Page 18 of Broken Pregnant Mate
Howroughhe always was with me, yanking off my clothes and pushing me over the nearest object, even if it was a sink, and the porcelain was digging into my skin, leaving bruises that would bloom over my ribs and down my stomach.
Sometimes, Vern himself would be the one to leave the bruises, grabbing my hips hard enough to leave little purple thumbprints on my skin. He would always apologize, kiss the marks after the fact, but he never made an effort to be gentler with me.
I even started to think that hurting me was the point, that when I begged him to stop, it only made Vern hotter, harder. When I asked for gentle, tender experiences, he’d scoff or have a hard time getting excited. He would blame it on me, tell me I was ugly, or that I hadn’t shaved, and how could I expect him to be gentle if Ilookedlike a beast?
The contrast between him and Aidan is laughable.
Even on the street, Aidan kissed me gently, his lips soft and probing, his palms flat against my hips, drawing me to him like the gentle lapping of warm water, not a riptide. It was an encouragement, a suggestion, an expression of his own need, not a forceful command.
Logically, I know that Aidan only kissed me to hide his identity. Or, even were that was not the case, he probably kissed me to make me feel better about what Vern was saying. About the fact that, of all the people in the world to be on that street, it had to be Vern.
As Aidan shuffled me away, I could still hear Vern’s voice, could still feel the weight of his gaze on me. The other men there—the two with Dorian—were warning him away from coming back.
I know it’s not really about me—they wouldn’t want a guy like Vern in their town, selling whatever he has, anyway—but that didn’t stop it from feeling good for just a second, when it felt like someone might have my back.
“W-what?” I manage, looking up to Aidan, finding his face white. He pulls his mask off, sending the sand on his shoulders and face to the ground, where it stays in little piles.
“I’m sorry, Emaline. I—I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t know why I did.”
“It’s okay.” I’m already shaking my head, the sound ofI’m sorryrepeating through my head again and again.I shouldn’t have done that.
“It’s not okay.” Aidan lets out a sound that sounds half like a laugh, half like something much darker. He shakes his head and sand flies from his curls. “It’snotokay—those guys, they’re going to think I’m a liar. I’m already…on the outside here. If I have to explain to them that I was lying about you beingmy mate…I can’t lose my credibility with them. Training with Dorian is the only thing that’s getting me close to beating Jerrod Blacklock.”
“No, Aidan, it’s okay.” I take a step toward him, but keep my hands to myself. “I don’t mind keeping it up.”
Even as the words come out of my mouth, I know they’re not true, but I can’t take them back. Aidan holds my gaze, swallows, nods, then finally looks away.
“Okay.” Then he’s walking up the stairs, gesturing for me to follow him. We take a small set of stairs up to a second landing, which opens up into his living room.
“Sorry, it’s kind of a mess,” Aidan says, clearing his throat and picking up a hoodie from the back of his couch. “I don’t spend much time here, usually.”
“What do you spend your time on?”
My entire body is shaking like a leaf, and I know that this situation is incredibly weird, and yet here I am, making small talk with my childhood crush, after the best kiss of my life. I run my hands along the top of the sofa, feeling each rib of the fabric, willing myself to calm down, my heart to stop beating quite so fast in my chest.
“Training, mostly.” Aidan clears his throat again, rubs his hand over the back of his head, and meets my eyes. “Like I said, I’ve been fighting Dorian, trying to get strong enough to go against Jerrod Blacklock. The idea is that Dorian is stronger than Jerrod, so if I can get close to beating Dorian, I’ll have a chance against Blacklock.”
“Makes sense.”
Outside, the wind gets louder, picking up, sand skittering across the windows. The old building creaks, and I resist everyurge to bring my hand up to my lips, which are still tingling from the press of Aidan’s lips against mine.
“Are you…Are you hungry?”
Aidan is walking backward, into the small kitchen, his eyes on me, and I take a moment to look around, register the surroundings.
His apartment is small, just above some sort of shop I couldn’t make out through the dust when we pushed the rest of the way down the street. The living room is furnished with what look like thrift store finds: just a couch, a small bookshelf, and a kitchen with a slim fridge, two-burner stove, and a single counter space.
To the right of that is a small dining table pressed up against two large windows facing the street, which are currently under siege from the storm. There’s an empty glass on the table, a book turned over, pages down.
“Sorry,” he laughs, tracking my eyes to the book. I wonder how many times he’s apologized to me already.
Crossing the room, he picks up the book, then smooths out the spine like it’s a little animal he’s comforting. Meeting my eyes, he says, “I know you hate that.”
He does know. When we’d go to the library as kids, I’d always cry and complain about the poor paperbacks with the cracked spines. He’d go on a hunt to find me all the new ones that hadn’t yet faced any abuse from the shifters who apparently had no heart.
Aidan knows a lot about me. And now, he even knows the worst parts of myself—how long I spent with Vern, the things I did to survive. The fact that I was there on the border, apparentlypassing in and out of the cells down under the pack hall, just days after him.
My entire life, I longed for a kiss like the one I just got from him in the street. And here we are, brushing over the fact that it happened. Here I am, pretending like it wasn’t the best thing that ever happened to me.
