Riding Curves Page 5

  Throughout the drive, I replayed all of Saturday. The kitchen, the woods, the bedroom. He had said he wouldn't be able to go slow or control himself if he saw me; his voice and cock had thickened from my needy whimpers and whines.

  He said he wanted to be my last but was stiffly dumping me off at my dorm and I had no reasonable expectation of so much as a handshake good-bye.

  "You didn't mean any of it, did you?" I bobbed my head under the weight of a slow building realization. I had no idea why, but he had been playing me. Maybe he knew all along about my crush and he thought it was for the best that I get over him. I wished he had found a better way. I didn't think this way would work.

  I knew it wouldn't. My gut twisted inside my skin and I felt like I was going to puke.

  He turned to me, looking me directly in the eye for the first time throughout the trip. Another movie moment. It always would be -- just as it would always be one sided.

  "Cece…" Reaching up, he stroked my cheek with the back of his fingers. "Everything I said remains true. I want to be your last lover."

  A guilty look washed over his face but he shook it away before it could settle. "Saturday night, I wanted to be your first, too. But you went through high school with a fake boyfriend, baby girl. How many real dates have you been on?"

  I shrugged, embarrassed to say the number. Without realizing it, I had fallen irrevocably in love with Aiden while I played the beard for Kevin. None of the guys in my circle at college had stood a chance against the man sitting next to me.

  "Any, baby?"

  When I remained mute, he sighed heavily and withdrew his hand from my cheek to rub at his forehead like I had just given him the world's largest migraine ever.

  "So Saturday was your first kiss, your first finger--" He strangled on the statement before he could reach the finish. His hand dropped to cover his face.

  "Thumb," I corrected, the word distracted as it left me. "But I kissed a boy or two before Kevin."

  I wasn't about to tell him those two times had occurred during a dumb game of spin-the-bottle and both boys had complained about having to touch their lips to bacon. That would only make Aiden feel worse and widen the distance between us, a distance I feared was already too wide to breach.

  He gave a little nod and I could see that he only half believed me. "I'm just saying, to be your last, there should be someone in between."

  "Aiden!" His name left me in a grunty shriek. I could not believe we were back to that point again. "You seriously want me to fuck someone. You expect me to believe that?"

  I barreled my way out of the vehicle, reaching in the back seat for an instant to grab my bag before I slammed the door. I stomped around to his side as he stepped onto the curb.

  "How many am I supposed to fuck?" I poked him in the chest with each word that left me. "One? Three? Does it count if they're all on the same night? What if they each take a hole, or are we talking strictly vaginal to make the requisite body count?"

  Thirty plus pokes in, he lost his patience and grabbed me by the shoulders. He spun until my body was wedged between him and the rented sedan. He growled, the sound feral and sexy at the same time, and then he pressed against me. His breath blasted warm against the sensitive skin of my throat as he leaned in.

  "Baby, I'm saying you should figure out whether you want to." He took a light nip of my ear and I could feel the tension vibrating through his hands as he fought the urge not to grip me more tightly. "If you do, it will be a long time before we have another chance, love."

  Love…

  The bastard undid me with that one word. I buried my face against his shoulder and started crying. My hands fisted his shirt and I jerked on the fabric. "Why are we having this conversation? I want you, I've wanted you for the last decade--"

  "Because I don't want to have it another decade from now." His fingers knotted in my hair and he tugged until I was looking up at him through tear-filled eyes. "When our children are in the next room hearing us fight. Hearing you say I never gave you a chance to live."

  The way my chest constricted, I knew Aiden was my only chance to live happy, but I couldn't overcome the fact that, once upon a time, he was the child on the other side of the wall, that he jerked with a child's terror with each glass or plate thrown, that he saw one parent walk out of his life forever and another who paid attention to him only when she had no other emotional crutch available.

  Relaxing my grip and melting into him, I nodded. I lightly head butted the broad chest blocking my tear-streaked face from view. "Couldn't we have at least stopped along the way?"

