Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
MORGAN
Aidan is in the kitchen pouring batter onto the waffle iron when I walk in after a shower. My hair is still wet, but I’ve French braided it to keep it off my face, and I’m wearing one of his Rebels T-shirts. It hits mid-thigh and is soft and cozy.
He glances over at me, and I don’t miss the way his eyes widen. “Damn,” he breathes out the word. “You look way better in that shirt than I do.”
I know my smile is tentative. “I hope you don’t mind. My suitcase was in the other room, and this was the first thing I found in your closet.”
“I don’t mind at all. I hope you like waffles?”
“Love them. But . . .” I stop myself, because I’ve already made my body insecurities into way too much of a thing.
And he’s already given me many reassurances that he loves my curves—in fact, he’s the only man I’ve ever been with who has specifically addressed the size of my body and why it turns him on.
The way he just proved it to me, in front of that mirror, will live on a loop in my head for the rest of my life.
I’m not sure other sexual experiences in the future will ever compare to what we’ve shared, and it actually makes me sad to think that the best sex of my life will end at some point and I’ll have to settle for someone else.
Maybe not, I assure myself. You could still find someone just as amazing.
“Don’t you dare tell me you’re going to deny your body something this delicious,” he says, and I sigh in response, my shoulders sagging.
“My body likes to turn everything I eat immediately into fat.”
He flips the waffle iron over and resets the timer, then rounds the island to where I’m standing. Wrapping his arms around my back, he pulls me close and tilts my chin up.
“Morgan, you’ve got curves, and as I think we’ve already established, that’s part of what’s so appealing about your body. You’re strong, but also soft and sensual . . . you’re fucking luscious. Literally, every guy’s wet dream.”
My chest shakes with a silent chuckle. “Maybe yours, but definitely not every guy’s.”
His jaw clenches, like he wants to say something about that. Finally, he says, “If a guy is looking for some kind of a stick figure, he doesn’t know what he’s missing out on.”
“So guys don’t care about things like a woman having a thigh gap? That was always a huge focus for my friends when we were teenagers.”
His laugh is husky and sensual. “Baby, the only thigh gap I care about is that there’s enough room for my face when your thighs are spread.”
I can feel the flush creeping up my neck and into my cheeks.
“Have you always felt this way about your body?” he asks.
“I mean, just since puberty.” My laugh is humorless as I remember back to those days.
Then I rest my head on his chest so I don’t have to look him in the eye as I say, “As a kid, I was already used to being bigger, but that also meant I was faster, and stronger, and a much better athlete. By the time we all hit seventh or eighth grade, those things started mattering less for girls and more for boys. All my friends were focused on fashion, makeup, and having the perfect body.”
Not that I’d tell Aidan this, but puberty is also when my mom’s behavior toward me began to change.
As I became more full-figured and my breasts and hips developed, giving me an hourglass figure, my mom became more and more critical.
Now that I’m an adult, I can see how my mom projected her own body insecurities onto me.
At the time, it just felt like I was a disappointment.
Is it really a surprise that I grew into a people pleaser?
He presses his lips to my forehead. “Teenage girls care about the stupidest shit.”
“Maybe, but you also have no idea how hard it was to be a size eleven, when all my friends were a size three or five. My friends’ favorite pastime was going to the mall.
Watching them pull cute crop tops or super short skirts off the rack and knowing I’d never be able to pull off something like that with my body . . . it was just hard.”
“I get that. But you do realize that the size of your clothing has absolutely no bearing on who you are, your value, or what’s really important in life, right?”
“Objectively, yes. But after a lifetime of being told You have such a pretty face or Maybe you should hit the gym a bit more—”
His hands grasp my shoulders as he steps back slightly so he can study my face. “Who the fuck told you to hit the gym more?”
Now that I’m not tucked into his chest, this whole conversation has me feeling much more exposed and vulnerable. I look away rather than answering.
“Your mother?” His words are ground out through clenched teeth.
“Among others,” I say before looking back at him.
“And yes, I know that the size of my clothing is the least important thing about me, but it’s hard to undo decades of growing up in a society that tells women certain bodies are more desirable and then treats them differently if they don’t fit that mold.
I don’t blame my mom for repeating learned behavior. ”
“You don’t repeat learned behavior if you know it’s wrong,” he insists. “Which means your mom obviously buys into that shit.”
No doubt she does. But don’t we all, to some extent? Even when we know it’s wrong, even when we’re trying to undo the stigma of not being thin, we’re constantly having to remind ourselves that bodies come in all shapes and sizes and that one size isn’t better than another.
“I have no idea what it’s like to be a woman looking at other women and judging them for their size,” Aidan continues, “but I can tell you this, as a man: there’s nothing you need to change about your body.
