But better. So much better. Because his hug was the greatest. He smelled like a hint of cologne with cedar in it. And I would remember itforever.
My friend had come. This man whose beauty had nothing to do with what was on the outside. I only tightened my arms around him and felt him do the same thing to me. He hugged me and kept on hugging me, one hand going to the back of my head and sliding its way back down again. Affection. That was exactly what he was giving me, and I drank every sip ofitup.
When he pulled back after a few moments, those tan hands went to my shoulders and stayed there. His face couldn’t have been more than a foot away as he asked one more time with that expression that I couldn’t properly process, “You didn’t say. Are youhungry?”
I couldn’t help but do anything other than nod, taking in his features and filing them away for later.Who would haveknown?
Aaron smiled again as he reached out to take the handle of my suitcase from where it was propped against the wall. Who or when it had been moved, I had no idea, but later on, when I could think about it, I’d be happy no one had stolen it while I’d been having a mini-meltdown. “Let’s go. I was waiting to eat in case you werehungrytoo.”
I nodded and watched as he pulled my suitcase to his side, then tipped his head across the street toward the giant parking lot. Without another word, I followed just to the right of him, the suitcase on his left, finally taking him in fully. In a V-neck, olive green T-shirt that fit the width of his shoulders perfectly, brown cargo shorts that showed off tan, muscular calves, and running shoes, he looked so…normal.
Butbetter.
Aaron must have sensed being eyeballed because he glanced over his shoulder and raised those sun-lightened eyebrows. “Do I have something onmyface?”
I could feel my cheeks get red; that’s how bad it was getting caught. “No. It’s just… weird to see you in person.” I hesitated for a second and told him the truth, because I’d promised not to lie, and something in my gut said if he’d known when I was full of crap online, he could tell the same thing in person. “You’re just… not as hard on the eyes as I thought you were goingtobe.”
His mouth did that hesitating grin again that fluctuated between a grin and a controlled smile before hewinked.
He winked.Atme.
Then he said the most perfect words that could have come out of his mouth. “If it makes you feel better, we can talk about my….” He waved the hand closest to me behind his butt. A butt I’d have to totally catalogue later when it wasn’t soobvious.
I pressed my lips together and tried not tosmile.
And I totally failedatit.
Chapter16
Aaron was smilingatme.
This could-be runway model, with cheekbones that could cut glass if they wanted to, a jaw that was so defined it would give a sculptor a hard-on, and a mouth that must have given hundreds of women over the years countless raunchy dreams, was smiling at me from across the table. Me. And he wasn’t lookinganywhereelse.
The most important place this not-looking-anywhere-else part included was the waitress who had been playfully pouting and trying her absolute best to make eye contact with him when she’d come by to take our drink orders a few minutes go. She’d struck out. Then she’d struck out again when she’d brought them over and taken our food order. Her squeezing her boobs together with her upper arms hadn’t been enough to get him to look elsewhere, and she had girls even I had glanced at twice. But Aaron? He’d been constantly sneaking looks and smiles at me while we’d been in the car, and hadn’t stopped doing so since we’d been seated at the café he’d pulledoverat.
I’d be fooling myself if I tried to deny that on the first leg of the drive, I taken some sneaky glances to my left. Neither one of us had said much yet. When I hadn’t been busy looking at Aaron, I’d been focused on the scenery outside the window, eating up the darkening landscape that was so different from what I was used to back inHouston.
Most importantly, as we sat facing one another, I was smiling at him cautiously and he was giving me that smirking little smile that seemed like it had secrets stitched in some compartment below his practically flawless skin. If he had pores or blemishes, I hadn’t been able to see a single one… and I’dlooked.
Luckily, Aaron wasn’t as quiet as I was, because it was him who finally broke our silence with his elbows on the table we shared. He had his chin on his hand, not looking at all like he’d driven hours on end to get to the beach house and then had to drive togetme.
“You look really tired,” was what he decided to startoffwith.
I blinked and bit down on my bottom lip as I struggled not to take that as an insult. “DoI?”
The corners of his mouth flexed upward just a bit, a smirk hiding in plain sight. “You know whatImean.”
Uh.
His mouth lost the battle when that quiet laugh of his came out. “You know whatImean.”
Raising an eyebrow, I nodded enthusiastically, trying not to smile and mostly failing at it. “You’re saying I looklikehell.”
One of those hands that had been on my knees less than an hour ago palmed a lean cheek. “That’s not what I’msaying.”
I squinted at him that time and tipped my head to the side. “Pretty sure that’s what it seems like you’resaying.”
“It’s not,” he argued, his gaze still totally focusedonme.
