As if sensing her fascination, he stepped closer again, crowding her, and belatedly she realized that the danger was real. Logic told her to step back and maintain some semblance of safety. Something else urged her to step forward and take her chances in the storm.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He frowned. “Don’t you?”
The accusatory tone put her on edge as she racked her brain for what possible grievance he might have already tried and convicted her for. He stepped closer still, and her muddled thoughts got even more so. Against her will, she inhaled more deeply the heady scent of coffee and angry male.
“I’m sorry about last night. If the pounding in my head is anything to go by, I’m way too old to be getting drunk on a weeknight. That tequila hit harder than I expected.”
“I don’t give a shit about the tequila.” His words were edged with steel.
“You don’t?” Her forehead crinkled with confusion. “Then what—”
“This,” he bit out as he pulled her to him. Her breasts brushed his chest, and he ran a palm up the left side of her torso, igniting the lust that had begun simmering deep in her belly the moment she’d realized he was still in her apartment.
Did he feel it too? The pull of attraction? The realization that he hadn’t made a move while she was drunk but that he’d stayed all night anyway made her heart beat faster. The blood rushing in her ears had nothing to do with her overindulgence and everything to do with the man in front of her. The man she’d wanted for so long. The man who finally wanted her back.
She stood frozen, waiting for whatever came next—for him to press his mouth against hers, or sweep his hand up to cradle her breast, or pin her against the counter with his hips. But he didn’t do any of those things.
He just stood there looking down at her, their bodies close but not close enough. Their breathing had synced, and nothing moved except for the slight pressure of his hand along the side of her rib cage. The pressure increased steadily, growing slightly uncomfortable before she realized his thumb was digging into her skin, right below the lacy edge of her bra, right where her...
Oh shit.
Her eyes widened with realization. The goddamn butterfly tattoo throbbed beneath his thumb, and she cursed her stupidity.
Aidan’s frown deepened at her confession, the one she knew was written all over her face. But the pressure on her tattoo eased, and when he spoke his voice sounded more off balance than enraged. “What the fuck, Kaylee?”
Can you help me with my dress?
The memory made her woozy. It had seemed a brilliantly flirtatious play last night, inhibitions dampened by tequila and Aidan and desire.
Now she saw it for what it was. A huge mistake.
She’d never thought for a second something so tiny would give her away, never considered that he’d noticed the show of teenage rebellion. Ironic, considering she’d been scrupulous about hiding it when she was a kid lest her mother see it and ground her for life.
Hell, Sylvia Whitfield still didn’t know about it.
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. He knew.
He knew what she’d done, and he wasn’t happy. The accusation in his gaze cut deep.
“It was you.”
It took her a moment to realize he was stroking the pad of his thumb back and forth across the winged talisman inked on her skin, shooting tiny sparks along her nerve endings and erasing the pain he’d inflicted a moment ago.
The sweetness of the gesture had lulled her into complacency, and his next swing made her stagger because she hadn’t braced for it.
“Did Max put you up to this? Is he trying to figure out why I’m back?”
She’d never been punched before, but she imagined the lurching disorientation his words inspired must be what it was like to be coldcocked.
She was never going to be free of her brother. Aidan was never going to be free of her brother. The two men hadn’t spoken in five years, yet they couldn’t have been more linked.
“Why would Max have anything to do with my sex life?” Her voice was flat. Cold. An attempt to extricate herself from the box she occupied in Aidan’s mind, the few times he bothered to think of her at all. The blunt question seemed to shake Aidan, and he stepped back, jerking his hand away as though he’d finally realized he was touching her.
As expected, talk of Max had leeched all the gray out of their tête-à-tête, and Aidan’s hard gaze told her that he was firmly back in the land of black and white.
“It should never have happened.”
The dismissal of their liaison, of the hottest experience of her life, piqued her anger.
“You wanted it as much as I did.”
He raked a hand through his hair. The look on his face, like a wild animal trapped in a cage, was humiliating. “I had no idea who you were!”
The truth slashed at her.
“Maybe not, but you felt it, too. I know it’s never been like that for you with anyone else. I could feel it in the way you touched me.”
Aidan crossed his arms, trying to keep her out. “It was anonymous sex. It didn’t mean anything.”
Kaylee knew this was it, her one shot to take what she wanted. “It wasn’t supposed to mean anything, but now that you know it was me, you know the truth. And it scares the shit out of you.”
“If I’d known, if I’d even suspected it was you in that club, it never would have happened.”
“But it did happen. Because I wanted you. I still want you.” Something flared in his eyes, and Kaylee pressed her advantage. “And you want me. All you have to do is give in.”
“You think you’re a seductress now? Because we fucked in a supply closet? This doesn’t end well, Kaylee. That’s why it should never have started. You’re messing with things you don’t understand.”
“Maybe I understand better than you think.”
“If you did, you would never have resurrected whatever feelings you think you have for me. I don’t return them. I never have.”
