by Naima Simone
“What did he want?” she asked through numb lips.
A humorless smile tipped the corner of his mouth. “What do you think he wanted? Money. He figured since we were all like family, and I was helping you out, I could do the same for him.”
“He was fishing,” she whispered. “I didn’t tell him I was staying with you. I didn’t tell him anything.”
“But you did talk to him,” he stated, shaking his head. “That first night I asked if he intended to show up to seal whatever deal you two planned.”
His words—the accusation—penetrated the fog that had started to enshroud her. “And I told you no. Wait.” She shot up a hand. “What are you talking about? I swear, I didn’t tell him—”
“Then how did he know, Noelle? Your brother would never have the balls to approach me unless he believed you had paved the way first.” His voice remained level, cool, and if not for the darkness in his eyes, they could’ve been discussing the weather. But she knew better. There wasn’t a touchier, more explosive topic between them than Tony.
“Probably because I-I didn’t mention you,” she stammered, dropping her purse to the floor. She held up her other hand, her palms up, imploring him to believe her. “If I’d said I’d seen you or spoken with you, maybe he wouldn’t have guessed. But he knows you’re in Boston, and…” Shit. She didn’t even believe herself. “I’m sorry,” she finished, the apology lame. God, this sounded so familiar. Six years ago, he’d accused her of conspiring with her father. Now she was doing the same with her brother.
“Sorry?” he repeated, voice soft. “For what, exactly? Do you want to tell me what your brother is up to before I find out for myself?
Shock pummeled her. Did he really think she was in on…? She’d been apologizing for her brother’s actions, not for being in cahoots with him. After the last week together… After the kiss… Her face flamed, anger surging bright, hot, and high. How could he believe she would use him?
Because she was a Rana.
In the end, it all came back to her last name. Her father, her brother, and Aiden’s hatred for both. And his determination to lump her in with them because of four letters.
Screw him. No. Fuck him.
“You obviously have your mind made up; you had it made up before I walked through that door. And you know what, Aiden? I don’t give a shit. Not anymore. I’m tired of trying to prove myself to you when I will always be under suspicion, guilty until proven innocent,” she snapped. Snatching up her bag, she backpedaled several steps. “Since I’ve already been tried and convicted, I’ll get out. Because if you really accept that I’m capable of using you like that, I’d rather live in a cardboard box under a bridge than stay here another night with you.”
Pivoting, she charged up the steps. Ten minutes. That’s all she needed. Ten minutes to throw clothes and shoes for work into a bag. She’d call Chancey from the road for directions to where she was staying. Details. She shook her head, pushing into her bedroom. Former bedroom. Details she could figure out later. First, and most importantly, she had to get the hell out of here.
Pain stabbed her chest, stealing her breath. But she didn’t stop to regain it. Stopping meant remembering what a naïve idiot she’d become to actually hope Aiden had started to see the real her. The her who worked hard, had dreams, and insisted on paying rent to stay here because accepting a free ride was an anathema to her.
Sucking back a useless sob, she strode into the closet, grabbed a duffel bag, and tossed it on the bed. Another trip to the closet, and she returned with an armful of dresses, pants, and shirts that she threw on the bed. Picking up a skirt, she folded it and stuffed the garment in the bottom of the bag.
“Stop.” The dark murmur in her ear preceded the press of a hard, big body to her spine and a large hand covering hers seconds later. “I’m sorry,” Aiden said, and the deep rumble of the apology vibrated against her back.
No fair. She squeezed her eyes closed. And it wasn’t enough. Jerking her hand out from under his, she whirled around, palms up. “Don’t. You don’t get to come near me, much less touch me,” she snapped. God, she hated her body for tingling at his nearness, for craving more of his touch. “FYI, I was apologizing for Tony’s actions because he wouldn’t. Yes, the fact is, if I wasn’t here, he wouldn’t have called you. But I’m not in on some nefarious plan to betray you. For you to think that, especially after…” After the time they’d spent together. After the kiss… She shook her head. “I have nothing to prove to you.”
