Aiden: The Lost Breed MC #8

by Ali Parker

  And liking it.

  I touched my lips which were still tingling.

  I’d definitely liked it.

  I hadn’t been kissed like that by Vince since we were in college, and even then it hadn’t been like the kiss I’d just had with Aiden.

  Aiden’s kiss was greedy. Indulgent.

  Vince kissed me like we were two kids in high school who didn’t know how to kiss.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “Just a minute!” I called, hoping they couldn’t hear how shaky my voice was.

  “Are you okay in there, babe?”

  It was Vince. Of course it was.

  I flushed the toilet and ran the sink. “I’m good. Just doing some lady business. I’ll be right out, Vinny.”

  “Alright babe. Looks like the sangria is getting low again.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Fucking sangria. Fucking house parties with fifty people. Fucking hot bikers who show up unannounced and get away with leaving you with wet panties and red cheeks and a racing heart.

  Chapter 13

  Aiden

  “I’m getting a bit tired of seeing your ugly mug around here, Aiden,” Axel said, with a wry grin as I walked up the drive to the front of the shop on Monday morning. He was wiping his grease covered hands off on a rag, which he stuffed into his back pocket once they were as clean as they were going to get.

  “Good morning to you too,” I said, as I ducked under the open bay door into the shop.

  The morning was a bit cooler than the stretch of heat we’d had for the last week or so. It had rained overnight and the pavement was still a bit wet. Axel seemed content in the cooler weather and had taken the opportunity to work with every door and window open.

  Axel knuckled me in the shoulder as a greeting. “You here to do some work?”

  “If you have any,” I said. I hadn’t really come looking to be put to work, but I could do with a bit of extra cash. I wasn’t strapped tight or anything like that, but my night at Cheryl’s place had reminded me of where I stood in the pecking order of things in this city.

  And I was pretty darn close to the bottom.

  “Want a coffee first? I was about to head into the office and sit down for a bit,” Axel said.

  I nodded and then he and I cut through the shop and into the office where I was surprised to find Ellie and Jamie.

  Both women looked up and greeted me with big, cheerful smiles.

  Jamie threw her arms around my shoulders in a big hug while Ellie crossed her arms and shook her head. Jamie seemed to greet all Lost Breed members this way.

  When we broke apart Ellie nodded at me. “How’ve you been?”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “Oh, you know. Same old. Trying to stay busy and stay out of trouble.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Axel wrapped an arm around Ellie’s shoulders. “We know about the party you planned on crashing over the weekend.”

  “Damn Owen and his big mouth,” I muttered.

  Ellie laughed. “It was Rhys, actually. He and Quinn popped by day before last to say hello and he told us about your pursuit of the girl in the Mercedes.”

  “Cheryl,” I said.

  “Whatever,” Ellie said.

  Axel seemed amused by the exchange. He looked back and forth between me and his girl before saying, “So? How was it?”

  “How was what?” I asked.

  He stared at me flatly. “The party, you half-wit.”

  I knew what he’d been asking. I just wanted to make him work a little harder for it. I stepped around them and went to the coffee machine set up in the waiting area. I started brewing myself a cup and then turned back to them. Ellie, Jamie, and Axel all stared at me expectantly.

  I shrugged. “It was a house party. There’s not much to tell.”

  “Liar,” Axel said.

  Ellie nodded in his support. “Yeah. This guy sounds like a total dick based on what Axel was telling me and his house party was ‘just a house party?’ I call bullshit.”

  Jamie moved around behind the desk and leaned her elbows on it before batting her lashes at me. “Come on Aiden. Spill the beans. I need some good gossip to get me through the rest of the day.”

  I sighed dramatically and dropped down onto the couch beside the coffee machine as it began to spit the first bits of brew into the mug. “Well, I had to invite myself in for starters.”

  “Not surprising since you were never invited in the first place,” Ellie noted.

