“I can’t believe you’ve never read Catch-22 or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest!”

“And I can’t believe you’ve never seen a single Seth Rogen movie!”

I slapped his shoulder a little harder than I meant to, pushing him on this side of the bed. “There is hardly a comparison.”

“Isn’t there, though?”

Even he couldn’t keep a straight face as he tried to make his point. I slapped his shoulder again and he grabbed my upper arms, pulling me against his chest. He reached up and kissed the tip of my nose, his smile dying as he studied my face.

“Where have you been all my life?”

“Lying here listening to you playing that crazy grunge music next door.”

He shook his head. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

I touched his jaw with the tips of my fingers before letting them trace a pattern down his throat to his chest. His skin was marked with tattoos in a few places, a number along his ribs on one side, a sniper rifle drawn quite well on the other. The Navy insignia was on one shoulder, a dedication to his SEAL unit on the other. I’d never been much of a fan of tattoos—I saw the mutilation of the human body as a little barbaric and unnecessary—but I had to admit that I found these fascinating. Even a little erotic.

“Do you think these will have the same meaning when you’re ninety and sitting in a rocking chair in your assisted living facility?”

“I think they’ll have more meaning then. They’ll be proof of a life well lived.”

I traced my finger around the sniper rifle. “It’s proof of a violent part of your life. Won’t there be more to it than that? More of the docile, boring parts of life?”

“Like what?”

“Like marriage and babies and day care and PTA meetings and sitting long hours in an office somewhere?”

“What makes you think that’s what I want out of life?”

My finger stopped moving for a heartbeat, then continued, tracing that rifle over and over again. “I don’t know. That seems to be what most people want.”

“Do you?”

I shrugged. “I always kind of assumed it would happen someday. Sometime long down the road.”

“Not any time soon.”

“No. I was career oriented.”

“What? Writing essays and research papers for students who are too lazy or dumb to do it themselves?”

“Not that career.”

“What career then?”

I pulled away, climbing off the bed and heading toward the stairs. “I’m thirsty. You want anything?”

He didn’t answer.

I walked naked through my house, amazed with how quickly I’d become comfortable in my own skin. I opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, snagging a strawberry from a bowl of fresh fruit I’d set aside with the intention of making a fruit salad to go with my dinner last night. When I closed the door, he was standing there, leaning back against the wall with a false sense of casualness, his ankles crossed and his hands resting at his sides. He was…it was like looking at the man who modeled the statue David. He almost looked as though he’d been molded by the hands of a great artist, his flesh hardened by the muscle underneath, almost like marble. I wanted to touch him, but the desire to just stand there and look at him was just as strong. I bit my lip as my eyes moved slowly over him, taking in every inch of his nudity, lingering in places it wasn’t proper to talk about in mixed company. He was so beautiful…I couldn’t believe it was my kitchen in which he was standing so casually.

“Are we going to continue to engage in this dance?”

“What dance?”

He looked up at me and I could almost read his thoughts behind those expressive eyes. He knew I was avoiding his questions, knew I wasn’t telling him the truth about who I was, where I came from. But I didn’t know how to climb that particular hurdle.

I walked over to him and ran my hand slowly over his chest, watching as it slipped over his perfect abs down below his navel, following that thin trail of hair that a girlfriend of mine had once called “the treasure map.”

“I thought you were enjoying this dance.”

He grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand from him, pressing it to his chest instead. “You can’t avoid my questions forever, Carson.”

“I can try.”

He growled, grabbing my other wrist and pushing me backward, slamming the back of my thighs against the kitchen table. His expression was determined as he stared down at me, something like anger burning behind the passion in his eyes. He had me trapped, but he didn’t seem to know what to do with me. I solved the problem by leaning into him, pressing my mouth against his throat, biting the tender skin there until he groaned. He twisted my arms behind my back as I moved lower on his chest, reminding me of the control he had over me. I slid to my knees and he cried out, his hands moving from my wrists to my hair, his fingers twisting in my long tresses as he encouraged me. I watched him, saw the pleasure that made him close his eyes and tilt his head back. I loved that I could offer him that sort of pleasure, that I could turn such a strong man into a bowl of jelly.