“You’re right,” he said quietly, his emerald gaze steady, unflinching. “And I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“For what, exactly?” she asked, hurling his earlier words at him. “For being an asshole?”
“Yes.”
“Well, they say the first step is acknowledging the problem,” she drawled, turning back around. She grabbed a shirt and skipped folding it, instead just shoving it in the duffel. Anger and hurt coiled inside her like climbing, clinging vines. “You fucking hurt me,” she whispered. “I hate that I let you hurt me.” Again. The admission escaped her before she could trap it.
Once more his heat warmed her moments before his hand encircled her wrist, halting her movements. “I am an asshole. For accusing you without hearing you out. For not relying on what I’ve come to discover about you. For hurting you. And I’m asking for your forgiveness.”
Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs, echoing in the heavy, tense silence of the room. She picked up another shirt and clutched it in her hand as if it were a lifeline. As if it alone saved her from tumbling into an abyss she wouldn’t be able to climb back out of.
“It’s not an excuse—I have no excuse—but I heard your brother’s voice, and I couldn’t…” She heard the deep drag of breath behind her, felt his chest rise and fall against her back. “Hearing his voice took me back to a place I hated. He reminded me of…” He didn’t finish, but he didn’t need to. Peyton. Tony had reminded Aiden of Peyton and her betrayal. “But none of that excuses me not asking you instead of accusing you. So yes, I am an asshole.” His lips moved against her hair, the top curve of her ear, sending a shiver through her. “Don’t go,” he said.
The low timbre rolled through her, stroked over her skin even through the clothes and coat she had yet to remove. Part of her wanted to edge away from it—the stimulus was too intense, too overwhelming for her to keep her head afloat. And with Aiden, she had to keep her nose above water or this…need he stirred would drown her. Then the other part… The other part craved his heat, his strength, his power. Yearned for it to cover her, brand her, fill her.
“You,” he paused, his fingers tightening around her wrist, “unsettle me. I shouldn’t want you. I don’t…” His other hand palmed her hip, held her steady, and her heart stuttered as his lips grazed the top of her ear. As the wall of his chest pressed tighter to her back. “I shouldn’t ask you to stay knowing all I can think about is touching this sweet, tiny body. About taking your mouth again and not stopping until every part of you has been under my tongue.”
Jesus. She shuddered. She squeezed her thighs together, attempting to smother the ache his words created. No man had ever made her feel; she’d never allowed one close enough to try. Just him.
“Aiden,” she breathed. Trembled. Stop talking. Please don’t stop talking.
“It’s wrong to ask you to stay when all I can think about is how tight you would squeeze my cock… How good you would feel coming around me. How you would look, how you would sound when you came apart under me. Because of me. I missed the chance all those years ago. I didn’t get to have that with you, and as much as I want to deny it, I can’t erase it from my mind.” Slowly, he released her hand, stroked his palm up her arm, and gently but firmly grasped her chin. He turned her head until she met his dark, hooded gaze. “Don’t go.”
Pack your shit and go. Now. Before you’re in deeper than you already are. He doesn’t trust you, and God knows you don’t trust him. Only pain waits for you dow
n this path. Go…
His mouth brushed hers, silencing the voice of reason in her head. She parted her lips, accepting his sensual invasion. His tongue swept in, tangling with hers, an erotic dance where he was clearly the lead and expected her to follow. To give. And she did. Willingly trading prudence for pleasure. Handing off caution for the carnal oblivion she knew he could give her—that she’d never experienced.
With any man.
Had it always been him? Had she subconsciously waited for him, just using her disdain for sex and his abandonment as reasons not to let another man into her body? If so, when it came to this man, she was in deeper than she ever realized. And pathetic. She was pathetic.
And when he tried to push into her body and met the resistance of a twenty-five-year-old virgin’s body, he would know just how much. God forbid he assumed he was the reason behind her celibacy.
