by Iona Rose
“Thank you so much for your help today Jeremy,” she says.
“Of course,” I tell her. “Any time you need anything, you can call me.”
Because Aidan here let you go back to the house you were attacked in alone. He would have let you clean up the mess alone. He would have let you walk through the streets alone, dragging your things behind you.
I lean in to kiss Erika’s cheek. She stiffens slightly, but she lets me kiss her and she’s still smiling when I stand back. The next time I do it, she won’t stiffen. And soon, she’ll be begging me to kiss her, and not just on the cheek.
“Should we go inside then?” Aidan asks Erika like I’m not even here.
Fucking Aidan.
Erika nods her head.
“See you around Jeremy,” she says.
“Yeah, see you later,” I reply and I start walking away, forcing myself not to look back.
See you around. See you fucking around. It’s the sort of thing you say to someone who is barely an acquaintance. Someone you don’t want to make plans to see. Someone you don’t really want to see at all. After everything I’ve done for her today, I get a see you around.
I try to calm myself down as I walk. She didn’t mean it. Not really. That was for Aidan’s benefit. She obviously isn’t ready to drop him quite yet and she wants him to think his place at her side is safe. Well it isn’t. Not for much longer. Because I’m going to get my girl back. And I still stand by what I told Erika the night of the … mistake. If I can’t have her, then no one can.
As I walk, I forget the brush off and instead, I start to picture the future with Erika being mine again. Now I just need a plan to make it happen. Now I know where she’s living, it’ll be so much easier. I can keep running into her, I can drop in on her and say I wanted to check that she’s ok.
Obviously I’ll be driving by her building regularly just to keep an eye on things. And I intend to find out more about this Aidan guy. In particular, I want to know where I can find him when he’s not with Erika. Just in case he overstays his welcome and I have to give him a friendly warning to stay the fuck away from my girl.
Erika
What a strange day it’s been so far. The last person I expected to see today was Jeremy, and if I had known in advance he was going to show up at my house, I wouldn’t have gone back there. I would have said he was the last person I wanted to see. But strangely, I don’t feel that way anymore.
I actually enjoyed having his company once I got used to the idea of him being there. And I feel like he has finally gotten the message that things are over between us. It was nice to see him just as a friend, and if I’m being honest, I felt a whole lot less nervous about being back at the house once I had someone with me.
At the same time, I was relieved when Aidan approached us outside of the apartment building. Jeremy was hanging around, clearly looking for an invite inside and something told me that wouldn’t have been a good idea. For all he seemed to have gotten the message about us being over, I didn’t want to give him any indication I had changed my mind about that and I thought it would be almost cruel to invite him right back into the thick of my life with no intentions of getting back with him. It would almost have felt like leading him on, giving him false hope.
I was glad to see Aidan for another reason too. Seeing him again sparked memories of the kiss we had shared and I could feel my pussy getting wet as I watched him approaching us. There was something so sexy about him, even when he was doing something as normal and every day as walking down the street.
Seeing the awkward interaction between Aidan and Jeremy was a little surprising. I kind of expected it from Jeremy – no doubt until I introduced Aidan as Nadia’s brother, Jeremy was thinking there was something going on between Aidan and me, and he might have even been thinking it had started before we were over. It was Aidan’s reaction that surprised me. The way he looked at Jeremy, he didn’t so much look jealous as he did suspicious, like he didn’t like Jeremy immediately at first sight. Maybe he was just jealous and I had read the signs wrong.
Once Jeremy left us, I turned to Aidan and beamed at him, Jeremy all but forgotten.
“What brings you here?” I ask. “Nadia’s gone out.”
I unlock the door to the apartment building as I say it and Aidan follows me inside and towards the elevator. The elevator car is already there and we get inside and I press the button for the third floor.
“It wasn’t Nadia I came to see,” Aidan says.
“Oh really?” I say, delighted to hear this.
“I just wanted to drop by and see how you were doing,” he says.
