18. Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Lauren
There was always a moment of panic on the rare occasions I woke in someone’s arms. In the place between sleep and waking, my mind sometimes forgot the life I’d made for myself and recalled only those clandestine fumblings when I woke terrified, my body someone else’s plaything. I reminded myself that my body was now my own before remembering it wasn’t. Not completely. Surprisingly, the thought filled me with warmth instead of fear.
When I opened my eyes, night had turned my windows black. Thankfully, all the lights were off, or anyone on Main Street would have been able to see inside my bedroom. Aiden’s arm rested over my waist, his large hand splayed across my stomach. He held me so close his head shared a pillow with mine. The warmth of being surrounded by another person was both soothing and suffocating. I didn’t cuddle. Ever. It felt too intimate, too reckless. At least for someone like me.
I should elbow him and push his arm off, but for the first time since I saw the positive pregnancy test, the fear clawing inside my chest had quieted. I lay still, enjoying his heated skin on mine, until his arm tightened, and his thumb brushed my stomach with gentle strokes.
I turned in his arms and his eyes fluttered opened. His hair was an adorable mess in the weak light from the streetlamp. He gave me a small smile and my chest squeezed. Yep, reckless.
“We fell asleep,” I said, stating the obvious.
He nodded.
“I need to get downstairs and help close.”
He tightened his arms around me and kissed the spot just beneath my earlobe that drove me wild. An ache formed between my thighs and deepened when I felt him harden against me. He lowered his hand between us and let out a groan when he found me soaked. Pregnancy was doing things to my lady parts and my brain. Sleeping with Aiden was the worst thing I could do, again, but as he slipped a finger inside me, I gave up any pretense of stopping him.
I’d always enjoyed sex, perhaps in some twisted way because of what I experienced in foster care, perhaps in spite of it. I found power in owning my pleasure. Only now, I was desperate for release, the urge overriding any sense of control. I didn’t want foreplay. I wanted him inside me. I gripped his thick cock and gave it a solid pump before throwing my leg over his. He pulled his hand away, and I guided him exactly where I needed him. He rocked into me, the fullness so exquisite my eyes burned. Or maybe it was the way he held my face in his hands. It was too much.
“I can’t,” I said, my voice strained.
He rolled onto his back, pulling me on top of him. I closed my eyes and rode him hard, fast, my orgasm exploding at embarrassing speed. I knew he wasn’t anywhere near finishing, so I kept my eyes closed and continued moving as I fell back down. To my surprise, the ache built again, deeper this time. I’d always been a one and done woman with everyone else, everyone but Aiden. As I grew impossibly tight around him, I had to fight to take all his length. He panted beneath me, bucking his hips at a frantic tempo. Still, he didn’t come, no doubt waiting for me.
He reached up and rolled both of my nipples in his rough fingers, and I cried out, pleasure unlike anything I’d ever known shooting through my body. My release kept going on and on, so intense I screamed his name until my throat ached.
He let out a deep groan that rumbled up my core as he came, setting me off again. I collapsed on top of him, our bodies still connected, and tried to catch my breath. He rubbed slow circles on my back until I could finally draw in a lungful of air. I’d tried to prevent this feeling by avoiding eye contact. It wasn’t the first time sex with Aiden had been so intense I’d almost blacked out. But it should be the last.
I climbed off him and hurried into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.
“You OK?” he asked from just outside the door. “Are you sick?”
“No talking,” I yelled. I flipped on the light and gripped the edge of the sink. “Stop being an idiot,” I told myself in the mirror. “Sex is just physical. It means nothing.”
“If I can’t talk to you, you can’t talk to yourself.”
Had he heard what I said? I decided he hadn’t, otherwise he’d have kept quiet and continued eavesdropping on my mirror pep talk.
I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on my face, which immediately woke my bladder. Once I’d taken care of business, I pulled my silky pink robe from the hook on the back of the door and tied it around me.
“Everything all right?” Aiden asked when I opened the door. He was standing in my bedroom completely naked with the blinds still open, the light from the bathroom and shadows enhancing every contour of his toned body. I quickly reached back into the bathroom and flipped the switch.
“Fine.” I hurried to the windows and yanked down the shades, pulling darkness around us. “I need to get downstairs. You can show yourself out.”
