Anxiety wracked Gwen so badly that she couldn't insert the keycard into the lock. Anxiety and nervous energy still working its way through her muscles due to her melodramatic escape from that tea room.

The lip of the card kept sliding over the brushed metal receptacle, never going in.

You have to tell him right away, she thought, you have to. Aiden was going to learn about Ben no matter what, and it would be better coming from her than Judith.

She tried for the lock again. The card started entering, then started bending, then flew from the slot when she let go of it.

Bending, Gwen reached for it. As she did, the door opened. She saw polished black shoes in the gap, dual tiny reflections staring back at her from Aiden's toes.

"Aiden..." Gwen started before her heart could shoot up into her throat and cut her off.

"Thank God!" Aiden said, grabbing her arm and hauling her inside. "Gwen, there's something I have to say."

"Me first."

"No, I need to, so please just listen. I know what's going on..."

"You do?" Had Judith already gotten here? Had she made that butler bring Aiden a message while Gwen was out?

"Yes. Please, listen. I want to be honest with you. Catherine was here again. I thought she wanted to take care of some more business catch-up. At least, I did until she came out of the bathroom in her underwear and sat on my lap..."

"She what?"

"I know how this sounds! Let me finish before you react. Nothing happened between us, nothing at all. You were right about her and I was wrong. She liked me, but that's over now. We spoke, that was it. However, she told me about your contracts. I know that's what you've been hiding from me. Judith made you agree to something else, and you couldn't tell me. I know now, and it's okay."

Gwen didn't know what to say, what to think. She trusted him on what he said about Catherine. But that just exacerbated her guilt regarding Ben. He thought he knew why she'd been behaving like this; however, he only knew part of it. And not even the worst part.

She had to tell him. "Aiden..."

"It's okay, I know now. It's okay. That whole thing with Catherine made me remember how much I love you, and how much I want to be with you. So let's just be together, you and me, okay?"

"Aiden, I..."

"No. No more talking. There's been too much talking over the past few days. So shut up and kiss me."

He kissed her, then, putting a hand on the back of her head and pulling it towards him. Her body responded instantly to the raw power of his desire. The rational part of her, dwindling rapidly, knew that she needed to tell him. However, the rest of her knew that they both needed this even more.

So her resistance faltered and she gave herself to him.

Her body burned for him. Burned as he ran his hands down her shoulder, down her back, down to her bottom. His fingers dug into her flesh, pulling her hips against his so that she could feel him.

His fingers didn't relent, and she didn't want them to. He touched her as though he'd been denied her company a lifetime.

"Aiden..." she said breathlessly. This time she didn't say his name to tell him about Ben. She'd already forgotten about Ben. No, this time her voice was a plea, begging him to take her, to be with her.

He answered her by kissing her neck, letting her feel his teeth run along her skin. He bit down, gently at first. His own passion urged him on, urged him past rational thought so that only the hunger for her body remained. He bit down harder and she gasped.

He bit until it hurt, and still she begged him for more. The pain was good. The desire was better. They mingled as their bodies mingled.

"You drive me crazy," Aiden said, leaving her neck red and tender where he'd pressed his teeth into it. "I can never stop thinking about you..."

He spun her around so that her back pressed against his body. His words etched themselves into her thoughts, into her being. His trembling fingers pulled her shirt up, exposing her midriff. His palm pressed over her navel, his skin unbelievably hot against hers.

He kissed her neck again, running his lips up so that his breath washed over her ear. When he spoke, a shiver a desire ran down her spine and gooseflesh speckled every inch of her skin.

"Just the thought of touching you is enough to send me over the edge," he said. His fingers started tracing slow circles on her stomach. The tingles from it went all the way through her, and she pressed herself back against him.

His other hand went down her thigh, his fingertips pressing into the thin layer of denim. And then it started back up again, not stopping until it reached her breasts. He squeezed and kneaded her, his desire lending his grip strength that had her moaning and quivering against him.

"And then I think of how warm you always are for me..." he said, his deep voice resonating in her chest.

He stopped running his fingers in circles on her bare stomach, instead reached down and popping the zipper on her jeans.

"Aiden... Touch me..." Gwen said, letting her head fall back against his shoulder. His fingers started their circling again, lower this time. They kept brushing against the elastic of her panties.

His lips found her neck again, his mouth hot, so hot against her.

"Please, baby," she said. She couldn't stop thinking about the heat, about the way she flushed with the desire to feel his touch.

An ache opened up inside her, deepening with every teasing revolution of his fingers that were oh so very close.

Their hotel suite became too hot to bear. It was like someone had lit a bonfire right in front of her, and Aiden held her trapped next to the scorching flames that threatened to come out and caress her skin.

"There's never a moment when I don't want to be touching you," Aiden said, his voice insistent, "There's no one I'd rather be close with than you..."

She couldn't respond anymore. He'd brought her too close to the edge. She was beyond words.

His fingertips dipped below the waistband of her panties, then slipped out. Then went in again, lower this time. And then again. Until finally even Aiden couldn't keep the pretense anymore.

Her breath caught in her chest as he found the source of all that heat.

