Pen Pal

Afterward, I’m an emotional mess.

I lie facedown on the sofa with my ass in the air, sobbing into the cushions, trembling all over, sweaty and spent. Aidan is bent over me, breathing raggedly. His hot forehead rests between my shoulder blades.

“Oh, baby,” he whispers. “Don’t cry. It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

He presses the gentlest of kisses to my spine and slowly withdraws from my body. Then he drags the afghan off the back of the sofa and wraps me in it. He sits, pulls me onto his lap, and surrounds me with his strong arms.

“So fucking beautiful,” he murmurs, kissing my forehead and wet cheeks. “You’re my good, beautiful girl.”

I bury my face in the crook of his neck and cry harder.

He tightens his arms around me and gently rocks me, cooing soft words. He strokes my hair and caresses me, calming me and cradling me like a baby.

We sit like that until my tears have stopped and I’m sniffling, trying to stifle the occasional hiccup.

He inhales deeply, exhales, and glides his fingertips lightly along the side of my face. Resting his cheek on the top of my head, he says softly, “Tell me what you need from me.”

I’ve never had a man ask me that before.

Well, technically, it was an order, not a question, but I’m not splitting hairs. Dazed, sore, and thoroughly satisfied, I sit and think seriously about it for a while before deciding I need more specifics.

“Do you mean now or in general?”

“Both. I want to know what makes you happy. What will make you feel all the time like I do right now.”

I peek up at him. “How do you feel right now?”

He gazes down at me, his eyes endless and dark. Tracing my lower lip with his fingertip, he says, “Reborn. Forgiven. Or maybe…I don’t know.” He struggles silently for a moment. “Freed.”

I ask shyly, “I make you feel free?”

“Like I’ve been living in a dark cave my whole fucking life, and I just stumbled out into the sunlight.”

Tears stuck in my throat, I close my eyes and snuggle closer to him. With a hitch in my voice, I whisper, “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

His chuckle is soft and dark. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It is. I always feel safe around you. You bring out a side of me I didn’t even know existed before. I feel like I could tell you anything, my darkest secret, the worst thing I’ve done that I’m most ashamed of, and it would be okay.” I hesitate. “Except…”

He stills. “What?”

“When you walk away in the middle of a conversation, I get really frustrated.”

After a moment, he nods. “Okay. I won’t do that again.”

Encouraged, I keep talking. “And when you shut down and don’t tell me what you’re thinking, I get confused. You’re very intense in some ways, very communicative and open and right in my face, but other times, you seem like you’re hiding from me.”

I pause to think again. Then I venture, “Like maybe you’re worried how I’ll react if I get to know the real you?”

He kisses me, brushing his lips against mine with a tenderness that makes my chest ache.

Then he murmurs, “What I’m worried about is giving my heart away to a woman who’s still wearing a wedding ring.”

The sadness in his voice makes my heart flip-flop. I whisper, “Oh, Aidan. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. Or explain yourself. I don’t ever want you to feel obligated to explain yourself to me. I know you’re just taking this one day at a time.”

By “this” he means “us.” This thing we’re doing together, whatever it is. And he’s right, in a way. I am taking it one day at a time. There’s no other way to take it. He crashed into my life like a meteor falling to earth, right when I was the most broken I’d ever been.

Only I don’t feel broken when I’m with him.

Too overwhelmed to continue with the conversation in my emotionally raw state, I say, “Okay. You want to know what I need to be happy right now?”

“Yes.”

I smile up at him and tug on his beard. “A glass of wine and a hot bath.”

His lids lower. He smolders at me in silence for a moment. “I can do that for you.”

“Thank you.”

He raises his brows. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

I spread my hand over his jaw and smile wider. “Thank you, sir.”

He stares deep into my eyes for a long moment. Then he says quietly, “Kayla, be careful with me.”

Surprised by that, I ask, “What do you mean?”

“I know you think I’m strong. But the problem with strong things is that they’re brittle. They can’t bend under stress. They just break.”

Before I can respond, he picks me up and carries me into the bathroom.

I soak in bliss for an hour, up to my neck in bubbles, sipping a glass of Cabernet. Aidan comes in and out of the bathroom, bringing me little bites of cheese and slices of apple, feeding them to me from his fingers and watching me chew as if it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen.

The way he looks at me is addictive.

Because I like it so much, it’s also a little scary.

I don’t think I’m ready for this. It seems as if he isn’t, either. We’re magnets who don’t want to be magnets, pulled together by invisible elements beyond our control.

I don’t have the words or the will to tell him it would be wiser if we slowed down this runaway train before it veers off the tracks and kills all the passengers. Besides, aren’t we past that point, anyway?

The obvious answer is yes. We are. We skipped the dinner dates and polite conversation and jumped straight to kinky fuckery.

Not that I’m complaining. It’s simpler this way, and simple things are beautiful. And with my recent state of mind, small talk would be a stretch.

Wearing only his jeans, Aidan sits on the toilet with his elbows propped on his knees. “Going out to the house tomorrow.”

“Is that an invitation, or are you just informing me of your future whereabouts?”