Your curves are delicious.” He slides his hands from my shoulders, down my arms, grazing the sides of my breasts with his palms as he does.
A shiver runs through my body, and then he’s running his hands along my waist and settling them on the curve of my hips.
“I literally can’t look at you without getting hard. ”
I shake my head as I look up at him, and a knowing smile spreads across my face.
It’s not just the way he affirms my body both in and out of the bedroom, it’s the way it feels like he’s revealing small pieces of himself each time he does.
For someone who claims he’s not good at emotions, he has a natural way of showing that he cares. Not that he cares about me like that.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks.
“Because . . . you continue to surprise me.”
“What fun would it be if I was predictable?” He presses a quick kiss to my nose as the waffle timer beeps and he turns to walk around the island.
I take a seat at the counter and he slides a plate over to me, next to the butter and syrup he’s already set out.
Then, moving over to the coffee pot, he asks, “Milk and sugar, right?”
“How’d you know that?”
“I got you coffee in Bermuda, remember?”
“Yeah, but how’d you know that’s how I’d take my coffee in the first place?” At the time, I needed caffeine so badly it didn’t occur to me that it might be more than a coincidence that he got my coffee order exactly right.
“Lucky guess. I actually got two that morning, one black and one with milk and sugar, figuring those were the two most likely options.”
“So you normally take yours black?” I ask and then watch as he pours milk into both mugs.
“I hate black coffee.” He drops a couple teaspoons of sugar into both cups, gives them a stir, and turns to hand me mine.
So he gave me the coffee we both preferred that morning in Bermuda, and drank the black coffee instead. It’s not a huge sacrifice, but I think it says something about the kind of person he is. Or, maybe I’m reading too much into it?
“Honest question,” I say, taking the mug from him in both hands and then dipping my head to breathe in the scent. “Do you always make breakfast the next morning when you’re keeping things casual?”
“Sure,” he says with a shrug, but the creases at the edges of his eyes match how tight his voice is, and I’m not sure what to make of that.
“And cuddling after sex?”
“Why not?”
“I’m just trying to understand where I keep going wrong with relationships. So, cuddling after sex and breakfast the next morning doesn’t mean anything?”
I watch the column of his throat bob before he visibly relaxes. “The general rule of thumb with a casual relationship is that there’s no expectation of monogamy or long-term commitment. I don’t think making someone breakfast changes that?”
I can’t tell if he’s totally full of shit, or if guys and girls think differently about this type of thing.
Maybe it’s just me who wants to grab on to small gestures like this breakfast and think they mean more than they do?
In this case, I’m staying at his house, so I guess it only makes sense that he’d make me breakfast while making some for himself, too.
So yeah, I guess that actually doesn’t mean anything.
“Hmmm,” I say as I cut a small piece of my waffle and take a bite, chewing slowly as I mull over my thoughts.
“I always kind of assumed that going on multiple dates and sleeping with someone multiple times, even before talking about making it official, at least made it exclusive. I guess it didn’t really occur to me that, in that situation, a guy might also be seeing other people at the same time. ”
“It doesn’t necessarily mean he is, but he could be, unless you’d agreed to make it exclusive.”
“Okay.” I guess that explains a bit of the disconnect I’ve had with guys before, where I apparently thought things were more serious and more exclusive than they actually were.
For example, Carter flying me to Miami at the beginning of the summer while he was there for work because he didn’t want to go that long without seeing me apparently didn’t mean that he was seeing only me.
We’re silent for a minute as he gets his waffle off the iron and spreads butter on it before drenching it in syrup. He keeps casting quick glances at me and looking away when he finds my eyes still on him.
“So now, for example,” I say, just to make sure I have some clarity on what our friends-with-benefits situation entails, “I should be open to meeting other guys, since we’re keeping this casual?”
“Yep.” His one-word response comes out tight, reminding me of the post-wedding dinner in Bermuda.
He turns away, but his body doesn’t block the way his hand grips the glass handle of the mixing bowl so hard that the whole thing is shaking as he moves it aside and pulls the waffle iron plug out of the wall.
“Okay, good to know.”
There’s nothing about his physical response that leads me to believe he meant what he just said.
I’m torn between wanting to ask him about it, and needing to take him at his word.
Because reading too much into things is exactly my problem .
. . trying to find reasons that what’s happening is more than casual, even when a guy is telling me he doesn’t want more.
I have to trust what he’s telling me, even if everything about being here in Ember Cove with him feels like more than just sex.
Maybe going on a date with someone else is what I need to do to practice this whole casual relationship thing? The idea makes me feel sick because Aidan has made me feel more important, more desired, and more cherished than any guy I’ve ever been with.
But, just like almost every other guy I’ve been with, he doesn’t want a real, committed relationship with me, so I guess I need to keep searching until I find someone who deserves me and wants a relationship.