Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Evelyn opened her eyes. She was surprised to find herself in Aiden’s quarters, tucked into his bed in one of his T-shirts.
She rolled over and saw the man himself propped up against the headboard, in a different button-down and tie than the last one she’d seen him in.
He stuck a bookmark between the pages of the volume he’d been reading and smiled down at her.
“Welcome back, dollface,” he said, warm as ever. Like she hadn’t just done something terrifying. Like she wasn’t terrifying.
“Hi,” Evelyn said. She ran her tongue over her teeth, found her mouth tasted inexplicably of strawberries. “How long was I asleep?”
“Three days. I’ve been, uh, feeding you nutrient paste,” he said. “Mathias said it would help speed up the crash recovery. Apparently it’s a common occurrence when training the martial skills.”
She nodded. Her father’s doctors had always been strict about their own psychic usage for that reason, as well. Aiden retrieved an insulated mug from the side table, opened the lid, and handed it to her. Coffee, just how she liked it.
Evelyn blinked at him. “Why are you here?”
Okay, maybe that was too blunt.
She gulped the coffee. It was perfect.
He laughed. “Well, dollface, I live here.”
“Okay, why am I here?”
“Why shouldn’t you be here?” he asked, shifting to study her. Evelyn felt her cheeks heat as she became the sole point of his focus.
“How long did Cairn freak out about his plants?”
“An hour or two. Then Elenor told him to just place an order at his favorite nursery and bill Vinnie. He perked right up,” he said. “Now, why don’t you ask what you really want to know?”
Evelyn thought it was fairly perverse that someone who refused to admit that they routinely committed piracy was so horrifyingly direct in his personal life. She took another steading gulp of her coffee before she met his eyes.
“Don’t you think I’m a monster?” Her voice cracked as she spoke. She blinked rapidly, refusing to give into the tears that threatened to fall.
“Uh, no.” He reached out to smooth her hair behind her ear. “Why, should I?”
“I sort of do,” Evelyn whispered. Her gut churned. Why didn’t he see that she was dangerous? She couldn’t get the image of blood trickling out of his ear out of her head. She was fairly sure it was burned in her memory forever.
Not to mention she’d murdered an entire room of plants in seconds. He should dump her off the ship at the earliest convenient moment. Surely they couldn’t need the money that Vinnie had promised them that badly. They couldn’t be that invested in Tanalian politics.
“Let’s get one thing clear, dollface,” he said, tilting her chin up with his hand, emerald eyes blazing as they met her own.
“I have a lot of thoughts about you. You’ve consumed my waking mind since the day we met.
I think you’re funny and brave. Lightning smart.
You’ve saved my ass twice now. Sexy as hell.
You’ve enthralled me. But I have never, not for one minute, been afraid of you. ”
“You should be,” she said.
Aiden grinned at her. “I’m really bad at doing what I should do.”
“I could have killed you,” Evelyn switched tacks, determined to ignore the charming smile he’d aimed at her. She would not be distracted.
“Dollface, half the people on this ship have almost killed me at one time or another.”
Evelyn’s eyebrows shot up at that. A flash of protective indignation shot through her. He chuckled and grabbed her hand. She realized she’d closed it into a fist as he brushed his lips against her knuckles.
“The point is, not only did you not kill me, you saved all our lives,” he continued. “So, you pack a hell of a punch. Big deal.”
“Aiden, I’m dangerous.”
And she knew she was far too selfish to keep pushing him away much longer.
She could feel her resolve crumbling. Reality had thrown cold water on her raging desire, but every little caress and smirk he gave was rapidly reigniting the flame.
Taking the coffee cup out of her unclenched hand and putting it down, Aiden shifted closer, his cedar and rosemary scent flooding her senses and chipping away at her common sense.
His hand left hers, and she heard the drawer open, a knife and two blasters shooting out to hover next to him.
He slid a finger down the hilt of the knife.
It began to circle in the air, slowly spiraling ever closer to her side of the bed.
“So am I,” he said. “Still not scared of you.”
Fuck it.
Evelyn’s determination to convince him that she was a danger to be avoided at all costs evaporated.
She’d made her opinion perfectly clear. If he didn’t agree, that wasn’t her problem.
