The Dragon Lady wouldn’t care that his bank account could back up his membership. That he’d grown from a troubled boy to a self-assured man. All she cared about were the optics. She’d be eating with the son of a former Whitfield Industries employee, one who’d never had fancy letters behind his name, like CFO or even VP. It was why she’d barely tolerated Max and Aidan’s friendship back in the day. And why she would ruin Kaylee and Aidan’s relationship now.
No. Not a relationship. Sex. A tryst. He wasn’t her boyfriend.
“What? That’s not... You don’t have to do that.” Her voice was strained. Everything in her rebelled at the idea. “You don’t want to have brunch with my mom.”
“That—” Aidan looked like he was going to deny it for a second, but sanity prevailed “—is true.”
Kaylee’s laugh lodged in her throat when he added, “But I want to have brunch with you.”
The words made her ribs feel too tight for her lungs, for the hard beat of her heart—prison bars for the emotion trying to push out of her chest.
What the hell was he doing?
They’d just shared a perfect night, made even more incredible by not having to pretend to be Lola this time. And it was everything she’d hoped it would be. Why did he want to ruin their clandestine affair by taking it public?
She smiled, hoping it looked more natural than it felt. “Then let’s do that sometime when we don’t have a chaperone.”
“Yeah. Okay.” He nodded, but the air felt infinitesimally colder. “Some other time.”
Despite Aidan’s agreement, there was a tightness to his jaw and a stiffness to his shoulders as he turned away from her that made her doubt his sincerity. That he wanted to come with her made her anxious. That he was angry she wasn’t going to let him made her wary.
“Aidan...”
“I get it. You don’t want her to know.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what’s the problem?” he asked, turning to face her.
Kaylee exhaled, trying to find the words to explain the phenomenon that had been leeching her joy since childhood. The reason she wasn’t ready to share him yet. Not with the world at large and most especially not with her mother.
“My family ruins everything I care about. They pick it apart and judge it and tell me the reason that what I want is fanciful or silly or impractical. And I don’t want... I’m not ready to have them dissect whatever it is that we’re doing. I don’t want their opinions on us. I just want it to be you and me for as long as this lasts. I just want it to be ours.”
* * *
It wasn’t the answer he was expecting.
Aidan refused to acknowledge that his earlier annoyance had loosened its grip on his chest. He should be irritated that she wanted to sneak around like goddamn teenagers. He was too old for games. So was she, for that matter. But he’d always been a sucker for KJ. He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t care about her, when there was nothing he wouldn’t do to put the sparkle back in those pretty hazel eyes.
“So don’t go.” Seemed simple enough to him.
Her whole body deflated on a sigh. “I have to.”
“Why?”
Kaylee looked genuinely stymied for a minute, like she’d never considered the question. He could see the unguarded flash of possibility that sparked before she tamped it down and smothered it. “Because my mother and I always brunch on Saturdays. And today is the first day she’s going back to the club since my dad...since what happened.”
Aidan kept his face neutral, pushing down the satisfaction he got from imagining Charles Whitfield wearing an ankle monitor.
“Rebel a little.” He walked forward until their bodies collided, until she rolled her eyes at him and a tiny smile curved her lips as he backed her into the edge of his dining room table—one of his father’s stainless-steel workbenches that he’d had cut down and converted during the renovation.
“It’ll do you good.”
Before she could protest, he picked her up and set her on the cool metal.
“You just want to get laid,” she teased. “And for the record, I’m excellent at rebelling. I’ve been doing it since I came out of the womb.”
He reached down and fisted his hands in the hem of the soft gray material that covered her body. “Name one rebellious thing you’ve done in your entire life,” he challenged.
“My tattoo.” Her answer was muffled behind fabric as he dragged his T-shirt up and off her. And there she was, she and her attempt at rebellion, bared to his gaze.
A tiny butterfly that had caused a tsunami in his life.
Chaos theory made manifest. An unexpected series of events that had started the first night he’d seen her and led them to this moment.
Kaylee was perched naked on the edge of his table, looking like his fantasies, dark hair spilling over her shoulders and flirting with the tops of gorgeous breasts that were full and high and begging for his mouth.
He wanted to look at her, but he needed to touch her more. Aidan reached out and dragged his fingers across the tiny winged tattoo, reveling in the rash of goose bumps that flooded her skin in the wake of his touch.
She closed her eyes and bit her lip and his whole body throbbed with need.
“When’d you get it?”
Her eyelashes fluttered open, revealing an intricate pattern of brown and gold and green that eclipsed the flashier fake blue contacts—less showy, maybe, but more interesting, more captivating. He could get lost in those eyes.
“On my sixteenth birthday. Right after my mom said she thought tattoos on women were vulgar. She still doesn’t know I have it.”
Her voice was soft. Low. Laced with sex. He could feel it in his balls.
