Chapter Two
THE NIGHT BEFORE AIDEN was to marry Zia, he had decided to clear his head; being this close to Callie and having a rift between them tore him apart inside. Zia had said she wanted an early night to make sure she was beautiful for the morning. And had his mind not be so preoccupied with Callie, he might have notice his bride-to-be hadn’t tried to kiss him good night and seemed almost anxious to be rid of him.
He went to the one place he still felt close to Callie—the club house. There he found Callie alone, and so beautiful it had made his teeth hurt just to look at her. They’d talked, and all the things Zia had played up in his head fell away. He’d remembered the Callie she had been and discovered she wasn’t the one who had changed, he and Zia were. He’d also discovered that his long hidden need for her wasn’t as far gone as he had believed. One touch of her soft lips and he was hard as a rock, ready to strip her naked and make love to her on the floorboards of their childhood playhouse. For a few seconds, the world had been perfect. He was happier than he’d been in years, and he felt alive.
When she’d pulled away, reality was like a bucket of ice water pouring over his head, and Aiden was forced to see that it was all a fantasy. In a few minutes he’d gone from being an honorable man to a sham. He loved Zia, but never the way or with the force he loved Callie. But it was sixteen hours before the wedding, what could he do? It wasn’t Zia’s fault he loved Callie, and Callie certainly wouldn’t give him the time of day after that. No one would have won if he backed out at this point. At least by going through with it, Zia had a chance.
Naivety at its best.
The bubble burst on the third day of their honeymoon. Guilt overrode his better sense of judgment when he couldn’t get his mind off Callie. But then Zia picked a fight with him over something so insignificant; he wanted to go out sightseeing and she wanted to work on her tan.
“I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend the entire week and all this money in the Caribbean, and only see the beach in front of the resort,” he yelled at Zia. It was the first time he had ever raised his voice with her.
“You would walk away from me on our honeymoon?”
“Zia, we could have laid on the beach anywhere for god sake. All I’m asking is that we go out and see the sights.”
“You know what? I wish I had never said I do. I wish I could take back the whole thing.”
“Where the hell did that just come from?” Stunned, he shook his head. An hour ago Zia had been mooning about how much she loved him.
“I feel stifled. I want to be alone. I just want my own life back.”
Aiden’s anger filled him until he thought he would blow his top. And then, in a rush, he told her about the kiss. That he followed it with, “but I still choose you!” didn’t matter; Pandora’s Box had been opened and the cheap hotel vase from the coffee table barely missed his head when it flew past him.
Zia never let him forget it. She used it in every fight they had over the next two years. He put up with it only because he thought it was his punishment. Zia though, seemed to withdraw from him until he didn’t know her anymore. She swung from needy and clingy, to a raging lunatic in the blink of an eye. He thought about having her see a doctor because he genuinely believed she was bipolar, but in the end, her own guilt had been too much to bear. She, in an evening of despair, admitted to sleeping with his best man, Brad, the night before the wedding. The same groomsman Zia had said she didn’t want him hanging with because he was a bad influence.
The issue was they’d both mis-stepped, but she hadn’t stopped at a kiss. She’d actually had sex. And had that been the end of it he might have been able to work through it. Aiden could, in his heart, have forgiven her—because had Callie not stopped them when she had, he might have done the same. But then Zia went on to tell him all the ways she had contrived to keep him and Callie apart, including the oath they had taken and lies she’d told. The damn was broken, she admitted to still sleeping with Brad on occasion, claiming he had threatened to tell Aiden everything. Somehow, she still had the gall to throw that one kiss up in Aiden’s face in the same breath.
Shortly after that night, Aiden moved out, their marriage and friendship irreparably harmed. But he still worried about Zia. She was drinking too much and unable to get herself together. Aiden, for his part tried to make it as easy as possible on her, and when they divorced they went through a mediator.
In the end he was unable to do the one last thing she asked of him: stay away from Callie. She’d agreed they needed to split up, but she still couldn’t handle the idea of him being with Callie.
“I can’t—won’t make a promise I have no intention of keeping,” he told her.
But just because he wanted to see Callie, didn’t mean she would feel the same. After all, would she see him as cheating letch or would she understand that it had been the temptation of being with her, the woman he had loved since grade school? It was too much uncertainty for him to withstand.
So many nights Aiden had dreamed of holding her like this, feeling her warm and soft in his arms. The guilt he had carried for wanting Callie while married to Zia had eaten him alive. He’d spent more time in Confession during his two years of marriage than he had in his entire life. He really had loved his wife, but his feelings for Callie were stronger, had been born deep. And too late he’d discovered she felt anything for him as well.
He could blame Zia, but he had to own the mistakes he made as well. He had been too scared to lose Callie as a friend in high school to make a move. When went away to college, he had been at a loss without her. Zia had been the one to suggest they give her the time to really enjoy college. And then Zia came on to him strong, and he mistook lust for love. And Callie’s misery for jealousy and pettiness. All of which had had him pushing his true feelings for her to the back of his consciousness.
