Chapter 15
AIDEN
If someone looked up stupid in the dictionary, they’d find a picture of me.
The definition would be of a man in his early thirties who was desperate enough when it came to his love life that he threw caution to the wind, ignored a parade of red flags, and was infatuated with a man who admitted to stalking him.
I rolled over in bed and threw my arm over my eyes, wishing I could block out the sun, and the doubts. A week had passed since Nate had followed me to the club and then taken me out to dinner.
A week since I’d found out the man I’d slept with and had continued to fantasize about being my Daddy for real, had continued to stalk me after we went our separate ways.
While I might have been an idiot and still been attracted to him, I wasn’t a complete moron and still at least acknowledged I was putting myself in a dangerous situation. One I damn well knew better than to do.
The problem? I couldn’t find it in myself to care. Something about him drew me in like a moth to a flame. I knew I was going to get burned, but I couldn’t help it.
My hand rubbed down my face as I tried to figure out what the fuck I was doing.
It wasn’t me. I wasn’t a risk taker. My life was about order.
Law and order. I was a police officer, a homicide detective.
Yet, there I was, waking up hard as nails and horny as hell, wishing Nate were there to fuck me into my mattress.
I let out a soft moan as my hand continued down my body to my chest, and tugged on my taut nipple. A sharp hiss escaped from my lips as I gave it a sudden twist, my hips bucking as my cock sought friction it wouldn’t find.
The last thing I should do was tease myself, but then again, I didn’t have anywhere else to be. I had all day that I could lie in bed and think about how my Daddy could use me and make me come over and over.
But before I could get any further, reality crashed down on me as my phone rang. With a groan, I diverted my hand’s destination and reached over and answered just before it went to voicemail.
“Hey, Ma.” Shit. I needed to get myself under control. Last thing I needed was my mother asking questions because she was concerned that something was wrong. Hell would freeze over before I explained that I was just horny and had been about to masturbate.
No fucking thanks.
“Oh, so you are still alive. Good. I haven’t heard from you in so long, I was starting to wonder.” Her dry response left me cringing from the guilt she managed to lob onto me from the other side of the city.
“Shit. Ma. Don’t do that.” I wiped my hand over my face and rubbed my temples, hoping to relieve some of the tension that already started to build up from the conversation.
It wasn’t as though my parents didn’t have a good reason to worry. But it had been the center of everything for over fifteen years.
Everyone told me to move on. But how could I, when my mother still did shit like that?
With a sigh, she offered an apology. “You know your father and I worry about you, Aiden. And with that job of yours. I just… I wish you would have chosen something that was safer.”
It was an argument we’d been having since she found out I joined the Academy.
“You know why I do what I do, Ma.”
I sat up and got out of bed. That conversation required me to have a lot more armor covering me than the sheet that had been draped over me while I’d been sleeping. Not to mention, it was weird to talk to my mother while I was naked.
“Doesn’t make it any easier.” The weariness in her voice made me pause as I rummaged through my dresser for a pair of sweats and a T-shirt to pull on.
While the reminder that I’d gone missing when I was seventeen and returned several weeks later with no memory of what had happened to me while I’d been gone still weighed heavily on all of us as a family, it wasn’t usually something that actively distressed Ma anymore.
Something was definitely wrong.
“You’re right,” I said, my voice soft as I thought back to that time. “It doesn’t make it easier. But it gives me a sense of purpose to get answers for people who are no longer able to fight for them anymore.”
“I know.” And she did. None of this was new information.
“What’s this really about?”
In the bathroom, I splashed some cold water on my face and quickly swiped my toothbrush through my mouth a few times while I waited for my mother to be able to compose herself enough to formulate her answer.
That was one thing I got from her. No one could rush me when it came to answering a question, no matter how impatient they were. It was why torture would never work on me.
At least, I didn’t think it would, given the scars I returned home with.
Mom made a huffing noise from the other end of the phone before finally letting out a sigh of defeat. “Your sister and Victoria both told me you’ve started to date someone new. I’m just wondering why I heard it from them and not from my only son, that’s all.”
All the air in my lungs got caught in my throat. I couldn’t breathe.
What. The. Fuck?
I had no idea why either one of them would tell her that at this stage, let alone how Alyssa even knew about Nate.
“Run that by me again.” I had to have heard that wrong. Right?
She let out a chuckle. Anytime she could catch me off guard, she thought it was a riot.
Yeah. Real funny, Ma.
“Why the fuck are they gossiping about my freaking love life? To you?”
The way she cackled on the other end made me feel like I missed some vital piece of information in the conversation somewhere.
“Apparently, the two of them get together once a month for some sort of girls thing where they have drinks and gossip. Your name came up, and Victoria was telling her about some new man in your life.”
She hmmphed, obviously upset at having been left out of the gossip as I groaned at having been dragged into the gossip.
“There’s nothing to tell right now. We went out for one dinner. That’s all. I like him, but I’m not sure if it’s actually going to go anywhere.” I wasn’t going to tell her I knew it was mutual, or that he’d been enthusiastic in his pursuit of me.
On one hand, I didn’t want to encourage her, but also, with my history, I didn’t want to concern her with something that was probably harmless.
There was some shuffling around on the other end of the phone and I could tell Ma was getting comfortable. Oh boy. I was in trouble.
“But you like him?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I muttered. “I’m not sure it’s going to go anywhere. He’s nice, but we’re just… different.”
“Different?” She said the word like it was a foreign concept, as I made my way to the kitchen and started pulling out ingredients to make some breakfast.
