The Wall of Winnipeg and Me (45 page)

He didn’t move away from the door even as I approached it. What did happen was that he seemed to be grinding his teeth together.

I touched the middle of his chest; the big, perfectly developed slabs of his six-pack hardened under my fingers. “I promise, big guy. I would never break my promise to you. You know that.” When he didn’t say anything, I used my chin to gesture toward the door. “I need to go. When I get back, I’ll make a few casseroles or something so you don’t have to go out to eat again. Okay?”

Grudgingly, Aiden nodded and moved aside to let me open the door. Zac stood at the bottom of the stairs. “Come on, darlin’. We’re on a tight schedule.”

F
ive hours later
, my legs were all noodle-like and I felt sick. It went passed exhaustion and dehydration—we’d started carrying water reservoirs on packs around our back. I felt like I had the flu. We had taken it easy after our long run two days ago, and our day off had been yesterday. But a puny seven miles with a negative split had damn near killed me. My knees. My ankles. My shoulders. Every single thing ached. Pounding back water hadn’t made me feel any better, drinking coconut water hadn’t helped, sitting down to rest didn’t make a difference, and neither did taking a shower and putting on pajamas.

I’d had to pull up a chair in front of the stove to cook dinner for goodness sakes.

Even Zac wasn’t faring too much better. He’d gone straight upstairs to shower after we got back and had taken his food to his room to eat. It was only through sheer will that I sat in the living room with the guys and ate dinner while watching a basketball game, since we didn’t have a dining room table.

What the hell had I been thinking trying to do a marathon? Why hadn’t I gone with a half one to start off with and work up from there?

“You need some help?” a slightly familiar voice asked from somewhere behind me.

Glancing over my shoulder as I rinsed the dishes so I could set them in the dishwasher, I spotted Cain standing in the kitchen with a few glasses in hand. The guys had all headed outside a little while ago, wanting to break in the fire pit. Chris had offered to do the dishes, but Aiden never got to see his friends, so I told him I could do it.

Even if I ended up passed out in the middle of it.

“If you want,” I replied.

“Scoot over.”

I did and let him take the spot closest to the dishwasher. I rinsed off a dish and passed it over to him, smiling tiredly. “Thanks for helping.”

“No problem.” His forearm brushed mine as I handed him another plate. “When’s the marathon you’re doing?” he asked, pointing out that he’d been paying attention when Chris had asked me about it during the commercials over dinner.

“In about two weeks.” Just saying the number out loud made me want to throw up. I barely survived running twenty miles days ago. How was I going to add six point two more?

“That’s cool.”

I was too tired to try and make a joke about how not cool it was while I was on the verge of dying. “What have you been up to since school?”

We hadn’t seen each other since the end of the spring semester of our freshman year. Cain had transferred schools the next fall, and even though I didn’t remember whether he’d ever called or text messaged me afterward, he might have. I’d been in the middle of recuperating from my accident and those next six months had gone by hazily, a mix of pain medicine and anger. I hadn’t been anyone’s friend then other than Diana’s, and that was mostly because she wouldn’t let it be any other way, and truthfully, I hadn’t given Cain much thought after that.

“I’m in Philadelphia now. I was in San Diego before that for a few years, but everything is great,” he said as he bent over to set the dish in the lower rack of the dishwasher. “How long have you and Graves been together?”

Considering I wasn’t sure how much Chris and Drew had told Cain, much less what Aiden told them, I was going to wing it. “Well, I worked for him for two years. We’ve been living together for five months now.” That way I didn’t have to get too specific.

“For real?”

“For real.”

“Huh,” he kind of muttered under his breath. “That’s… surprising.”

A faint reminder of what I had told Aiden in the bedroom earlier flicked through my brain, and I had to keep from snickering.

His elbow touched mine again as he took another plate from me, his green-eyed gaze reaching mine for a moment. “You look fucking great by the way.”