Yet here they were now, in a position he’d thought would take him months to get to. Her lush legs bracketed him and her delicate hands worked on the button of his pants. “Wait,” he said, his voice was harsher then he’d meant it to be.
“Wait? Are you kidding me?” She looked at him, shocked.
He kissed her because he couldn’t help it. “Calm yourself, Cal. I’m not going to make love to you for the first time on the counter of your parent’s guest house with my pants around my ankles.”
“How about the bed of said guest house, with the pants off?”
“That would be perfect,” he said, grabbing her neck and pulling her into another searing kiss. “There is one other issue—I don’t have any condoms.”
She pushed him away just long enough to jump off the counter, grabbed his hand and towed him behind her. “Not an issue. Every Sherman mother since the first cousin turned fifteen has stocked condoms in every bathroom available.”
“That’s very forward-thinking of them.”
“Uncle Joe has a candy dish of them.” Letting go of his hand, she went into the bathroom and came out seconds later with a string of condom packets.
“You have more confidence in my performance than I do.”
“Right now I would settle for just one.” She licked her lips and came toward him. “Please.”
Aiden could see the traces of the uncertain girl she had once been under this grown and self-assured woman standing before him, and it melted his heart. He didn’t think he could love her more, but he did. “I love you, Callie,” he said, because to not say it seemed wrong. She deserved to know.
“You don’t know me anymore.” Dark chocolate pools looked back at him, full of uncertainty.
Walking up to her, he placed his hands on either side of her face forcing her to look at him. “I know you, Callie. I have known you my whole life. And no matter what you’ve done the last few years, that can’t change the woman you have always been.” He placed his hand over her heart. “Nothing could change the woman you are in here, and that is the woman I have always and will always love.”
Tears filled Callie’s eyes
, and she turned her face into his palm, kissing it as she closed her eyes. Aiden lowered his lips to the exposed skin of her neck, working the remaining clothes off her body as he laved the delicate skin under his tongue. She wasted no time ridding him of his pants and briefs. Her fingers twitched over his ass, teasing him as she worked over his hips before finally wrapping around his aroused cock. Throwing his head back, Aiden hissed, reveling in her hands on him, her touch against his heated skin.
“I won’t last long,” he mumbled before capturing her mouth again and easing her down. His lips never left hers as they moved up the bed, fumbling with pillows and bedding until she lay sprawled beneath him, gloriously naked and open to him. He lifted his head to look at her; her dark hair fanned out against the light linens, her large breasts begging him to kiss them, and her soft curves pushing him over the edge with desire. “You are so beautiful—you’re more than that, but I don’t have the words to describe how I see you.”
“Thank you,” she said. And although he wanted to ask why she was thanking him, he couldn’t form any more words. He knelt, letting his hands trace her body and feel the softness and full weight of her breast, the soft curves of her hips and the full roundness of her ass. Grabbing the condoms off the bed where she had dropped them, he opened one and covered his cock in record time before coming down on her again.
One of her legs wrapped around his pushing him into intimate contact with her. She ground her hips against him, closing her eyes on a sigh. He allowed her to do it a few more times before pressing down pinning her under his hips. “Open your eyes. I want to see them.”
Their eyes locked he entered her inch by tantalizing inch, claiming her in a way he had only dreamed about. When he was as deep as he could get, Aiden stilled, taking in every element of this moment. The sight of her under him, the smell of roses from her perfume mixed with the heady scent of her arousal. The small sounds she made deep in the back of her throat. He kissed her, matching the moves of his body with the moves of her tongue.
And he gave her everything. Grabbing her thigh, he pulled her leg up over his hip opening her to him more, allowing him to move deeper. Callie gasped but didn’t pull away; instead she deepened the kiss, her fingers lacing through his hair holding him to her.
Her breathing became shallow and quick, and he knew she was close to coming again. Aiden savored her need as she fought to find her pleasure. And when she found it, he captured her scream with his lips, holding it all in him, until she pulled away gasping for air. Her eyes rolled back as she threw her head back holding her breath as if afraid that she might shatter.
“Callie, look at me,” he demanded when she would have closed her eyes to rest. “Callie, please look at me. I love you.”
She opened her eyes and nodded. “I believe you.”
That was more than he hoped for. She might not love him now, but she would again—he could see it in her eyes and that was enough. He sped up and within seconds followed her into orgasm. Her arms held him close as her nails scored gently over his back until he lay still and unable to move. He tried to roll off her, sure his weight was too much for her, but she held him close not allowing him to move.
“Please don’t move yet.”
“I’m just going to roll…”
She squeezed him harder. “I don’t want this to end.”
A wave of love washed over him; she might not be ready to admit it but she needed this connection of theirs as much as he did. They had been missing a huge part of themselves the whole time they had been apart. It was more than the sex—mind-blowing as it was—it was the intimacy. A closeness Aiden had never felt before and knew he would never find again without Callie. He let her hold him against her, felt her breathing calm and her heart slow, as he just cherished her arms around him.
