Well, most anyone, she guessed.
Sure, he’d kissed her back. But she couldn’t help wondering if it was a pity kiss. He wasn’t a jerk, and he’d known she was upset. Probably he kissed her back to save her the embarrassment of him not kissing her back.
After all, she’d practically climbed him like he was a jungle gym.
She needed to stop thinking about it.
“Hey, I found this night tour on my phone,” she said to Waverley and Aiden. She turned the screen so they could see it, and she pointed at the description. “If you can stay up late enough, Waverley, it is a total dark tour. Not tonight, but tomorrow is the next available one. We meet at sunset, and we can learn about nocturnal animals indigenous to this region, not to mention see the night sky. You interested?”
“Yes! Sounds great. Can we still do the geology museum tomorrow during the day?” Giving up on trying to get Hematite to walk on the leash, the child now carried the cat. He drooled happily on her shoulder.
“You got it, kiddo,” said Aiden, touching the child’s head gently.
See, he touched her, too. He was just a touchy kind of guy. Him stroking his hand on Chelsea’s face was nothing more than his normal kind of behavior. Anything she thought she felt from him was likely projection. She understood enough psychology to know better than to read into his casual touches.
Even if they curled her toes in her shoes.
“For now, we should probably go grab some lunch. You hungry?” Chelsea forced a smile to her lips, hoping it looked comfortable and easy rather than showing the strain she felt.
“I could eat,” Aiden said.
She watched as he strode back toward the SUV, enjoying his ass as he went. Texting Kimmie back, she admitted, The man does have a very, very nice ass. I get why you’re so interested in it.
Kimmie answered fast. I knew it photographed well, but no one has seen the actual ass. Not real people anyway. Take one for the team, Chelsea. Get that ass.
Snickering, she pocketed her phone. If only life were that simple. A man like him literally could not be interested in a normal kind of girl like her. She knew it logically.
Now to figure out why she was so damn disappointed by the fact.
Chapter Eleven
Aiden
Since the kiddo had been in bed for over an hour, the first sneaking sound technically could’ve been her. Up for a late night snack or otherwise moving around…
However, the little tingle at the back of his neck said Chelsea was near, but he decided to wait her out. He heard things rustling around in the kitchen, but he simply reclined on the couch and tried to focus on the movie or the game on his phone.
Literally anything but her presence a mere room away.
It wasn’t working, and his mind kept giving him possible ways to drive the conversation back to the whole game on discussion. He could go out to the kitchen, stand behind the open refrigerator door, then, when she closed it, whisper, “Pause,” before leaning in to sample her lips again. “Midnight snack,” he could add, with a grin.
Then she’d fall into his arms, and they’d end up tangled on the floor of the kitchen.
Nope, he told his hormones. Too creepy.
He was concentrating so hard on not concentrating on her that he didn’t notice she’d left the kitchen until she flopped onto the couch next to him. “What are you watching?” she asked.
It took him a few seconds of staring at the screen before he realized he had no clue what the name of the movie was or what happened so far in it. “Just a movie,” he answered lamely.
“Huh,” she answered. When she took a bite of the cheesecake they’d picked up at a little local store, he watched. The way she licked her lips and then curled them into a slow, sexy smile should come with a warning label.
“So you went to summer camp as a kid,” he said, since she’d told him as much on the drive. “What other games did you guys play?”
“Camp games?” she asked. Twirling her fork, she seemed to think back. “I don’t know. I already taught you Name that Tune and The License Plate Game.”
“That was it?” he asked. “Guess I didn’t miss much. I thought maybe you’d have something in mind we could play. Since Waverley is in bed, after all, and neither of us is sleepy.”
