Not after seeing the raw panic on his face at the realization that his mother had been harmed.
Dammit.
Anything else I could have guarded myself against.
But not that.
He’s studying me, shifting to balance on one palm as the fingertips of the other drift over my skin, memorizing. The heaven of his touch on me lulls me into a false sense of security, if only for a moment. I take in his attention greedily, sucking it down like its marrow.
When I speak, it’s with a rasp. “We should probably, um—” Caught at a loss for words, my comment trails off. I don’t know what the fuck we should be doing. An angel and a devil are on my shoulder arguing. I should push him away. I should pull him closer. I fought him for so long because I knew the moment I let him touch me, have me, I’d be lost again. Isn’t that why I ran from his bed? Why I refused to give him my name?
He lists to the side, taking me with him, and I end up half draped over his body. God, it would be easier if he didn’t smell so good, like sex and man and damp forest. I shake with the amount of restraint it takes to keep from smelling him all over.
One of his wide palms is low on my back. The other reaches across to nab under my knee and pull me more fully against him. We stay that way for a few long minutes, not talking. But I swear it feels like we understand each other more now without words than we ever have before.
Finally, he breaks the silence. “They’re not watching now. He wants us to meet them back in the office in a half hour.”
“Ho-how do you know they’re not watching?”
“He got what he wanted,” he says simply. “C’mon. Let me get you cleaned up.”
What feels like a moment later, we’re naked in the shower. Aiden lathers his hands with soap from a dispenser and drags them over my sensitive skin. It’s…comforting. Not a word I ever thought I’d use to describe him. He’d done this before, after Mr. Broussard was shot. He’s not…caring for me. Is he?
Yasmine is the only other person in my life who I’d go to for any kind of comfort. And even then, I try to keep it to aminimum. She has her own stresses with medical school, and I would never want to take advantage of her. Even Mom hadn’t done this sort of thing for me. At least not since I was very young. His blatant concern over the past few hours makes me tender with fragility. Like I’m made of glass and covered in spiderwebs of cracks. One rough touch and he could shatter me.
Water spills over my hair, washing away the sweat coating my skin and the evidence of him between my thighs. Fuck, we forgot to wear a condom. How could I have been so fucking stupid? I have an IUD, but we’ve never had that conversation. I never thought it would be a necessity. Sleeping with him again had never made it to my to-do list.
So much for those plans.
All it took was the look in his eyes, the resignation pulling his face taut, for me to realize he was willing to lose his mother to keep from having me exposed. There’s more to it than that, I’m sure. There are mafia politics at play here that I don’t fully understand, but it’s how I feel. Despite the threat to the most important person in his life, he wasn’t going to make me do it.
Why would he do that? It doesn’t make sense to me. I want to ask him, but I can’t seem to make myself move from underneath the spray. I’m frozen in place, weighed down by all the questions and fears battling inside me for dominance.
I keep my eyes squeezed shut, unable to chance looking at him. Afraid the loose emotions tonight will give him too much that I want to keep close to the vest. These past few weeks here have been easy. Maybe too easy. It took practically no effort at all for me to lull myself into a false sense of security.
Needless to say, any sense of security in this situation is completely shattered now. I’d known Cian was a formidable enemy, but I hadn’t realized how formidable. He has Aiden by the throat, using his mother as leverage. Anything Aiden does that Cian doesn’t like, and his mother will be the one to pay theprice. Tears sting my sinuses, and I breathe in the hot, humid air to keep them at bay.
This has been his life since he was a teenager? I can hardly fathom it, and mine hasn’t exactly been a picnic. It was easier to push what Mara had said to the back of my mind. I had to in order to keep Aiden at a distance. To keep my hatred for him flaming hot. The thought of what Cian could have done to him throughout the years, of what Aiden would have been like if Cian hadn’t killed his father, has me turning until the spray hits my back. I find Aiden standing across from me, blond hair dark and sleek and slicked back from his face. The inky swirls of his tattoos contrast against the white shower tile, making them stand out in stark relief against his tanned skin. He holds his hands loose at his sides now, his expression unreadable.
“What happens now?”
“Now, we do as he asks. Then I’ll take you home. Next week, we go to Ireland.”
“What about your mother?”
“What about her?”
“Is she…do we know if she’ll be okay?”
He tugs me to him, and I let him arrange me against his chest as he blocks the spray. “Like I said, he won’t hurt her anymore unless I’m there to watch.” I don’t know how I can tell, but I can hear in his voice that he doesn’t fully believe what he’s saying. But he says it anyway because otherwise, wouldn’t the thought of being unable to protect her drive him a little insane?
I’m the first to move when all he does is hold me. After I wrap up in a towel, I realize he hasn’t moved, so I turn off the water and pass him a towel. It finally spurs him into movement, and we both dress quickly after that. Me, with trepidation because now the dress that had reminded me so much of that night is thoroughly tainted. All I want to do is burn it and then sleep for a century.
When he’s back in his suit, I nod, then head for the door.
His voice stops me. “I won’t let him do this to you again.” I look over my shoulder, my thoughts half on what’s waiting for us. The indecision and confusion must be apparent because he continues. “I won’t.”
“There are some things even you can’t control,” I say.
