Pen Pal(23)

Without thinking, I say, “So far, you’re the only thing that’s made it better.”

I cringe when I hear how it sounds. How raw and vulnerable.

How needy.

But if Aidan thinks it’s off-putting, he doesn’t show it. He simply kisses my head again and murmurs, “Good.”

I raise my head and look at him. He gazes down at me with a faint smile, his eyes warm.

My voice wavering, I say, “Can I be honest with you?”

“That’s all I ever want you to be.”

“Okay. Well…” I inhale a breath, then let it go in a gust. “This has been amazing. I mean really amazing. Like, incredible. I don’t have any experience with this kind of thing, because I was married for a long time and pretty much always in a long-term relationship before that.”

When I don’t continue, he says, “Are you asking me something in particular or are you just thinking out loud?”

“I’m not sure. I’m having all kinds of feelings about this.”

“Me, too. You think this happens to me every day?”

I pull away and look him up and down, all that perfect rugged masculinity. “Yes.”

He pulls me back against him and cups my jaw in his hand. “No. It doesn’t.”

He stares at me with such unwavering intensity, I believe him. Nobody can lie that well this close.

I say, “Thank God,” and both of us are surprised by how forcefully it comes out.

Aidan starts to laugh. I blush from my neck to my forehead. He pulls me in and holds me tightly, nuzzling my ear. “Sweet bunny,” he whispers, still chuckling. “I think you like me.”

Flaming with embarrassment, I say, “Nah, I just need my roof fixed, and I thought I’d shag your brains out to see if I could get a discount.”

Pulling away, he pretends to be shocked. “I already gave you a discount!”

I grin up at him. “Oh, yeah. I forgot. Two thousand all in, right?”

He glowers, but he’s only playing. “Wrong. Ten thousand.”

“Wait, you said five!”

His glower cracks. He starts to laugh again.

I smack him lightly on the chest. “Jerk.”

“Guilty. What do you want for breakfast?”

“Don’t tell me you cook, too?”

“Only the best scrambled eggs you’ll ever eat.”

Smiling, I say, “I guess that’s what I’ll have then.”

He lowers his head and softly kisses me. When he pulls back, his expression has turned serious. “I need to tell you something.”

My stomach plummets. “Shit. I knew it was too good to be true.”

“It’s not bad.”

“Then why are you making that face?”

“What face?”

“That scary serious face, like you’re about to tell me you have an STD.”

He opens the shower door, grabs a towel from the bar on the wall, drapes it around me, and starts drying my body. “Nope. Clean as a whistle.”

Enjoying the attention, I pause for a moment of sobriety. “Me, too, in case you were wondering. I suppose we should’ve talked about that before all the, um…”

“Fucking?”

“That would be the word, yes.”

He bends down to dry off my legs as I rest my hands on his shoulders. “That and your chances of getting pregnant with unprotected sex, too.” He straightens and gazes at me. “Also consent and safe words. I don’t normally get so carried away.”

“I’m on the pill…wait. Back up a sec. Safe words?”

“In case I get too rough with you.”

I almost laugh out loud. “There’s no such thing. I love how rough you are.”

He falls still. Gazing at me with unblinking intensity, he says slowly, “I could hurt you, Kayla. Accidentally, I mean. I don’t want that to happen.”

I like that he’s so concerned with my well-being. I also like that he’s taking the time to communicate that. What I don’t like is the sudden and unwelcome thought that maybe he’s hurt someone in the past.

Accidentally or not, it seems as if there might be a story there.

I ask tentatively, “Have you hurt someone before?”

“Yes,” he says instantly. Then he closes his eyes and swallows. “Not from sex, though. And it wasn’t an accident.”

I’m beginning to feel alarmed, but I keep my voice steady. “Then how?”

He opens his eyes. A muscle in his jaw jumps. He inhales a slow breath. “My father used to beat my mother. Badly. He was a raging alcoholic and very violent. He put her in the hospital more than once. It went on for years. I couldn’t do anything about it when I was small, but when I grew up…”

I realize I’m holding my breath. My heartbeat ticks up a few notches. I whisper, “What?”

He looks away. That muscle in his jaw jumps again. When he speaks, his voice comes very low. “I’m afraid if I tell you, I’ll never see you again.”

That rocks me back on my heels for several reasons.

One, because whatever he did, it was obviously bad. And by bad I mean violent. And two, he’s willing to tell me, but he’s afraid of the consequences. He’s scared that I’ll freak out and run out the door.