When he’d had enough, he lifted me to my feet and set me on the edge of the table, plowing inside of me the moment our hips touched. I cried out, the suddenness of his invasion almost painful. But then the pleasure that rushed through me was incomparable. I wrapped my legs around him, pressed my feet into the backs of his thighs, my hands locked around his neck. He bent low to steal a kiss, but we were both breathing so hard that we couldn’t do more than brush our lips against one another.

He was pounding against me, my clit screaming with every thrust. I was close so much sooner than I’d expected, ready to ride the crest of that wave. I cried out, lifting my hips clear off the table in an attempt to satisfy the crushing need that was building so deep inside of me.

“I’m going to cum,” I groaned, saying words I’d never spoken aloud time in all my life. 

“No.”

He grabbed my arms again, pushing me down flat against the table, leaning over me as he stopped moving inside of me. He nibbled at the tip of my nose, the center of my chin, refusing to respond when I wiggled my hips against him.

“Aiden!”

“Not yet.”

He buried his mouth against my throat, holding so still against me that my aching clit was threatening to go on strike, to leave me with this horrible, unfulfilled need-based tension that was more than uncomfortable, more than desperate for release. It was almost painful, the need that was right there, right on the edge.

“Please,” I moaned as he came back to my mouth, as he kissed me with a gentleness that belied the passion that had been playing out between us. He moved his hips a little in response to my begging, but so subtly that he might as well have not moved at all. I moved my own hips with a little more insistence, but he ignored me.

Aiden pulled free of me, stood straight between my legs, his hands resting on my hips. He held me still as he rolled his hips, the movement too gentle, too lacking in intensity. I groaned in frustration, already feeling the tension releasing slightly in my lower belly. I wanted to cry. Instead, I closed my eyes and lay still, wanting to move my hips, wanting to play along with this game he was playing. It was good, don’t get me wrong. It just…I was so close to that perfect crest and now…

But then it began to build again, slower this time, but just as intense. Maybe more so. He pulled me further down on the table, holding my hips between his hands, his movements steady and slow. He let me move with him after a while, encouraged me to move with little tugs of his hands on my hips. And he watched me. I could feel his eyes on me, could feel him not just watching my breasts move with every thrust, but watching my face.

It was oddly intimate.

And when he finally let me go, when he finally let me ride the crest of that ultimate wave, it was more…it was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I couldn’t catch my breath, couldn’t do anything but bite down on my bottom lip and go for the ride.

He caught himself on his hands as he tensed between my legs, joining me on the ride. Then he leaned down and kissed the tip of my nose, his hot breath washing over my sweaty face.

“Wasn’t that worth the wait?”

“Oh my God!”

He chuckled a little, his lips grazing my cheek. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“I did. But I’m glad you didn’t let that stop you.” I turned into him, touched his face as I studied his eyes. “Thank you.”

He kissed me, his touch so tender it threatened to break my heart. “You make me want to take my time, Carson. You make me want to lay in bed with you all day long and forget about the world outside these four walls.”

“Do I?”

“These few hours with you are the first since I came home that I really felt at home.”

That hurt me a little. I’d known he was hurting, that he was struggling being back here. But hearing him admit it made me hurt for him.

And it made me realize just how much I returned the sentiment.

Completely.

He kissed me again, his lips lingering against mine. He rested his forehead against mine when our lips parted, his breathing still a little rough. I ran my hands over his sides, down along his ass, still holding him tight against me. I wanted to stay there like that for as long as possible. But, of course, that wasn’t meant to be.

The sound of a car’s engine drew his attention away from me. He reached forward, tugging the curtains over the wide kitchen windows open, peeking out at the street that stretched long and wide in front of our houses.

“Shit!”

“What?”

I twisted a little and just caught sight of a dark truck in Aiden’s driveway before he let the curtain fall back into the place.

“I have to go,” he said, regret dripping from his lips. “It’s Bo. I’m supposed to go with him to meet an informant on this case he wants me to work with him starting Monday. Today’s the only chance we have to meet with the guy for the next couple of weeks.”

“Can’t you just tell him you’re sick or something?”

He kissed me again. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

He pulled away and strode out of the room without looking back. I liked watching him walk away, loved to watch the muscles in his back and legs work. And that ass...!

I slowly climbed off the table, feeling a little too exposed now that he was gone. I took a soft blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped it around my shoulders as he came back down the stairs, still buttoning the fly of his jeans. He had his shirt hanging over his shoulder, but his shoes were back on his feet. Watching him come toward me like that was just as nice as watching him walk away. Maybe better because of that cocky smile.

