by R. J. Lewis
His eyes darken as he peers at me, unreadable. “I suspect it would be the absence of both the skirt and shorts.”
“That’s a dirty response.”
His lips spread. “That was the cleanest version of one.”
I’m blushing so hard, but it doesn’t stop me from replying, “You don’t have to go all PG-13 on me. I’m a big girl.”
“Fuck,” he curses sharply, “that’s an understatement, Ivy. You’re all woman. Every inch.”
“I didn’t know you paid so much attention.”
He gives me a heavy look. “Liar.”
It takes remarkable courage to look back at him as he stares at me like that—like he wants to eat me or fuck me, or both.
“I find you very distracting in the office,” he says. “It’s taking its toll lately…Tell me to stop thinking of what your heat would feel like against my skin, Ivy. Tell me it’s wrong.”
I look into his desperate eyes. “What if it isn’t?”
He shuts his eyes briefly. “I’ve never…I’ve never been inappropriate in the office, and…I’ve never carried a professional relationship outside of one either…”
“Are you having trouble finding a balance?”
“I’m having trouble that you haven’t admonished me yet…That you haven’t put a stop to it.” He swallows, looking down as he adds, “I’m finding myself…craving things, sordid things…with you.”
I feel heaviness in my chest as I watch his unease. He looks out of his element, and he’s not used to it. West isn’t his cocky self as he lets me into his desires, and he’s waiting for me to respond.
“Do you think maybe we’ve just been spending too much time together?” I wonder, feeling dread at the possibility. “Maybe it’s a natural response—”
“No,” he cuts in. “I have so many people in that house. It’s swarming with women. I could bed any one of them and yet I…haven’t felt the slightest desire. So no, it’s not that we’re spending too much time together. It’s that you’re…there’s something very intriguing about you, something hot and familiar…” His words trail, and he runs a hand through his hair, looking almost frustrated with himself.
Mary-Beth returns with my waffles, and it’s the perfect excuse to look away and collect myself. I drench them in syrup and eat in heavy silence as Aidan watches me behind his mug of coffee. His expression is less guarded as he looks me over, his eyes soft and wanting.
And me, I’m struggling with all the attention.
I’m hardly able to get his words out of my head. They were so consumed with yearning, so filled with confusion.
I look down at my nearly empty milkshake, spinning it around my nervous hands. I feel Aidan’s eyes on the action. I glance tentatively in his direction.
He doesn’t meet my gaze, but his brows furrow as thoughts blaze through him.
“Say something,” I demand quietly, itching to know what’s on his mind.
He taps the mug with his index finger, focused on my hands.
“I saw you standing there,” he suddenly says, “out front with Alex. I took one look at the two of you, and I didn’t like it. In fact, I wish you’d stop.”
“Stop what?” I ask, pausing my movements.
He’s still not staring at me. “Seeing him.”
I blink, struggling to keep up because it’s so unlike Aidan to talk to me like this; to express himself like this.
“You want me to stop seeing him?” I ask.
His jaw tenses. “I do.”
“Are you jealous?”
He runs a hand over his jaw, before admitting through a wince, “I am many things.”
Cop-out response, but he’s uncomfortable and fidgeting and I shouldn’t press him, even though I want to.
“You’d make me stop seeing him?” I question.
Those brows furrow. “Make you? Never. What you do is your choice ultimately, but I wish you’d stop.”
I bite my lip, mulling his words over before replying, “Alex is my friend. Just like you’re my boss, boundaries exist.”
He looks at me incredulously. “Boundaries, Ivy? You think we have them?”
“Don’t we?”
“No, no, and that’s what I want from you…I want you to put me in my place.”
My lips flatten as I give him a defeated look. “I can’t do that, Mr West.”
No response.
His heavy eyes drag along my wet shirt, peering at my breasts. It suddenly occurs to me the shirt has been see-through this entire time. I poker-face it, keeping my eyes directed at him while I’m hot everywhere.
His gaze lingers along my shirt, and then he looks away and brings the mug to his lips, taking a healthy gulp of his coffee.
His tongue flickers out, running along his bottom lip as he says, “Friends or not, boundaries or not, Alex will want more from you.”
My heart picks up. “Does that bother you?”
He looks me straight in the eyes. “Yes, it does.”
“Why?” I push.
“Because it’s not right. I know it in my bones, don’t ask me why, I just do. You don’t belong alongside him.”
I swallow hard. “Where do I belong?”
He lets out a long breath, dancing around the question when he responds shortly, “In my office.”
“I can’t be in there forever, Mr West.”
He has a ghost of a smile on his face. “Careful, Ivy. You don’t know that.”
I look down at my plate, running my fork along it, scooping up every bit of syrup I can soak into my last bite of waffle. “You planning to chain me to your desk?” I boldly ask.
“If that’s what it takes.”
I take the last bite and look at him. “Challenge accepted.”
There’s no humor in his expression.
He’s admitted too much—more than he’s comfortable with.
He watches me heavily, studying me. Then he whispers, “I know you.”
My chews slow, and suddenly my throat is too blocked to swallow. “Not this again,” I reply weakly.