We reach the third floor and the elevator doors ping open. We step out and head for the apartment.
“I’m ok,” I say. “I’ve just come from the house. I went to get some of my things.”
“With Jeremy?” he says quietly.
He is jealous. How can he be jealous of Jeremy? Of anyone? Doesn’t he know how hot he is? Doesn’t he know how he has an effect on me like no man has ever had before?
“Not really with him,” I say as I unlock the apartment door and step inside. Aidan follows me and closes the door behind me. “He didn’t know I wasn’t staying at home. He called round to see if I was ok after he heard about the attack. It was good timing actually. He helped me get rid of all of the mess from the living room.”
Aidan nods. He looks ready to ask another question, but I’m done talking about Jeremy. Jeremy is a part of my past and I’m hoping Aidan is going to be a part of my future. I see no reason for those two things to overlap. I get in the next sentence before Aidan can.
“Do you want to stay for dinner? It’s nothing exciting, just jacket potatoes, but you’re more than welcome to stay,” I say.
“With an offer like that, how could I refuse,” Aidan grins.
Feeling suddenly brave, I step closer to him and whisper in his ear, close enough to him for my breath to tickle his skin as I talk.
“If you thought that was a good offer, you want to see what we’re having for dessert?” I ask.
Aidan
I watch from my seat at the dining table as Erika chops up lettuce for the side salad. I offered to help her with dinner, but she wouldn’t hear of it. After what she whispered in my ear when I told her I’d love to stay for dinner, I’m almost tempted to suggest skipping the main course and jumping right to dessert, but I don’t. I like Erika and I want to take it slow with her. I don’t want her to think I’m only after one thing, especially when the attack must have left her feeling a little vulnerable.
Although thoughts of what could happen between Erika and me now that we’re alone in the apartment fill my mind with delicious images and make my cock ache for her, I just can’t keep my mind from going back to Jeremy.
I know I showed more hostility towards him than I meant to, and I’ll be honest. At first, that was because I was jealous when I saw Erika with him. But then he looked at me with such venom in his eyes that I started to take more notice. Even if he has a bit of a thing for Erika, she introduced me only as Nadia’s brother, and that really didn’t warrant such a look. It was like Jeremy felt like he owned Erika and I was muscling in on his territory. I didn’t like it one bit. I was also a little bit disappointed that Erika introduced me as Nadia’s brother, but really, what was she meant to say? This is Aidan, a guy I kissed?
There was something off about Jeremy. Something that gave me the creeps, and as a doctor, I have learned to read people pretty well over the years and I tend to trust my instincts. I don’t want to say anything to Erika about it, because I could be way off, but something makes me think he’s the one who attacked her.
That’s not just based on the feeling I got when I first looked at him and when I shook his hand and he gripped my hand a little bit too tightly, like he had something to prove. No that would be crazy. I wasn’t even considering it as a possibility until I noticed the scratches on the backs of Jeremy’s hands. It could well be nothing. Maybe he has a cat, or ma
ybe he works somewhere where that’s likely to happen. But it also looked like those scratches could be consistent with someone choking someone and having that person claw at their hands in an attempt to get them off them.
I don’t really know what to do with my suspicions. I don’t want to tell Erika for two reasons. Firstly, I don’t want her to think I’m some insanely jealous type who assumes any guy she talks to must be an awful person. Secondly, I don’t want to worry her if I’m way off base with this. I know I can’t go to the police with this either. Imagine me telling Officer Prescott my theory and her asking if I have any evidence of this, and I have to say well, I got a bad feeling about the guy and he had a couple of scratches on his hands so yeah, lock him up and throw away the key please.
I have to keep this to myself for now, but I will be keeping an eye out for Jeremy being around Erika too much. I might even mention it to Nadia, just so she can keep an eye on Erika if Jeremy comes here when I’m not around.
“Aidan? Are you ok? You’ve gone awfully quiet,” Erika says as she comes towards the table with a plate in each hand.