Chapter Three
AS SHE LAY THERE, holding him tight, Callie didn’t want him to move or leave her. Though there hadn’t been a lot of men, the few she’d had were never like this. Never had there been the need to stay connected, to make it last. She closed her eyes as Aiden pressed small kisses against her shoulder. He pushed up on to his arm and finally she let him.
He rolled to the side, but laced his fingers through hers as if also unable to break their connection. After a few minutes, when his own breathing had returned to normal, Aiden lifted onto his elbow and looked at her, one hand running through her hair. His eyes shown with a love so true it took her breath away. “I don’t suppose anyone would notice if we never left this bedroom?”
“I have a feeling if we stay much longer, someone will not only notice, but a few of my cousins might break down the door to protect my honor.”
“Huh. Not sure even that could get me to move from your arms right now.” He smiled, leaning in and brushing his lips against hers.
Tracing his lips with her fingers, Callie sighed. “We should get dressed.”
“I was afraid you would say that. Come on, let’s shower at least.”
“They’ll know what we did.”
“Honey, they’re going to know if we don’t shower. At least this way your scent on my body won’t drive me crazy all afternoon.”
She nodded and followed him into the shower where, to her delight, he made love to her all over again.
Forty-five minutes had passed before they finally emerged from the guest house. With the exception of Callie’s hair, which she didn’t bother to put back up, they looked none the worse for wear. Tony’s wife, Haven, was the only one who seemed to notice their reappearance. She just smiled and indicated with a jerk of her head the best direction to avoid the most amount of attention. As they maneuvered through the crowd, Aiden’s hand remained firmly within Callie’s. She wasn’t sure who was holding on tighter, but their feet were leading them both in the same direction.
Aiden was taking her back to their club house, and Callie knew it was the right thing to do. They had nearly lost everything years ago with one kiss, and the best way to repair that one event was to return to the so-called scene of the crime. What neither of them expected was to find someone waiting for them.
Zia.
Aiden stopped first and momentum pushed Callie into him. As if on instinct, he turned to wrap his arms around her before he spoke. “Zia? What in the world are you doing here?”
Zia looked up at them, her eyes rimmed in red. At first Callie thought it was from drinking, but the patchiness around her nose could only mean she had been crying. Callie’s heart broke knowing she had hurt someone she had once carried about. Moving toward her she said, “Oh, Zia, we never meant to hurt you.”
“Why are you still being nice to me, Callie?” Zia asked, her voice small.
Pulling out of Aiden’s arms, Callie walked over to Zia and grabbed her hand. “No matter what, we were friends once.”
Zia nodded, pulled away from Callie walking closer to the rough club house and sniffled. “I am sorry about this afternoon. I shouldn’t have come. Hell, there’s so much I shouldn’t have done over the years. I just felt like an outsider with you two. As far back as I can remember I was always the third wheel.”
“But…”
“Please, Callie, let me speak. You didn’t mean to do it. I know that. But I felt like it anyway. And so I drove a wedge between you two at every chance I got. Not so I could have Aiden to myself, but so I could have both of you. I wanted you both to look at me the way you looked at each other.”
Aiden growled. Callie looked at him then back at Zia, and understood. “Oh, Zia.”
“I knew you both would come back here. How could you not?” She looked around. Her fingers brushed against the aged wood of the club house as if remembering better times. “I never meant to hurt you, Cal. But the more I deceived you both, the worse I felt, and I couldn’t bear to look at you for fear you would see the guilt written on my face. So, I pushed you away. I was mean and petty. I lied and hurt you when all you had ever done was love me like a sister.” She stepped back as Callie tried to reach out, as if her
touch was too much for Zia to bear. “Aiden, I did really love you, and I know you loved me. And perhaps we could have made it work. But you didn’t love me the way you loved her and I didn’t love you the way she loved you. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.” Aiden nodded.
“I don’t like the person I am, and I don’t like the way I’ve hurt you. I know it means nothing really but I give you my blessing, for what it’s worth.”
“It means a lot,” Callie assured. Maybe it didn’t, but what did it hurt to make Zia feel a bit better? Aiden put his arms around Callie, stopping Callie’s shivering.
Taking a deep breath, Zia looked at the fort then took a single step toward them, but in the end backed away. “I think perhaps the best thing to say now is just good-bye. It’s past time I left here and made something of myself.”
“Where will you go?” Aiden asked.
“I have a cousin in Florida who said I could come live with her while I finish my degree. Then who knows.”
Callie looked between the two friends; she could tell Aiden still cared about Zia’s welfare, and that warmed her where before it would have sent arrows of jealousy through her heart. “Will you keep in touch?”
She shook her head. “I think it would be best for all three of us if I just disappeared. Do me a favor? Take care of each other.”
They watched as Zia walked away from them, her head bowed and shoulders slumped. But there was a determination to her steps and Callie hoped she did start a new life and was able to be happy. Callie turned in Aiden’s arms and found him staring at her in amazement. “Even after all she has done to you—to us. You’re still worried about her.”
Kissing the Bridesmaid (A Finally Ever After Story & A Sherman Cousins Short Story) Page 3