A faint smile curves his lips. “It’s an invitation, smartass. Which you already knew. What’s the answer?”

“The answer is yes. Which you already knew.”

“Don’t want to assume anything.” He glances at my ring finger, then looks away. “Don’t know your schedule.”

Tell him. Just tell him about Michael. Tell him what happened. He deserves to know.

Does he? There’s no commitment here. And I’m not the only one holding things back. I barely know anything about him. Hell, I don’t even know how old he is!

I go back and forth mentally for a few seconds, arguing with myself, until he startles me by asking, “How old are you?”

I laugh uneasily. “God, that’s strange.”

“What is?”

“I was just thinking I don’t know how old you are when you asked me that.”

“I’m thirty-five.”

“I’m thirty.”

We gaze at each other. He murmurs, “What else were you just thinking?”

Buying myself time, I slowly set the wineglass on the edge of the tub. I sit up and look down at the bubbles, shimmering in iridescent clumps, clinging to my knees and breasts.

“I was thinking about my husband.”

Aidan remains silent. I can’t even hear him breathing. I feel him waiting, though, feel the new tension in his body as clearly as if his muscles were my own.

“Actually, that’s not exactly it. I was thinking I wanted to tell you something about him.”

I swallow. My pulse starts to race. I don’t know why this should be so difficult. I told Eddie the handyman my husband was dead, and he’d never railed me up the ass and called me his bunny.

When I draw a shaky breath and squeeze my eyes closed for a moment to gather my courage, Aidan orders softly, “Eyes on me.”

I look at him. He stares back at me with unwavering intensity, his eyes fierce.

“Is he hurting you? That’s all I want to know.”

There’s something wild in his gaze, a dangerous glint that makes me shiver. I draw my knees closer to my chest, wrapping my arms around my shins. “If I said yes, what would you do?”

His answer is hard and instant. “Kill him.”

My pulse flying and my eyes wide, I whisper, “Aidan.”

He stares at me, waiting.

Finally, I say, “Is that what you did to your father?”

He replies without flinching or looking away. “Yes.”

I exhale, close my eyes, and drop my head to my knees.

His voice lower, he says, “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“I’m not.”

Sounding unconvinced, he adds, “I’m not a danger to you. I’d never hurt you.”

“I know.”

“But you’re hiding.”

“I’m…fuck, I guess I am. I’m just processing. Give me a minute, please.”

We sit in silence broken only by the occasional sound of water dripping from the faucet. Then he kneels next to the tub and takes my face in his hands.

He says urgently, “I’m older now. Smarter. Had a lot of time to think about what I did. And if it comes to it again, I’ll be better prepared.”

My heart hammers against my sternum. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just tell me you know how to get away with murder.”

“Pretend whatever you want. The reality is that if I find out a man put his hands on you in anger, he won’t ever be able to do it again.”

He kisses me gently, pressing his mouth to mine in an unspoken promise. I wrap my hands around his wrists and kiss him back, opening my lips for his tongue when he slides it inside. He probes deeper, angling my head to take what he needs as I shiver in the cooling water.

Then he breaks the kiss and presses his forehead to mine.

“Kayla. You answer me now. And tell me the truth. Is he hurting you?”

Tears welling in my eyes, I say, “No.”

He pulls away and gazes at me, frowning. “Then why are you gonna cry?”

“Because I just realized I’m crazy. I’m literally, certifiably insane.”

“Why would you say that?”

A lone tear crests my lower eyelid and meanders down my cheek. My chest aching, I whisper, “If I were sane, I wouldn’t think you threatening to kill someone for me was so beautiful.”

He stares at me for a long moment, his eyes burning. Then he stands, pulls me to my feet, and lifts me out of the water. He carries me, dripping wet, into the bedroom and lays me on the mattress.

Without a word, he kneels between my legs, spreads my thighs open, and leans down to put his mouth on my exposed sex.

When I moan and arch, he reaches up with both hands and encircles my wet breasts, squeezing them gently before thumbing over my nipples.

I guess this is his way of telling me we can be crazy together.

I sink my hands into his hair and sigh. His beard scratches my thighs. His delicious hot tongue delves deep inside me. The rough pads of his fingers glide back and forth over my rigid nipples, and soon I’m panting and moaning loudly, rocking my hips in time with the motion of his tongue.

When he pinches my nipples, hard, I come in his mouth, shuddering and crying out his name.

He sucks my clit until I’m limp, then rises and pulls his jeans off. Then he lowers himself on top of my body and enters me.

With his hands in my hair and his face turned to my neck, he says gruffly, “If you decide this isn’t what you want, promise me you’ll end it before I fall in love with you.”

“I promise,” I whisper, fighting tears all over again.

“Good.” His voice drops. “But so you know, you don’t have much time.”

“Aidan—”

“Hush now.”

He makes love to me with a careful tenderness he hasn’t shown before, handling me as if I’m made of porcelain. When he climaxes, it’s with a soft groan of desperation, as if he knows this thing we’re doing is big and dangerous, capable of annihilating us both.

I understand exactly how he feels.