The place is immaculate, not a speck of dust, not a rogue shoe out of place. Every pillow on the sofa has been fluffed, every candle wick trimmed. A short bookcase along one of the walls houses an impressive mini library, alphabetized from Alcott to Zafra.
“Can I show you around?” Aerin asks, chewing her inner lip as her eyes dance on mine.
I lift a brow, unsure of why she feels the need to be so formal. “Sure?”
She leads me down a hall first. “Bathroom. Closet. Margot’s room …”
And then she pulls me into the last room on the left.
“My room.” A smile curls her lips and she closes the door behind her.
“I don’t think I saw the kitchen yet,” I tease as her hands slide up my shoulders and her fingers lace behind my neck. “Was really looking forward to scoping out the way you organized your silverware drawer.”
“You making fun of me, Calder?” She grazes a kiss against my mouth, a kiss in the form of a smirk.
“I think it’s kind of hot actually.” I slip my hand along the underside of her jaw. “You being so uptight.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because I get to be the one to wind you down.” Sliding my hands down her sides, I stop just below her ass, pulling her thighs against me until she’s secure in my arms. Next, I carry her to her bed, but before I let her go, I yank the coverlet, making a mess of the sheets before placing Aerin in the center of it all. Climbing over her, I lift the hem of her shirt, pressing my mouth against her fiery skin. “Screw perfection.” I move lower. “Screw order.” I press another kiss into her flesh and she exhales, reaching for what’s left of the messy sheets and taking a fistful.
Peeling her leggings and panties down her thighs, I make a point to toss them aside.
Relationships are messy.
People are complicated.
Expectations are a precursor to disappointment.
I don’t know what lies beyond this. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or what’s going to come the day after that. All I know is whatever’s next, I want her in it—whatever that means.
Sliding her to the edge of the bed, I lower myself to my knees and hook her legs over my shoulders. Tasting her with my tongue, I feel her body writhe and watch her stomach cave and the small of her back arch. Her arousal fills my mouth, addictive and sweet, and I could stay here all night long if she let me.
Aerin Keane is mine. I have her undivided attention, her body, and her immediate future—and this time a signed contract has nothing to do with it.
I devour this beautiful creature until her body undulates and her breath quickens and her teeth dig into her bottom lip. When her hands find my hair and her body melts into the bed, I know she has finished. Climbing over her, I claim her mouth, letting her taste what I can do to her. She smiles, her nails spidering over my shoulders.
“This is crazy,” she whispers. “You know that, right?”
“I like to think of it as an adventure,” I say. Adventure of a lifetime …
Aerin pushes a breath through her nostrils, frowning almost, like she wants to say something.
“What?” I ask. “What are you thinking right now?”
“You’re adventurous,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“I’m not.”
I laugh. “That’s one of a million differences between us. Trust me, it’s not a deal-breaker for me if it’s not a deal-breaker for you.”
“You mentioned once that you own a plane,” she says.
“I do. A Cessna. Do small planes scare you?” I ask. But before she answers, I add, “You’d be surprised how many people hate the idea of flying non-commercial.” I brush a strand of hair from her forehead. “I would never force you to do anything that terrifies you, Aerin … but I might dare you.”
“Calder.” She thrusts her head back into the bed, groaning and trying not to laugh. “I’m so going to have words with Rush next time I see him. I can’t believe he sold me out like that.”
I silence her with another kiss. Selling her out is the last thing he did. He gave her her life back, the life she’d been denying herself all these years.
“How long are you in town?” she asks, cupping my face in her palm with a kind of tenderness I’ve never known from another human being in my adult life.
“I wish I could say indefinitely, but I can’t leave WellesTech hanging,” I say. “Those people have been loyal to my father’s company—some of them for decades—and until I find a buyer, I have to man that ship.”
“Noble.”
“I’ll only be here a few more days,” I say, “but you should come back with me. And if you can’t, then I’ll come here every weekend. We’ll figure out the logistics, but I promise you, Aerin, the distance between us should be the least of our concerns.”