I let out a sigh. There was no easy way to get out of this. She was like a dog with a damn bone. Or a fucking bloodhound.
“It was one date. Don’t make it into more than it was.” Hopefully, I sounded more confident and stern than I felt. But by the sound she made, I wasn’t sure she agreed with me.
“Hmm. Well, to hear Victoria talk about it, she just made it seem like more, that’s all.” There was no missing the hopeful tone in her voice. And it made me feel like an asshole.
I didn’t answer her for a moment, putting the phone on speaker and leaving it on the counter so I could concentrate on scrambling my eggs. Because, a gourmet cook, I was not. I’d be lucky if they were not black or rubbery, and edible by the time I got done torturing them on the stove.
Sighing, I bit the bullet as I poured the egg and milk mixture into the heated pan. “Ma. You know I love you. And I know there is a guy out there for me, and I know I’ll find him. Eventually. I’m just not sure Nate is the one.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the spatula in my sink full of dishes and hurried to wash it so I could flip the eggs before they could burn.
“Well, if he’s a nice guy and he treats you right, then I think you deserve that, even if he isn’t the one. You should still let yourself enjoy it while it lasts.”
The innuendo could have been spotted from the moon. And that was a huge pile of nope. No way was I standing there, listening to my mother talk about my sex life, or make implications about it.
My cheeks heated, thinking about the things Nate and I had gotten up to, about the way I called him Daddy, or how much I loved the way he got rough when he fucked me, holding me down, his hand on my throat. Somehow, I didn’t think my mother would be making jokes if she knew the truth.
“Please, just drop it.” I scraped at the eggs a little harder than necessary, but I’d rather take out my frustration on them than Ma, who I knew meant well.
The silence on the other end made my heart drop. I didn’t mean to upset her. I just didn’t want her to expect more from my situationship with Nate, because I wasn’t even sure what to expect from it. Besides a mess.
An ashy smell pulled my attention back to the task at hand. With a start, I looked back at the stove and yelped when I realized a thick, gray smoke wafted up from the frying pan.
Shit!
I grabbed the pan and turned the burner off as I dashed toward the sink.
“Hold on, Ma!” I shouted toward the phone as I dropped the pan in the basin and turned on the water.
She chuckled knowingly. “Burn your breakfast again?”
A low grumble emanated from my chest as I tried to figure out why I was so fucking bad at cooking. It was a devastating character flaw, knowing I could burn water. Unfortunately, it was as embarrassing as it was true.
My mind drifted to Nate and how he promised to cook for me one night. In his house. Because that was apparently something he did. I let out a groan, realizing he probably was well aware of my lack of culinary skills. I almost didn’t want to know how good of a cook he was.
I turned off the water and scooped up the phone off the counter, bringing it back to my ear. “Sorry about that.”
“Why don’t you finish dealing with your science experiment and then come on over and I’ll cook you breakfast?” She said the words with delight, as though they weren’t a trap. If I went over there, I’d have no way to escape the questions she had about Nate.
Just as I opened my mouth to come up with some sort of excuse, my doorbell rang. Flustered, I rolled my eyes and wondered who else was trying to invade my peace on my day off.
Getting ready to tell Vic off for barging in, plus gossiping with my mother and sister, I flung the door open. But the words died on my lips.
My gaze traveled down his impressive body, taking in the tight Henley, and I wondered why he wasn’t wearing a jacket. But damn, those jeans really showcased his thighs.
A throat clearing had my gaze shooting back up to Nate’s face. His smirk nearly drove me to my knees. The amusement was clear as day; the asshole knew the effect he had on me, which made it totally unfair.
“Nate? What are you doing here?”
Was that even my voice? Why did I sound so breathless? I didn’t understand how it could make me feel that way. No one else had ever gotten to me the way he did.
His brow crinkled before he leaned in and sniffed. “Is there a fire? Is something wrong? Do I need to call 9-1-1?”
I barked out a laugh at his distress, but my hand flew to my mouth to stifle the chuckles. It wasn’t funny and I didn’t like to see him distressed or worried about me.
“No. It’s fine. I just burned my eggs.” I bit my lip and looked down at the welcome mat under his feet, not wanting to meet his eyes as I admitted that out loud, despite the fact I was pretty sure he already knew how awful I was in the kitchen.
He tutted at me with a slow smile. “Oh, little bird. What ever am I going to do with you?”
“Did you say Nate?” The words in my ear slammed me back to reality. Shit. I forgot I still had Ma on the phone.
“I’m going to have to take a raincheck, Ma.”
“Pssh. Nonsense. You bring that boy over with you for breakfast. I’ll see you in twenty.”
The line went dead and I glanced up at Nate in horror. I wasn’t sure which of us looked more uneasy at the impromptu invite to my parents’ house for Sunday breakfast, but he was definitely the first to recover.
“Apparently, I’m not the only one who had the idea of asking you to breakfast this morning?” He glanced around, unable to look me in the eye. I wasn’t sure what happened to the confident man I’d come to know, but there was definitely something spooking him.
I was pretty sure it was the whole meeting the parents way too soon fiasco that he’d found himself in. But there was a warning bell going off in my head that was signaling danger ahead.
“You don’t have to come. Trust me, I know it’s way too soon for subjecting you to my Ma.” I let out a brittle laugh that felt too forced and by the strained smile, it wasn’t fooling him either.
Somewhere, we had taken a turn, and I wasn’t sure where things had gone off course or how to get us back on track. Or if I should even want to get us back on track.
A worried look flitted across his eyes as he studied my face. “What do you want, little bird?”