  I ignored her sassy remark. “And then I gave myself a tour. Pretty nice house, I gotta admit. Five bathrooms, seven bedrooms, plus a den and media room. Plus a couple offices. What kind of lunatics need that much space, anyway? There’s only the two of them who live there for fuck sake.”

  “You’re avoiding telling us the goods,” Ellie said.

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Must you always be one step ahead, woman?”

  She grinned. “Always.”

  “There aren’t many goods to tell. I think it’s the opposite, actually.”

  “What do you mean?” Jamie asked.

  I ran my hand over my knee. “I was an ass. I never should have gone.”

  “Is that self-awareness I smell?” Axel said, giving the air a sniff.

  “Shut up,” I growled.

  He chuckled. “I’m just saying. It’s not like you to spot the error of your ways without them being pointed out to you.”

  “Or beaten forcefully into your skull,” Ellie muttered under her breath.

  “I heard that,” I scowled.

  She smiled and slid her hands into the pockets of her coveralls. “I’m sure whatever you did couldn’t have been that bad. You’re a good guy. You don’t do shitty things. Come on. What happened?”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “I kissed her.”

  “Oh,” Ellie said.

  At the same time Axel said, “Right on,” which earned him a slap to the gut from Ellie.

  The coffee finished brewing. I picked up the mug and took a sip, scalding my tongue. I deserved it. “Yeah. The whole thing was sort of messy. I mean, the kiss wasn’t messy, but the night was. And I put her in a tight spot, which wasn’t what I wanted to do. Not really. I just—fuck. I don’t know what I was trying to do showing up like that.”

  Ellie left Axel’s side and came and sat on the couch beside me. “You got carried away.”

  “You could say that again.”

  She gave me a sympathetic smile before patting my knee in that way a friend does when they feel for you but know you were the one who fucked up. “Do you think you should go and apologize to her?”

  I shook my head. “Can’t. If her boyfriend caught on that I was at their place he’d pop a blood vessel. The guy’s a loose cannon.”

  “Agreed,” Axel said.

  Ellie looked back and forth between us before settling her gaze on me. “So that means she doesn’t deserve an apology?”

  “That’s not what I said,” I amended. “I mean I can’t just show up or call the house. If he ever found out I was at that party she might be in trouble.”

  Ellie sat up a little straighter. “I don’t think you’re telling us the whole story, Aiden. What sort of kiss was this? A little ‘I’m-kind-of-into-you’ kiss, or more of a ‘I-want-to-fuck-you-right-here-and-now’ sort of kiss?”

  I winced. “It wasn’t the first one.”

  “Fuck yeah, buddy,” Axel said.

  Ellie scowled at him and then at me. Then she shook her head. “You’re right. You messed up.”

  “Believe me. I know.”

  “Was it at least worth it?” Axel asked, earning himself another ominous glare from Ellie.

  I shrugged. “Oh hell yeah. Sure it was. For me at least. But I’m not the one who has consequences. She has a boyfriend. He’s a piece of shit, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is faithful to him and I walked in and changed that.”

  “You’re sure she didn’t want it, too?�
� Jamie piped up from behind the desk.

  I couldn’t contain my grin. “Oh. She wanted it. There was no doubt about that. But that doesn’t mean we should have done it.” I rose from the couch and walked to the window where I stared out at the yard behind the shop. “She asked me to leave and I didn’t. I overstepped. Now I can’t take it back.”

  Axel came over and clamped a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up too hard over it, man. I’m sure she’s moving on. A girl like that must be used to—”

  I shrugged out from under his hand. “That’s just the thing. She’s not just some girl. She doesn’t do the kind of shit I put her up to the other night. She’s a good girl. Loyal to a fucking fault. She stood by Vince despite how much of a fucking ass he was and she never bent once when I called him a prick. She knows he’s a waste of space but she still has his back. It’s almost admirable in a really weird, confusing way.”