He placed a hand on either side of her jaw and buried his fingers in her hair as he angled her face up. “You’re not a rebel.” Aidan leaned forward and caught her bottom lip between his teeth. The sharp intake of her breath tightened his body. “Rebelling is about doing what you want to do and not giving a damn about the consequences. You’re just good at keeping secrets,” he challenged against her lips. “It’s not the same thing.”
He captured her protest with his mouth, kissing her deep and wet until she kissed him back. Until her body went pliant. Until she pushed her breasts forward in search of contact and sighed into his mouth.
Then he pulled his hands from her hair. Stepped back from her. It was the hardest fucking thing he’d ever done. His body clamored in protest, and her look of wounded confusion made it worse.
“Why a butterfly?” he asked, fisting his hands, resisting the temptation to move forward, to drag her against him and forget everything but how good it felt to be buried inside her as she clung to him and whispered sexy words against his skin. Because he had something to say, and if he gave in to impulsive lust, he might never get it out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
KAYLEE DIDN’T WANT to talk about her tattoo anymore.
Or be told she wasn’t a rebel.
She didn’t know why the hell the topic was so important to Aidan, either. The sizeable bulge in his jeans let her know that she wasn’t the only one interested in putting his dining room table to X-rated use. Still, something reared up inside her, demanding she defend herself.
“Because my childhood felt like a prison, schedules and straight lines. And I wanted to remind myself that one day I would fly wherever I wanted to. I’d break out of that chrysalis and take to the skies. Live the life I always wanted. Do my own thing. This butterfly is why my stage name is Mariposa. This butterfly reminds me who I want to be.”
Aidan nodded like he was absorbing that. “You ever heard the story about how they tether elephants?”
Kaylee frowned at the non sequitur.
“They put a post in the ground when the elephant is little, and they chain her to it. And no matter how mu
ch she pulls, she can’t get free.”
Kaylee shivered as an eerie dread flooded her skin. She didn’t like this story.
“But then the elephant grows up, and pretty soon she’s strong enough that she could pull that post right out of the ground with one good yank. Thing is, by that point she’s used to her boundaries. She doesn’t realize that it’s not the chain holding her where she is. It’s that she doesn’t even try to escape anymore.”
Everything in Kaylee went still. Got small. It was hard to swallow. “What are you trying to say?” she asked, her voice tight.
“I’m saying maybe you’re not a butterfly. Maybe you’re an elephant.”
Aidan’s words were matter-of-fact, with no particular emphasis, but they punctured like broken glass, jagged and misshapen, leaving her chest raw and gaping. She was already naked, but he’d just stripped her bare.
“Fuck you, Aidan.” She made a move to shove herself off the table, but he was there caging her in, his palms flat against the table beside her hips.
“You say you’re sick of your family taking advantage of you, of giving everything and getting nothing back.” There was heat in his voice now. “So don’t let them. Don’t go for brunch with her. Spend the day with me instead.”
“Why? Because you’re horny and you want to christen your dining room table?” she spat, using her anger as a shield to keep his words from piercing her skin.
With a curse, he stepped back and ran a hand through his hair with obvious frustration. “Because she doesn’t own you, KJ. Because she makes you miserable and you don’t owe her anything.”
“She’s my mother.”
“So?”
Why was he being such a dick?
“You know what? I don’t have time for this right now. I have to see if I can catch an Uber to the club and I’m going to be late as it is.” She twisted around to grab his T-shirt from the table.
“Don’t fucking move.” The words were hot, ringing out like a gunshot.
Kaylee froze. She hated that her body betrayed her, obeying without her brain’s consent. Hated that his imperious tone sent a thrill through her, that it made her wet.
Her chin notched up as she turned back to him, her nakedness forgotten in the flash of rage. “Who the hell do you think you are? You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
He’d seemed furious a second ago, but it wasn’t that now. Something shifted in his expression and she blinked at the dark, dangerous energy that crackled between them. No, not anger. Not exactly. Her body buzzed with it like she’d just been granted superpowers from a downed electrical wire. Like there was lightning in her veins.
His breathing turned harsh. Too fast. Hypnotic. Her palms itched to feel the rise and fall of it, to feel the heat of his skin and the hard muscle beneath. He stood close, but not close enough. She could probably skate her fingertips along his abs if she leaned forward, reached for him.
She didn’t.
There was something feral about the sudden tilt of his lips, and she had the odd feeling that she’d somehow impressed him. That he was proud of her for yelling back. Warmth spread through her limbs.
“What do you want?”
“What?” The rapid shifts in conversation had her a little off balance.
“Tell me what you want.”
She wanted to slap his face. She wanted to pull him close.
“I want to make you feel good.”
“One wish and you want to use it to give me an orgasm?” Aidan shook his head. “Forget about me. What do you want?”
“I want you inside me.” She spread her knees apart. Liked that his gaze dipped between her legs. Desire ratcheted higher and her fingers tightened on the edge of the table.
“Why?”
“I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
He stepped closer. “It’s not deep. It’s not a mystery. You know exactly what your body is craving right now. Why your muscles are quivering and you’re breathing harder. All you need to do is admit it, and I’ll make it happen for you.”