I didn’t realize how long I had been spaced out thinking about Jeremy and my suspicions, but she’s finished making the dinner without me noticing. She puts the plates down, one in front of me and one in front of the chair beside mine which she pulls it out and sits down+.
“I’m fine,” I smile. “Sorry. I was just in a world of my own there. These smell delicious.”
She smiles at me and picks up her fork.
“They do smell good don’t they?”
I begin to eat my potato, blowing on it when I see the steam billowing off it. I don’t want to anger Erika by bringing Jeremy up again – she changed the subject pretty quickly when I was asking about him earlier – but I need to find out more about him to see if he seems like a shifty character or if I am just being jealous and looking for something that isn’t there.
“So how do you know Jeremy?” I ask, aiming for a casual tone.
I think I must have missed the mark slightly when Erika glances at me out of the corner of her eye, a small smile of amusement curling her lips at the corners.
“Are you jealous Dr Miller?” she says.
“No,” I laugh. “I’m just curious that’s all.”
I notice that she has avoided the question. Is that something she’s done on purpose? Is she seeing Jeremy?
“You were just curious. Right, of course,” she says, still with that smile.
She takes a bite of salad and chews it slowly and I’m starting to think that’s the discussion over, but when she swallows, she starts to tell me about Jeremy and I realize she wasn’t avoiding the question altogether, she was just taking a moment to wind me up. I kind of like that she does that. Or at least I would if it was about something less serious than the man who may have attacked her. I remind myself that might not be true, and even if it is, Erika has no idea that’s why I’m asking her about him.
“Jeremy and I were dating for a while,” she says. “It was nothing serious and I broke it off. Don’t get me wrong, Jeremy is a nice guy and all, but there was just no spark between us you know? I knew it wasn’t going anywhere and it seemed pointless dragging it out.”
“And yet he still drops round to see you?” I ask.
I am sounding jealous now, but I guess it’s better for now if Erika thinks I’m jealous rather than her maybe working out what I’m really thinking before I have any proof I am right.
“We said when we broke up we’d still be friends. To be honest, that’s the first time I’ve seen him since we broke up,” she tells me.
“It was quite recent then?” I ask.
“Yeah. It was about three or four days before the attack,” she says. Her eyes widen for a moment and I think she’s thinking the same thing as me. “Do you think whoever attacked me was watching me and knew I was alone because I had ended things with Jeremy?”
I really hadn’t even considered that and it’s clear to me that Erika most definitely isn’t thinking the same thing as I’m thinking. And she said Jeremy is a nice guy. Maybe he is. Maybe I am all kinds of wrong about this. But still, the timing is a major coincidence, and her talking about someone watching her has given me another theory. What if Jeremy was watching the house so he knew exactly when Erika was in there alone? Maybe he wanted to know for sure just how much she remembered, and if she had remembered anything, he might have been planning on finishing the job. A shudder goes through me at that thought and I try to push it away, but it keeps nagging at me, even when Erika looks at me for an answer to her question.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I mean I guess it’s possible.”
“Do you think I should call Officer Prescott and tell her I’d just split up with my boyfriend?” she asks.
Maybe I should say yes. Maybe that will get Jeremy onto Officer Prescott’s radar. She might go to question him and get the same vibes as I did. She might see the scratches and make the same connection as I did. Before I can answer her question though, Erika is shaking her head.
“No. I can’t do that. It might make the police suspect Jeremy,” she says.
“Do you think there’s any possibility …?” I start.
“No,” Erika says, cutting me off before I can even finish the thought. “No. I don’t. Jeremy wanted to get back with me. He wouldn’t have hurt me.”
“He wanted to get back with you?” I repeat.
She nods her head and that teasing little smile creeps back onto her face.