I groped my way to the wall and flicked on the overhead light before fumbling around on the floor for the clothes I’d ripped off before we fell into bed. My cheeks warmed at how desperate I must have seemed to him, both then and just now.
“Sure,” he said, “but since we’re talking, I just want to reiterate that if you need anything, call me.”
“We aren’t in a relationship, Aiden,” I said, sliding my bra straps over my shoulders. “I won’t be calling you for anything.”
His eyes narrowed. He still hadn’t bothered to reach for his clothes, and the fact he had the confidence or composure or cajónes to fight me while buck naked was sexy as hell. “I know we’re not together, Lauren, but you’re carrying my child. I’ll do anything for that little lime. If that means pipping you down on occasion, so be it.”
Little lime. The tiny human growing inside me this very minute. “You can’t control who I sleep with.”
He nodded. “I know. I also know no one makes you come as hard as I do.”
“You sure about that?” I yanked on my skirt and waited.
He stepped into my space, so close I could smell the cedar of his cologne, my own perfume on his skin, the primal scent of our sex. “Positive.”
My breath left my lungs in a whoosh and that stupid ache started again. I needed to invest in some better toys or something.
He smiled and his entire face brightened. “I’m happy to use those on you too.”
My mouth fell open. “I did not say that out loud.”
He let out a short laugh. “You didn’t have to. You looked at your nightstand, and if I remember correctly, that’s where you keep all your sex toys.”
“You haven’t been here in years.”
He walked over to my nightstand, opened the drawer, and pulled out my favorite vibrator. “Did you want me to use this on your now?” he asked, turning it on.
My idiotic vagina clenched in anticipation, but I yanked the toy from his hand and turned it off. “So you can get me off. Big deal. In case you didn’t notice, my orgasm is on a hair trigger these days.”
His eyes heated and a slow smile spread across his face. “I noticed. I wonder how many times I could make you come before you begged me to stop.”
My clit throbbed, but I finally ignored it. “However many times I came today,” I said, grabbing my shirt and tossing it on. “This was a mistake. I’m begging you to stop now.”
He looked pained but nodded.
My chest ached. I’d hurt him. Again. I tried to be a nice person. I tried really hard, but with Aiden, I couldn’t stop saying and doing the wrong things.
“Thank you,” he said as I started to leave. “It meant the world to me to see the baby today and hear its heartbeat.”
I stared at my bare feet. I couldn’t look at him. His sincerity would crush me. “You’re welcome. But I really need to get to work.”
“Would it be OK if I came by Karma once in a while? I just want to see with my own eyes that everything’s good.”
Of course, he wanted to check up on me. Make sure I was doing exactly what he wanted. I glared at him. “I’d tell you if anything was wrong with the baby.”
He nodded and pressed his lips together, like there was something he wanted to say, but decided against it. “I’ll show myself out.”
I hurried through my apartment, only stopping to slip my feet into my flats, and went downstairs. It wasn’t until I was in the back that I realized I had no clue what time it was since I’d left my phone in my purse, which I’d tossed on my sofa as I led Aiden into the apartment. According to the clock over the industrial dishwasher, Karma didn’t close for a couple hours. Based on the noise beyond the door, we had a full house.
The moment I stepped into the front, Cammie rushed me.
“Thank the stars,” she said, wrapping her arms around me while holding a mug in one hand. “Is everything OK? When I got here, Poppy said you hadn’t been back since your scan. Then you didn’t answer anyone’s texts. Is the baby OK? Your face is flushed. Have you been crying?”
Aiden chose that moment to stick his big head out the swinging door. “I’m getting you a new lock for the back. Don’t argue with me.”
Cammie’s eyes widened as she took in his disheveled hair, his misbuttoned shirt, the boots in his hands. She looked at me again and smirked.
“I don’t need a new lock,” I said. “The back is keyed the same as the front.”
“Then I’ll change the front too,” Aiden said. “With locks that old, no telling how many people have keys. Hi, Cammie.”
She wiggled her fingers at him, and he bent over and started putting on his boots for everyone in the packed café to see.
“I don’t need new locks.” But shit, I probably did. Grandpa was kind of a loner, but chances were he’d given keys to someone at some point. I should have changed them years ago.
