by Wood, Vivian
Aiden drops the letter, sighing. I glance anxiously at his face, but come up against that same kind of mask as before. Whatever he feels, he’s not showing it to me.
“Hey,” I whisper, pulling on his shirt. When Aiden glances at me, I lick my lips. “I can’t read your face. Tell me what’s going on.”
He shrugs but when he speaks his voice sounds strained. “I don’t know. I mean… on one hand, I guess it’s nice to know that he knew who I was. Or maybe it isn’t nice, because he could’ve reached out at any time… but he didn't.”
I just want to burrow against him, to take away the pain I hear in his voice. Nodding, I settle for hugging him a little tighter. He blows out a breath.
“God, my parents fucking sucked.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, it’s even more complicated than I thought, this mess between my mom and him. And… it just blows that this was all dropped in my lap like this. ‘Here, have this ring that I meant to give your mom.’ I mean… what is that, really?”
After waiting to see if he has any more complaints, I rise up on my tiptoes and kiss him on the lips. “I’m sorry, Aiden. I’m sorry that this is your legacy. It isn’t fair.”
His lips turn up at the corners, but his smile lacks warmth. “As the man who raised me used to say, tough shit. Life is unfair.”
I take his hand, lacing his fingers with mine. “We should go back to your apartment. We’ll put on a record and drink some of that whiskey.” I kiss the back of his hand. “Okay?”
He nods wordlessly, his attention on the box. “What should I do with Carter’s envelope?”
Shaking my head, I make a face. “That I don’t know. I mean, probably give it to him. But not until you’re ready to tell him everything.”
Aiden’s dark eyes come to rest on my face, somber. “You know what’s funny? I hadn’t actually considered telling Carter anything, even though I just read my father’s instructions.”
My heart hurts for him. He looks so disappointed in everything.
“Come on.” I tug his hand. “Bring the whole box. You can wait to decide what you are going to do with the contents.”
Dumping the contents back inside the box, he does exactly that. As he follows me out of the library, I wish I could lift some of the burden from him. I’d do anything to make it easier.
Who knew that out of the two of us, he’d be the one with a more screwed up life?
Chapter Thirty-Three
Aiden
For the next week, I eat, sleep, and breathe Olivia. It took a while to persuade her of my innocence… but eventually, with a lot of growling, I manage to do it. I may have promised Olivia some things, like for instance that I would go down on her until she came ten times.
It isn’t really any punishment, because she tastes sweet and she likes to be fucked right after she comes against my mouth. She is pretty exacting though. She makes me be completely still while she explores my cock with her lips, which is its own kind of torture.
We agree to keep working a few hours a day, but aside from that she is all I think about. All I see. And the few hours that I’m working, she’s on my mind.
What it’s like to kiss her. To hear her breathy moans. What it’s like to be so damn deep inside her that for a moment, I can barely tell where I end and she begins. I keep expecting to hit that wall, to have had enough of her. But the second I start thinking about that, she does something magical.
Like sit by my record player, completely fucking naked, and put on the Rolling Stones. She glances over her shoulder just as “Wild Horses” comes on, looking utterly fucking bewitching.
“This song is sad and hopeful, all at once,” she says softly.
Man, do I know that exact feeling she’s talking about.
How can I not feel my heart race for this woman? Wearing nothing and humming along to the beat of the song, she unmans me. And that fact twists me up inside.
I’m supposed to let her go in a week. And right now, I can’t conceive of that fact.
It isn’t fair.
I’m just not ready.
Maybe if I just don’t return to working for the National Park Service, I can still see Olivia discreetly. Grayson would never have to know…
At least that’s what I am fantasizing about while I’m putting new gutters on the staff apartments.
Is it possible? Maybe.
Is it likely? Not a chance in hell.
Not for me. Not for Olivia, the woman who’s my girlfriend in all but name.
Maybe making Grayson hate me would be worth it, if I got Olivia in exchange. It would be terrible of course, but…
Man, but then I would like… have to be her boyfriend or something. Like actually ask her. She’d have to agree. Then I would be spoken for.
No more going home with the bartenders after closing down a wedding. No more wild nights when I wake up with someone random in a bed that’s not mine.
Would that be worth it?
I know in my heart that it would.
“Hey! What the hell?”
I am pulled out of my thoughts by Carter’s angry shout. I look up from where I am weed whacking near the main house. Turning the weed whacker off, I watch as he storms across the yard towards me.
“Did you just use that thing over by my car?” he demands to know, pointing to the other side of the yard.
I scrunch up my face. “An hour ago, yeah.”
His face contorts. “Well you hit some rocks into the passenger side door! Do you realize how much that’s going to cost to repair?”
I look past him, rolling my eyes. “It’s covered by your insurance.”
“That’s not the point!” he seethes. “I’m going to have to take the deductible out of your paycheck, you know?”
Setting the weed whacker down, I fold my arms across my chest. “I haven’t actually gotten a paycheck in a month.”
That stops him in his tracks. “What? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Because I’ve been a little busy burying my nose between your archivist’s legs, I think. But I just purse my lips. “I’m not here for the money, man.”