  I head butted him a second time when he didn't answer.

  "Baby," he groaned and cinched me close. "If we did that, you would have been lucky if I let you return to finish the semester instead of tossing you over my shoulder and taking you home so I could fuck you straight through to New Year's."

  That was exactly what I wanted him to do, but I wasn't the one paying the tuition. "Can I at least have a proper good-bye kiss?"

  He chewed at his bottom lip and I could see the urge to relent heat his gaze, but in the end, he deemed another chaste kiss on my cheek to be the only proper good-bye.

  ********************

  A week later, still waiting for my car to be repaired and thus waiting for a shuttle so I could return to campus after an interview across town at the convention center, I met Harold Hayes.

  Technically, I re-met Harold. I already knew him from a social media class we had in our third year of undergraduate, in which we had partnered on a project. He had since graduated and spent a year working at an accounting firm before returning to Auburn to get a graduate degree in mathematics.

  Yes -- a graduate degree in mathematics. And people thought I was weird because connection algorithms excited me. Harold actually knew how to craft those bad boys.

  Running into him as I left the interview, it was like we had started a conversation earlier that afternoon and he was just waiting for me to return so we could finish. Instead of waiting another half hour for the shuttle, I let him drive me back to my dorm. When he discovered the communications department was holding a special screening of the The Social Network on Friday so all the graduate students could pretend to have a life afterwards by tweeting about it for the billionth time, he asked if he could go with me for old time's sake.

  Consenting, I realized I had landed smack in the middle of one of those things some people referred to as a date. Fine by me. I had no chance of breaking Harold's heart by having just one date with him. Hell, I could have had a hundred dates with him and I was pretty certain he would have shrugged off my saying good-bye as if it had just been the one.

  What I was really interested in was compliance and working toward some undefined quota of life experience with the opposite sex that would satisfy the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I just hoped that Aiden didn't want me to prove there was also no possibility that I liked girls. I was pretty sure I was covered on that point because I had spent plenty of "date nights" with Josephine and a few other girls in the dorm, and I never wanted them to paint more than my toe nails.

  Not that there was anything wrong with that. I just knew I liked cock -- one very special cock attached to a frustrating and frequently obstinate male.

  So we agreed on a date, Harold and I. We went on one, too. The experience mostly reminded me of sitting in class with him, the way he would lean over and whisper something very close to my ear. Or those soft finger taps against my arm to draw my attention, the smile when he caught it and the inevitable pointing out of someone or something he wanted me to look at.

  No big deal, I thought as he dropped me off at the dorm. I had date number one under my belt. Maybe after date number two, I would be able to think of a girl who would make a better match for Harold -- one who wasn't in love with Aiden Perry.

  That was the single thought running through my mind when Harold stooped slightly, cupped my cheek and surprised the hell out of me with a k
iss just east of my mouth.

  I stiffened a little, neither afraid nor offended, only slightly bemused. "What was that?"

  He gave a nervous little throat clearing then smiled at me. "I thought I'd better get one in before you turn me down when I ask you out again."

  I rolled my eyes at him. "I have no intention of turning you down for a second date."

  I was surprised that he wanted one and that he had kissed me. Astounded, actually. I wanted to touch his forehead and make sure he wasn't running a fever. Especially since he looked a little clammy.

  "So, tomorrow around seven? We could do pizza and trivia at Johnny G's?" A more confident smile framing his lips, he waited until I nodded my acquiescence and then he did it again. Kissed me, that is -- dead center of my mouth and both of his hands cupping the sides of my rounded face. "Great, I'll pick you up at the front desk."

  A little numb, I smiled without comment and retreated into the dorm building. Trying to assess whether the experience outside with Harold was pleasant, I missed the staircase. Doubling back, I shook my head. Harold was a nice guy, of course. Academically ambitious, nonthreatening, and in possession of just the right mix of personality that prevented my lips from tingling at the contact with his but didn't make me want to scour my face with Lysol, either.

