Touched (The Untouched Trilogy #2)(23)

I sighed. “That’s just it … I thought it had all been resolved.”

I knew I needed to tell Kellan more and allow him the chance to make a decision on whether he wanted to remain in my life. Fucking Aiden! If he thought he was going to parade around with that pretentious bitch while he destroyed my friendship with Kellan, he was dead wrong!



*****



It was time for the keynote speaker and in the midst of everything, I’d completely forgotten to ask Aiden if he would be delivering the speech. I looked around the room for him and spotted Nadia’s red hair. I knew I would find Aiden close by and he was. That somewhat angered me and I decided to not worry about the speech. It’s his company, his charity event.

I had to admit Nadia was beautiful. I watched her smile and touch him in the most intimate of ways. I wondered if he had whispered to her as he had so many times to me that she was beautiful. Would he be able to keep his hands off of her? Would he whisk her away to a dark room and do the unspeakable things to her as he’d done to me or would he wait and take her back to his penthouse and f*ck her into the wee morning hours?

I was ready to go. I’d done my part. Now that Aiden was here, he could handle the rest.

“I think I’m ready to call it a night,” I said.

“I thought you were speaking.” Kellan said.

“That was a contingency in the event that Aiden couldn’t make it. As you can see, he did; so my presence is no longer necessary,” I said.

“Well in that case, sure.”





CHAPTER SEVEN

The next morning I awoke full of energy. Kellan and I had come back to the condo last night and watched sitcoms, drank wine and laughed like two teenagers. How weird was it that I was enjoying a sleepover at my age? This clearly meant that I needed a social life.

“Hey, do you want to work out with me?” I asked, walking into the kitchen. He was pouring a cup of coffee.

“Sure, I’ll get changed and meet you downstairs.”

I trotted down the stairs with a silly grin on my face. I was in a great mood. Everything wasn’t as I would have wanted but they weren’t as bad as they were last night. Walking into the gym, I flipped on the lights and swiped through the control panel in search of a workout playlist that I hadn’t heard in a while. I made a mental note to create a few new ones. I turned toward the exercise equipment, deciding to take some time with the tread climber.

Kellan walked in sporting shorts and a t-shirt. Allison was right, he was a hottie. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t already known that but I had a difficult time picturing him as anything more than a friend right now. But damn, with a body like that, I was sure he could do some serious damage in the bedroom.

I was typically all for detached sex but even that seemed less than appealing now. I was looking at so many things with fresh eyes … reevaluating my views on relationships, friendships and sex.

He looked around. “What do you recommend?” he asked.

“Anything that allows me to fixate on those amazing muscles,” I replied, smiling.

“What? These things?” he asked, flashing a sexy dimpled smile.

“How often do you workout?” I asked.

“Typically three to four times a week. What about you?”

“The same. Maybe more if I’m stressed.”

“You seem to have it all together; I can’t imagine you having much stress. Well, at least I didn’t until last night.”

“I honestly didn’t until recently. But I thought we had agreed to put last night behind us?”

“We did and we have,” he replied.

I watched as Kellan stretched, his muscles flexing as he reached one hand over his shoulder. He was somewhat more muscular than Aiden. I never understood how these hot ass guys were still single. Kellan was a dream … totally hot, successful, great sense of humor and easy to talk to. There was no way he’d be single for much longer.

“Hey, you didn’t have a tattoo in St. Barts,” I said, inspecting the impression on his bicep.

“Nope, I didn’t. A few of the guys had the novel idea of getting tattoos the night before the wedding,” he replied.

“A group of wild drunken guys doing God knows what the night before a wedding. I’m sure there’re stories there.”

“One could say that,” he laughed.

“What does yours mean?” I asked.

“It’s the Japanese calligraphy for strength.”

“Oh. I recognized the symbol but not the interlinked embellishments. I like it. I may get one.”

“Seriously?” he asked.

“Yes. Does that surprise you?”

“Sort of. I don’t figure you as the tattoo type.”

“There is no type,” I said.

“Sure there is,” he countered.

“Are you the type?” I asked

“I have one, don’t I?”

“What type am I if not the type to get a tattoo?” I asked.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked.

“I asked, didn’t I?”

“That you did. Okay. The person I’m getting to know seems to be very careful and methodical; people like that don’t normally get tattoos.”

“Is that all? You made it sound as if you were about to insult me. Maybe that’s the person I was but no longer wish to be,” I said.