“You sound like a man who knows what he wants.”
That would be the Welles in me—for better or worse.
“You hardly know me and already you know one of the most important things about me,” I say.
“What else don’t I know about you?” she muses, a glint in her eye. “Wait. Don’t answer that … not yet, anyway.”
Dare I assume she plans to embrace the unknown? The adventure we’re about to embark on?
“Didn’t plan to,” I say.
Aerin gives my shoulder a light smack before her hand slinks behind my neck. Inhaling the sweet tang of her arousal in the air mixed with the wild jasmine scent permeating from her warm skin, I know this isn’t heaven, but it’s got to be the next best thing.
“I want to take you somewhere tomorrow,” she says before massaging her lips together.
“Okay … where?”
“I want you to meet my parents.”
Under ordinary circumstances, I’d be choking on my words right now, eyeing the nearest exit, and coming up with some excuse on the fly that would prevent me from taking such an enormous step.
We sit up, perching ourselves on the edge of her bed, and she hooks her hand over my shoulder before nuzzling her cheek against it.
“Before you start freaking out …” she begins to say.
“Not freaking out.” I turn toward her.
“Before I scare you away …”
“Not scared.” I shrug.
“I want you to see where I came from,” she explains. “I’ve never brought anyone to my childhood home. I’ve never introduced anyone to my parents. I just feel like, if you can accept where I’ve come from then you can accept where I’m going. And you can accept me.”
“Aerin … I accepted you the minute you ran into me and spilled coffee down your shirt.”
Her jaw loosens and she scoots over a few inches. “Seriously?”
“Nah. I didn’t know who you were then.”
“Calder.” Her arms fold, though I can’t tell if she’s teasing.
“Fine.” I pretend to roll my eyes. “I ran into you. I was coming out of my father’s office, not paying attention, and I made you spill your coffee. For that, I sincerely apologize.”
“Thank you.” She smiles, sitting a little straighter than before, her arms relaxed at her sides. Pulling in a slow breath, she lets it go. “Was that so hard?”
She has no idea.
Looking like a klutz in front of a beautiful woman on one of the worst days of my life had my ego all kinds of refusing to admit it was my fault.
I pull her into my lap and thread my fingers through hers. The apology was hard, but my cock is harder. And every second I spend looking at her and not burying myself deep inside of her is pure torture.
“I want you so damn much.” I kiss her neck, my fingers tugging at the hem of her top. “I can’t wait another minute.”
Aerin’s hips grind, her pussy circling the outline of the throbbing ache in my jeans.
“Then I’m all yours. You’ve got me, Calder.” She whispers the sweetest words I’ve ever heard from the sweetest lips I’ve ever tasted.
Five
Years Later
“DID YOU KNOW THEY have soccer for three-year-olds?” I ask my wife as she slices strawberries and bananas for our toddler son, Holden.
She shoots me a wink. “I did. Did you know that our son doesn’t turn three until next spring?”
“That’s crazy you should say that because I’m actually well aware of the fact that our son turns three on April third of next year,” I say, keeping my tone light.
Strutting toward the kitchen table, a plate of sliced fruit in one hand, she gives my shoulder a playful swat before bending to kiss the top of my head.
Our son—who happens to be the spitting image of myself at his age with a mop full of dark hair and a hint of mischief in his honey-brown irises—flails his arms before grabbing a fistful of banana and cramming it into his mouth like it’s his last meal on earth.
Didn’t learn that from me. I’ll give Uncle Rush the credit for that.
“All I’m saying is let’s let him be two for a hot minute, babe.” My wife chuckles, but I don’t ask what she finds so funny. I already know. She thinks I’m a Helicopter Super Dad, but in the best of ways.
I never knew how badly I wanted to be a father until she woke me up one Sunday morning with the most terrified look on her face, tears in her eyes, and a little white stick clutched in her hand. I was disoriented at first, half thinking I was dreaming and half wondering what she was freaking out about, and then she said the words that forever changed the trajectory of our lives. “Calder, I’m pregnant.”
