ided to come with me,” he said. He raised my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles before disappearing inside the house.
I sat in the chair, stared at the ocean waves, and warred with myself internally.
The rational part of me wanted to call a cab and head straight back to the airport. If I caught the last flight back, I’d be home in time to show up for work tomorrow. I could forget all about this as a fleeting moment of insanity and go back to my normal life.
My normal life.
What was that exactly? Boring, that’s what it was. Aiden said I wasn’t a boring person, but I wasn’t so sure I agreed. By his standards, I must be. Why in the world had he even invited me here? There was no way I was his usual type any more than he was mine.
That made me wonder what his usual type might be, and I imagined a vision of long dark hair, a super-slim body wrapped in black leather and thigh-high boots, and tattoos all over. Then I glanced down at my simple tan, scoop-necked shirt and modest, not-too-tight jeans, and skin completely devoid of artwork.
What did he see in me? Someone who was just conveniently drunk at the right time? Despite his words, did he assume because of how I had behaved that first night that I was a target for easy sex?
Was I going to have sex with him, either tonight or any other night I was here?
The fact that I couldn’t answer that question scared the crap out of me. I couldn’t deny my body’s reaction to him, whether it was his build, his bright eyes, or maybe the fact that he was totally not my usual idea of a companion. I couldn’t seem to stop myself from remembering the feeling of his lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth, and my body pressed against his. I licked my lips as my mind wandered to visions of myself underneath him on his king-sized bed, my legs wrapped around his waist as he pounded into me.
“Something to get you by.” Aiden’s voice caused me to jump, and I placed my hand over my heart. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. I swallowed and tried to clear my mind even as my thighs clenched together.
Aiden placed the tray he was carrying down in front of me. There were carrot and celery sticks, little triangles of pita bread, and a bowl of hummus.
“I made the hummus myself.” He beamed at me. “It’s really good.”
“Wow, thank you!” I straightened myself in the chair and dipped one of the carrots into the mixture. I was famished and probably would have loved anything he put in front of me, but I had to admit the hummus was the best I had ever tasted. “It is really good!”
Aiden’s smile broadened.
“You’re going to love the rest,” he said as he ran back inside.
I tried some of the pita with the hummus and then a couple more carrot sticks. I wasn’t a huge fan of raw celery, but I ate one anyway just to be polite. My overactive imagination warned me that if he was a drug dealer, he could have drugged the food, but I reminded myself that if he wanted to hurt me, he’d already had plenty of opportunity to do so. He didn’t need to drug me—there was no way I could hope to overpower him if he had less than honorable intentions.
The thought was terrifying and—again—exciting.
My mother would throw a fit if she knew I was here and thinking the things I was thinking. She would tell me to get the hell out—I didn’t belong here with this man. I needed a nice, quiet man with a college degree and a steady job. I wasn’t supposed to be looking for tattooed bodybuilders who might work for the mafia.
Mafia?
Crap! I hadn’t even thought about that. A whole new wave of panic spread over me, and I was about to start hyperventilating when I heard the sliding door open again.
Aiden brought out two glasses of wine and then returned with two plates full of food. There was grilled chicken, sweet potatoes, and seasoned zucchini and yellow squash, and it smelled simply divine. All thoughts of drug dealing left my head as I dove in.
“This is fantastic!”
“Thank you. I usually only cook for myself; it’s nice to have someone else enjoy it, too.”
We ate as the sun went down, listened to the waves as they crashed against the shoreline, and drank multiple glasses of the sweet, white wine. We talked casually about the beach, foods we both liked, music, and movies.
He was a sci-fi buff, too.
“So, new Doctor Who or old?” he asked.
“New,” I said without hesitation. “Definitely new. I can’t get past the goofiness of the old ones.”
Aiden laughed and agreed.
“How about Torchwood?” he asked.