Carter scowls. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? What else would you be here for?”
Fuck it. I was going to try to think of a better way to tell the family that I might be one of them, but Carter is working my last nerve right now. I take a deep breath.
“I think I’m a Morgan, dude. I came here to do research about the family. Find out what’s going on. Maybe take a paternity test while I’m at it.”
Carter looks entirely disbelieving. “I’m sorry, you what? You’re fucking crazy.”
“Really? You don’t think that I look exactly like you? Thomas Morgan was my father. I have proof. That means that I’m your half-brother.”
He grits his teeth, leaning toward me. “You’re insane.”
“Really?” I level a flat look at him. “Because I took a sample of some hair I found in your hairbrush. I added my sample as comparison, and shipped them off to a lab in Seattle. And that’s not even addressing the fact that Olivia found letters addressed to both of us, each of his sons.”
For a second, he looks like I’ve just smacked him in the face. Then he grimaces and turns red.
“Okay,” he says, shaking his head. “You’re done here. I don't understand what kind of scheme you have cooked up—”
I narrow my eyes. “What scheme? Hanging out here, posing as the unpaid help?”
That seems to push him over the edge. “You’re fired. Effective immediately. Get your stuff out of the staff apartments and get the fuck off of this property.”
I snort. “I’d like to see you make me.”
“I don't have to. My family is one of the biggest donors to the Clallam County sheriff department. I place one call and they will come out here and arrest you, for no reason other than I want them to.” He sneers. “The only reason I’m not calling them yet is that I don't want Aunt Margaret to realize that she hired such a fortune-seeking piece
of trash.”
I glare at him, my fists bunching. “And when I get the paternity test back? What will you do then? You can’t ignore me forever.”
He finally loses whatever scrap of patience he had left. “I said get out! Go get your shit right fucking now!” he thunders.
I can’t hear him. I respond instinctively to the tone of his voice, swiftly punching him right in the face. He groans but doesn’t give; he comes right back with a surprising force for someone that has obviously lived such a privileged life. I knock his knees out, sending us both sprawling to the ground.
We grapple and throw a couple more punches before he finds his footing once more. He is breathing raggedly, his expression furious.
“I don't know who you think you are, or who you claim to be. But until you can prove it, I don't want to see your fucking face around here anymore.” He spits on the ground, touching his bloodied lip. “Get the fuck out of here, Aiden. Don’t come back.”
Then he turns, shaking his head, and stalks back up to the main house. I’m left sitting on the ground, staring angrily at where he just went. Behind me, thunder rolls, signaling a change in the weather.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Olivia
I’m in my apartment emptying most of my dark chocolate into a trash can — it’s all either gone bad. Well, it’s either bad or I’m insane. Either way, I can’t stand the smell of it. I clean the cabinet that it’s in, gagging at the smell.
How does chocolate even go bad?
Taking the trash can outside to dump it in the bins beside my apartment, I almost run into a very pissed off looking Aiden. He storms past me, glaring and muttering under his breath.
I shoot him a glare, hurrying after him as he enters his apartment. He doesn’t say anything; he just goes to the bedroom and roots around.
“Aiden…” I say, sure that he’s being melodramatic. I lean up against the doorframe of his bedroom, watching as he gets a black duffel bag out from under his bed and starts to hurl things at it. “What are you doing?”
He shakes his head as he tosses a couple of pairs of shoes toward the duffel bag. “I just got fucking fired. Giving us a week to get out was too long, I guess. And it was my own brother who fired me, no less. Fucking son of a bitch…”
That makes me stand up a little straighter. “What? Why?”
Aiden scowls. “From what I can tell, it’s because I told him that we are related.”
Taking in his anger, I scrunch up my face. “Did you tell him when you were already mad? Because… I mean, not to excuse his actions or anything, but… you aren’t super great at giving big news, I bet.” I suck in my breath when he glares at me. “That came out wrong. What I meant to say is…”
“I know what you meant,” he sneers, bristling.
His tone makes my eyes widen. “Hey! I do not deserve to be the target of your outrage, Aiden.”
That slows down his packing a little. He straightens up, glancing at me. “Yeah.” He scrubs a hand across his face. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I’m just… fucking furious right now.”
His apology draws me across the threshold of the room. He holds his arm out and I burrow under it, wrapping my arms around his torso. I give him a squeeze and he wraps his arms around me.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell him. “Even if you have to leave this place a little sooner than you planned… which no one says you have to, other than maybe Carter.”
He blows out a frustrated breath. “It’s not leaving here that I’m worried about. It’s… well, leaving you.”
My body freezes. I can honestly say that I was so worried about what was going on with Aiden that until this moment, it hadn’t really sunk in. Us… whatever the tentative things that form us are… all of that is dependent on being in this space.
I’ve never put a lot of thought into what would happen when our time is up here. Or rather, I determinedly did not focus on that intentionally. Fantasies about him whispering I love you endlessly aside, I just… didn’t prepare myself for this moment.
My eyes mist over. How do I even begin to tell Aiden that?