Everyone telling me I looked greatly recently only made me really self-conscious about what they used to think of me before. Did I look like shit? “Oh, thanks.” My weight had always yo-yoed depending on how much exercise I was doing. I gained it really easily and lost it really easily, but I couldn’t remember freshman year where I was, but it might have been at one of my heaviest periods.

Yeah, the silence after that was just plain weird. Luckily, it didn’t take long to finish rinsing everything off and setting the dishwasher to clean. Cain headed out while I wiped the counters off. I was so tired, but it was only nine o’clock at night. I grabbed a glass of water and chugged half of it down before trudging outside to see the guys for a little bit longer.

Pushing open the French doors leading to the patio with the last little bit of strength I had left, the heat from the stone fire pit hit me in the face immediately. In the second it took for my eyes to adjust, I found all four of the guys sitting around it in various stages of wide-open legs and slouches, hanging out.

“You finally made it,” Drew, the nicer of the two, exclaimed. On his lap was the blond ball of fur, completely passed out. Apparently, Leo had won someone else over in no time at all.

“Yeah,” I said pretty weakly, dead on my feet and realizing there were only four seats and they were all taken up.

“Here, take my seat,” Drew said quickly.

“Oh, that’s okay.”

“Sit with me,” Aiden suggested, or maybe demanded, without hesitation.

I stared at him, squeezing the cool glass lightly between my hands, debating whether to excuse myself or take a seat because there wasn’t another option. What was I going to do? Offer to take the floor when there was a perfectly good leg I could sit on? A leg that belonged to the man his friends believed I’d married out of love. Okay, come on.

For a moment, I thought about dragging out one of the dining room chairs, but it would just seem weird. And I really didn’t want to walk any more than I needed to.

I mean, it wasn’t like this was the first time I’d sat on someone’s leg. Friends did that kind of stuff. Married people snuggled, at least that’s what I reasoned with myself. Not because I wanted to sit on his lap or anything. Nope.

I dodged around the only set of long legs in my way and stopped right by Aiden’s knees, watching as he spread them. I let myself glance at his face, shadowed by the fire, and took a deep breath. It was his idea, wasn’t it? Turning my body so my back was to him, I slowly lowered myself onto the middle of his thigh, forever conscience that I wasn’t exactly ninety-eight pounds heavy. My butt hit the middle of that intensely muscular leg, and just as I started to get comfortable so my back was straight, he lifted his foot. With one big palm to the side of my waist, he pulled me in so that I slid all the way up to where his hip met his leg, off to one side of the cradle of his groin. My entire side pressed into his chest.

My face didn’t go hot or anything, but my pulse went nuts in reaction as I took in our positions. I appreciated the arm that happened to sling low across my back, his palm resting on my hip, cupping it over the flannel material of my pajamas. His other hand was busy, the thumb wrapped around the inside of my knee while the four other fingers framed the outer side of it.

My entire body lit up, aware of the sweet smell to Aiden. How big the muscles under my bottom were. How warm and well developed the muscles searing into my arm and chest were. And how close his face was to mine.

He was looking at me, that subtle side inspection that I could feel into the deepest part of my belly. The corner of his mouth was tilted just slightly up in what was half a smirk and half a smile, all Aiden.

I smiled at him nervously and maybe a little shyly as I slowly pulled my arm up from its space between our bodies and slipped it around those wide shoulders I noticed at least five times a day every day.

“Good?” he whispered, the arm warming my lower back flexing.

“Yes. Am I crushing you?” I whispered.

“You and your questions.” He seemed to peer at me closely. “You’re not feeling good?”

Was it that noticeable? “No,” I said loud enough for only him to hear. “I feel sick and everything hurts.”

“How many miles did you run?”

“Only seven.”

He murmured something under his breath, his body stirring under mine. “You should elevate your legs. Is your knee bothering you?”

“Everything is bothering me,” I whined, and I didn’t even feel bad about it.

A low, soft snicker puffed against my ear and that big hand shifted over my knee. Before I could react, Aiden moved me so I was sitting across him. One of his hands was on one thigh and the other landed on my shin.

He cupped my calf with that big hand and began to knead.

