Pen Pal

33

I’m a stranger to myself at this moment. Someone with no limits and no worries, a woman at once perfectly at peace yet completely astonished by her actions.

He’s pulled a string I didn’t know I had hidden inside and unraveled me from the inside out.

Then he flips me onto my back, tosses my ankles up over his shoulders, shoves his still-hard c**k inside me, and unravels me all over again.

20

L

ater, I lie beside him, my head resting on his chest, my leg thrown over his, my body boneless. I’m a bowl of jiggly Jell-O, quaking and spent.

I’ve never felt so alive.

Gazing up at the ceiling, Aidan murmurs, “Need to ask you a question. And I need you to be honest when you answer.”

I wait silently. He didn’t give me permission to speak, and I’m still not really clear how and when all these rules of his apply, so I stay on the safe side and say nothing.

His chest rises and falls with a deep breath. “What are the chances of you getting back together with your husband?”

A sudden sharp jab of pain stabs me beneath my sternum. I squeeze my eyes shut against it. “Zero.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you still wearing your wedding ring?”

I think about it for a moment. “I don’t really know. Habit, I suppose. Does it bother you?”

“Yes and no.”

He doesn’t explain himself further. I get the sense he’s waiting for me to say something, but I can’t be sure. “May I please ask a question?”

He murmurs, “Sweet bunny. You can always ask me anything.”

“Really?”

“Why do you sound surprised?”

“Because I’m not sure when we’re doing the permission thing and when we aren’t, and I don’t want to get into trouble.” I add more softly, “Or displease you.”

His groan is low. Pulling me closer, he kisses the top of my head.

“Kayla,” he whispers. “Everything about you pleases me.”

Snuggling closer to him, I smile. “You can see my problem though, right? I mean, I don’t have any experience with this kind of thing.”

He rolls me onto my back and lifts up to an elbow, staring down at me with blazing intent.

“Me neither.”

I laugh right into his face. “That’s a total lie!”

“I wasn’t talking about sex.”

My laughter dies. Confused, I gaze up at him with knitted brows. “Then what are you talking about?”

He flattens his hand over my chest, right above my heart.

“This. Us. You and me. How it’s so easy. How it’s so simple. How it just feels right. But you’re still wearing your wedding ring, and you don’t feel comfortable kissing me in your house, and that tells me everything I need to know about where your head’s at. And I get it, I really do. Your whole life has been turned upside down. It’s understandable that you’re not ready for this.

“But I gotta be honest. I won’t be a rebound. I won’t be the guy you distract yourself with for a while to make yourself feel better, then walk away from when you do. So I think I should cut my losses now before I get my heart shredded because I can already tell you’re gonna wreck me if this goes on much longer and you leave.”

That knocks the breath out of me. I lie there staring up at him with wide eyes and a pounding heart, shocked by his honesty.

When I pull myself together, I discover to my surprise that I’m really freaking mad.

I say firmly, “No.”

Dark eyes burning, he stares at me. His silence makes me even angrier.

“You don’t get to decide how this is going to go before it’s even gone anywhere, Aidan. I understand not wanting to be a rebound, but you could just say, ‘Hey, we’ll take it slow,’ or ‘Let’s talk about your expectations here,’ but instead, you unilaterally decide you’re breaking up with me? Before we’re even officially an item? f**k that. That’s not how this works. You can boss me around in bed all you want, but when it comes to making decisions about our relationship, we’re doing that s**t together. I refuse to be a one-night stand.”

After a moment of blistering silence, he says gruffly, “It’s already more than a one-night stand.”

“Fine. A three-night stand. Whatever.” I glare at him until something in his eyes melts.

“Relationship? That’s what you’re calling this?”

“I said what I said. Deal with it.”

“Oh, bunny,” he breathes, a thrill in his voice, “you’re this close to getting the s******g of your life.”

I want to drum my heels against the mattress in frustration. And maybe scream a little, too. But I lie still with my lips pressed together and my nostrils flared, internally shouting curses at him.

Then I remember that I don’t have a single goddamn leg to stand on. My anger is misplaced.

He’s not the one holding back an important detail about their personal life here. That’s all me.

But then I remind myself that I have absolutely no idea what the man is or isn’t holding back. Other than that he owns a roofing company, has a friend named Jake he’s known since high school, and that he may or may not have unalived his own father, I know zilch.

Which makes this entire conversation all the more bizarre for both of us.

I close my eyes and exhale a hard breath.

Aidan commands, “Eyes on me, Kayla.”

I open my eyes and glare at him. “Oh, are we back to master and slave again? Pardon me while I go online to find a chiropractor to treat my whiplash.”

He drops his head and puts his mouth next to my ear. “Do you have any idea how hard I want to s***k you right now?”

I can’t help myself. I smile. “The feeling is mutual.”

He rolls on top of me, smashing me into the mattress with his body weight.

“Oof!” I flail weakly at his back, slapping him. “You’re crushing me!”

“You love it,” he murmurs, holding my head between both hands and gazing down at me with hot eyes. “Now stop bleating and listen to me.”

I fall still, flinging my arms down to the mattress a little too dramatically, as evidenced by the quirk of his lips.

“Drama queen.”