Her brown eyes focused on him, and she smirked. “There were other games. Telephone is a game where one person whispers something, and then everyone else tries to repeat it, and at the end, you have some hilarious garbled mess that was nothing like the original message. It requires more people, though, for it to work. Um, we played Twenty Questions. In that game, one person has a thing in mind, and everyone gets to ask them questions to try to guess what it is. Kind of like Animal, Mineral, Vegetable, now that I think of it. And…well…” Her blush said whatever came to mind must’ve been much more interesting, but she didn’t complete her thought.
“Now you’ve got to tell me.” He leaned back farther in his seat, trying to look relaxed, when he actually wanted to lean closer to her. For some reason, although other women didn’t make him nervous in the slightest, Chelsea had the unique ability to make him feel off center.
Off balance.
Off his game.
He had a sneaking suspicion it was because other women didn’t matter, not in the long run. And Chelsea?
She mattered.
The lady in question took another bite of her cheesecake before sipping the glass of wine she’d brought in from the kitchen. “There were other, more risqué games. Not for the little kids, but for the older ones. Games that the camp counselors probably wouldn’t have been as thrilled with, but we found…amusing.”
He gestured at the fire. “We have a fire, and this is kind of like a camp. Educate me.”
She shook her head. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”
He wanted to say pause, but he feared he’d be overstepping in some way. Any other time, he didn’t hesitate to negotiate or ease his way into whatever deal he wanted. With her?
He simply waited.
“You’re actually curious?” she asked.
He turned off the television and shifted in his seat to face her more fully. “Were they dirty?”
She snickered. “Not really. Well, Seven Minutes in Heaven was dirty. In that game, you went into a cabin with a person and…well, stuff happened.”
Clearly a kid’s game, because nothing he had in mind for Chelsea would take so little time. “What games were naughty but not dirty?”
“Truth or Dare could get kinda risqué. As could Two Truths and a Lie.” She set her plate down and licked her lips. “I’m sure you’ve heard of both of those, though.”
“Yeah, I have. Wanna play one?” The last thing he wanted was for her to go to bed. He hadn’t been sleeping well, not the entire trip, and thoughts of her would surely make this night no different.
“I like asparagus. I can play the flute. I was raised by my dad.” She rattled the three sentences off so fast, it took him a second to realize what she’d done.
“I was hoping you’d go with Truth or Dare, but I’m going to guess that the lie was the part about the flute?” He reached out and brushed at that lock of hair, the one that always fell over her forehead.
He wasn’t sure if it was his response or his touch that caused it, but she blushed prettily. “Correct. Why did you hope I’d pick Truth or Dare?”
The smile crawled slowly to his lips. “Unless we’re playing, I don’t have to tell the truth.”
“Fine, Truth or Dare, Aiden.”
She so rarely said his name, preferring for the most part to call him Mr. Kelley unless he’d annoyed her, so he reveled in that for a second before he went with the safe response. “Truth.”
“Now who is the chicken?” she asked, laughing. In yoga pants and a tank top, she looked less like his assistant and more like a woman. A very sexy and comfortable woman. The intimacy should’ve scared him, but it didn’t. It was Chelsea.
She was special.
>
“You don’t have a question?” he teased.
“What is your most embarrassing moment?” she responded so quickly that he guessed she had the question ready to begin with.
“Okay, I was maybe fourteen? Anyway, young. And I had a crush on my teacher. Her name was Miss Meadows, and she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever met. On top of that, she could sing. What more can a guy want, right?” Her laugh encouraged him, so he continued. “So I did what any guy would do. For Valentine’s Day, I bought her a flower. You know, one of those ones that they deliver in class? They sell them for a buck or whatever to raise money for the class… Anyway, I wrote out the card to the most beautiful woman in the world, as one does.”
Chelsea nodded. “Of course. How else would you address it?”
“Right? And I signed it. But I realized she’d get in trouble if she admitted her undying love for me in return, so I erased my name back off the card and figured I’d be, like, a secret admirer.”
“Logical,” she agreed.