“Olivia,” he says, his breath ruffling the hair by my ear. He hooks two fingers beneath my chin and raises my eyes to meet his. “You seem surprised. Come on, you had to have been worried about the end of things between us.”
I shake my head, my lower lip beginning to wobble. “I didn't,” I say breathlessly.
When he sees how emotional I am, he takes a step back, then leads me over to the bed. He sits me down, probably trying to gather his thoughts, figure out what he’s going to say to me.
What are the exact words of his goodbye going to sound like?
I can’t know. Not yet.
So I just reach up to him, wordlessly needing him, my hands grabbing his t-shirt as my lips seek his. He sinks down with a sigh, letting me pull him in. We fuck, silent and angry, pushing and pulling and never quite getting enough of each other.
I thought that there would be a point of saturation with him, of just having enough of Aiden. But if there is a point, I haven’t found it yet. The two months that we’ve had sex haven’t given me enough of being wrapped in his strong arms, his back as wide as a tree trunk, tangled with him as he moans my name.
We strip away every piece of clothing, afraid to talk too much. Afraid of what will come out of our mouths. Afraid for the future.
Afraid of the blankness and bleakness that the future promises.
So we fuck. Hard but passionate, aggressive but meaningful. Slow but deep. Our orgasms are almost simultaneous, mine seeming almost to trigger his. We finally drift back to planet earth, me pressed against his side, my hair a sweaty wreck. He doesn’t seem to be able to help but place his lips on my skin. He tastes my collarbone, the tender skin at my neck, the pinkness of my hardened nipple. His face as he pushes his mouth against my too-hot skin is bordering on worshipful.
I close my eyes, my fingers tangling in the hair at his temple.
His kisses pause. “I’m not ready to let you go.” Then he brushes his lips over my beating heart, my ribcage, my navel. One, two, three, in quick succession.
My own lips part on a sigh. “So don’t. Not yet.”
“I have to go,” he says.
I crack open my eyes. “What, because Carter says you have to leave right now?” I shake my head. “Don’t do anything today. Please, Aiden.”
He shifts against me and sighs. “But what about tomorrow?”
I stretch up to place a kiss on his lips. “That sounds like a problem for later.”
He makes a frustrated sound. “What am I doing, Olive? Not just with you. But what am I doing like… with my whole life?”
This sounds like a bigger topic than I want to face on my back, so I roll to my side, tugging the blanket up over my naked form. “That is the question that everyone is asking themselves all the time, I think.”
“There is a reason for that.” He frowns, going silent for half a minute. Then he drops a bomb. “What is your plan, Olive?”
My eyebrows could not climb any higher if he’d asked when I plan to go to the moon.
“Me?”
He squints. “Yes. Obviously you.”
That makes me flush a little.
“I don’t know. I guess…” I think for a second. “I know where I want to end up. Does that count?”
“Sure,” he says with a shrug. “Where is that?”
“Well…” I say, choosing my words carefully. “In my mind, I end up working at a library. And living in a little house, like you see on the coast sometimes. And I have a dog and a cat…” I bite my lip. He doesn’t want to hear the part about how in my fantasy, he lives there too, him and our three tow-headed kids.
Aiden nuzzles me. “What else do you want?”
My heart starts beating fast. I’m so terrified to say the wrong thing, even now, when I’m pretty sure he’s asking about who I want in my life.
What if he doesn’t want me the way I want him?
/>
Because I want him forever, full time. No secrets, nobody coming between us. But him? Who even knows what he wants.
In the end, I am too much of a coward to say anything about him or our three kids. I just sigh. “And a big strong man. Um… you know, whoever can… um… fill that role…”
The silence stretches between us as his face darkens. “Whoever, huh?”
Going ten shades of crimson, I push forward. “What do you see long term?”
He rubs a hand over his whole head as he considers that question. “I don’t know. I just… I want to somehow get somewhere that feels… I don’t know. That I’m not fucking things up all the time. I always feel like the entire world is about to know how fucking awful and bad I am, at any moment, if luck turns against me…”
I frown. “You aren’t bad, Aiden. Stop thinking that.”
He casts an eye over me and chuckles. “Funny that you say that, because I am sure that if anybody found out what I’ve been doing here with you, that’s exactly what they would think. Everyone’s worst suspicions would be confirmed.”
I glare at him. “That’s crazy talk. I’m with you because I want to be. It has nothing to do with who my brother is or anything else. You made me fall in love with you, plain and simple—”
I stop, almost choking on my own words.
What did I say?
Did I say I loved him?
Oh god.
Oh god, he looks surprised, which is not the reaction I wanted. Scratch that, I didn't even want to tell him at all….
I try to walk it back. “I didn’t mean—”
Aiden just kisses me, not forcing me to continue to fumble around for words. He doesn’t say I love you too either, he just kisses me tenderly, passionately, like a desperate man searching for a light in the deepening darkness.
“I want to keep you,” he rumbles, his voice gravelly. “I need you, Olive. I am trying to find a way that we can be together more… more permanently.”
“That would mean you have to tell Grayson,” I whisper.
“I know.” He looks like he’s tasting something bitter. “Believe me, I know that.”