We hadn’t been trying. We’d been talking about trying. Big difference.
Turns out that morning she realized she was a couple weeks late and grabbed a test at the grocery store while she left me fast asleep in bed.
I pulled her into my arms, inhaled the sweet scent of her Daisy perfume as it radiated off her warm skin, and felt her shudder against me. Just a week ago, we decided we most definitely wanted a family—a large family—but we were going to wait two more years. She was still growing her business and had just hired four new employees, and I was starting my foundation, The Gwyneth Connection, which aims to help those and their families who’d been affected by faulty medical equipment.
“Why are you crying?” I whispered into her ear as I hugged her tight. “This is great news.”
She peeled herself away, dabbing her eyes with the back of her hand. “Really? You’re not disappointed?”
I laughed through my nose, brushing a dark wave away from her eyes. “Why would I be disappointed, Aer? You’ve just given me the best gift anyone could’ve even given me. Are you? Are you disappointed?”
“God, no.” She shook her head before splaying her palm across her belly. “Terrified, yes. Thinking of how this is going to impact my two-year plan, yes. Wondering how we’re going to decide on a name since we have different taste in pretty much everything, absolutely. Disappointed? Never.”
I cupped her cheek in my hand before stealing the sweetest kiss I’d ever known from the lips of a woman I was privileged to exchange vows with only a year before.
Seven months to that day, we welcomed an eight-pound baby boy, Holden James Welles. We opted to break the Calder Welles chain and not to name him after anyone. It was important to us that he’s able to be his own person and not grow up living in the shadow of the namesakes that lived before him.
“What are you thinking about?” Aerin takes a seat across from her two guys, cupping her face on the top of her hand.
I pop a sliced strawberry between my lips and smile. “You.”
She rolls her eyes, fighting a grin. “One of these days you’re going to surprise me and give me an answer like … Buddhism … or George Clooney.”
“Never,” I say. When I’m not thinking of her, I’m thinking of Holden. And when I’m not thinking of either of them, let’s be real: I’m probably sleeping. “What’s the plan for today?”
Aerin’s face is lit as she watches our son. I catch her doing that sometimes, just staring at him like he’s the most wonderful thing she’s ever seen in her entire life. I catch myself doing it sometimes too. It still blows my mind that we made something so perfect.
“Rush is in town,” she reminds me. “Mom and Dad are having a cookout at two. Thought we could do the zoo for a few hours this morning, let him catch a nap, then head over?”
“Perfect.” I stand, clearing our breakfast dishes off the table and carrying them to the sink, where I begin to rinse them off before loading the dishwasher. Glancing out the window before me, I spot our rescue mutt, Barnaby, chasing a bird in the backyard before sneaking a quick drink of water from the pool.
I’ve never been a dog person, never owned a dog, never so much as thought about owning a dog, but when Aerin and I were mapping out our dream life together the night that I proposed to her, we both agreed we wanted that Apple Pie Americana life that neither of us ever had.
“Hey, Calder?” Aerin asks as I rinse another plate.
“Yeah?”
“Forgot to tell you, the lock on the garage door is sticking again.”
“I’m on it.” I dry my hands and grab a can of WD40 from under the sink. It’s moments like these, moments that seemingly mean nothing at the time, that remind me just how lucky I am to have a comfortable place to rest my head, a fiercely loyal woman by my side, and a healthy son who holds a spot in the center of it all—a son who’s going to break the chain of dysfunction.
I head out to the garage, shaking the can as I walk. A quick spray on the lock and it’s back in order.
Our house isn’t glamorous or extravagant—that isn’t our style. Neither is our relationship. We wear sweats more than we used to. We order takeout more than we frequent the hottest LA eateries. Our last date night was spent at home, watching Netflix and drinking wine from sippy cups because one of us forgot to run the dishwasher and we were both too exhausted to hand wash a couple of glasses.