Seriously, a tingle shot up the back of my thigh and lower back. There was no way to stop the sound of pleasure and pain that came out of me. “Oh my god,” I muttered under my breath, sounding more like a pant.

A small chuckle nudged at the side of my cheek as he massaged my calf, then worked his way up to my quadriceps. Of course his hands were strong; I seriously felt my leg go numb with how good and bad it felt at the same time.

“I should tell you that you don’t have to do that.” I had to suppress another gurgle when he hit a tender spot high on my calf. “I’m not. That feels amazing. Thank you.”

An almost indecipherable grunt came out of Aiden’s throat, but I was way too gone to pay attention. The arm around my back tightened, clutching me closer. His fingers worked slow and steady, from the muscles right above my ankle to even higher, so high if I was any less tired than I was, I would have realized it was too close to the seam of my underwear.

The soft lull of conversation from Aiden’s friends went in one ear and out the other, and I only caught brief words here and there. Aiden didn’t talk much as we sat there around the chiminea and he rubbed one of my legs and then the other as best as he could, which was the same way he did everything. The best. I couldn’t help but focus more on his steady breaths and the pressure of his hands than what the guys were actually talking about.

That was the strange part. I usually couldn’t sit somewhere doing nothing without getting bored, but I found myself doing just that minus the bored part. With a big, warm body surrounding me, and a small fire going strong feet away, I just let myself relax.

And I kept relaxing as I listened to his friends argue about some football player, I thought. The occasional rumble of Aiden piping in with his low voice so close to my ear kept me company. I didn’t even notice when my head landed on his chest, or when my forehead hit the side of his throat.

His palm slid to the meatiest side of my thigh, four fingers on my hamstrings, one finger on the top. His other forearm draped over both of my knees. I definitely didn’t notice when I put my hand on his stomach, much less when I snuck it under the Henley he had on and palmed the square-shaped muscles covered by soft, hair-freckled skin under my fingers.

I was barely aware of Aiden shifting his grip, after who knew how long, to practically cradle me. I was dozing, more asleep than awake. More comfortable than I should have been in a man’s arms. A man who I was in love with, but didn’t love me back, and more than likely never would. His heart already belonged somewhere else.

I was only half aware when, at some point later, Aiden got to his feet with me in his arms and said in a voice quiet enough so that it wouldn’t wake me, “I’m putting her to bed.”

And Drew asked, “You coming back?”

With Aiden answering, “No. I’m tired. You want to give me the little guy?”

“Nah. I’ll keep him tonight. I promise I won’t crush him.”

I was yawning, fighting the sleep that had pulled me and my bones under, wanting but not really wanting to open my eyes and walk to his bedroom on my own two feet. When he swung me up higher as he headed into the house, I yawned again, nosing the side of his neck with my fingers along his collarbone, absently feeling how smooth the skin there was.

“I got you,” he whispered in that quiet, grumbling voice.

Who was I to tell him no?

I fell back asleep. Unaware of him laying me on the bed and taking my slippers and socks off.

And I definitely missed the rough way he pressed his mouth against my temple before he turned off the light, plugged in a nightlight I had no idea he’d bought, and got undressed himself.

“
W
hy are
you staring at me?”

Could I have tried to play off the fact that I’d been lying in bed with my head propped up on my palm, staring at him? Absolutely not. What the hell else could I have been looking at? I’d been doing it for so long that, knowing Aiden, he’d waited to make sure I was doing what he thought I was doing.

Which I had been.

I’d woken up maybe ten minutes before and laid there, appreciating how cozy it was under the heavy covers and on the perfectly comfortable mattress. But when I finally forced myself to open my eyes, the first thing I saw was the big guy. Aiden was on his side, his hand pillowing his head. That normally harsh face was… well, it was still pretty rough. It wasn’t soft and dreamy; he honestly looked like he was thinking about bad plays in his sleep. His mouth was slightly open with the softest, even breathing coming out of it. With the covers pulled up to his chin, he looked too damn cute.

