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“You know I’m messed up, Aiden. You don’t want me to be your wife. Something broke inside me during those years. I’m damaged.”
“You’re not, baby. You just need some recovery time.”
“I’ll never be the same Skye you knew years ago,” I told him. “I was young, stupid, and terribly naive. The life I led after I got pregnant and in the years after changed me. I can’t be that new high-school graduate anymore.”
Sometimes I wished I could go back to the days when I was a lot more innocent, but I couldn’t. I’d seen too much, been through too much. My dreams had been shattered, and I’d learned to just survive.
I’d managed to endure.
But I hadn’t been truly happy in a very long time. My only joy was my daughter.
“I can’t be the guy I was back then, either,” he informed me. “But you and I can be something better.”
“When you touched me, I could feel again,” I tried to explain. “I guess that’s why I wanted . . . more.”
“It’s not like I don’t want that, Skye. I fucking do. I think I’ve wanted you from the first time I really saw you as more than just Jade’s friend, after you graduated from high school. I’m pretty sure that if you’d shown the slightest interest, I’d have been all over another relationship when you came back with Maya, even though I thought you’d dumped me the first time. I never forgot you, even though I sure as hell wanted to.”
“I never forgot you, either,” I said as I pulled back from him.
I reached into my dress and slowly pulled out the red tiger’s-eye necklace he’d given me so long ago.
I pulled it over my head carefully and held it in my hand as I confessed, “I’ve worn this necklace constantly since you gave it to me. Maybe part of me wanted to remember us, even if it had turned out badly. I only took it off when I had to, like when I had my C-section.”
He lifted his hand, and I dropped the jewelry into his palm.
“I always wondered if you kept it,” he said distractedly, rolling the stone between his fingers.
“It was my most treasured possession—except for the daughter you gave me. I would have left it with the letter, had I known I wouldn’t see you again before I had to marry Marco.”
He grabbed the chain gingerly and lifted it back over my head. “I want you to keep it.”
I let out a silent sigh of relief. I’d worn that necklace for so long that it was almost like it was part of me. “Thank you. But if you ever want it back—”
“I won’t,” he said tersely. “I gave it to the only girl I ever cared about enough to trust with it.” He paused before he continued, “So, do we work out terms for this new relationship?”
“I think we should. You’ll eventually want out—”
“For fuck’s sake, Skye . . . I’m the one who wants to marry you. Do you really think I’m going to bail out?”
Once he figured out how broken and flawed I was, he was going to want more than I could ever give him. So yeah, he’d eventually want someone who was capable of more emotion than I could give him. “You might,” I warned.
“I guess we’ll just have to see,” he conceded grudgingly.
My heart ached. All I really wanted was to give in and agree to marry him. I wanted Aiden. I always had. But I couldn’t tether him to a woman who had no idea if she was capable of being happy in the future.
I’d only been truly free for a year. My counselor had told me that it would take a while to regain my trust in people and relationships. But I wasn’t always so sure that was ever going to happen.
“What are your terms?” I asked.
“There’s no other guy but me, for one. I don’t share, Skye,” he grumbled.
Like I’d ever think about any man but him? Not gonna happen. “Fine.”
He folded his arms. “That’s pretty much all I have. If you’re mine, I’m pretty damn good. What about you?”
“I think I want to be the only woman for you, too. I don’t think I could handle anything else.”
“Done,” he answered hoarsely.
“Is that it?” I asked nervously.
He snaked his arms around my waist and pulled me into his body again. “For now. I’m not going to tell you that I don’t want more, but we can take this one day at a time if it helps you.”
I nodded, my heart in my throat.
He tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I’ll make you so damn happy that you’ll never want to go anywhere else,” he warned.
“I want to make you happy, too,” I said in an uneven tone that was almost emotional.
“Baby, you make me happy just by being here with me.”
I felt tears threatening, but I ruthlessly blinked them away.
Sometimes, Aiden said things that were so damn sweet that I wanted to drown in his words.
But I knew better.
I had to be strong. If this relationship didn’t last, I’d be forever damaged. I could feel that in my soul.
He tilted my chin up, and I could feel the heat radiating off him.
The spontaneous combustion started the moment he laid his lips on mine.
“Aiden,” I murmured against his lips right before he deepened the kiss.
That one word expressed all the longing that I’d been feeling since we’d met up again.
The passion.
The need.
The damn painful desperation that I couldn’t quite hide whenever he touched me.
I fisted my hands in his hair, and gave back as much as I was getting.
If I couldn’t communicate with words, I was determined to use my body to do my talking.
I closed my eyes as he thoroughly explored my lips, opening my mouth so he could ease the ache I had to be closer to him.
There was nothing I wanted more than to climb inside him and never come out. That was how badly I needed this man.
He was breathing heavy when he came up for air. “Christ, baby. You’re killing me,” he said with a groan.
His hands cupped my ass and pulled my hips against his so I could feel just how much he wanted me.
And I shivered as I felt his hard erection grind against my core. “Aiden,” I whimpered as I tugged at his hair.
“Mom!”
I jumped away from Aiden as I heard my daughter calling my name.
“Saved from fucking on a beach by our daughter,” Aiden said in a frustrated tone.
I ran my hands down my rumpled dress as Maya came toward us with her uncle Seth in tow.
“Later,” Aiden growled as he backed away from me.
It sounded more like a promise than a suggestion, and I discovered that sometimes I didn’t mind his bossiness at all.
CHAPTER 17
SKYE
“I’m going to miss you so much, but I hope you have a fantastic time. I know how badly you’ve always wanted to go to Australia,” I told Jade the next morning as we hugged.
Despite Aiden’s warning the night before, there was no hot sex when we’d arrived home. I’d been so tired that I’d fallen asleep with Maya while she was reading to me. I found myself covered up the next morning and snuggled beside my daughter.
Soon after we’d gotten up, Jade had arrived to say her good-byes.
