Page 29 of Stealing It
Chapter Eleven
Aidan
IT’S BEEN ABOUT THREEweeks since I fell in love with Magnolia Sager standing naked in her bedroom, my heart on display in a way it’s never been before. The real kind of love that drives you absolutely wild with wonderment and complete abandon. Her daughter is at an overnight cheerleading camp for the weekend. Magnolia showed up to my house with a weekender three hours ago. For any other man in love, this would be the best thing that could possibly happen. I’m not any other man. I want so badly for Magnolia to think I’m perfect for her. That nothing that I’ve done or have endured will be impressed upon what she means to me now.
She’s grabbing a glass of water from the kitchen tap, humming a song that’s been playing non-stop on the radio. Standing in front of the full-length mirror in my room, I give myself a mental pep talk.You can do this. This isn’t a big deal. A woman spending the night is common. Normal. I can be normal for her. For me. I deserve that. I must.
“Do you want anything?” Magnolia calls out.
A lobotomy, a rewind button, and a dose of fuck-it-all probably isn’t what she means.
“No thank you,” I reply, wiping away a layer of sweat from my forehead. My friends were over at my place shooting the shit earlier. Since they left, I’ve received approximately ten thousand texts asking if I’m really having a sleepover or some variation of taunting laced encouragement. The last text I read before silencing my phone was one from Mercer that said, “You’ve lost your goddamned mind. I better be the best man.” I didn’t even reply to dispute it. Tahoe’s text said, “Breathe.” That’s the one I’m currently focusing on.In through my nose and out through my mouth.A simple thing. Breathing. You don’t even realize you’re doing it most times. When you focus on it, it’s the only thing you can think of. It keeps you alive.
Magnolia brushes past me to enter the bathroom connected to my bedroom. She sets her water glass down and takes her toothbrush out to begin brushing. She turns around, leaning against the counter and looks at me while she foams her teeth, gaze narrowed, and brow pinched.
I appraise her and a little bit of nervous energy erases. She’s wearing the silk pajama set I bought for her. The blue fabric brings out the color of her eyes, and the scant material barely covers anything. “You’re so beautiful,” I say, thinking out loud. More than I deserve. More than I can keep. My stomach knots.
She tries to respond, but toothpaste foams out of her mouth and drips down her chin. She catches it right before it gets on her top. Giggling she finishes brushing and washing and then leans against the door frame. “You shouldn’t compliment a lady when she can’t reply.”
I shrug. “Had to say it the second I thought it. Your stomach looks amazing,” I say, raking my gaze over her body—exposed, sun-kissed skin. “And your long legs. And your arms. Your neck.” My mind wanders away from the place where I dare not go, the place that has made it impossible to sleep with anyone up until this point.
“Thank you. You’re looking exquisite yourself. You’re going to show me your workout early tomorrow morning, right?” I can tell she knows something is happening inside my skull and she’s trying to detour around it.
I grin. “Yeah. We’ll start with a run on the beach and then we’ll sneak into the gym. I’ll spot you on the bench.”
She shakes her head. “I have no idea what I’m doing, Aidan. I’ll need more than a spot.”
“You can sit on my lap. I’ll give you a step by step gym routine.”
Magnolia sways her hips, walking toward me, the silk hugging her chest revealing peaked nipples. “I like that idea,” she says, running her finger in the center of my eyebrows. “Why the frown when we’re talking about gym sex?”
Running a hand through my hair, I give her the truth. “This is the part where I fuck you, Magnolia. Because it’s how I forget who I am. Where I’m at and what happens next. I go to sleep alone, but,” I say, blowing out a pent-up breath.
“But what?” she asks, trailing the same finger down to my mouth, drawing her finger across my bottom lip.
I kiss her fingertip, softly. She smiles. “But I don’t want to do that right now. With you.”
“Why?” she asks. There’s no disappointment in her tone or on her face. She is genuinely curious. “You can talk to me, Aidan. Don’t be afraid.”
Slamming my eyes closed, I swallow down the fear. “It’s how I avoid talking. Fucking, that is. Why I haven’t had a real relationship. Why I’m so good at my job. It takes me away on deployments and gives me focus on things I know how to handle. It’s impossible to sort what’s going on in my mind.”
With her delicate hands perched on my forearms, she levels me with her blue gaze. “I have an idea.”
Sighing I lean my forehead down on her shoulder. “The last time you had an idea you sat on my face and that led to my dick buried inside you, Magnolia.”
She laughs, taking my face into her hands. “It’s PG. Well, I take it back, it’s triple X, but I think it will help you.” Her hand slips into mine as she tugs me to follow. “You have this gorgeous claw foot tub and we’re going to take a bath together. You’re going to tell me why you don’t have sleepovers and I can give you any sordid detail you request about my past and the horrible things that plague me.”
It sounds like an awful idea. Being confined in a small space without room for escape, but I track her lead and even point out a bottle of soap when she asks for something to make bubbles with. There is a solid four seconds after she takes off her shorts and shimmies the top over her head that I think of nothing except my dick and her pussy dancing the mamba, but then she commands me to get in the water. I do. And I’m not thinking, I’m just going along with what she requests and that makes it easier. Not having to make decisions or think about scenarios. I exist with her and it’s so refreshing I could cry. I lean against one side of the bathtub, and her back props against the other, our legs are entangled. The warm water eases my muscles and I relax.
Her foot brushes my hard-on and I catch it with both hands, massaging my thumb into the pad of her foot. “I hate to say this was a good idea, but you’re right. This was a good idea,” I say.
“I have good ideas every once in a while. Been around for a while, you know? Gotta be right every now and then. It’s just odds.” She winks, and her eyes turn heavy as I deepen the massage, taking one foot in both of my hands. Magnolia sighs and leans her head back completely. “I’m going to rest my eyes. Get it off your chest, Aidan. Tell me everything. If you want me to be quiet, I can do that. If you want me to participate in conversation, I can do that, too. I’m a good listener.”
I expect a knee-jerk reaction to rise. My heart rate to rocket or my stomach to lurch, but it doesn’t. No urge is known, except my desire to tell her my truths. There are several different places I could start or things I could say that would explain quite easily how messed up I am. I decide to start at the beginning instead. It’s a place no one else has had access to. “My name means fire in Gaelic,” I say, clearing my throat. Magnolia’s eyes pop open. “Once, when my father was beating me, he said he wouldn’t stop until he snuffed me out completely. I thought he’d succeed. Back then, you know? When I was a kid and I had no clue how the world worked, when you only know what your parents tell you. I thought one day he would kill me. Extinguish me completely.” Magnolia is staring at me now, hard, not even trying to possess the ability to play it cool. I grin. “It’s okay. I think I turned out pretty normal,” I say. “All things considered.”
She shakes her head, beautiful eyes turning down in the corners. Clearing my throat, I go on. “He was beating me that time because he found me brawling with a teenager who lived at the end of our street. That kid was a real prick who bowed up if you looked at the grass by his sneaker wrong. I was riding my bike and he threw a rock at me. Typical boy stuff I realize now, but back then my father made it seem like I’d committed a mortal sin.” The memory isn’t as strong as it once was. I’m letting it slip, after all this time. Finally. “It was confusing, you know? He wanted me to be a man and that’s what he always preached, but then something as testosterone-fueled as fighting was off limits. I never knew what he wanted from me. Only that he seemed to hate me and everything about my personality. I never lived up to what he wanted.”
“So he beat you…a lot?” Magnolia whispers. “If questions aren’t okay, tell me.” She presses her pink lips together.