I hated it.

Why? Why him?

Of all the people in the world I could have chosen to think the world of, it had to be this one. The one who didn’t want a real relationship because he didn’t want to put time into it. The guy who only loved one thing in his life and everything else came trailing after it.

Then again…

He’d been making a serious effort to spend time with me. He’d done things for me that I still couldn’t completely wrap my head around. He’d been more than just friendly with me.

What did it mean though? Weren’t those part of the requirements mandatory in a real relationship? Wasn’t it enough to be with each other when you could, or was I just trying to convince myself there was something there? He’d kissed me. That couldn’t mean nothing, could it?

That was exactly what I was in the middle of thinking of—and eyeing those great lips—when he caught me. So all I could do was give him a closed mouth smile. “Why not?”

Cracking both eyes open, Aiden rolled to his back and stretched his arms high behind his head, rolling his wrists in the process as he yawned.

“Thanks for putting me in bed last night,” I said, watching the swift line of his throat as he yawned again.

He grumbled, “Uh–huh,” as he rolled his shoulders before slipping his arms beneath the covers again.

“And for giving me a massage.” I had already tried moving my legs, and sure they were sore, but I knew how much worse they could be. I’d done everything I was supposed to do to help prevent the stiffness, but there was only so much a body that wasn’t 100 percent to begin with could handle.

“There wasn’t much to massage.”

Uh. “What’s the supposed to mean?”

“I have more muscles in my glutes than you have in your thighs.”

Anyone who had seen Aiden’s ass would know that was a fact, so I wasn’t going to take it personally. Maybe because I was still so sleepy, I raised my eyebrows at him and said, “Have you seen your butt? That’s not an insult. It has more muscles in it than most people have all over their bodies.”

His own thick eyebrows rose about a millimeter, just slightly but enough for me to notice. “I didn’t know you paid that much attention to it.”

“Why do you think you have so many female fans?”

Aiden let out another low groan, but he didn’t tell me to stop.

“You could raise a small fortune if you ever auctioned off the chance for a person to take a—”

“Vanessa!” Mr. Proper reached over to throw a hand over my mouth, like he was shocked.

That big hand literally covered me from ear to ear, and I burst out laughing though it was muffled.

“You make me feel cheap,” he said as he slowly pulled his hand away, but the shine in his eyes said he didn’t really mind it that much.

I stretched my own limbs with a yawn. “I’m just telling you what anyone else would.”

“No, no one else would ever say that to me.”

So he had a point. “Well, I’ll tell you the truth then.”

He made this noise that had me rolling to face him again. “You always have.”

Why did it feel like he was trying to tell me something? “I’ll always try to be honest with you,” I lied, hesitantly. Unless it was something I was scared to tell him, like my feelings for him, or me quitting.

“You can tell me anything.”

How was I supposed to live my life after that? Especially when I was lying on his bed and he was sitting up next to me, sharing the same covers. I wished I had the guts to tell him anything, but the truth was, I didn’t.

There was only so far I was willing to jump on my own.

I
sensed
the weight of a stare before I glanced up. Directly in front of me and his desk was the big guy. Literally right in front of me. I’d been completely hunched over, so focused on what I was doing that I had zoned out.

“Jesus Christ.
How do you not make any noise?”
He was stealthy like an overweight, mutant cat, damn it.

“Skills.” I swear to God I almost choked. He took a step forward, his hands planting themselves on the edge of the desk as he leaned over to look at what I was working on. “What is that?”

I lowered my pencil to the desk and slid the piece toward him. “It’s a diptych tattoo design.” I pointed at the images on the two separate panes I was still in the middle of outlining. “It’s supposed to be one for each leg, you see? One part is Medusa’s face and the other is her hair—the snakes.”

When he didn’t say anything, I held back a frown. “You don’t like it?” I thought it was coming along well.

“Van, that’s…” He lowered his face closer to the design. “It’s amazing. Someone’s paying you to do that for them?”

