AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Tilting my head, I study him for a spell. Trying to get a read on him. “Why?”
“I’ve been thinking about you. Alot.”
"Is this a conversation that will require more wine?" I say with a nervous laugh before finishing my glass. I lean forward and nab the wine bottle from the coffee table, topping us both up until the bottle is empty.
“Will we actually talk though? Because usually we get waylaid and just skim the surface of things we've both been avoiding. It's getting to the stage where we need to stop circling each other and talk things through." He places his glass on the table and shifts closer, lifting his hand to cup my cheek. His words are cryptic but also not. I know this man, and whatever Aiden tells me can't be anything worse than what happened a week ago. Aiden would never deceive me the way Barrett did. This is Aiden, the man I should already be deliriously happy and in a relationship with, if only he didn't live over 800 miles away.
“I seem to have a newly discovered appreciation for honesty,” I reply, earning a raised brow. He pins me in place with a telling stare.
“You finally going to tell me what happened in Vegas?”
“Do you reallywantto know?” I counter.
“When it comes to you, Aly. I want to know everything. How can you not know that already.”
I take in his soft, soulful green eyes, his dark blond hair, and perfectly sculpted lips that right then, I want to kiss more than anything. I nod, biting my lip as I muster up the courage to splay myself open to this man. “I’ll tell you, but I’m gonna need you to take off your detective hat for a while and just be my friend."
“Not sure I can bejustanything with you.”
“Me either,” I confess, and it’s true. When other things around me right now are uncertain and unknown, Aiden has always been the complete opposite. He’s sure, he’s proven, and I know that what you see is what you get with him. He’s been that way since the night we first met. There’s also the fact that he’shere,despite telling me he wouldn't be back up this way for another month.
As if he senses the shift in me, he hooks an arm under my knees and carefully lifts my legs to rest in his lap. Then he starts drawing maddeningly light circles with his fingers over my skin. And with my wine glass in hand, I begin to relay the events of last week. The whole 'boy meets girl in first class, boy tracks girl down and sweeps her off her feet, boy turns out to be the paid lackey of girl's soon-to-be stepfather' story.
While I talk, he never once stops stroking my legs, his fingers moving to the soles of my feet and kneading the tension out of them. He may not interrupt me, but I don't miss his reactions to the things I say either. His jaw tightens when I mention the date on the rooftop, his body goes rigid when I recount the overheard conversation between Barrett and Gavin after the proposal, and anger radiates off of him when I get to the part of the story when Barrett tracked me down at the hotel.
I take a deep breath and slowly exhale when I finish talking because saying it all out loud makes it all the more real. It also makes me realize just how much of an idiot I was for letting lust and my body make decisions for me, overriding my well-educated, usually clicked-on brain and leaving me vulnerable to Barrett’s manipulation.
“So I guess you can say I was naïve and cock dumb,” I say, turning to look out my window and over Puget S0und.
Aiden’s quiet for a long time before he speaks, and when he does, it’s the very last thing I expect him to say. “Barrett Matthews does not exist.”
My head snaps faster than a bullet. “What? Hemustexist. I saw him. I fuckingtouchedhim!” I say sharply. “He gave me a business card. The flight attendant on the plane knew him.” My heart is punching my ribs now, my voice louder and higher. I jump up off the couch and stalk over to my computer bag, wrenching it open to get to my laptop. I’ll prove it. I’ll google search him. Then I’ll know that Aiden is mistaken and I’m right. Because I have to be. There’s no way Barrett could foolthatmany people…
“Beautiful . . .” Aiden says, putting his hands on my hips and turning me around to face him. “You can’t find something that isn’t there. That man was not Barrett Matthews. It’s an alias. A cover. Whatever it is, that is not his name.”
It's then, after a week of holding everything in and bottling it up, compartmentalizing my stupidity and self-loathing into a small, well-buried box inside of me, that I lose it. My head drops forward, colliding with Aiden's chest. His hands move around my hips and down to my ass before he lifts me and carries me back over to the couch. He repositions us and sits down with me in his lap, holding me close as I cry into his chest, stroking my hair and letting me fall apart.
“Tomorrow, Aly, we’re going to talk.”
“Tomorrow,” I mumble sleepily as he continues to comfort me. Before too long, my exhaustion takes hold and I fall asleep in his arms.
I wake up to the smell of coffee. Opening my eyes, I turn my head to the kitchen to see a bare-chested Aiden standing at the counter, a coffee mug at his mouth and his eyes on me, a playful grin tugging at his lips. "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty."
“Hi,” I reply softly as I stretch my arms up above my head. “Sorry I fell asleep last night. Actually, sorry for losing it, too.”
He places his cup on the counter and walks over to me, sitting down next to me. I roll onto my side to face him and sigh as he loops a loose strand of my hair back behind my ear, gliding his fingers gently down to my neck before resting his palm on my shoulder. Such a tactile display was not unheard of between us, but the response I have to it is somehow amplified. For the first time, I’m realizing the significance of his touch and the way he makes me feel.
It reminds me of the same effect Barrett had on me the weekend before. Last night, finding out that Barrett—or whoever he was—had given me a false name, made me question every single thing I’d felt between the two of us in the twenty-four hours I’d known him.
All week I've been confused and uneasy but last night, with Aiden there with me, I felt safe. He's familiar and has always been there; I just haven't seen it—or let myself see it.
I reach my hands up and cup his jaw, pulling his head down to mine and gently brushing my mouth against his before touching my tongue to his lips. Pushing him back slightly, I look into his eyes and see the depth of feeling in them. Aiden moves, dipping his head down again for a much-needed second round. It’s a long kiss, one I savor and lose myself in, his tongue slowly sliding over mine as he teases and takes over and over again. My fingers grip his shoulders, my nails biting into his skin as we deepen the kiss.
When he eases back, he keeps his face close to mine, our breaths intermingling as we recover and steady our breathing. “We didn’t get to talk last night,” I whisper.
“No. You needed sleep and I felt better knowing you were doing it in my arms.”
“Aiden . . .” This time my voice is rough and full of meaning.