Panic seized her, momentarily capsizing the need heating her veins, swelling her breasts, pinching her nipples tight, and pooling low between her legs. She stiffened, the freezing bite of fear pushing back the pleasure. Not fear of him, but of his rejection. Again. A man who could probably author a manual on doling out orgasms might find her an oddity. Hell, she was, in this day and age. She’d been called “whore,” “frigid,” “slut,” and “confused.” She was none of those, and she didn’t give a damn about those people’s opinions on her or her sexuality. But Aiden’s… His could wound her in a way no one else could.
But she’d rather face it now than when she was naked and vulnerable. Exposed.
“Noelle?” Aiden murmured against her mouth, his fingers stroking a path of fire down her throat.
Smothering a groan, she shifted forward and away from him, placing space between them. Space that didn’t fill her lungs with his heady, sexy scent with each breath.
“Give me a minute,” she said, hating the plea in her voice as she burrowed her fingers through her hair and clenched the strands. “I… Damn it.”
“Noelle.” He cocked his head to the side, his hooded gaze on her. Tension seemed to vibrate from his big body, but he maintained the distance she’d set. Respecting it, even though he resembled a predator ready to pounce. “Sex with me is not a requirement to staying.”
“No, I know. That’s not it,” she objected, hand outstretched. “That’s not it at all. It’s just…” She hesitated, mortification swirling in her chest. “What you want from me… I’ve never done…never given to anyone else.”
Silence boomed in the room like a deafening thunderclap. Shock flared in his eyes, slightly widening them before they narrowed and slowly scanned her. She could feel his visual touch on her mouth, throat, chest, the flesh between her legs that dampened and throbbed for him. Even her toes received his attention.
“Are you telling me I’m the only man who’s touched you?” he pressed, the question a dark rumble in the room.
I shouldn’t have said a damn thing. The admonishment batted against her skull. She fought not to turn and walk out or open her mouth and spill objections, lies, or excuses. Like being a virgin was a crime not a choice. And it wasn’t because of him. At least, not consciously. “Look, I…”
His gaze lifted, and, oh, Christ, the heat. Her voice evaporated under its power. She’d expected disbelief, condescension, even amusement. But not lust. Scorching, intense, searing lust.
She sucked in a breath, unable to move, her heart pummeling her sternum, the thunderous beat echoing in her ears. Desire, thick and molten, flowed through her veins, burning her from the inside out. Licking every part of her. Swelling her breasts. Detonating a clench deep within her, a primal demand for an invasion her flesh had never known.
“Aiden,” she breathed, not sure what she intended to say.
“Do you want to give it to me?” he asked, his voice a sandpapery rasp that sounded as if it must hurt his throat.
It. Did he mean her virginity? Her body? Her pleasure? Her fears? Her trust?
She didn’t ask him to clarify; she was too much of a coward to hear his answer. And because her answers weren’t that simple. She believed he could give her pleasure that would be worthy of cult worship. But give him her trust, offer him her vulnerabilities, her fears, and believe they were safe with him? No. Staring up at him, she didn’t say any of that. Instead, she nodded and whispered that safest—and most dangerous—word. “Yes.”
The skin across his cheekbones tautened, making them appear impossibly sharper. In direct contrast, his lips seemed fuller, lush. Carnal.
“Come here,” he said, the order soft but containing an underlying thread of steel she found herself acquiescing to before realizing her feet were in motion.
She didn’t stop until the toes of her shoes bumped his. And when he widened his stance, she shifted closer, beckoned by the dark, almost savage emotion roiling in his stare. So when he cupped her cheek and gently swept the pad of his thumb across her skin, she started, flinched. She’d expected a harder, fiercer touch, not this tender caress that shattered any residual shadows of doubt. Exhaling a trembling breath, she leaned into his hand, brushed her lips against the heel of it.
This time when he bent his head, the kiss didn’t just conquer, it seduced. Teased. Played. No less hot or raw, but coaxing, inviting her to join him, follow him. And she did, tilting her head back, meeting him thrust for thrust, lick for lick. His other hand slid into her hair, tangled in the strands, held her steady for his erotic raiding. The pinch to her scalp reverberated low in her belly, and it pulled on something inside her. Something needy, achy. Something she instinctively understood only he could satisfy.