  “Too bad the guy she’s defending is such a dick,” Axel muttered.

  “You can say that again,” I agreed.

  Ellie stood up and came over to the window. “Does she have anyone to talk to about all of this?”

  “How would I know?” I asked.

  Ellie narrowed her eyes at me. “Well, do you think she has any friends here? Axel told me they just moved here from Georgia. For all you know she’s holed up in that big house all alone going over the whole thing in her head, wishing she could change it. Beating herself up with guilt. She should talk to someone.”

  “I have no idea if she has someone to talk to, Ellie,” I said.

  “What’s her address?”

  “What?” I blinked at her.

  Ellie put her hand on her hip and stared at me impatiently. “What’s her address, Aiden?”

  I gave it to her.

  Ellie nodded and then stripped out of her coveralls, revealing a white tank top and a pair of blue jeans underneath. “I’m going to go check on her.”

  “What?” Axel and I asked in unison.

  She nodded. “You heard me. If she’s as sweet as you say she needs someone to talk to and help her through this. If she wants to tell her boyfriend what happened I’ll support her. If she just needs to talk about it with someone, I can do that too. But you,” she said, pointing at me, “will stay right here and give the poor girl some space. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Ellie gave Axel a kiss before marching out of the office and out into the shop. Seconds later we heard Axel’s truck start up as she pulled out of the parking lot.

  Axel gave me a sideways glance. “Now you’ve done it.”

  “Done what?” I asked.

  “You’ll see,” he sighed, plucking the dirty rag out of his back pocket. He nodded toward the shop. “Come on. Let’s get to work. Those cars aren’t going to fix themselves.”

  Chapter 14

  Cheryl

  I’d been cleaning since Vince left for work at eight o’clock Monday morning. It was now close to noon and it seemed as if I hadn’t even made a dent.

  Half empty wine and cocktail glasses were still littered over almost every surface. Crumpled up napkins hid under the furniture and on the pool deck. The kitchen counters were piled high with dishes and serving platters, and I’d spent the last half hour bringing out food waste bags to the green waste bin in the garage. My shoulders and arms hurt, and so did my legs and even my ass from bending down to wipe up spills off the floor.

  I was so over this and I still had hours to go.

  If I could at least get the kitchen clean first then I would have open counter space to prepare dinner for tonight. Vince would expect a full meal regardless of the state of disarray the house was in when he left this morning. From his perspective he was going and doing a full day of work, so when he got home the very least I could do was make sure dinner was on the table for him.

  But I still had to go to the grocery store.

  I wiped my brow as I stared around at all the dishes in the kitchen. Hours. This was going to take me hours.

  Especially since I kept zoning out and staring off into space thinking about the kiss I shared with Aiden in the bathroom.

  I was powerless to it.

  The thought would come up, and my skin would start to burn, then the place below my belly would tighten and my panties would get wet. It would take all of my self-control and will power not to just go into the bedroom and take care of myself.

  The kiss had been too much.

  I could still feel his tongue wandering around inside my mouth. I could feel the firm press of his hand on the back of my neck and the other on my hip. I could feel his thigh between my legs and smell his rich musk when I closed my eyes and envisioned myself back in the bathroom with him.

  It was infuriating.

  And the guilt was unlike anything I’d ever felt before.

  As soon as Vince left for work this morning I went back to bed and spent the first fifteen minutes sobbing into my pillow. Then, when I knew I could waste no more time feeling sorry for myself, I started cleaning. But the tears didn’t stop. They kept on flowing and I did my best to hold them at bay while I cleaned.

  I had no idea until now that I could feel equally guilty and aroused all at once.

  Every time the shame and the guilt became too much I reminded myself of all the times Vince had slept around on me. He’d had sex with a handful of girls over the course of our relationship and I hadn’t so much as looked at another man. Not ever. Well, not counting the ones on the movie screen.

  I’d never been tempted to do anything with another man.