“Yep.” I looked back at the Medusa and had to agree with him. It was pretty damn awesome. “I know a guy in Austin who does tattoo work. Sometimes someone will ask for a certain style he’s not good at, and if no one else he works with can do it, he’ll reach out to me. My line drawing is pretty good.” I glanced back up at him and grinned. “My watercolors aren’t too shabby either. I’m a woman of many talents.”

Unless someone wanted a portrait, then I’d pretend to be asleep so I wouldn’t have to admit how bad at them I was.

“I’ve never really thought about tattoos much, but I might have to think about having you make me one,” he answered in a distracted voice.

“I could whip you up a nice clown. All you’d have to do it ask,” I joked, sliding the design toward me.

Yeah, that big, beautiful grin crawled up with full force over his mouth, cracking my soul open in half. “The five of us are going out for dinner. Take a break and come.”

I didn’t need to eye the sketch to know that I’d worked on it almost as long as I could. When I drew, I’d learned the hard way that I needed to pay attention to my limit, otherwise things started to go downhill. And I’d probably gotten there about fifteen minutes ago when my fingers began cramping.

“All right.” I reached across the desk to grab the case where I usually put my box of pencils. “Give me ten minutes to get dressed.”

Aiden nodded.

Fully aware that Aiden wasn’t dressed up and he wouldn’t go anywhere that would require him to put on anything dressier than jeans, I settled for a pair of skintight jeans that I’d resorted to sticking in the drier on high heat so they would still fit me, a V-neck red elbow-length shirt, and black heels I hadn’t worn since the last time I’d gone out, months and months ago.

Not surprisingly, all of the guys were downstairs waiting. I knew they were planning on leaving the next day. I had to take one stair at a time, and I winced every single step, muscles I didn’t even know I had responded to the achiness from my run yesterday. I’d briefly thought I was coming down with something but shoved the possibility aside.

It was Zac who spotted me first, a big, dumb smile coming over his face.

“Don’t say anything,” I muttered to him before he could make a crack.

That only made him laugh.

I should have thought about putting on tennis shoes instead.

“I’d give you a piggyback ride, but I can barely walk myself,” he apologized as I groaned at the bottom of the staircase.

Jokingly, I smiled at Aiden, who was standing next to Zac, and batted my eyelashes.

The Wall of Winnipeg did what The Wall of Winnipeg would do and simply shook his head. “You can’t baby it. You’ll only feel worse tomorrow.”

This son of a bitch. I snickered, and then I snorted, watching as his features took on an uncertain expression before I lost it, slapping a hand on Zac’s shoulder so I’d have something to lean on.

Did I know he was telling the truth? Of course I did. I’d stretched earlier and cried. No shame in my game.

But… Wasn’t he supposed to be my cream-colored knight? My knight in shining armor who would carry me around to prevent me from being in pain?

Of course not. Aiden was going to tell me to do whatever the best thing for me was, even if it hurt like hell.

And I seriously couldn’t love him any more. Not a single bit more. And I couldn’t tell him.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked.

I had to take my glasses off to palm one eyeball at a time, wiping my tears away, not caring that the little makeup I’d put on earlier in the day was more than likely coming off.

“Man, you’re supposed to take care of your woman.” That was Drew who said it. “Help her out.”

That only made me laugh even more.

“Oh, Aiden.” I looked up at the man in question and grinned. “I’m fine. I can walk. I promise. You’re right.”

“I know I am.” He held out his hand. “Come on.”

I
woke
up with my hand in Aiden’s pants.

In his boxer briefs to be specific.

The back of my hand was pressed against a warm butt cheek. I had one knee against his hamstring. His back was about three inches from my mouth. My other hand was numb under my face.

But it was the hand I had in his underwear that alarmed me the most.

The sheets and comforter thrown over us didn’t let me see much, but what did you really need to see when you knew exactly what you were touching? Nothing.

Slowly, I tried pulling my hand out. I got most of my thumb out and was in the process of getting the rest of my fingers to safety too when Aiden tipped his head over his shoulder and gave me a sleepy look.

“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.