Thirteen
Aidan pushed the shower curtain back, noted belatedly that when he did so, water splashed out onto the floor, and said, “What the hell kinda chick soap is this?” He waved the offending pink-studded bar toward Sam, who stood at the mirror doing her makeup.
She twisted her head to glance at him over her shoulder, powder brush held gracefully in one hand. Her smile was sweet, tinged with a little of the feminine smugness that told him she knew he was just as sore and tired as she had to be. “We’re a household of chicks. That’s a pomegranate and mandarin orange body bar.”
He felt his nose wrinkle at the idea. “You know I can’t use this, right?”
“I think you’ll smell nice.”
“I don’t want to smell ‘nice.’”
Her smile flickered and she clamped down on it. “Our neighbor has a dog. You could wander over into their yard and find a pile of shit to roll in. That wouldn’t count as nice, would it?”
With a snort of disgust, he snapped the curtain closed and heard her laugh.
Stupid soap; all the guys would give him shit about it.
Worth the hassle, though. Definitely. Last night still hummed in his blood.
He hadn’t expected it to feel the way that it had. He’d made up his mind weeks before that he wanted Sam. Not in the casual, curious way he wanted beautiful women who blew him kisses out of car windows or who sauntered up to him at bars. His craving for Sam had put a lump in his throat, had left him desperate, feeling as if something important were slipping through his fingers. It had come with a sense of loss that echoed eerily of the night he’d told Greg to run, only it was a sweet ache, and not a hollow one. Even then, he hadn’t had an idea it would be so different to touch her, taste her skin, be inside her.
He’d felt one hot second of shame when he’d realized he wouldn’t be able to go slow and treat her right. But she’d encouraged him, and he’d been lost.
He was still struggling to describe the experience in his head.
After, he’d dropped to the edge of sleep, and then resurfaced, to find Sam dozing against his chest, face peaceful, hair fanned across the pillow.
Beautiful. He’d roused her with a hand sliding between her legs, and she’d rolled onto her back at his urging. He’d been in total control that time, and he’d had to put his hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t wake her mother and sister.
The mother and sister who might at any moment discover he was still in the house.
He’d awakened alone in Sam’s bed, to find they’d somehow gotten under the covers during the night, and that dawn was touching the horizon, the room filled with faint gray light. He’d taken a moment to get his bearings. He heard water running through the pipes; smelled her skin and light perfume on the sheets, something fruity (he now knew it was this soap); took in the orderly room, its gray walls, black wooden bedstead and dresser, the chair in the corner with a pillow and footstool that told a story of much reading alone.
Silently, he’d tiptoed to the hall bath, and had found Sam toweling her hair, wrapped in an awful terry robe. He’d slipped in quick, closing and locking the door.
There’d been three silent seconds of eye contact, and then Sam had smiled shyly and returned her gaze to the mirror. “Good morning.”
It was the tamest “good morning” he’d ever received from a woman, and it had stirred things in him those two words had no right to.
A first. One of many.
Another first: feeling like a dickhead for stealing a little hot water. He’d had the morning-after shower more times than he could count. But that was usually in some chick’s apartment, sometimes trailer, sometimes hotel where they were spending their Knoxville vacation. It had never been a bathroom shared by two sisters who lived with their mother. Last night, in the dark, it had been easy to push all thoughts of collateral damage from his mind. But under the scalding spray of water, he was starting to worry that Helen Walton might seriously disapprove of him using her shower, soap, and towels, complete delinquent that he was. There would be no need for the “you’re not good enough for my daughter” spiel; it was too obvious to require vocalization.
When he shut off the water, one of Sam’s slender hands pushed past the curtain, holding a thick yellow towel.
“Thanks.”
It was soft as butter passing over his skin, reminding him of stayovers with Maggie and Ghost, the way Maggie managed the little comforting things in life with more skill than he ever could. Bachelor life almost seemed fantastic…until he spent a little time around quality linens, home cooked meals, and freshly stacked loads of laundry that appeared on his dresser as if by magic.