“You didn’t then. You couldn’t. I was just a kid. But I’m not a kid anymore, Aidan. There’s nothing stopping this now.”
“Oh no? Then why didn’t you tell me it was you?”
“I just...”
“You knew I would have sent you on your way. So you kept your mouth shut. Because you’re a liar. Just like Max. Just like Charles. You’re a Whitfield through and through. You take what you want when you want it, the rest of the world be damned.”
It hurt. Of course it hurt. But the precision of the attack was so out of character from a man who’d always been so kind. He was angry, but she suspected it was more with himself than with her, so she kept pushing.
“Is that what I did? You weren’t into what was happening? I thought it was just going to be sex. That you’d never find out. But then the way you looked at me when you put your jacket around my shoulders?”
He stiffened, like she’d accused him of something heinous.
“You looked at me like you saw me, like you knew something was different, and I...”
“You what? Thought if you tricked me into screwing you in a supply closet we’d fall in love and live happily ever after? Grow the fuck up.”
And with that he stalked out of her apartment, out of her life, slamming the door behind him.
Kaylee watched him go. His words burning into her chest, even as her fury had her breathing hard. Asshole. He could deny it all he wanted, try to pretend nothing momentous had happened when their bodies touched, but she knew the truth. He’d wanted her in that supply closet. And he wanted her now, even knowing who she was.
CHAPTER TEN
SHE’S A FUCKING LIAR.
Aidan landed a one-two combination on the heavy bag he’d installed when he’d renovated his dad’s old workshop into a living space.
The sound of Kaylee’s laughter filled the room, mocking him, and he glanced over at his phone. He should turn it off. He’d already accessed the SecurePay prototype and sent it off to his tech guy so it could be analyzed against Cybercore’s competing product.
But damn, she had a great laugh. Rich and throaty. And though he had no idea who this Jesse guy was, Aidan definitely didn’t think he was as funny as Kaylee was giving him credit for. He was listening in on her daily briefing with Soteria Security, but judging by his erection, you’d think he’d called a goddamn phone-sex line.
For the past three days, he’d been listening to Kaylee run Whitfield Industries in her brother’s absence. And doing a hell of a job of it. She was decisive but fair, supportive but exacting. Nothing like the girl he remembered who used to shrink whenever anyone so much as glanced at her. No, at work Kaylee was in charge. In control. Like she had been on that stage.
Jesus.
He was still having a tough time accepting that the sexy siren in the supply closet and little Kaylee Jayne Whitfield were one and the same.
And the fact that he hadn’t put that together on his own made him want to punch things. A person. A wall. He wasn’t choosy. Luckily, he was old enough to know better, so he kept his fists directed at the heavy bag.
But no matter how many punches he threw, he couldn’t shake the way she’d looked in her kitchen that morning—hungover and beautiful and so effortlessly sexy. The sweetness of her had been in direct contrast to all the dirty things he craved from her as she stood there in her purple bra, staring up at him as his thumb stroked her ribs.
Kaylee.
He tried to name the toxicity oozing through his chest and was surprised to find it resembled betrayal.
But not the kind where he despised her for duping him as much as the kind where he resented her because he’d missed out. He’d had Kaylee in the supply closet, but he hadn’t enjoyed it the way he should have because he’d thought she was someone else.
Even knowing, it was hard to believe she was the hot, sexy woman who’d melted all over him at the burlesque club. Hell, maybe she was right to keep her identity from him. Maybe Max’s little sister was all he’d ever see her as.
He knew it was a lie the second he thought it.
Because she’d gotten him plenty hard with her clumsy, drunken kitchen seduction, and he’d known exactly who he was dealing with then. He was hard right now reliving the details of that night in the storage room, imagining it over and over without the blond wig and blue contacts.
Jab, jab, cross.
His boxing gloves made satisfying thuds against the sand-filled leather.
It should never have happened. But after realizing how attracted he was to Kaylee at the coffee shop, at the lounge, he wasn’t so sure anymore that, had she revealed her identity in the supply closet, he would have stopped.
A bead of sweat dripped along his temple, and he pulled off one of his gloves and grabbed the hem of his white tank to wipe it away.
He’d been a world-class asshole to her and stormed out of her kitchen. She didn’t deserve to be dragged into the middle of his issues with Max. But that’s what he’d done. Used her. Put her between them.
He listened as Kaylee wrapped up the meeting, but as she and Jesse and the other guy—Wes, maybe?—were discussing what time they would meet on Monday, Aidan lost the signal and static crackled through the phone speaker. It had happened a couple of times before. When the signal was strong, Kearney’s tech was the real deal. There were moments that the sound was so crisp he could hear the whisper of Kaylee’s sigh, and in the next second it would cut out completely or hum with white noise. Obviously the self-proclaimed tech god still had some bugs to work out.