  But with Aiden things were different. Had he stripped me naked at the party and bent me over I wouldn’t have stopped him. Hell, I probably would have begged him to fuck me. I’d even dreamed about it that night. About his cock inside me, one fist coiled tight around my hair and the other hand holding my hip so I couldn’t go anywhere.

  I gave my head a shake.

  It was starting again. The arousal.

  The dishes taunted me with their caked on cheese and dip. It was so much more tempting to hurry to the bedroom, diddle myself for five minutes just to get the job done, and then come back and get all this cleaned up.

  I nodded decisively.

  Yes. That’s what I would do. Five minutes was all it would take to get Aiden out of my system and get my head on straight once more. Then I could put him out of my mind forever and pretend nothing ever happened between us.

  Vinny would have all of my attention when he came home tonight.

  Maybe we could even have sex so that I could feel his mark upon me instead of Aiden’s.

  I left the kitchen and marched out into the foyer to the bottom of the stairs. I ran my hand along the railing as I ascended, and right when my foot hit the top step the doorbell rang.

  I paused and hung my head.

  Seriously?

  Now?

  With a great sigh I hurried back down to the front door. I fixed my hair, smoothed out my t-shirt, and unlocked the door while fixing my practiced smile on my lips.

  When I opened it to find a pretty young blonde woman standing on the other side I hesitated. “Um. Hi?”

  She smiled. “Hi. Are you Cheryl?”

  I looked back and forth outside to see if anyone was with her. She was alone. “I am,” I said.

  She held out her hand to me. “I’m Ellie. Nice to meet you.”

  I shook her hand. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting anyone. Are you—are you selling something?”

  Her smile broadened and she shook her head. She was quite beautiful. She was fit and lean beneath the white tank she had on, and her jeans fit her perfectly, showing off legs I wished I had. “No. I’m not selling anything. I’m a friend of Aiden’s.”

  I felt my confusion slip away. It was replaced with irritation. “Oh.”

  Ellie held up both hands. “I know what you’re thinking. But please, give me a minute to explain. I just heard about what happened the other night between the two of you.�
��

  “Oh God,” I breathed, hanging my head in shame. “Of course you have.”

  “It’s not like that. He’s not spreading it around. He’s a really good friend of mine. But when he told me what happened I—I wanted to come and apologize for the position he put you in. He’s a good guy, honestly. He just gets carried away sometimes and doesn’t think about potential repercussions. He’s a bit reckless.”

  “I noticed.”

  Ellie wrung her hands together. “He feels terrible.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I understand. Can we, I don’t know, grab a coffee and talk about it?”

  I looked over my shoulder back inside the house and to the mess that waited for me there. “I can’t. I have a lot of cleaning up to do after the party. The weekend got away from me and I can’t leave it any longer. It has to be clean for when my boyfriend comes home from work tonight.”

  “Can I help?”

  I blinked at her. “Pardon?”

  Ellie nodded. “Let me help. It’s the least I can do.”

  “But you didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “No, I didn’t, but I’m here and nobody else is. Let me help you. I have two kids. I know how to clean the hell out of a house in no time.”

  I stared at the woman on my threshold.

  She was a complete stranger and was offering to help me clean my house. Was there a catch? If there was I couldn’t think of what it might be.

  “You can put me on dish duty,” Ellie said.

  She knew just the thing to say to win my favor. I opened the door the rest of the way and invited her in, telling her to keep her shoes on.

  Ellie stepped inside and cast her gaze around the foyer and at the stairs. Her expression was similar to the one Aiden had worn when he came inside for the parry. Shock and awe.

  “Your home is lovely,” Ellie said.

  “Thanks. Just wait until you see the mess. You won’t think it’s so lovely anymore.”

  I led Ellie into the kitchen. She whistled when she saw the dishes, but then she went right over to the sink and started moving things around to clear one side so she could start scrubbing. “I’ll wash, you dry and put away?”