When he wrapped the towel around his hips and stepped out, he saw that Sam had set another towel down on the floor to absorb the water he’d slopped out of the shower stall. She had progressed to her hair, working the wet snarls loose with a comb, wincing when she hit a bad snag.
She glanced up and met his gaze through the mirror, smiling. “Did you wanna shave? I found a razor and some old cream that’s probably not too far out of date.” She motioned to said items, where she’d laid them out on the counter.
“You keep that on hand in case Doug ever asked to stay over?” he teased.
Her smile dimmed. “No,” she said softly. “Leftovers from Dad.”
Her dead dad, killed in an accident when they were still in high school, back when Aidan hadn’t known she’d existed.
He wanted to kick himself.
Sam had gone still, comb hovering above the crown of her head, watching him.
“I don’t need to shave,” he said. “Just going to work.”
She nodded, stared at her reflection a moment, and then turned to him, comb forgotten on the counter.
It was wonderful, for some reason, to see her with her hair undone, her façade unfinished first thing in the morning, in the privacy of her bathroom at home. She could feign no stiffness or reserve with him here.
His breath caught, just a second, when she lifted a hand and passed her fingertips down his chest. He wondered if she could feel it, that fast stutter under his skin.
“I still can’t see very well,” she said, because she wasn’t wearing her glasses yet, “but the colors…” Her eyes tracked what detail she could make out of his ink. “What’s this one for?” she asked, and he knew which one she was looking at.
It was his largest, most intricate piece, after the roses, the one that made the most sense. “The Tennessee River,” he said, because that was how the image began, as his hometown river, intricate depictions of the Henley Street Bridge and Neyland Stadium marking it as such. “And the Thames, in London.” In the center of both his chest and the tattoo, the landscape around the river changed, the water flanked by Big Ben and the London Bridge on his other pec. In the center, above the water, was the running black dog that was their club logo. “The original and American mother chapters of the club,” he explained.
“It’s beautiful,” Sam murmured.
It was far from the first time someone had complimented one of his tats, but it was the first time he felt almost lightheaded as it was happening. Apparently, his sister wasn’t the only sappy romantic in the family. Who knew?
Her eyes lifted to his. “How many do you have?”
“A shit-ton. Wanna count them?”
She smiled. “When I’m not on my way to work, absolutely.”
“Yeah, me too–” Oh shit. He had work, yeah, but he also had a lunch meeting with Greg he’d managed to forget about last night.
Her face fell. “What. It’s just sinking in what happened last night?” She attempted a grin, but it was brittle and sad.
It caused him actual, physical pain to see that look on her face and know the direction of her thoughts.
“No.” He caught her face in both hands before she could step back. “Sam, baby, no.” When she raised her brows in mingled surprise and disbelief, he said, “I just remembered I’ve gotta have a very unpleasant lunch meeting today, and if I don’t get a move on, I won’t be able to swap lunch breaks with Merc.” He ducked his head and kissed her, lingering afterward, so he could speak while their lips were touching. “Last night was the best night I’ve had in…well, ever, sweetheart.” He grinned as he pulled back. “So don’t act like I think otherwise, alright?”
She took a deep, shivery breath and let it back out in a rush, smiling. “Yeah. Alright.”
When he released her – reluctantly, and they both knew it – she faced the mirror again and reached for a tube of some sort of gel goo that she squirted into her hand and then worked into the wet waves of her hair. “What kind of meeting? With your dad?”
He winced at his reflection and passed a hand through his disorderly curls. “Worse than that.”
“Ouch.”
It struck him as so domestic, the way she was treating her hair. He’d seen his sister do as much, in those brief years when they’d shared a bathroom at home, and for some reason, watching Sam’s morning rituals like this cemented last night in a whole new way.
Before he was aware of thinking it, he stepped in behind her and wrapped both arms around her waist, arresting her movements, drawing a grin and startled laugh from her.
“I gotta head out,” he said. “But I want to see you tonight. Or sooner, if that’s possible.”
Her grin widened; he watched it in the mirror and felt a resulting tug in the pit of his stomach.
“I can come by the shop after class,” she said.