And he was going to relish letting Kearney know his spyware wasn’t all that, Aidan thought with a grim smile. He pulled off his other glove and walked over to the phone so he could stop the app. He dropped his boxing gloves on the end table and unwound his hand wraps with a disgusted sigh.
Usually, hitting the heavy bag cleared his head. But where Kaylee was concerned, not even boxing was doing the trick anymore.
Aidan dragged a hand through his sweaty hair.
Neither were cold showers, he thought wryly, reaching down to readjust himself.
He’d had a perma-erection for the last four days, despite having jacked off so much that he was giving his puberty record a run for it its money.
He pulled off his tank top and headed for the shower. His dick slapped his stomach when he shed his sweatpants and boxer briefs. With a disgusted sigh, he stepped under the warm spray of the shower and tried to remember the last time a woman had affected him so viscerally. He was no closer to finding an answer by the time he’d finished washing his hair.
Aidan grabbed the soap, lathering it between his palms. She’d gotten into his blood, he realized, running sudsy palms across his chest, trying his damnedest not to let thoughts of Kaylee pull his hands south. But as he followed the sluice of water down to his abs, all the while remembering the bite of her nails over his back, the rasp of her breath on his neck, how it felt to be buried so deep inside her that coming became more vital than oxygen, Aidan realized he was going to lose that battle.
She was impossible to forget.
Or at least that was his excuse when he gave in and wrapped his hand around his aching cock.
His knees softened at the contact, and Aidan braced his free hand on the slate-colored shower tiles, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. He stood statue still, letting the rain-head shower wash over him as he stroked himself. And it was good, fuck yeah it was good, but he realized in that moment that his hand wasn’t going to give him what he needed, what he craved.
Because right now, he was experiencing Schrödinger’s Supply Closet. He’d both fucked Kaylee and not fucked Kaylee, and the paradox was killing him. Because whether he had or he hadn’t, she’d come twice with the sweetest cries he’d ever heard.
His hand stilled even as the memory made him harder.
There was only one way he was getting free of sexual purgatory, and it wasn’t courtesy of his goddamn hand.
Aidan shut off the shower and toweled dry. Naked, he headed for his room, grabbing his phone on the way past the table. He opened Kearney’s spy app and tossed the device on his bed so he could tug on a pair of jeans.
The app beeped as the tracker came to life, and he glanced at the screen. Kaylee was on the move. He froze as she arrived at her destination. He didn’t need to look up the address. He remembered all too well—hence all the masturbatory records he’d set over the past week.
Pulling on a T-shirt, Aidan grabbed the keys to his bike and his leather jacket—the one Kaylee had worn home from drinks—and headed for the club.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KAYLEE FELT HIM.
It didn’t matter that the club was particularly packed tonight or that he stood off to the side doing a credible job of blending into the shadows despite his size. The electrifying jolt of his attention was undeniable, just like it had been a week ago. Kaylee reciprocated by making her bumps bumpier and her grinds grindier. Because this time there were no secrets between them. This time he knew it was her.
There was only one reason for him to show up here tonight, and she wasn’t going to waste it.
After her performance, Kaylee didn’t bother with her street clothes. Instead of returning the black jersey skirt she’d borrowed last Friday, as had been her intention, she tugged it on. Then she laced herself back into her corset as quickly as she could.
As expected, he was waiting near the battered exit door. There was an extended moment of staring at one another,
a reenactment of that moment before he’d tugged her into the supply closet, but this time with no subterfuge. Aidan’s pupils were large in the dim light, ringed with jade, and Kaylee felt their focus so intensely it made her shiver. A slight frown marred his forehead as his eyes searched her face. Like he was looking beyond the blond wig, past the blue contacts, behind the red lipstick.
Looking for Kaylee.
He squinted, and she met his gaze, giving him time to catalog her face, to reconcile her features with Lola’s, a glimpse behind the curtain so he could figure out how he’d been fooled last time. How time and makeup and expectation had conspired to keep him from seeing the truth.
And after he’d put all the pieces together, there was a flare of heat in those unforgettable eyes of his and their reenactment of the night that changed everything for her continued as he grabbed her hand. His palm was warm and wide and calloused, just as it had been before, but it felt different this time. Because this time, Aidan was holding her hand, not the hand of some nameless burlesque dancer he’d picked up in a club.
And this time, instead of dragging her off for a quick fuck in the supply closet, he pushed through the exit door and into the parking lot.
His bike gleamed under the streetlight, two helmets propped on the leather seat. Wordlessly, he handed her one. She put it on, and even with the wig it was too large. Then, as was becoming their custom, he pulled off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
She shoved her arms through the too-long sleeves, watching his white T-shirt pull taut over his muscles as he donned the other helmet.
It was a distinct pleasure watching Aidan. The way his body moved. She’d spent so much of her time back in the day slung out in a lounge chair, pretending to read as she covertly dissected his every move. But there was something luxurious in being able to watch him openly, to dedicate her full attention to the sinuous slide of muscle beneath cotton without worrying about getting caught.
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