“Are you done groping me?” he asked, his voice sand-scratched.

With a sound I didn’t necessarily want to consider a hiss, I pulled my hand out of its warm cocoon of male flesh and underwear and held it to my chest.

“I wasn’t groping you,” I whispered. “I was just… making sure none of the guys sneaked in and tried to get you.”

His sleepy gaze widened. “That’s why you grabbed it all night?”

“No I didn’t!”

“Yes, you did,” the man who never lied claimed.

And that had me shutting my mouth. “Really?”

He nodded, rolling onto his back and stretching those brawny arms over his head, a siren’s song for my eyes.

“In that case, I’m sorry.” I eyed at the tuft of black hair in his underarm, which for some reason I found so attractive. “Not.”

Aiden drew his arms back down, that handsome bearded face clearly amused.

That old, familiar, painful knot filled my throat as I took in those features I enjoyed looking at so much—that scar along his hairline that defined him and that gold chain peeking out from beneath his T-shirt and what it meant.

I really did love him, and he was leaving for two months. I wasn’t sure if it was everything that had happened to me with my family in the past, or if I was secretly just a possessive person with the right—or in this case wrong—person, but I didn’t want him to leave. And there was no way I could ask him to stay.

Reaching forward, I touched the bump under his shirt where his medallion was and I said as much as I was willing to say. “I’m going to miss you,” I admitted.

That big hand reached up to brush my hair away from my face, gentle, gentle, gentle, those long fingers catching on a few soft pink tangles. Slowly, he moved across the bed, leaning toward me, pressing his forehead against mine, and all I could do was close my eyes, taking in the warmth of his body and the tenderness of his gesture.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do a single thing but lay there taking the moment in.

“I’m going to miss you a lot,” I told him just so he’d know it wasn’t going to be some casual thing, like missing him when I’d first stopped working for him.

That hand in my hair dug deeper, reaching my scalp, holding more hair in those strong fingers. He exhaled, his breath washing over my chin.

He didn’t say he was going to miss me back. Instead, he lips went to my chin, then to that nook between there and my lips. His breath was hot, his mouth moist as he trailed it an inch higher. It was me who cut the distance between us. Me who nipped at his lip.

But it was him who went for it. Aiden turned his mouth to the side and sealed our lips together, going from chaste to hungry in one second flat. He went one direction and I went the other, our tongues clashing instinctively. Dueling, dipping. Aiden ate at my mouth and I let him. We kissed and we kissed. My tongue brushed his over and over again, and it wasn’t enough.

My hands had gone to his head, keeping him there as he rose above me, never losing the lock he had on my lips. He was so swift I didn’t even realize he had spread my legs wide and settled his hips and body between them. Aiden kissed me like he never wanted to stop. His hand gripped my hair a little tighter, as if I was planning on going somewhere when my death grip was just as vicious and demanding as his.

And then he settled his groin against mine. The rigid, hard, so-long erection nestled right between my legs as he went down to his forearms. Aiden rocked his hips, rubbing the seam of my body through the thin material of both of our bottoms and I lifted my butt to get more of him.

This was a terrible idea, and I wasn’t going to stop it. I wasn’t ever going to tell him to stop. It didn’t make a lick of sense, and I didn’t even remotely care.

Tearing my mouth away from his, I sucked in a breath when he gave a rough roll of his lower body, a pump, a jerk, that said he wanted in. And I wanted him in.

“Van,” Aiden growled.

It was right then that the house alarm started beeping like crazy. Going off and off and off, like when the code hadn’t been pressed in time. Then Leo, who was in his crate and hadn’t made a single peep all night, began barking.

With a curse that sounded like “fuck,” Aiden stopped what he was doing. He was panting. His forehead went to mine, and I could hear him swallow hard. “Damn it,” he hissed, shifting back to sit on his haunches, those brown eyes nailed to me lying there in front of him with my feet planted flat on his bed, my knees at his sides while I tried to catch my breath. “It’s probably the guys, but I should make sure.” He swallowed again and blinked, even as his hand, which had been on the bed, reached over to squeeze the giant hard-on tenting his sleeping pants.

I couldn’t look away. I absolutely could not look away from the bell-shaped tip that was pulling the elastic of his sleep bottoms away from his waist. Every instinct in me screamed that I should reach forward and give his thick shaft a squeeze. I wanted to beg him to come back.