Her hand flicked up to grasp Aiden’s necktie and yanked, pulling him down for optimum kissing access.
The weapons clattered to the floor as his mouth found hers, his hands going to her waist and tugging her closer.
Her other hand wove into his hair, and she pressed her lips to his greedily, demanding. All the want she’d felt for him poured out of her lips, and she was met with equal fervor.
Her hands hurriedly went to any piece of clothing they could find, and it took everything not to rip them off him.
Aiden nipped at her lip as she fully loosened his tie, then fumbled with his shirt buttons.
She’d be damned if she stopped kissing him before she had to.
Aiden was better than air in her lungs. Every nerve in her body zinged with awareness.
She groaned in frustration when he broke their kiss, then arched into him as he started kissing along her jaw and down her neck.
When he bit down in the crevice between her neck and shoulder, she gasped, the feeling lighting her afire.
His warm hands snaked up under her shirt to cup her breasts, and her nipples pebbled as he worried the spot he’d just bitten with his tongue.
“I think I want to kill whoever invented buttons,” she said. “Clearly these are an instrument of torture.”
He chuckled and blew against the wet flesh on her neck. “So impatient, dollface.”
She shivered. She’d managed half the buttons on his shirt. “Impatient, efficient, tomato, potato. Strip.”
In an infuriatingly sexy demonstration of control, he rose from the bed and took a few steps across the room before slowly unbuttoning the rest of his shirt and shrugging out of it to reveal the smooth, golden skin of his perfectly toned chest. He draped it on the back of one of the chairs.
Evelyn watched his controlled motions before shoving herself off the mattress to join him.
She was grateful he’d draped her in one of his soft T-shirts while she slept.
If she’d had to deal with any more buttons right now, she’d rip them off.
Gazing at her with sinful intent, he stepped forward, his hands drawing up her thighs to catch the hem of her T-shirt.
He trailed the soft material up her body, and before long, her shirt joined the pile of clothes on the chair.
Her hands went to his hair as Aiden bent down and kissed circles around her navel, trailing his tongue along her ribs, and swirled around her nipple before he sucked the tender peak into his mouth.
Evelyn gasped, the hot wet pressure a jolting deviation from the tender worship his kisses had been.
Her knees threatened to buckle when she felt the graze of his teeth.
The grasp Evelyn had on his hair was the only tether she had to reality as he continued to lave and suck her breasts, moving back and forth between them.
His mouth was driving her incoherent with need, and desperate whimpers escaped from her mouth.
She grabbed one of Aiden’s hands and guided it to her soaking pussy.
When his fingers dipped past her wet panties to stroke her slick folds, he growled around her breast.
The combined ministrations of his mouth and his fingers made Evelyn feel like she was going to burst into flame.
Her knees gave out, and he caught her before she fell, molding her body to his own as he kissed her with an urgent need that matched her own.
Holding her hips with a bruising grip, he navigated them into the bathroom and turned the shower on.
Breaking their kiss, he set her down, her toes meeting cool tile, and she opened her eyes to see Aiden staring down at her like a starving man eyeing his first meal in days.
The naked need in his eyes sent a jolt down Evelyn’s spine.
She stroked her hands down his chest, ending at the soft wool of his trousers.
Her eyes still on his, she worked his button and zipper down, freeing his straining erection.
The pants fell to the floor, and he kicked them away from the shower stall.
She backed into the stream of water, pulling him in after her.
She heard the hitch in his breath as she moved into him and traced her tongue over his collarbone.
Determined to get his breath to catch again, she moved lower, her tongue dragging down his collarbone, over his pecs, his torso.
She knelt down, mimicked the trail of kisses he’d given her legs earlier.
“While that’s incredible, it can’t be comfortable,” he said. He gave her shoulder a gentle tug. She batted his hand away as she licked his inner thigh. He shuddered at the gentle caress.
“I’m sure you can figure something out,” she said.
Evelyn looked up at him and let her vision blur.
He had retained more Amplification energy than she’d thought.
Burning some of it off would do him some good.
She went back to nibbling his inner thigh, easing her way toward his straining erection with deliberate slowness.
A moment later she was gently raised off the ground, a phantom cushion preventing the sting of the tile from biting her knees.