He wrapped his fist in the blanket I was holding against my chest and kissed me almost roughly. “I’ll be back.”

“Promise?”

“Definitely.”

He kissed me one last time before, again, walking away without a backward glance. He slipped through the sliding glass door at the back of room, jumping down the steps with an energy I don’t think I’d seen in him until today. I smiled as I watched him go and I had a hell of a time wiping that smile away long after he was gone. I sat down to my work—and actually got some done—but every once in a while, I’d catch his scent on my skin or I’d recall some little moment from the morning we’d spent together and I’d just stop and indulge in him, in everything I’d tried so hard to commit to memory.

I ate my dinner alone and put my work away, climbing the stairs to maintain my routine, running on the treadmill to another playlist on Spotify. The shower had regained a little of its pleasure, but it was different now. Pounding heat on sore muscles, nothing more. I didn’t bother with my robe after rubbing lotion into my skin and twisting my hair into a long, wet braid. I just crawled into bed and pulled the pillow he’d been lying on against my chest. It still smelled of him. The entire bed still smelled of him. If he never came back, I’d still smile when I thought of him. He’d taught me a lot about myself in such a short time, taught me things about my body, my pleasure threshold that I was pretty sure I’d never learn anywhere else. That alone made anything that came next—or didn’t—more than worth it.

I wondered about him, about the life he’d led over there. He didn’t talk about it except in little comments here and there, things that acknowledged where he’d spent the last ten years of his life, but didn’t offer details. I knew it stuck with him. I knew he was hurting from something he saw or did there. It was like we both had these dark secrets that we carried around, secrets that directed the course of our lives in ways we never could have anticipated. Maybe that was what drew him to me, what drew me to him. Maybe that was why I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

The thought of my own dark past, however, made me wonder just how stupid this was. I shouldn’t get involved with anyone. What would happen when my past suddenly became an issue, when it came back to haunt me? What if my past exploded and he got caught up in it all? This wasn’t his fight, wasn’t his problem. He didn’t deserve to have it come raining down on his head. It was stupid of me to think I could ignore everything just because nothing had happened these past six months. Just because I’d left Boston, Florida, Colorado. They’d found me before; they would find me again. And when that happened, Aiden would be caught in the middle of something he wouldn’t even understand.

Could I really do that to him?

I climbed out of bed and went to the balcony, standing naked in the cool night air, staring down into his yard like I expected him to suddenly appear there. He wasn’t there. The house was dark.

I closed my eyes and told myself the smart thing would be to move on. To walk away without explanation, to leave him before either of us was too invested in this thing. I mean, really, what was it right now? Two people who shared a nice afternoon together. We used each other for physical release and had a great time doing it, but that was it. Right?

But I knew it wasn’t.

His hands slipped over my upper arms, tugging me back against the rough material of his shirt, his mouth latching itself to the side of my neck.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” he said. “This meeting was more complicated than Bo suggested it would be.”

“You’re okay?”

He hesitated for reasons I wasn’t sure I wanted to analyze. Then he sighed softly, stepping back and drawing me back into my bedroom. I took his hand and followed, rendered breathless by the way he regarded my nudity, the way he stared at me like I was some work of art standing in a respected museum.

“How did you get into my house?”

He smiled that cocky smile that won me over the first time I saw it. “You left the sliding glass doors unlocked.” He raised a finger, chastising me. “You should be more careful.”

“I suppose I should.”

He lifted off his shirt, a heavy Oxford he hadn’t been wearing earlier, and unbuttoned the front of his jeans as he kicked off his shoes. I watched him, amused by his lack of attention to what he was doing. He nearly tripped because he refused to pull his eyes from me long enough to look where his boot had fallen when it came off his foot. I laughed, crawling into bed as he quickly kicked his jeans away from his body and dove to follow me. I was in his arms almost instantly, laughing as he wrapped his body almost roughly around mine. And then the laughter ended abruptly as he stole my lips and eagerly tasted me, his hands almost anxious as they slipped over my body. We moved together, our bodies slipping into place like they were made to fit like this.

I held onto him like he was a life raft in the middle of a raging sea, held on like he was the only thing between me and oblivion. And maybe he was.