“Exactly. You could tell, even then, that I was a particularly brilliant guy. And so the flower got delivered, right there in front of the whole class. I sat there, front row, waiting to see her response. She blinked in surprise then did something teenage me didn’t expect.”
“What did she do?”
“She held the card up to the light. Did you know that, if you press hard when you’re writing—to try to look grown up by making sure your penmanship is perfect—and then erase what you’ve written, it is still clearly visible on construction paper just by holding it up to the light?” He pretended to hold an imaginary square and then imitated the expression on her face when she’d looked at him.
“Nope, did not know that.”
He shook his head sadly. “Me either. Needless to say, she asked to see me after class. Now, I admit…I thought maybe it would still work out for me. I gave her a flower, it was Valentine’s Day…but she just wanted to tell me that, although I was a very nice boy and one of her all-time favorite students, it wasn’t going to work out. She said I should consider a girl my own age.”
She covered her lips with her hand, hiding her smile. “Did you take her advice?”
He shrugged. “Not your turn for a truth.”
“Touché,” she responded.
“Truth or dare?” he asked.
Her hand dropped, revealing a mischievous smile. “Dare.”
“You’re just trying to prove you’re not a chicken,” he pointed out.
“Is it working?”
“Not really,” he said. “But good try. Dare you to wear a finger moustache for a full turn.”
“A what?”
“Like this,” he said and demonstrated by holding his finger above his upper lip. “As you can see, it is a classic look.”
She snickered. “Not where I thought you’d go with this, but fine. Finger moustache. Happy?”
He laughed outright. “You look ridiculous. My staid, ever-cautious Chelsea with a finger moustache. Can I post a picture of this to my social media?”
Her glare was impressive, even with the finger moustache. “My turn. Truth or dare, Aiden?”
“Truth,” he said, smiling at her beatifically.
“Now who is the chicken?” But her annoyance faded, and she kept on her finger moustache. “What was your scariest memory?”
“Easy. Active duty, overseas. Next question.”
The finger moustache dropped. “I didn’t know you were in the military.”
“You lost your moustache,” he pointed out.
She replaced her finger, and her eyebrows dropped low. “You’re just going to leave it at that?”
“I’m after you taking your turn, lass. Truth or dare?” He laid the Irish accent on thick, pleased when her breath caught and her eyes locked on his.
He wasn’t wrong. For some reason, it turned her on when he used the accent. He locked that little detail away for use on some later date.
She recovered after a second and cleared her throat before answering. “Dare.”
He grinned at her. “Don’t be offering that if you’re going to back out the moment I give you a dare.”
She shrugged and changed her response. “Okay, I’ll take a truth, then.”
“What made you call pause?”
Silence filled the room, weighted in sexual tension. “Curiosity. Your turn.”
He waved a finger at her like a metronome. “Not getting out of it that easily. What exactly were you curious about, Chels?”
She lost the finger moustache and reached for her wine. “It is human nature, Aiden. I’m a woman, you’re a man…it was curiosity.”
“Pause,” he whispered.
He couldn’t do more than that. It was up to her. It had to be.
“Truth or dare, Aiden?” she answered. She set the glass down slowly, not meeting his gaze.
“Which do you want me to pick?”
“I don’t know.”
He sighed. “Truth, then.”
“Did you do it because you pitied me?” She didn’t look anywhere near him, as if she feared his response.
“Do what? Wait, does it matter? I never pity you. You’re strong, confident, gorgeous… I don’t even put pity in the same room as you.” He answered honestly, scooting a bit closer to her.
“No, I meant did you kiss me back because you pitied me?” She sounded annoyed, but she at least looked at him again.
“I kissed you because I’ve wanted to kiss you for a while, and it was the first time I felt like you wouldn’t punish me for that desire.” Again, the honesty cost him nothing.
She swallowed hard. “Promise?”
The question was a whisper. A moment of her letting down her guard. He saw it for what it was, and he couldn’t resist tracing her lips with his fingertip. “Promise. I kissed you because I wanted to.”