  Bursting into the room I shared with Josephine, I plopped down on my bed and told her everything -- Harold, the kiss and, most of all, what had happened with Aiden.

  ********************

  Saturday evening, at a quarter to seven, I was sitting quietly in my room for the final minutes before I went down to greet Harold. Mostly, I was brainstorming ways to deflect more kisses, then debating with myself on whether I should deflect them. How could I know I didn't really want Harold kissing me unless I let him kiss me more thoroughly?

  Only, I knew I didn't want more. What I was uncertain of was the reason. Maybe I just didn't want Harold kissing me, even if there was no Aiden. I flung myself back, tossed my arms above my head and rooted around on my bookshelf for Hildy. Hildy might have looked like a stuffed hippo but her secret identity was a Magic 8 Ball.

  Sort of. Only whenever I looked into her plastic eyes with their huge pupils and pink irises, I always received the same answer.

  I dunno. Figure it out.

  Sighing, I crushed her to my chest just as my cell phone rang. Figuring Harold was early, I abandoned Hildy on my pillow, grabbed my cell phone and started to leave as I answered with what I hoped was a second-date voice.

  "Hey, Harold, I'll be down in just a minute."

  Silence greeted me from the other end. I tilted my phone a few inches from my face and realized my mistake.

  "Aiden!" His name bounced up from my chest before I realized I sounded like some nine-year-old who just got a pony for her birthday. Tempering my voice, I followed with the even pithier, "What's up?"

  I heard a short click, but the sound was fleshy -- like something had snagged at the back of his throat before he answered.

  "I'm bringing your car tomorrow, Cecelia."

  I grimaced at the use of my first name. Whether it was mere distance or a reprimand, it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted baby or love. Yeah, I wanted to hear that last one most of all. But I had no idea how to tell him that, so I responded with a hesitant, "Okay, what time?"

  "Two," he answered. "I'll pick you up at the dorm."

  The detectible edge in his tone worried me. I wondered if it was because I initially thought he was Harold and so he knew I was meeting a male that evening. I hoped that was the reason because I had an answer for that lined up at the edge of my tongue. I was only doing what he wanted -- he merely had to want me to do something else and I would have. But a louder, bigger part of me worried Aiden's distant tone would have been there regardless of my date with Harold.

  Floundering for something to say, I blurted out a question. "Will you need me to take you to a rental agency after?"

  "No." There was a long pause following that simple response and I felt like I had lost him yet again. But I didn't hang up or say anything and he continued eventually. "The agency is dropping a car off at my motel room."

  Motel room…

  My nipples instantly puckered at the potential import of his words. If he arrived by two, Aiden would have plenty of time to return home without staying the night. So why was he getting a motel?

  Why was exactly what I wanted to ask, but I took a more indirect approach, afraid to get my hopes up. It was enough that he was coming tomorrow and I had a chance to make his stay with me more than a quick drop-off.

  "You rented a room," I prompted and a rush of pride swept through me at the fact that I managed not blurt or audibly tremble.

  "Yes."

  Another simple, complex-as-hell single syllable answer. The man wanted to drive me insane. I wrinkled my nose at the phone, the gesture invisible and lost. Too inexperienced in that dance, I traded him two syllables for one.

  "Okay." I realized that was not quite enough because I sounded like a dolt as it left my mouth. Swallowing, I fought a stammer. "I'll see you at two, then."

  "It's a date." He paused and I was almost ready to hang up when he sent me over the moon with a possessive growl. "Oh, and, baby, don't have too much fun tonight."

  I let the words and the growl soak into me, warming me from top to bottom -- but mostly in the center, where the sensual undercurrent of his timbre had made me wet.

  "I won't," I promised and hung up.