But the stupid alarm wasn’t stopping.

“The guys?” I reached over blindly and snagged my glasses and cell phone off the nightstand almost immediately. I slipped my glasses on to peek at my phone, finding the time and a notice that I had three missed calls from Diana. That was weird. “It’s nine in the morning,” I said absently. It had been years since she’d drunk dialed me.

“They didn’t come home last night,” he said, throwing one leg over mine, his big hand squeezing my calf before he jumped off the bed with a grace I didn’t miss, even as I tried to wrap my head around what had just happened. At the door, Aiden stood there for a minute before slipping a hand inside his pants and adjusting himself. “I’ll be right back.”

I nodded.

His mouth opened for a moment, but he closed it. “I’m sorry, Van.” That stupid beeping got even louder and he shook his head. “Let me check.”

Then he was gone.

We had just been making out, on the verge of doing something we couldn’t come back from, and he was out of the room.

Seriously? Of all the times they could have come in, they had to do it right then? They couldn’t have waited a few more minutes?

I didn’t doubt it was them, but what the hell were they out doing until nine? Didn’t clubs close at three? I sat up in bed as I yawned, thinking more about why Zac wouldn’t put in the code, and then thinking back about what the hell they had just interrupted.

With a sigh, I redialed Diana’s number, promising Leo who was crying in his crate that I’d let him out in a minute as I put the phone to my face and crossed my legs, the dampness between them making me feel really uncomfortable now. The phone rang three times before she finally picked up.

“Hey,” I said.

I’d known Diana what seemed like my entire life. I’d been there with her when her first serious boyfriend broke her heart, and I’d been there when her dog died. I’d thought I’d heard every emotion possible in her voice over such a long time period. So I wasn’t prepared at the wrecked, distraught, “Van,” that crackled out of her mouth.

“Di, what’s wrong?” I immediately freaked out.

She was sobbing. I could tell she’d been doing it for a while. Through the tears and the distraught tone in her voice, she told me what happened. By the time we hung up, my entire body was numb. I forgot about Leo as I sat there for a moment, trying to collect myself.

I couldn’t even find it in me to cry.

Getting to my feet, I attempted to swallow the pain in my throat. Nearly blind and going almost on instinct, I forced myself down the stairs. My ears were ringing. When had they started ringing? I wondered distractedly, trying to process my thoughts and finding myself completely unable of thinking about anything.

It was amazing how quickly things could change; that possibility never ceased to amaze me.

The tears had just started catching up to me by the time I found all of the guys in the living room. It wasn’t until I spotted Zac on the couch with what was a very visible cast on the foot he had propped up on the ottoman that I lost it. Guilt and anger finally wrapped their spiny fingers around my heart, wringing the words right out of me. My voice broke as I asked, “Aiden, can you drive me to the hospital?”





Chapter Twenty-Nine

I stared at the screen of my phone until the MOM flashing across it finally bleeped out, replaced by MISSED CALL.

Not a single bit of me felt guilty for letting her call go to voicemail. Not one single freaking little bit. I’d call her back. Eventually. I was too tired after my run.

“Darlin’, you want somethin’ to eat?” Zac’s voice piped up unexpectedly from his spot across the kitchen.

I hadn’t even realized I’d zoned out so completely when my phone started buzzing. I raised my eyes to find my roommate with one hip against the counter, a spatula in his other hand. But it was the crutch he had shoved under his armpit that caught my gaze. I didn’t need to look around to know he’d left his other crutch propped up by the refrigerator. I’d found it there at least ten other times over the course of the last two weeks.

Yeah, crutches. The first time I’d seen them was when he and Aiden’s friends had showed up to the house, after spending hours at the emergency room thanks to a hairline fracture in his foot. Every time I saw them, they made me want to cry. Not because he’d broken some bones, which was terrible in itself, but because of what it reminded me of.

They reminded me of Diana’s face when Aiden and I picked her up.

Aiden had driven me to the hospital the minute I got myself together enough to explain what happened. How Diana had gone out with her coworkers and stayed out late. How her boyfriend had showed up to her apartment in the middle of the night, angry that she’d stayed out so late. Had she cheated on him? How many dicks had she sucked? Why hadn’t she invited him? She told me about how he’d then hit her and kept hitting her before storming out, enough so that she knocked on her neighbor’s door and had him drive her to the hospital. How she filed a police report against him.