“Come on, Lauren,” Cammie said, pulling me into a side hug. “Let the man give you a key for your lock.”
Aiden threw his head back and laughed. Dido yowled and booked it across the café toward him, startling more than one patron.
“I hate you both,” I said.
“Well, look at that,” Cammie said as Dido sat on Aiden’s boots mewing. “That cat doesn’t like anyone.”
Aiden stepped completely through the door, crowding me in the small space behind the counter and bent to give the cat a scratch.
“We don’t let animals in this area,” I said, shooting him a glare. Bullshit, since the cats pushed in and out of the swinging door all day to get to my apartment. Still, I pointed to the bookshop.
“Ah, a rebel,” Aiden said, scooping up Dido and lifting her to his shoulder. “I always did like a rule breaker.” He winked at me and walked around the counter toward the bookshelves.
Cammie smiled and filled the coffee mug in her hand with dark roast.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said as Aiden pushed out the front door, stopping briefly to examine the lock. Dido shot through the café. She stood at the glass door, meowing frantically as she watched him walk away.
Suddenly ravenous, I grabbed a double fudge brownie from the display case and shoved half of it in my mouth. After Cammie handed the mug to the teenaged girl who’d been waiting patiently, she poured a glass of water and set it on the counter in front of me. She didn’t say a word.
Damn her and her understanding silence. Of all my friends, her past was most like mine. She respected my boundaries and was firm with her own. Oddly, knowing she wouldn’t press me made me want to tell her about what had happened today.
“He cried during the ultrasound,” I heard myself say. “He was so happy.”
Cammie nodded like that didn’t surprise her. “He’ll be a great dad.”
“How could you know?” I asked. “What makes someone a great dad anyway?”
“That’s easy,” Cammie said with a sad smile. “A good dad loves his kids more than himself. A great dad does the work to give them the best he can.”
“I know he’ll be a good provider.” Even I could admit Aiden was a hard worker. He’d just started his company the first time we got together, and as the years passed, I couldn’t help noticing the projects he took on around town and the growing number of people he employed. Wyatt wasn’t the first to tell me Aiden was a good boss, generous and fair.
“It’s more than that,” Cammie said, drumming her fingers on the glass counter. “A great dad works on himself, so he’s the best person he can be for his kids. That’s where a lot of parents fail. At least that’s where mine did. I’m guessing yours too.”
“Mine didn’t get past your ‘good’ definition,” I said with a bitter laugh.
Cammie nodded, not pressing for more. “I’ve watched Aiden for a while now, the way he’s helped Theo and Cal become better men. He’s the one who made them finally work through Logan’s death and everything that came after. I’m not sure where he is on that journey himself, but I know he’s started it. I’m just saying, of all the guys who could have gotten you pregnant, you lucked out. Karma was kind to you.”
“Karma’s a bitch,” I said, shoving the rest of the brownie in my mouth. “How many men would lean into this situation? Most would have let me put the baby up for adoption without a fight,” I added around a mouthful of gooey chocolate.
“And why exactly are you fighting him?” she asked in a soft voice.
I swallowed the last of the brownie past the lump forming in my throat. “Can you imagine what it will be like if Aiden gets his way? The poor child will have to grow up in this tiny town where everyone knows everyone’s business, seeing me and knowing I didn’t want to be his or her mother. Aiden hasn’t thought this through, at least not as far as the baby and I are concerned. He needs to stop fighting me.”
She gripped my shoulders. “When are you going to realize he’s not?”
“Excuse me, have you not seen the two of us snarl at each other like feral dogs?”
“You’re fighting yourself, Lauren. From where I’m standing, he’s been fighting for you, for the woman he knows you could be.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
She shrugged. “Let him win once in a while and see what happens.”
I guzzled the water while giving Cammie my best don’t-fuck-with-me stare. It’d saved my ass in more than one foster home.
She just wrapped me in another hug. “I know, hon. I know.”
And that’s how I ended up crying my eyes out in front of the entire SAT-prep club, including Rowan’s brother Chris, and the local writers’ group. Based on the sympathetic looks beamed my way, the entire town either thought I’d lost my mind or figured out I was pregnant. Probably both.