Neither of them could hold back at all past that point. There was no way they could make it upstairs to the bed, or even over to the couch.

They needed each other right then, that very moment. They didn't even manage to get all of their clothes off. Just enough for their own lusty purposes.

Aiden pushed her down against the table, the polished surface shockingly cold against her bare chest and stomach. The sensation invigorated her, brought her even deeper into the moment.

He savaged her body, still unable to hold anything back. When her climax came, it knotted every muscle in her so that she arched up off the table. His hungry mouth kissed her back, ran across her shoulder blades, and tasted her glistening sweat.

Aiden transfixed her in a moment of pure pleasure and ecstasy, and she screamed out not caring if anyone might hear.

He had her body under his command, and he used it like she wanted him to use it. He gave her what she wanted and needed from him until even he couldn't hold back any longer, that moment of his own ultimate pleasure placing his body under her control, if only for those few moments.

And she made sure they counted.

The ache he left her with would last days, she knew. However, she cherished that ache, because she also knew that it was indisputable physical proof of the strength of his feelings for him.

She could only hope that she left him with an ache of equal magnitude.

When she pushed herself off from the table, Gwen discovered that her knees had been replaced with jelly sometime in the last few minutes.

"That was..." Gwen said, starting to stoop over to collect her pants but deciding against it when she realized that if she moved any farther she'd be on the floor, unable to stand back up under her own power.

"I don't even know what that was..." Aiden said. He stood behind the couch, holding onto it for support.

Fresh, clean sweat glistened on his cheeks and brow, and his recent exertions had given his face a swarthy flush.

"I meant it, though."

"What?" Gwen replied.

"Everything that I said to you. Both before and during."

Gwen wished that those moments of eternal bliss that he led her into could actually be eternal rather than simply feeling that way. That way she wouldn't be where she was now, one secret still stashed deep at the back of a cobweb-filled closet.

"I still need to say something to you," Gwen said.

"Whatever it is, it can wait," Aiden said, coming and taking her hand. He only looked slightly more steady on his feet than she felt.

"It can wait until when?" Gwen said, following him on shaky legs.

"Until after a shower," he replied.

He led her into the bathroom. They didn't exactly have a lot of clothes left on to strip out of, either. And soon Aiden held her bare body against his while steaming water sprayed down onto them from the showerhead, washing away the sweat they'd built up earlier as well as the stuff they worked up there. It wasn't a particularly productive shower. Not for the purposes of getting clean, at least.

***

THEY SAT AT A SMALL, circular table for two down at the hotel restaurant, waiting for dinner to arrive.

Every time Aiden closed his eyes, he received flashes of what they'd just done together. Two bodies moving together. Heat. Desire. It was all very primal and basic.

Maybe that was why he couldn't stop himself from holding Gwen's hand, or from smiling every time she looked his direction. She looked great, incredible, radiant. And Aiden still couldn't quite believe that she belonged to him now, and the opposite, of course. Or would, soon.

He kept running his thumb over the engagement ring, hoping that she liked it, wondering if maybe there might be an even better one out there to grace that lovely finger of hers.

Although he also thought that maybe he kept paying so much attention to her because she'd been so quiet ever since they got out of the shower. She'd told the waiter what she wanted and then said nothing since.

He liked to think that maybe that was a result of his prowess as a lover. That he'd satisfied her so deeply and so well that she simply saw no need to ruin that perfection by putting words to it.

However, Aiden also knew that you never got ahead in life, whether business or personal, by making yourself see only what you wanted to see. To be the person he was, he needed to see things the way they were, not as he fantasized them.

And right then, his pragmatism told him that while she clearly found his bedroom skills on par or better, that wasn't the cause of her silence.

"It can't be that bad," Aiden said.

She blinked at him. "What?"

"Whatever you're holding back from me still. It can't be as bad as you think it is."

Gwen glanced around the restaurant. Aiden followed her line of sight as it skipped from the waiters and their silver trays to the mirror-backed bar to the raised dais at the one end with the reserved seating.

"You can't know that. You don't know what I'm thinking," Gwen said.

"Then maybe I'm just a little bit psychic, because I think I do."

She snorted at that. It was nice to see a bit of the old Gwen back. "Now that I really doubt."

"So why don't you try me? Tell me what it is, and I'll be the judge."

"Can I make this a trial by jury instead?"

He shook his head. "No, now come on. Out with it."

She picked up her water glass and drained it. Slowly. When she finished, she looked at it forlornly, mourning the lack of liquid procrastination.

"Time's up. No more distractions. Tell me."

Aiden had to admit to himself that all this made him more than a little nervous. Just what could bother her so much that she actually seemed afraid to tell him, especially after that incredible impromptu encounter they just shared?

"Okay," she said, swallowing heavily. She tried pulling her hand out from under his, but he held on tightly.

"Do you remember that night I stormed out on you? After the dinner disaster with my parents?"

"Well, it was only a couple days ago, so yes. How could I forget?"

"Thank you, Captain Sarcasm. Moving on," Gwen said, "Anyway, I stormed out and I forgot my purse. So I didn't have my wallet or my key or anything. So I wandered around and ended up at this little bar like ten minutes or so from here. I was angry at you, at me, at mom and dad..."