“I’m going to figure it out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out.”
He doesn’t respond, but his expression darkens.
I feel like I’m going against my instincts not spilling my guts to him. But the more I’m digging myself this hole, the harder it is to climb out of.
“But I’m curious why you keep thinking so,” I add. “Do you…feel anything before you ask me?”
He taps the table with his finger, considering my question, deciding what he wants to share. Then he answers, “I have no memory, but feelings…feelings come to me.”
I watch him attentively, that shred of hope pulsing weakly. “You…feel things with me?”
He keeps tapping, deliberating. “They’re intangible, fleeting. Similar to the feeling of nostalgia when it hits you.”
I push again, hardly breathing. “You feel that with me?”
“I feel warning bells when I’m around you,” he says carefully. “The same warning bells you get before you’re about to do something you shouldn’t. It’s a push back. An automatic response that says, ‘stop, go no further.’”
He continues to watch me, adding, “But sometimes, when I’m around you—like now— I feel tempted to throw caution to the wind, ignore that push and see where it takes me.”
“Wow,” is all I say.
He opened up to me, gifted me with a tiny shred of insight into his emotions, and that’s the only response I can muster. Because I’m having great difficulty understanding my emotions. I’m shaken by the voice inside him that prompts him to hold back. Was I so treacherous to him before he got into that wreck? Did he let me go and that’s why his consciousness is sending him these alarm bells?
It’s a terrifying thought.
But then why the Georgian home? Why sell his share of the company? Why divulge with Steven that he would wait for me and that I was his endgame?
No, no, he couldn’t have le
t me go. I refuse to believe it.
“Maybe you’ll remember everything one day,” I find myself saying. “Maybe things will make sense.”
His response is steadfast. “I don’t long for the memories. I’m already barren of any fond memories as it is. I doubt I accumulated anything of worth, but it’s you, Ivy, you are what I’m trying to make sense of.”
I simply shake my head, saying nothing.
West won’t let up. “I want to know why you’re here.”
“You brought me here.”
“I’m not talking about the diner.”
I knew that already.
I take another gulp of my milkshake. “I’m here to work.”
His smile is faint. “Liar.”
I stir my drink around. “Why do you think I’m here then?”
He doesn’t answer that. Instead, he eyes that bangle, then my shirt. “Where is the man?”
I bite down on the straw, avoiding his eye. “What man?”
“The man who bought you that bangle. The man whose shirt you stole—”
“Borrowed—”
“Where is he?”
“What does it matter?”
“You’re here because of him. Either you’re running from him…or…”
“Or?”
He shakes his head slightly. “I don’t know.”
“Why do I have to be running from him?”
West searches my eyes, thoughtful. “Because he wouldn’t have let you go.”
My stomach knots at the heated look he gives me.
“You’re beautiful,” he says then and he means it. “You’re very beautiful, and something tells me you’d be a hard woman to walk away from.”
My heart slows. That familiar pressure builds behind my eyes. I clear my throat, swallowing down more drink and focus on my plate. I run my finger through the crumbs, picking at them one by one.
“Thank you for the compliment,” I eventually say. “And you’re right. I did a runner, but…I stopped running and it was too late. The damage was done, and now I’m here.”
West’s fingers flicker and begin to slide down the table, but just as quickly, he closes that hand into a fist and withdraws. I wonder what he was about to do. Touch me? Console me? I wish he didn’t pull away.
I’m too dazed to continue the conversation, feeling nervous that any minute he’s going to connect the dots, but I’m feeling a little doubtful of that. Maybe even bold.
“So, you’re eliminating what I wasn’t in your life,” I say, resuming the conversation from earlier.
His lips curve up. “I am.”
“And you’d rather I didn’t just tell you?”
“I was advised not to, that it might be better if I naturally fall into the relationships around me.”
I nod slowly. “That makes sense. So far, you’ve concluded I couldn’t have possibly worked for you?”
Now he’s amused. “You may have, but not in the position you’re in now.”
“Maybe you were training me.”
“I doubt I’d have been so patient.”
“I could have been something in the office, Mr West. Like the receptionist.”
“You’re piss poor on the phone. You weren’t a receptionist.”
I resist smiling. “Okay, then maybe I was your cleaner.”
“The state of your suite would leave me to believe otherwise.”
“Then I could have been your friend.”
Now he pauses, brows pulled together in thought. “You, my friend?”
My brows are raised. “Wow, with that tone I should be insulted. You don’t think you could ever be a friend to me? We could have been the best of friends.”
He lets out a hard laugh and runs a hand through his hair, looked bewildered. “Not possible, Ivy.”
“Why?” I demand.
“I could never be friends with a woman I’m this attracted to.”
Those words send a sharp pull to my heart, and I have to pause to identify how I feel about this. “Okay,” I say slowly, body growing tight as I force myself to say, “maybe we were more.”
He grins. “More than friends?”
I scowl at his amusement because he makes it seem like this is beyond farfetched. “Yeah,” I tell him, impulsively. “Maybe we were madly in love with each other.”
I watch his reaction closely, and I can’t believe I said that, but there it is.