“Okay,” she answered.
“Can I get a redo?” he asked.
Her frown returned. “You want to revoke that answer already?”
“Nope. Ask me truth or dare, Chels.” He practically held his breath, hoping she’d do what he wanted her to.
“Truth or dare?” she asked. The words were so soft, they were hardly more than a whisper of air. But he heard her.
“Dare,” he answered with confidence.
“Dare you to kiss me like you mean it?”
“With pleasure,” he responded.
…
Chelsea
This time, the seduction wasn’t lazy. His mouth on hers set her blood on fire. He pressed into her, forcing her back on the couch and drowning her in his taste. He was her new official favorite smell—like her darkest desires given scent. His hands traced up her ribs, electrifying her nerve endings and scorching her senses. In any of her imaginings of what being in Aiden Kelley’s arms would be like, she’d never dreamed up anything as passionate as the actual man.
He stopped just shy of cupping her breasts, though, lifting his head. “If this isn’t what you want, you can change your mind.”
“I want you,” she admitted. The words might damn her, but she couldn’t drum up the reserve to care. “I want you, Aiden.”
“Not here,” he said. Without further explanation, he lifted her from the couch and began to carry her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, surprised.
“You’re carrying me,” she whispered into his neck. Heat flooded her face. She wasn’t light, and she hadn’t lost that fifteen pounds… Hell, she’d been eating cheesecake.
Not that her weight seemed to be an issue for him, since he strode down the hallway like she wasn’t a burden in the least.
“Yes,” he answered, pinching her ass with the hand holding it. “I am.”
He carried her into his bedroom, careful to close and lock it behind him before leaning on the door. “I wanted the time to explore you without worrying about an interruption,” he explained.
“Oh,” she whispered. He still hadn’t put her down, so she gave hi
s neck an experimental lick, which he rewarded with a small moan. In seconds, he’d taken her lips again, only releasing her enough that her body dragged down his before her feet reached the floor.
She decided that, for this night, he wasn’t the Aiden Kelley from the office. He was hers, at least for the time they had together. And she was going to squeeze every last drop of pleasure out of what time they had. Part of her feared that, if he remembered who she was—not a model or actress and actually just a boring assistant—he’d change his mind.
But how could he not remember? She wasn’t sexy or suave, not really. Which underwear was she wearing? Please don’t let me be wearing a pair that has a hole in them…
“You’re thinking so loud, I can practically hear it,” he whispered. His fingertips traced across her collarbone before those gorgeous eyes of his met hers. “Stop.”
Her breath came out on a jagged exhale. His face showed only desire—for her.
He might normally want women who were miles out of her league, but this night? He wanted her. It would be enough.
It had to be enough.
She met his lips again, hoping to drown out her insecurities, but he ended the kiss and instead put space between them. “I want to see you,” he explained.
What would he see? She wasn’t anything like what he usually had in the bedroom—or the office. “I—”
“Let me see you, Chels,” he said. His face looked sincere and adoring, so she couldn’t refuse his request.
He slid her top off with a gentle motion, following the fabric up her ribs with kisses. If she thought he might be put off by her bra, his carnal smile nixed that notion. “Truth or dare?” he whispered.
“Dare,” she responded.
“Dare you to remove your breasts from the bra but leave it on,” he answered, licking his lips.
“You’re even bossy in the bedroom, you know that?” she teased, but she obeyed, loving the way he seemed completely fascinated by her movements. His hands came forward, thumbs just barely grazing her nipples and making her gasp.
“You have no idea,” he said. He tugged off his own shirt impatiently before pulling her close so their chests rubbed together as his mouth took hers again. The contact sizzled her ability to think, fried all logic. His palms grazed under her yoga pants and underwear, cupping her ass as he lifted her until she wrapped her legs around his waist.
The Irish Prince (The Billionaire Dynasties) Page 8
