I shrug. “Had to say it the second I thought it. Your stomach looks amazing,” I say, raking my gaze over her body—exposed, sun-kissed skin. “And your long legs. And your arms. Your neck.” My mind wanders away from the place where I dare notgo, the place that has made it impossible to sleep with anyone up until this point.
“Thank you. You’re looking exquisite yourself. You’re going to show me your workout early tomorrow morning, right?” I can tell she knows something is happening inside my skull, and she’s trying to detour around it.
I grin. “Yeah. We’ll start with a run on the beach and then we’ll sneak into the gym. I’ll spot you on the bench.”
She shakes her head. “I have no idea what I’m doing, Aidan. I’ll need more than a spot.”
“You can sit on my lap. I’ll give you a step-by-step gym routine.”
Magnolia sways her hips, walking toward me, the silk hugging her chest, revealing peaked nipples. “I like that idea,” she says, running her finger in the center of my eyebrows. “Why the frown when we’re talking about gym sex?”
Running a hand through my hair, I give her the truth. “This is the part where I fuck you, Magnolia. Because it’s how I forget who I am. Where I’m at and what happens next. I go to sleep alone, but…” I say, blowing out a pent-up breath.
“But what?” she asks, trailing the same finger down to my mouth, drawing her finger across my bottom lip.
I kiss her fingertip softly. She smiles. “But I don’t want to do that right now. With you.”
“Why?” she asks. There’s no disappointment in her tone or on her face. She is genuinely curious. “You can talk to me, Aidan. Don’t be afraid.”
Slamming my eyes closed, I swallow down the fear. “It’s how I avoid talking. Fucking, that is. Why I haven’t had a real relationship. Why I’m so good at my job. It takes me away on deployments and gives me focus on things I know how to handle. It’s impossible to sort what’s going on in my mind.”
With her delicate hands perched on my forearms, she levels me with her blue gaze. “I have an idea.”
Sighing, I lean my forehead down on her shoulder. “The last time you had an idea, you sat on my face, and that led to my dick buried inside you, Magnolia.”
She laughs, taking my face into her hands. “It’s PG. Well, I take it back, it’s triple X, but I think it will help you.” Her hand slips into mine as she tugs me to follow. “You have this gorgeous claw-foot tub, and we’re going to take a bath together. You’re going to tell me why you don’t have sleepovers, and I can give you any sordid detail you request about my past and the horrible things that plague me.”
It sounds like an awful idea. Being confined in a small space without room for escape, but I track her lead and even point out a bottle of soap when she asks for something to make bubbles with. There is a solid four seconds after she takes off her shorts and shimmies the top over her head that I think of nothing except my dick and her pussy dancing the mamba, but then she commands me to get in the water. I do. And I’m not thinking, I’m just going along with what she requests, and that makes it easier. Not having to make decisions or think about scenarios. I exist with her, and it’s so refreshing I could cry.
I lean against one side of the bathtub, and her back props against the other, our legs are entangled. The warm water eases my muscles, and I relax.
Her foot brushes my hard-on, and I catch it with both hands, massaging my thumb into the pad of her foot. “I hate to say this was a good idea, but you’re right. This was a good idea,” I say.
“I have good ideas every once in a while. Been around for a while, you know? Gotta be right every now and then. It’s just odds.” She winks, and her eyes turn heavy as I deepen the massage, taking one foot in both of my hands. Magnolia sighs and leans her head back completely. “I’m going to rest my eyes.Get it off your chest, Aidan. Tell me everything. If you want me to be quiet, I can do that. If you want me to participate in conversation, I can do that, too. I’m a good listener.”
I expect a knee-jerk reaction to rise. My heart rate to rocket or my stomach to lurch, but it doesn’t. No urge is known, except my desire to tell her my truths. There are several different places I could start or things I could say that would explain quite easily how messed up I am. I decide to start at the beginning instead. It’s a place no one else has had access to.
“My name means ‘fire’ in Gaelic,” I say, clearing my throat. Magnolia’s eyes pop open. “Once, when my father was beating me, he said he wouldn’t stop until he snuffed me out completely. I thought he’d succeed. Back then, you know? When I was a kid and I had no clue how the world worked, when you only know what your parents tell you? I thought one day he would kill me. Extinguish me completely.” Magnolia is staring at me now, hard, not even trying to possess the ability to play it cool. I grin. “It’s okay. I think I turned out pretty normal,” I say. “All things considered.”
She shakes her head, beautiful eyes turning down in the corners. Clearing my throat, I go on. “He was beating me that time because he found me brawling with a teenager who lived at the end of our street. That kid was a real prick who bowed up if you looked at the grass by his sneaker wrong. I was riding my bike, and he threw a rock at me. Typical boy stuff I realize now, but back then my father made it seem like I’d committed a mortal sin.” The memory isn’t as strong as it once was. I’m letting it slip, after all this time. Finally. “It was confusing, you know? He wanted me to be a man, and that’s what he always preached, but then something as testosterone-fueled as fighting was off-limits. I never knew what he wanted from me. Only that he seemed to hate me and everything about my personality. I never lived up to what he wanted.”
“So he beat you…a lot?” Magnolia whispers. “If questions aren’t okay, tell me.” She presses her pink lips together.
I shake off her question. “When I was eighteen, I also learned that St. Aidan was an Irish saint. Not that it was the only reason I changed my mindset, but it gave me some perspective. Things could seem one way and in actuality be quite the opposite. I understood that what my parents put me through didn’t have to define me, not on a surface level.”
Magnolia clutches my calves in a death grip like I might disappear. Her mouth is open, and I fear she might ask something else.
“I became a SEAL. The manliest career path I could find. I could make a difference in the world, too. Thank God I hacked it and made it through training. I was really fucked up back then. I had single-minded focus and something to prove, except I resented my reasons for choosing this job. I grew to love it eventually, and now I know there’s nothing else in the world that would make me happier.”
“Your mom didn’t stop it?” Magnolia asks, wincing. “She’s your mother.” Her lips praise the last word. As they should.
I try to smile, but it reflects as a grimace. “All mothers aren’t as wonderful as you are. That’s a sad fact. Looking back, I think she honestly thought he was doing what was best for me. Turning me into a man.” I swallow hard, remembering all the times I went to my mother hoping for her warm arms of comfort and got turned away instead. “I have to believe she was misguided and feared him as well. The alternative is she had a child she didn’t love. That’s sadistic by anyone’s standards, right?”
A tear falls down her face as she shakes her head. “I can’t fathom someone not loving you.”
“Because you’re a good person,” I choke out.
“No, because you are so wonderful, smart, kind, selfless, perfect, and lovable. You are caring, Aidan. You would lay down your life to protect our country, for strangers you’ve never met. You are asaint.”
