Chapter Eleven

Aidan

IT’S BEEN ABOUT THREE weeks since I fell in love with Magnolia Sager standing naked in her bedroom, my heart on display in a way it’s never been before. The real kind of love that drives you absolutely wild with wonderment and complete abandon. Her daughter is at an overnight cheerleading camp for the weekend. Magnolia showed up to my house with a weekender three hours ago. For any other man in love, this would be the best thing that could possibly happen. I’m not any other man. I want so badly for Magnolia to think I’m perfect for her. That nothing that I’ve done or have endured will be impressed upon what she means to me now.

She’s grabbing a glass of water from the kitchen tap, humming a song that’s been playing non-stop on the radio. Standing in front of the full-length mirror in my room, I give myself a mental pep talk. You can do this. This isn’t a big deal. A woman spending the night is common. Normal. I can be normal for her. For me. I deserve that. I must.

“Do you want anything?” Magnolia calls out.

A lobotomy, a rewind button, and a dose of fuck-it-all probably isn’t what she means.

“No thank you,” I reply, wiping away a layer of sweat from my forehead. My friends were over at my place shooting the shit earlier. Since they left, I’ve received approximately ten thousand texts asking if I’m really having a sleepover or some variation of taunting laced encouragement. The last text I read before silencing my phone was one from Mercer that said, “You’ve lost your goddamned mind. I better be the best man.” I didn’t even reply to dispute it. Tahoe’s text said, “Breathe.” That’s the one I’m currently focusing on. In through my nose and out through my mouth. A simple thing. Breathing. You don’t even realize you’re doing it most times. When you focus on it, it’s the only thing you can think of. It keeps you alive.

Magnolia brushes past me to enter the bathroom connected to my bedroom. She sets her water glass down and takes her toothbrush out to begin brushing. She turns around, leaning against the counter and looks at me while she foams her teeth, gaze narrowed, and brow pinched.

I appraise her and a little bit of nervous energy erases. She’s wearing the silk pajama set I bought for her. The blue fabric brings out the color of her eyes, and the scant material barely covers anything. “You’re so beautiful,” I say, thinking out loud. More than I deserve. More than I can keep. My stomach knots.

She tries to respond, but toothpaste foams out of her mouth and drips down her chin. She catches it right before it gets on her top. Giggling she finishes brushing and washing and then leans against the door frame. “You shouldn’t compliment a lady when she can’t reply.”

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 not go, 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 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 loveable. You are caring, Aidan. You would lay down your life to protect our country, for strangers you’ve never met. You are a Saint.”

I squeeze her foot. “I’m a little bit fire, too, though right?” My voice breaks.

“Only in the bedroom,” she agrees, choking on an exasperated sob.

“Deal,” I say. I sigh out a long breath and turn my face to the bubbles—away from her piercing gaze. “My father beat me when I slept in my bed. He told me real men sleep on floors. It hardens us, makes us strong instead of feeble. It’s irrational. Completely and utterly irrational. He slept in a bed. I never thought anything of it back then. I just assumed that he’d learned his lessons like I was doing and now he got to have comfort. He’d proved himself already. How fucked up is that?”

“You had a bed in your room but weren’t allowed to sleep in it?”

I nod. “I have a hard time sleeping because of the years I spent on the floor, or sleeping with one eye open when I was supposed to be on the floor. I hate that it’s affected me, but it’s the one thing that lingers. The very last fucking remnant of Cosby Mixx that is left in my body. I’m sorry, Magnolia.”

“Why are you apologizing to me?” She leans up and straddles my legs. “Look at you,” she whispers, laying a bubbly hand on the side of my face. “Look at how magnificent you are despite the role model you had.” She shakes her head and pecks my lips gently. Leaning away, I realize her eyes are glassy. “Who cares if you have to sleep on the floor. Or a counter. Or a bed. Or on a cliff in Timbuktu? I don’t care, that’s for sure. Aidan, I’m here, hand on your heart, because I love you and all that encompasses. Never be ashamed of your past. It doesn’t determine your future. You do.” Her hand slides down the side of my neck and ends on top of the right side of my chest.

My throat clogs and I have to close my eyes against the onslaught of emotions brought forth. I pull her warm body against mine as close as I can get her, and she tucks her face into my neck. “You do,” I say, inhaling the mix of soap and skin.

She stiffens in my arms. “I do what?”

“You determine my future, Magnolia.”

Her neck works as she swallows. I speak before she can respond. “I’ve never told a woman about my past. Never thought I would, either. Not because I’m ashamed. Why would someone else care? What am I achieving by being honest? Nothing.” The magnitude of what I’ve just done hits me square in the chest and a pang of anger tinged relief waves over me. “It’s you. It’s all you,” I say, slamming my eyes closed.

“Why did you tell me?” Magnolia asks, breaths pushing against my skin, in cool contrast to the water surrounding us.