“Yeah, but you don’t have to get all jealous again. I ended things with him for a reason and that reason still stands. Besides, he’s finally taken the hint now. And I know we say we’ll be friends, but that’s just something you say isn’t it? It just means if we see each other on the street, we’ll be civil to each other. It doesn’t mean we’re going to be real friends that see each other socially.”
“The last girl I dated seriously was in medical school, and that was a good few years ago now, so I’ll have to take your word for that one,” I grin.
I have to let go of the Jeremy questions for now before Erika starts to think I’m one of those possessive nut jobs that won’t let a girl they like have any sort of life of her own.
“It’s been that long since you’ve been in a relationship?” Erika says.
“Yeah. We broke up and then I got my first internship. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had flings and stuff since then, but I have always told myself I didn’t have time for a girlfriend,” I say. I pause for a moment and look at Erika as I say the next part. “The truth is I had just never found a girl special enough to make me want to make time for a girlfriend. Until now.”
Erika’s cheeks flush slightly and she smiles at me. She doesn’t say anything, but I can see she’s pleased with my words. After a few seconds, she looks back at her plate and scoops up the last forkful of her potato. I have already finished mine and she’s still chewing as she stands up and begins to collect the dishes up.
“You’ve barely finished eating,” I point out.
“I know,” she says after she swallows. “But Nadia’s apartment is so tidy. I don’t want to leave a mess.”
“I wasn’t suggesting we leave the dishes here for Nadia to clean up,” I laugh. “Just that you actually finish your dinner before you start washing the dishes.”
She laughs with me but she makes no effort to come back to the table. Instead, she starts filling the sink with hot water and dish soap. I get up and move into the kitchen area beside her, grabbing a drying towel.
“You don’t have to do that,” she says. “You’re a guest.”
“I’m a guest that has house manners. You see, I want to be invited back,” I tell her.
“Right, well let’s see what your drying skills are like and we’ll see if that’s likely,” Erika grins.
I laugh and nudge her hip with mine.
“I’m an expert with a drying towel,” I tell her.
She hands m
e the first plate and raises an eyebrow, watching me. I make a show of drying the plate to perfection. Erika goes back to washing.
“Ok, you can come again,” she says.
We get through the dishes in no time. There was hardly any to do. I stand with my ass leaning back against the counter as Erika goes and wipes down the dining room table. I watch her ass as she bends slightly at the waist. God she looks good. She comes back to the kitchen, flashing me a smile as she does it. She begins to wipe down the counter top opposite me and I can’t resist her any longer. I have to hold her. Touch her. Kiss her.
I cross the kitchen and wrap my arms around her waist. She gives a surprised laugh and covers my arms with hers. I nuzzle my face against her neck.
“So how about that dessert then?” I say.
“I think there’s some ice cream in the freezer,” she grins.
“Not really what I had in mind,” I say, nibbling on her ear lobe.
“There might be some cake somewhere.”
I kiss down her neck.
“Nope. Still not what I’m craving.”
“And what might that be?” she asks.
I release my hold on her long enough to spin her in my arms and then I pull her tightly against me, my arms around her waist.
“This,” I say before I press my lips against hers.
Her lips part and her arms wrap around my neck as she melts into me. She feels so small and fragile in my arms, but she acts anything but fragile. She pushes her hands into my hair, mashing my lips more tightly against hers and pushing her tongue into my mouth. I move my hands up and down her back, pushing them beneath her top so I can feel her bare skin. I want to feel every inch of her bare skin, run my hands over it, my tongue over it. I want to make Erika come so hard she forgets all about Jeremy. Except I think it’s me that’s the one still thinking about him. Ok then, I want to make Erika come so hard I forget all about Jeremy. Either way is good with me as long as Erika enjoys what I am going to do to her.
I move my hands to her bra and unclasp it, bringing my hands around to the front of her body and cupping her breasts. She makes a muffled moaning sound against my lips as I work her nipples between my fingers. Her nipples harden almost instantly between my fingers and she arches her back slightly as I roll them and goose bumps scurry over her skin.