She took a deep, shuddering breath. Aiden gave her hand a supportive squeeze.

"Ben was there. Reporter Ben, the one you don't like. He was nice. He bought me a drink. He insisted on walking me home, because it was dark out. And then, outside the hotel doors, he kissed me... Oh, Aiden, he kissed me, not the other way around. I didn't want him to, I told him not to, but he did it anyway! It's been tearing me up inside."

"Oh, I see," Aiden said.

"Please tell me how you feel," Gwen replied. Aiden realized that he'd been sitting still for a good thirty seconds since her revelation. It was an old pattern, one he'd put to use since he'd been a child.

Emotion was weakness. A way for people to take advantage of you. Henry had scolded him that way any time he cried, every time he behaved like a child, really. And since then, he always let the armor come up. The placid shell around the stormy core.

And it was quite the storm inside him at that moment.

Gwen had been one of the first people to really break through that armor of his, and he thought that he really didn't have much of a need for it anymore. Yet, he thought, here it is again. He'd trained his mind and body to go there for such a long time he didn't even need to think about doing it. It just happened.

Part of that storm included anger, betrayal. Thoughts like How could she do this to me and I am going to kill that guy invaded his mind. However, other thoughts tempered those more primal ones. He could see written across Gwen's face how much this hurt her, how much pain it caused by trying to hold it in.

He also believed her when she said that it was Ben who'd been the instigator of said kiss.

Besides, he also knew how hypocritical any anger or jealousy of his was. It took embarrassingly little effort to recall how Catherine looked in her lingerie while sitting on his lap, the weight of her body pressing down against him. And Gwen had even warned him about his supposed friend's true feelings for him.

Aiden grabbed up his water glass, the walls of the vessel slick with condensation, and gulped it down. It helped quench the heat he felt inside.

"Sir?"

The voice dragged him back to reality, and he looked up into the pointed face of their waiter.

"More water, sir?" the man said, hefting the chilled bottle for emphasis, "Your meal will be delivered shortly."

"Thanks," Aiden managed. Both he and Gwen sat quietly while the waiter refilled their glasses, the splash of the water temporarily crowding out the sound of conversation around them.

"I'm sorry," Gwen said, interpreting his silence for anger.

And then Aiden noticed that he still gripped her hand. This whole time, through her little confession and his internal reaction to it, he never let go. It told him all he needed to know.

"Don't be," Aiden said, "I believe you. I still have this desire to wipe the grin off that man's face with my knuckles, but I think that speaks to where I'm laying the blame."

"You're... not mad at me?" Gwen said. Her hand tensed up against his.

"I think that these past few days have been pretty incredible, even by our high standards. We've both had some pretty... interesting things happen to us. What do you say to the two of us forgiving each other our sins and concentrate on being engaged instead?"

"That sounds like a plan to me!" Gwen said, finally smiling at him. He'd been waiting for that smile, silently wishing for it. Sometimes he thought that smile of hers was all he really needed to be happy.

"Your food, sir, madam," the waiter said. He and another man placed the steaming plates down on the table. Aiden's mouth watered at the smell of the steak. It felt like he hadn't eaten for a week.

They'd just begun to eat when another look of concern twisted Gwen's face and she put down her knife and fork.

"About being engaged," Gwen said, "I think I may have done something bad."

Aiden set his utensils down as well. "What is it?"

Gwen became bashful, then, staring down into her lap. A few strands of her long hair came dangerously close to touching her food. "I sort of yelled at Judith today. She made me go to high tea with her at some old building downtown and we got into a fight. It ended with her telling me that I can't marry you. Which she told me right before I stormed out."

When Aiden laughed Gwen, and everyone at the tables nearby, looked up. He hadn't meant it to be so loud, but he couldn't help it. He caught his breath and dabbed at his lips with his napkin.

"I don't think it's so funny, Aiden. What if she uses it to say I've violated the agreement? What if that butler of hers is waiting outside our room right now to tell us to go meet with her so she can punish us for what I did? Hey! Stop laughing!"

Aiden did his best to comply with her wishes, putting his napkin up to his mouth again. Except then he replayed what she said in his head and another round of chuckles wracked his body.

Gwen's mouth set into a thin line and she frowned at him, her frustration mounting.

Aiden calmed himself once more, smiling at the confused patrons sitting around them before leaning towards his irritated fiancé.

"I'm sorry. All this, it's too much. It's getting ridiculous... Actually, it’s well past ridiculous. I wish I'd been there to see it. The last time I remember Judith actually raising her voice to someone, it must be almost twenty years now. Did her face get all red?"

"Yeah, it kinda did. I thought..."

"Her head was about to pop right off?" Aiden finished for her.

"Totally! You should have seen the looks on the faces of the other proper ladies there..."

They both laughed then at the ridiculousness of it all. So much so that the maitred' actually came over to ask them if everything was all right.

They both soothed their scratchy throats with some water. "But seriously, what about Judith? What do you think she's going to do?"

"I don't know, and I don't really care, either. Because I know that we'll be able to beat her. If there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that I'm going to marry you, Gwen. And no one, not even Judith, is going to get in the way of that."