Tugging her head farther back, he dragged his mouth over her chin, down her neck, tonguing the base of her throat. She whimpered, cradling his head, loving the sensual slide of his thick, silken strands over her fingers and the backs of her hands. Craving more of his wet strokes on her skin. Abandoning her hair and face, he grabbed the lapels of her coat and shoved it down her arms, temporarily dislodging her hands from him, but she immediately reclaimed him, needing to hold on to him like a piece of driftwood tossed on swirling, rushing rapids.
“I’ve had my hands on these before.” His husky voice slid over her as his palms stroked up her sides to the undersides of her breasts. “I’ve touched them. Pinched these pretty nipples.” He plucked at the tips, swept his thumb back and forth over them, eliciting a cry from her. “I remember that they’re the loveliest shade of pink. Until”—he bent his head, grazed his lips over the beaded crests—“after I’ve sucked them. Then they darken to a deep rose. And they’re even more beautiful.” He drew on one tip, his tongue coiling around it over her shirt. She clutched him harder, loosing a harsh groan. Electricity jolted from her breasts to her clit as if a current connected them. The pleasure stole her breath. “I haven’t forgotten how they feel, hard and tight, on my tongue. But I don’t want to just rely on my memory anymore,” he said, his scalding gaze fixed on her as his thumbs tormented her flesh.
“Yes.” Anything. She’d give him anything he asked just as long as he didn’t stop touching her. “Please.”
His low, wicked chuckle vibrated over her damp top and skin. He lowered his hands to the waistband of her pants and tugged the shirttail free. He slid underneath, the surprisingly calloused and hard palms lightly abrading her belly and torso, sending shivers cascading through her. The material bunched around his wrists as he steadily moved higher.
“Up,” he ordered, and once more she abandoned her hold on him, lifting her arms. With a quick, economical tug, he removed the top, leaving her clothed in only a simple, black bra and her pants.
Latent shyness and modesty struck her, swarming over her and crawling up her chest and neck, and in that moment, the twenty-year-old made an unscheduled appearance. Noelle veered far from the type of women Aiden was often pictured with—gorgeous, pampered, beautiful bodies, money and elegance pouring from every inch of skin exposed by short and expensive-looking dresses. Models, actresses, socialites—none had been p
oor, tatted, aspiring gallery owners who trimmed their own hair and shopped at consignment stores. He was used to seeing women adorned in delicate lace lingerie from high-end boutiques, not plain, serviceable bras that came two on a hanger.
“Don’t you dare,” he rumbled, and she halted in the middle of folding her arms over herself. “Don’t you dare hide from me. For too long I’ve been dreaming about this beautiful body, and now that I finally have you here in front of me, I want to see every damn inch. Touch and taste every inch. So put your arms down.”
Floored not just by his words, but by the smoldering hunger—and bared truth—in his eyes, she obeyed and slowly lowered her arms to her sides. She didn’t move when he unfastened the front clasp of her bra. Or when he smoothed the straps over her shoulders and down, the undergarment falling soundlessly to the floor. Air caressed her bared flesh, but her tremble had nothing to do with the heating and air conditioning, and everything to do with the man setting her on fire with his gentle but fierce seduction.
His big hands engulfed her breasts, molding, shaping, squeezing. On a rough hum, he captured her nipples between his thumbs and fingers. Tugged. Rolled. Tweaked. Dark, erotic pleasure pummeled her, punching her hips forward, arching her back toward him. Offering him more of her.
“Just as I remembered,” he murmured, rubbing his cheek then lips over a beaded tip. He sucked her deep in his mouth, the suction hard, intense, knee-weakening. Hers buckled, and he immediately shifted, bracing her against the wall. He didn’t let up on her flesh, his tongue coiling around her tip, pulling and stroking until every pint of blood in her body seemed to congregate in her breasts or between her legs. Delivering a long lick with the flat of his tongue, he pulled back. Studied his handiwork. “So pretty,” he stated, lust stamping his features. Satisfaction gleamed from his eyes as they shifted up to her face. “The prettiest dark red after I’ve had them.”
