. Just tell him about Michael. Tell him what happened. He deserves to know.
Does he? There’s no commitment here. And I’m not the only one holding things back. I barely know anything about him. Hell, I don’t even know how old he is!
I go back and forth mentally for a few seconds, arguing with myself, until he startles me by asking, “How old are you?”
I laugh uneasily. “God, that’s strange.”
“What is?”
“I was just thinking I don’t know how old you are when you asked me that.”