Jesus. Her breasts were heavy with want, her nipples so tight it almost hurt.
“You want me to make you come, KJ?”
Yes. All the yes. The answer shuddered through her, loosening her limbs, sparking a heat in her belly. She managed a nod.
“Then fucking say that. Own it.”
She was so wet. So desperate that her inner muscles clenched, and she whimpered at the pressure. “I want to come.”
“How?”
The question invaded her blood.
“I want your mouth on me.”
He invaded her space, placing his hands on the table on either side of her hips. Leaned in close. He smelled warm and primal, like the promise of sex.
“Here?” He brushed his lips over hers.
She shook her head.
“Here?” He dragged his mouth across her cleavage and her head tipped back at the delicious sensation.
“Lower.”
“Tell me what you want,” he challenged again, lowering her onto the table. She shivered as the cool steel pressed into the hot skin of her back.
“Lick me.”
He ran his tongue along the crease of her hip and she shifted restlessly. Unsatisfied. He was so close to where she needed him. She moved her hips, but he just chuckled and dragged his tongue a little farther from the mark.
Frustration made her bold.
“Lick my pussy.” She’d never said the word before. Not aloud. But it felt a little bit shocking on her tongue, risqué for her, one step past her comfort zone. And she found it exhilarating. Especially when Aidan swore under his breath and pushed her back against the table.
“Don’t ask me,” he growled. “Make me.”
She fisted her hand in his hair and pushed him right where she needed him. The first brush of his mouth made her hips buck.
Her mind went blank with pleasure, and it took her several moments to realize that whenever she quit directing the action, the action quit.
“Don’t you dare stop now.”
He chuckled as she tightened her fingers in his hair. Her breath came sawed from her lungs as he worked her over with lips and tongue, responding perfectly to her hand on his head. It was a revelation, being in charge of her own pleasure, taking what she wanted. What she needed.
Having Aidan’s head between her legs was almost too much, and the need inside her spiraled out of control in record time.
The sharp catch of her orgasm tugged her under, and her back arched off the table as she drowned in the waves of pleasure racking her body.
The satisfied grin that tilted Aidan’s sinful mouth made her feel wanted and wanton and a little bit wicked.
“That was...” She didn’t really know how to finish the thought as she reached behind her to grab the T-shirt.
“It definitely was,” he agreed.
God, he was beautiful. Broad shouldered and slim hipped, his arms corded with muscle.
Kaylee hopped off the table. She dropped her gaze to the substantial bulge in the front of his jeans. Her hands fisted, balling the material of the shirt.
“Looks like it’s my turn to ask you what you want,” she teased, cocking an eyebrow. He shook his head, surprising her.
“I’m good. That was about you.”
She frowned. “Are you sure? Because—”
“You need to be selfish sometimes. That’s what being a rebel is all about. Saying what you want. Taking what you want. You know?”
She didn’t. Not really. The idea detonated in her brain, leaving her confused, disoriented by how bright and loud it was.
“Be the motherfucking butterfly.”
Sage. Profane. Simple. The advice was so perfectly Aidan.
To Kaylee, life was complicated. Intricate. Like making her w
ay through a minefield of people’s expectations and feelings and desires. She’d spent her whole life navigating that way, trying to keep the peace, to live up to expectations, to not bother anyone, to earn her place.
Aidan made everything seem so easy. He’d offered to come with her. And then he’d told her not to go. Two choices. Black or white. Nothing gray. No elephants.
All she had to do was pick one.
Her bag was on the couch, where she’d left it the night before. With a gut full of trepidation, she walked over and dug her phone out from beneath her change of clothes. Her fingers shook as she swiped through to her mother’s contact information and connected the call.
Sylvia Whitfield picked up on the first ring. “Traffic’s a mess. You should probably avoid taking the—”
“I’m not coming, Mom.”
Eerie silence, the kind that warned of an impending jump scare in a horror movie, made Kaylee’s hand tighten on the phone.
“Pardon me?” Her mother’s voice was terrifyingly calm. Never a good sign.
“Something came up.”
“Something randomly came up? At the exact same time as our standing weekly brunch?”
Kaylee winced under the censure, but her gaze snagged on Aidan’s, and just like that hug he’d given her when she was seventeen and heading off to Oxford, she found strength there that she could borrow. She took a deep breath.
“Are you bleeding, Kaylee Jayne? Is it some sort of emergency? Because a lady doesn’t cancel plans without adequate notice unless—”
“There’s no emergency. I’m not coming because I don’t want to.” Finally saying the words aloud was like standing at the edge of a cliff. Terrifying and exhilarating. To be honest. To tell her mother the truth.
“Kaylee, if you do not show up for—”
Static surged over the line and then there was no sound. “Mom?”
Kaylee pulled the phone from her ear, checking the screen. The call time was still ticking away steadily, so she tried again. “Mom? Are you there? Can you hear me?”
Secret Pleasure Page 10