  ********************

  Story of my life -- Sunday wasn't anything like I imagined it would be all through my painful date with Harold and a sleepless Saturday night. At one sharp, my phone rang. Hoping Aiden had made good time, I grabbed it and discovered my dad on the other end of the line.

  "Hey daddy, everything okay?" I walked over to my dorm window and pulled back the curtain.

  "Sure, sunbeam."

  He made a little noise at the end that meant he was holding back. I straightened. "I hope you don't plan on trying that fib out on mom, she'll bust you in a heartbeat."

  He laughed, soft but troubled.

  With no further response, I realized my dad was going to make me play the elimination game. "You worried about the surgery?"

  "Unh…doc says I'll be off work for almost a month." He shifted nervously in his seat, the creaky office chair he should have replaced last year audible over the phone.

  "The shop will be fine, dad." Truth was, Aiden ran the shop better than my soft-hearted father. "And you'll have time to work on designs. I'll get Aiden to fix you up a drafting table that'll fit on the bed."

  "He did--"

  "Oh," I laughed. "There you go. Try to enjoy the down time. There's nothing to worry about."

  His silence told me I wasn't done playing the elimination game. "Come on, daddy. What's wrong? Do I need to ask mom or Aiden--"

  "No!"

  My chest started to constrict at his hasty response and its timing. Dad was worried about something to do with Aiden. Had my father figured out what had happened between the two of us?

  Only one way to find out.

  "Daddy, tell me what is bothering you about Aiden." I made my tone as firm as I could without bossing him around.

  "He's having relations…" The chair squeaked then the line went silent for a full ten count. "With an employee."

  "Daddy," I laughed. "There aren't any women at the--"

  I stopped, realizing I was wrong. I had tried my damnedest to stay out of the shop this last summer, hoping I could wean my love sick heart off Aiden and finally get on with growing up. In the process, I had forgotten all about the bookkeeper/receptionist they hired at the start of summer. Some early thirties blonde with an amazingly large rack for someone who was no bigger than a size four everywhere else. Peggy or something like that.

  "Daddy, didn't you say your receptionist was married?" Mom had said the guys at the shop were teasing Aiden about running around with a married woman. Talking to my dad on the phone, I
wanted very badly not to put two and two together.

  "That's what's killing me, sunbeam."

  "No." I shook my head hard enough to grow dizzy. "Mom said the guys at the shop were talking trash."

  "Pamela told me herself, Cece."

  "Did you maybe misunderstand what she was saying?" I prayed this was the case, like maybe she mistakenly thought Aiden had flirted with her or something and was dancing around a direct accusation.

  "She said they had relations at the office and once at his place this last week, Cece. She was all torn up about it, wanted my advice." His voice choked at the end and I wanted to cry right along with him. "I noticed there's been a lot of closed doors with the two of them."

  Everything went quiet again. I sank onto Joe's bed by the window, my fingers almost too numb to hold onto the phone.

  "Have you talked to mom or--"

  He cut me short again. "No, and I don't want to until after the surgery. Pamela begged me not to, and I want to give him time to come clean with me."

  My dad's voice was raw, doubling my hurt. He loved Aiden like a son, so much so I had a spot or two of jealousy growing up that only my own deep affection for Aiden had managed to erase. It wasn't like he loved Aiden more than me, but that he could love him almost as much when he wasn't blood.

  "Promise me you won't say anything, sunbeam. Not to anyone." He scratched at his chin and offered another long sigh. "I just needed to talk to someone about it, ease my mind before the surgery. You won't say anything, right?"

  "No, daddy," I choked. "I'll keep quiet."

  ********************

  Another hour and a half passed before Aiden's arrival. My brain spent the whole time walking circles, crossing over the same questions with no answers. Could Pamela be lying? Why would anyone lie about adultery, especially in a smaller town like ours?

  What if she was only lying about them having sex after my weekend with Aiden? Could she just be doing this because he told her it was over? Still, that meant he had sex with a married woman who was an employee, and that wasn't the Aiden I knew.