Aiden set her down on the counter, intending to pull away, to end this now, but somehow his lips traveled the delicate curve of her neck, his hands the curves of her high, full breasts. His fingers found the stiff peaks of her plump nipples against her thin shirt. She gasped at the intimate touch and then moaned as he tugged the delicate peaks.
Hunger roared inside him and he kissed her again, desperate for an outlet to release the heat building inside him, the need to taste her, the need to drink from her. Sex would satisfy him. He’d lived this. And sex was only sex. It meant nothing. He knew this, he’d lived this so long, maybe too long. But in the far reaches of his mind, he knew Kelly was different, that she was already more than sex. He rejected that idea, and shoved her shirt up her body, then tugged it over her head, and tossed it aside.
Her hands went to the counter behind her, the position lifting her full breasts higher. He pressed her thighs apart, his gaze ravishing the little spec of silk in the V of her body. He leaned into her, his hands went to the counter beside her, their eyes connecting. “You’re beautiful,” he said, one of his hands caressing a path up her stomach, over one of her breasts, teasing the stiff rosy bud of her nipple.
Her lashes fluttered, dark half moons, on pale, perfect skin. “Thank you,” she whispered.
He almost laughed at the polite prim words as she sat in nothing but a black thong on her kitchen counter, and he might have teased her, if not for the urgency growing inside him. His gaze slid over her full red lips, then raked over her lush breasts and puckered nipples, his hands following the same path. He dipped his head, brushed his mouth over hers.
He reached down and slid his fingers over the wet silk between her thighs. “Tell me to stop,” he told her, shoving aside the material and caressing the wet heat of her body. “Tell me to stop before we both forget why this is a bad idea.” He pressed inside her, caressed her.
“I don’t normally just hop on a kitchen counter for a man I just met,” she said breathlessly. “And since I really can’t think right now,” she paused, rocking against his hand, then moaning softly. “Why exactly is this wrong again?”
He kissed her, fingers delving deeper insider her, moving with her. She grabbed a hold of him, buried her face in his neck. She smelled like lilac, and female, and he knew she tasted even better, he knew how erotic tasting her would be, how pleasurable it would be for her. And how much he didn’t want to bite her and be forced to erase her memory, defy her trust. He was shaking when she stiffened and then began spasming around his fingers, shaking because he wanted inside her, shaking because he wanted every bit of her, in every way possible, like he hadn’t wanted in a lifetime it seemed.
She laughed nervously, as he slid his fingers out of her. “I think I should be embarrassed that I just, um, had an orgasm in my kitchen.” She ran her fingers over his erection, tilting her chin up to shyly look at him, “Even more so that you didn’t. I want to fix that.”
His cell phone vibrated with a text message loudly enough that her gaze went to his hip where it rested. “Troy?” she asked urgently as he removed the phone and glanced down at the message. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” Aiden said, but he knew it might not have been. He’d let down his guard, compromised her safety. He scooped up her shirt from the floor and handed it to her. “He’s just checking in.” He hesitated, feeling the temptation to carry her into the bedroom and forget everything and that made him angry. At himself, and at her, for reasons he couldn’t quite identify. All he knew was he was headed for trouble, and he had to put space between them. “Remember when you asked me why this was a bad idea?”
Her face paled. “Yes.”
“Troy was just checking in this time, but that might not have been the case. It could just have easily been the bastard who gave you an orgasm and got you killed, and I can’t be that, Kelly. I can’t protect you while I’m fucking you.”
Her jaw dropped, shock and hurt bleeding into her face. That made him want to pull her into his arms and apologize, which was exactly why he wouldn’t, why he couldn’t. She was far safer with Aiden the asshole, who wasn’t a distraction, who wasn’t going to make a stupid mistake like what he could have tonight. She didn’t know it, but he did.
She struggled to get off the counter, hugging the shirt over her breasts. He reached out to help her. “Don’t,” she ordered. “Don’t help me.” She jumped down and gave him her back, pulling the shirt over her head. It was a cold shoulder he wouldn’t ever forget, no matter how much he deserved it.
No matter how much he didn’t want to deserve it.
She headed out of the kitchen without giving him another look, and he followed like the dog he felt like. She climbed into the bed, turned out the light, and covered her head.
Aiden settled into the chair in the corner where he would sit and guard her, wishing he was in bed with her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kelly blinked into the sunlit room, memories of the night before, of Aiden and her in the kitchen rushing back over her. She squeezed her eyes shut again. What a fool she felt like when he’d declared he couldn’t ‘fuck her and keep her safe’. And that was last night. The morning after a stupid mistake was always worse by a good hundred percent. She wondered if he was still in the chair in the corner, or if he’d gone somewhere to sleep. She inhaled and decided just face him and be done with it. Dread would only make matters worse.
She sat up, her gaze going to the chair, which was empty, then around the room, to find she was alone. Her nostrils flared with the scent of coffee, followed by a moment of bliss, thinking of a cup of caffeine she didn’t have to make herself. That was, until she realized said ‘cup’ would be in the kitchen, and she really didn’t want to be in the kitchen where memories of last night lingered. She glanced at the clock, appalled at the eleven o’clock hour. She never slept late. Never. There was too much to do to spend her time in bed. Well, unless she was spending it with Aiden, and now that she knew he was a jerk, even that wasn’t tempting. Only…she wasn’t so sure he was a jerk. He took his job seriously, he took protecting her seriously. She didn’t fault him for that, but his delivery of his message of duty had left a lot to be desired.
She threw off the sheet and pushed to her feet, deciding she needed that coffee far more than her pride, considering she’d slept half her Saturday away. Good thing she’d anticipated a late night and cancelled her new Saturday morning yoga habit that her, and one of the neighbors, had started several weeks back.
Kelly headed towards the kitchen, rounding the corner to find more than she’d bargained for. Aiden, and Troy, sat at her table, with everything from her box of Captain Crunch, to her Saturday morning paper, between them.
Both men looked up when she entered the room, and she immediately crossed her arms in front of her chest, wishing for a robe. It wasn’t like there was anything Aiden hadn’t seen at this point, but Troy was a whole other story.
“I thought you two were trying to be discreet,” she said, feeling Aiden’s eyes on her and refusing to look at him. He’d changed clothes and shaved at some point, his light blue t-shirt now a black one. She wondered how she slept through so much activity when she was supposed to be scared for her life. “I’m not one to have a man stay over, let alone, two men.”