“That’d be good.” He kissed the top of her head. “What are the odds your mom knows I’m here and is gonna throw a fit?”
She laughed. “Good…and good.”
“I was afraid of that.”
She reached up to cover one of his hands with hers and squeezed. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
He kissed her again, on the cheek. “Yeah.”
He had his hand on the door when she said, “Aidan?”
“Yeah?”
Her smile was glorious, happiness radiating through her bright blue-green eyes. “It was worth the wait.”
It had been. And he had no intention of making her wait again.
~*~
By the time she finished her hair and dressed for work, Aidan was long gone. But when Sam went to her room, she found her mother standing in the threshold. She stepped up behind her and realized that Helen’s eyes were trained on the messy, unmade bed, and her head turned slowly so that she faced Sam, wide-eyed.
“Mom,” Sam said, drawing breath for an explanation.
Helen said, “Did he spend the night?” She lowered her voice. “I heard…I heard you two talking. You were” – she dropped to a whisper – “in the bathroom together.”
She had no real idea how to play this. Helen had always wanted her to get married and start a family, but Sam didn’t get the impression her mother was going to be the type to allow for sleepovers and bathroom cohabitation. At least not under her own roof. And adult or not, this was her mother’s home. She’d have to obey the rules, if any were given.
So she said, “Yes, Mom. We were.”
Helen’s hand tightened around the doorframe. “Oh.” A single syllable that encompassed so many things. Her eyes fell to the carpet a moment and she seemed to think, to collect herself. Then she lifted her head and said, “I don’t like what he’s done to his body.” Ah, the tattoos. “But that was a very nice thing he did, taking care of Erin last night. And I take it you two have become good friends.”
Sam nodded. “We have.”
Helen let out a deep breath and shrugged. “You’re a grown woman. I trust you to keep good company.” She patted Sam on the arm and headed back down the hall to her own room.
Sam stood rooted a moment, in total shock.
Behind her, she heard a door creaking open, and over her shoulder glimpsed Erin poking her head out from her room. She hadn’t bothered to wash her face the night before, and her makeup had smeared in the night. Her hair was in accomplished tangles on her shoulders.
“What was going on last night?” she asked in a tone too suspicious for any sixteen-year-old. “Aidan was here, wasn’t he?”
“I thought you were angry with me. No silent treatment this time?”
Erin’s eyes widened; her stubbornness had been forgotten in her curiosity, and now she remembered it. With a frustrated sound, she withdrew and slammed her door.
Sam went in to make her bed.
~*~
He was about five minutes late as he walked up to the open roll top doors at the shop. Aidan braced himself, and stepped into the first bay.
Mercy and Tango immediately glanced his way. Carter kept his back turned because, for reasons Aidan didn’t understand that somehow involved Jasmine, the kid still wasn’t talking to him, if he could help it.
Tango propped a hand against a tool chest and gave him a small, knowing smile.
Mercy folded his arms across his chest and grinned like the lunatic he was. “You’re late.”
“I’m late lots of times.”
“Tango,” Mercy called, “did our boy here come home last night?”
“Nope.” Tango’s smile got a little wider. “Definitely not.”
“Did you stop in at Ghost and Mags’?” Mercy pressed, the obnoxious asshole. “Should I ask them?”
“Dude, how old are you?” Aidan said, and headed to clock in.
Behind him, Mercy laughed. “I take it big sis was grateful.”
“Very grateful.” And he was leaving it at that.
The laughter died away as Mercy grew more serious. “Hey, Aidan?”
He didn’t respond; he was going to be told whatever it was anyway.
“You know you can’t treat Sam like you do all the rest,” his brother-in-law said with that patented Cajun-wisdom tone that always accompanied his “sage” advice.
The thing about Mercy’s advice, though – when he wasn’t driving nails under people’s fingernails or being a total goof, he could be a truly wise man. The greatest contradiction of personality the MC had likely ever seen.
Aidan turned so the guy could see the seriousness of his expression. “I know that. Believe me.”
Both his brothers looked at him with something like pride.
But then Merc had to ruin it. “Our little man, all grown up and courtin’ schoolteachers.”
“Fuck you both.”