“I want you to know me,” I reply. “And having your hand on my heart feels right. The only thing that’s felt this right in my entire life.”

Magnolia clutches my pec muscle tighter and her breasts graze my body as she breathes in deeply, steadying her voice. She whispers praise— affirmations, things I’d be embarrassed about if anyone else heard, but things I crave to hear nonetheless, sentiments that mean more than she realizes because they are words that have never been spoken before. Not to me. I shake my head in disgust—for the fact I’ve waited my entire life for this kind of validation. Her voice is low, steady, punctuated with a fierce, loyal love I’ve never known from a woman, just from the SEAL brotherhood. Magnolia lists the things she loves about me and takes the pieces of the little boy hiding under the table and puts him back together. Maybe not perfectly, but there’s a sense of wholeness when she holds me and speaks like this. Shuddering, I let my whole body relax completely—all the tension of holding this in for my entire life. Magnolia puts her hands on either side of my face. “Do you want to see your parents again?”

I shake my head. “I can’t.” I don’t want to. Saying ‘can’t’ seems easier. There’s a finality in the word can’t. There’s a reason parents always tell their children not to say it.

Licking her lips, she casts her gaze sideways. “You can, Aidan. It might be what gives you closure, lets you move on completely. I’ll go with you if you want. Don’t you want him to know you aren’t broken?”

I’ve considered this for many years, thought what it might be like to face them both again. Over the years, they’ve tried to reach out to me, but after a bit of dodging them, they gave up. In a twisted way, I think my father will take credit for how I’ve turned out. That he alone is responsible for my successes. My stomach flips, and I hold my breath. “I don’t want them to get an ounce of satisfaction,” I say, trembling at the thought.

“You could tell him that you strived to become the opposite of him in every way. It’s not like you’re imagining,” Magnolia states, pressing her full lips into a firm line. For the first time during this whole conversation, my dick responds to the naked woman sitting on my lap.

She feels it and smiles. “Seriously. You should think about it.”

I agree. She asks where they live and what they do, and I tell her as much as I know about them, or rather what I last knew about them, and I can see the wheels spinning behind her crystal eyes. Telling her to stop formulating whatever plan she’s concocting is moot. I’ve come to realize once she sets her mind on something there’s little that will get in her way. I like that about her. Love it, in fact.

There are several silent seconds in which we regard each other with new, faultless eyes. That truthful moment when you discover a new layer of a person and love them a little more for it. She burrows deeper—seeping into the cracks between those detached pieces, repairing my soul, caulking the errors, and smoothing over the imperfections with a tender grace. Taking the side of her face into my wet hand, I bring her lips to mine. The kiss is a flutter of wet lips and breaths.

“Thank you,” she says, brushing her mouth against mine. “For being honest with me. It makes me feel a little better about showing you my dumpster fire.”

“Making this about you now?” I tease, nipping at her bottom lip.

She groans. “No, I mean maybe. Whatever you want.”

I chuckle. “Whatever I want? That’s a brave statement, Ms. Sager.”

She quirks one brow. “We aren’t talking about life dumpster fires anymore are we?”

I shake my head slowly, letting a lopsided grin slip.

“Oh, my,” Magnolia says, eyes flaring wide, neck working as she swallows hard. “Then one question remains.”

Chuckling, I ask, “Just one?”

She nods once, the large top knot on her head bobbing forward. “What do you want?” Magnolia asks, her gaze locked with mine.

My heart pounds against my chest so rapidly I know she can feel the shift, knows my thoughts even if I didn’t say a word. “Be more specific, Magnolia,” I tease. “What do I want now? What do I want next month? Next year? What do I want in the next century?” Her eyes narrow as she contemplates how to respond, and I lose myself in the perusing the shape of her body—the parts that aren’t hidden by water, the sections of skin that belong to my gaze alone. Belong to me.

She licks her lips. I watch.

“I’ll answer my own questions. I want you, Magnolia. You’re the answer.”

Magnolia smiles with her eyes. “That’s pretty flattering.”

“It’s truth,” I counter, clearing my throat. Speaking so many truths consecutively feels odd.

“As long as you’re not the problem,” she says, stepping out of the bath in one languid movement. Bubbles slowly slide down her naked body—crawling down her flat stomach, dripping down toned legs, sliding between her legs as water falls off her peaked nipples.

My mouth waters as I shake my head in disbelief. How lucky am I? Magnolia extends her hand down to help me stand up.

I take it. “I have another idea,” she announces when my wet body is pressed against hers on the small bath mat in front of the tub.

“I might have to shoot it down if it’s not the same as my idea.”

Cool and confident, she replies, “It’s the same idea.”

Magnolia licks a drop of water off my chest while looking up at me through thick, black lashes. “Thank God,” I murmur, letting my eyelids fall to half-mast.