Page 97 of Student Seduction
He started to move away from me and I didn’t think. I just reacted. Purely out of reflex, I reached for him, grabbing his jacket with two hands.
“Don’t. Please. I don’t want you to go.”
My confession intensified the building tension between us.
His heated gaze locked on mine. “Say it again.”
“I don’t want you to go, Aiden. Please don’t go.”
His hand came up under my chin. “I don’t want to go. But I’m selfish when it comes to you. I don’t want to share you with all these people but I know this is what you need.”
I shook my head. “It’s not. Without you, without the piece of my heart you took with you a long time ago, something will still be missing.”
The words spilled out before I could stop them.
I watched his Adam’s apple move up and down as he swallowed. “I lied to you once. Years ago. In California. Do you have any idea why I was there?
“To say goodbye?”
He shook his head. “I wish I was that guy, but no, Emersyn. I didn’t fly across the country to say goodbye. I came because I knew I’d made a mistake letting you go. I was there with a ring in hopes you were ready for forever. But you looked so happy and could barely contain your excitement about attending art school in Santa Barbara…I couldn’t take that from you. You were so young then. I wanted you to live your life and have amazing experiences. I’ve hated myself every day since, for letting you go. Twice, technically. But being here tonight, seeing how far you’ve come, I think maybe I did the right thing. And I want to do the right thing now.”
Tears stung my eyes. “You should’ve told me. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m a hockey coach in North Carolina.” His voice was heavy. “You’re nights at the Met in New York City, sweetheart.” He waved his hand around the grand museum. “I would never do anything to take this from you. I’d tear out my own heart first.”
He’s going to walk away.Which would tear outmyheart. Again.
No, dammit. Not this time. I wasn’t an eighteen-year-old kid anymore. No more of this leaving me for my own good business.
He turned his back on me and I panicked. Letting every scary feeling I felt pour out like lava in the distance between us.
“This, tonight, this isn’t me, Aiden. Yes, it’s amazing and I’m proud to be a part of it. But this isn’t who I am.” He turned and I maintained eye contact with him as I spoke. “I’m sweatpants and your old flannel shirt on Saturday mornings. I’m usually covered in paint and clay and sometimes random objects in a studio eating cold, leftover pizza most weekends. I still sleep in the hockey jersey you gave me.” When he didn’t speak, I tilted my chin upward. “You really had a ring?”
He nodded. “I did.”
“Whatever happened to it?”
Silently, he used one hand to press my body to his and I felt it. The hard shape in his pants.
“Is that a ring box or are you just that excited to see me?”
My heart began beating rapidly, a once-wounded hummingbird brought back to life and ready to escape its cage.
His eyes darkened but his mouth lifted at one corner. “I am always that excited to see you. I don’t know how this dress you’re wearing comes off, but I have pictured it on my hotel room floor half a dozen times since I got here.”
So had I.A thrill ran through me at his confession.
“I did miss your dirty mind and your filthy mouth, Mr. Singleton,” I admitted.
“I miss having my filthy mouth all over you doing everything I imagine in my dirty mind,” he shot back.
“Tell me the truth this time,” I demanded. “Tell me why you’re really here.”
He pulled in a full deep breath, large enough to make his chest expand.
“I’m here because I love you. Because I have always loved you and I have waited years for you to be ready, to reach out and ask me to come to you.”
Tears pooled in my eyes once more. I let them fall this time.