His response is immediate. Another incredulous laugh, and now a shake to the head. “Absolutely not.”
My eyes widen. “Why the hell not?”
“I don’t do love, Miss Montcalm.”
It takes everything in me to smile in return, but it’s so bloody forced and stiff. “Yeah,” I tell him weakly. “I guess I’m just pulling your leg now, aren’t I?”
“Don’t worry,” he assures me. “I’ll get to the bottom of it, one way or another.”
I try to behave casual, even though I’m bursting at the seams. “So, why don’t you do love?”
“I’m not wired that way.”
“What if you were?”
He shakes his head again. “There is no way I could ever trust someone enough with my heart, Ivy. No possible way.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Just because my memories are gone, that doesn’t mean the foundation of me is any different. I refuse to do love because there is no woman out there that could ever want me whole.”
“Sounds like self-loathing.”
“No,” he says with conviction. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
West seems troubled, tapping the table again in thought. “I could never put myself in a situation that left me vulnerable. I could never go back to that feeling.”
“Back to it?” I gently prod.
His eyes narrow on mine. “I won’t revisit it, either. The past remains in the past. Some feelings—like experiences—should never be repeated.”
My lips tug down. Hastily, without thought to stop myself, I mutter, “Sounds like fear to me.”
His taps pause. I don’t look at him to see what his reaction to that is. I simply focus on my plate—on my breathing—and let the moment pass.
Aidan is more broken than I thought, and I have to wonder if he was this fractured when we were together. He held back, don’t get me wrong. He was afraid of getting hurt, but he was never so impenetrable as now. Or did he simply hide the depths of it? Just how much did he struggle before letting me in entirely?
The thoughts swirl rampantly in my head with no answer.
He waits for me to eat every crumb off my plate, and I take a lot longer because I’m struggling with my emotions. I glance at him furtively, frowning because I love this fucking man and I just want to wake up from this nightmare and for all this to be over. He doesn’t do love, but he did.
He wanted to marry me.
He has no idea the pain I’m in. That every time I stare back at him, it burns me not to touch him. That I’d give anything for one minute with the man I fell in love with, even if I spent that minute telling him I loved him to the end.
Man, I must be really good at this pretending shit because while I stare at him in mourning, he’s staring at me in a totally different way—lustful and ravenous. His eyes are heavy as he roams every inch of me, making me feel bared to him. It sends hot pulses throughout my body. His look alone is making every inch of me come alive.
Finally, I’m done, stomach full, heart strangely quiet. I watch him get up to pay the bill, his broad muscled body tired as he moves to the front counter. I look him over, skin coated with heat, my lower belly twisting with desire.
This is torture unlike anything before today.
I get up as he heads out, glancing at me. He says not a word, but his eyes thoroughly run over every inch of my body, lingering on my legs. I let him gain distance, and I stop quickly to pop the cherry I saved from my milkshake into my mouth, needing these few moments alone to gather myself.
The way he looks at me…
What he’s said to me…
All of it is making me unsteady and weak. Like it would be so easy to fall into lust. It takes so much strength to keep myself from falling off that edge. I feel like an addict. I just want a taste of him, a reminder of how good it was, and then I’ll be good again. What is the harm in that?
No, no, no, Ivy.
But it’s hard to think clearly. It’s late, and I’m tired but wired at the same time. It wouldn’t be wrong to act unlike myself.
“Good to see him with someone for once,” Mary-Beth says as she collects our dishes. She gives me a kind smile. “Paid company or not, he shouldn’t come here alone all the time.”
I smile back at her, wavering on her words.
Paid company.
“I’m not…” I begin, twisting around as she walks behind the counter and disappears.
The serial killer turns around in his chair and gives me a crazed smile, brows quirking as he looks me over. I glance down at my clothes and frown. I look like a half-naked homeless woman that a rich man in a business suit just fed in the diner at two in the morning.
“That’s awfully judgy of you, Mary-Beth,” I say under my breath, scowling at the diner now as I leave.
The walk to the car feels like forever. I’m talking sense into myself the entire way. Telling myself to calm down, to slow down, to relax. Unravel him cautiously, I remind myself. Carefully. He doesn’t do love, you silly little idiot. Remind him that he does—
This is harder than it sounds.
My pulse is still quick when I slide into the car, and like clockwork Aidan buckles me up, his fingers lightly brushing along my skin, sending throbs straight to my core. It’s not good—not good at all that I’m savoring his touch, shutting my eyes briefly when I feel him stare at me.
I miss him.
I miss him.
I love him.
I want him.
I need him to drive, to shut down my urges, my thoughts.
But he sits in his seat for a while, the car engine running, a faraway look in his eye. He makes no move to drive. I wait patiently, eyeing him every few moments, feeling desperate now. I’m fucking trembling—trying to go against that pull, but the more he idles, the more I’m inclined to lose myself.
Easy now. Take it easy.
My inner voice is doing absolutely nothing to combat the raging temptation bursting out of me. I feel my heart rate climb, hyperaware of every movement he makes, however small. The smell of him wafts to me, and I’m heady with desire, my center feeling empty, empty, empty.