To anyone else, this is just an ordinary Southern California Saturday morning, but to me, it’s just another day in paradise.
“A MAN, WHEN HE wishes, is the master of his fate.” The plaque on the fountain outside my new apartment quotes Andrew Young, and if he were still around today, I’d tell him exactly how wrong he is.
If mastering my fate were as simple as closing my eyes and wishing on stars and throwing pennies into water, I wouldn’t be standing here right now.
I throw a quarter toward the trickling water that collects into a mosaic pool of chlorinated water. Wishes have never been my thing, so I let it fall with a gentle plunk. Retrieving a second coin, I flip it in the same direction, only this time it falls short, ricocheting off the granite ledge and rolling down the cement until it disappears beneath a wrought iron bench.
Crawling on my hands and knees, I reach beneath the empty park bench in search of the runaway quarter, only to come up empty-handed. Literally.
When I was a little girl, long before my father passed away, he’d take me to this fountain just off the main drag of our quaint little town and we’d have coin tossing contests.
He’d assign points: ten for hitting the spitting fish. Twenty if I could slice through a stream. Fifty for whoever could manage to land a coin on the top of the bronzed mermaid’s outstretched palm. The loser was supposed to carry the victor home on their shoulders.
Magically, I won every time.
If Dad were still around, he’d hate the hell out of New York City but he’d love the hell out of this fountain outside my apartment. A sculpture of a couple ducking beneath an umbrella centers the display, the man’s arm around the woman as water trickles from the top. They’re smiling, their marble clothes giving the appearance of being soaked as water splashes up around their feet.
I bet Dad would say it’s romantic, much like he was. The man was obsessed with all things love, which was how I got my name—or so the story goes.
Rising, I dust my hands off on my jeans and glance toward the dark windows of my new place just across the cobblestoned, carriage-li
ghted plaza.
“Here.” I thought I was alone, but the velvet tenor of a man’s voice proves otherwise. “Take mine.”
I wait for my palpitations to settle before turning to face my generous benefactor.
Men and their money …
A disarming smile comes into focus first, under the pale flicker of moonlight and streetlamps, followed by a chiseled jaw with the slightest indentations where dimples should be. His eyes, partially hidden by a pair of tortoiseshell frames, are defined with thick, dark lashes that contrast against his classy machismo.
“No, thank you,” I say once I gather my composure. “I was just leaving.”
His head tilts and he studies me, and then he turns a shiny quarter between the pads of his fingers.
“You know, your wish won’t come true if the coin doesn’t hit the water,” he says, a hint of a smirk in his tone.
“Is that a fact?” I arch a brow.
“Proven.” The handsome stranger nods. “You didn’t know that?”
I think he’s trying to flirt, but I don’t have the energy to tell and even if I did, I wouldn’t have the nerve to flirt back.
“Fortunately, I don’t believe in wishes,” I say.
He slides the coin back into his suit pant pocket, followed by his hand, and he stands there, relaxed, like he’s got all the time in the world to dedicate to this pointless conversation with a stranger outside a sparkling water fountain. I’m guessing he isn’t from the city. Most New Yorkers don’t take the time of day to say “excuse me” when they push past you on the sidewalk, let alone offer a replacement quarter to some woman they’ve never met.
“So you were just ... throwing money into a fountain for … no reason?” he asks.
“Basically.” I sling the strap of my bag over my shoulder, sensing the heavy weight of his stare, and then I turn to leave.
The Jasper on Fifth has been my home for three weeks this Wednesday and it still feels like some unfamiliar vacation rental I’m only inhabiting temporarily. Mom keeps reminding me it won’t feel like home overnight and that I need to keep “feathering my nest,” but I’ve already filled it with all the things that no longer remind me of the life I left behind the day I signed those papers, things that help me remember the girl I was before I became the girl I grew up to be. But so far I can’t help but feel like an impostor in someone else’s clothes, in someone else’s home, existing in someone else’s world.
P.S. I Dare You (PS Series Book 3) Page 15
