by Anna Durand
Someone to do, actually.
"As you wish," Rade said. He leaned against the door frame, his expression affable. "I had intended to honor our agreement and give you a divorce, but I realized I can't do it. I don't want to lose you. We've known each other for seven years and it would be a shame to throw away our entire history. Give us a chance."
"Us?" I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that told me he meant what I thought he meant, but I had to know for sure. "Spit it out, Rade. What exactly are you suggesting?"
He cast his gaze down to his feet and for the longest moment I worried he wouldn't answer. Then he aimed his dark eyes at me and said, "I love you, Calli."
I blinked. Swallowed. Blinked some more.
"You love me?" I said. "Since when? Sure, we knew each other for two years in college, but for the past three years we've hardly had any contact."
"I've called you twice every month."
Had he? I didn't keep track, what with more important things to worry about — like jobs and money and family. "We had brief chats about nothing of consequence."
"I sent you cards and flowers for your birthday and holidays."
That I did remember. I'd assumed it was friendly gestures, nothing more. "You can't be in love with me."
"I loved you in college. My feelings have never changed." He fiddled with his tie, doing nothing in particular with it. "I'd hoped living together for six months would reveal your feelings for me, but you still seemed uninterested. I then hoped these years apart would make you realize we need each other, but then you filed for divorce. After everything I've done for you in the past, is it such a terrible imposition to ask for one last chance to win your heart?"
And there it was. A reminder I owed him.
"When you paid my debts and my grad school expenses," I said, "you swore there were no strings attached, other than helping you get citizenship."
"This is not a string. It's a simple request."
"Simple?" I straightened, one hand on the jamb and the other on the door. "You expect me to fall in love with you. After seven years, don't you think I would have if it were possible? I don't feel that way about you. It's time to let go and move on with your life."
I glanced down the hallway, wondering why Aidan hadn't come out to see what happened to me. Maybe he had peeked out, but decided to stay out of the way instead of coming to my rescue.
What did I expect Aidan to do? Punch Rade? Beat him senseless and warn him to stay away from me? I could handle this on my own. I had to. Relying on Aidan was a mistake, since he wouldn't be around forever.
But I wanted him to stay forever.
"Callie?" Rade said. He'd stepped away from the door frame, his questioning gaze directed at me. "Are you all right?"
"No." I swung my focus back to him. "You informed me you want to rewrite the rules of our arrangement. But you can't make me love you, because I'm in love with someone else."
He jerked as if I'd smacked him. "You can't be."
"I am. Might as well give me the divorce, because I'll never be with you."
"But…" His head drooped, his entire body sagged. "You might never have loved me anyway, but if I hadn't been such a coward we might've had a chance at least."
"Would you really want a relationship built on indebtedness? It wasn't love to you, it was obsession. I'm grateful for everything you did for me, more grateful than you'll ever know. But I've given you five years of my life and it's time to go our separate ways."
He nodded, his head still bowed. "You are right. I'm sorry for my selfish behavior, for holding on when I should have let you go. Give me the papers, I will stop fighting the divorce."
"By law, someone other than me has to give you the papers. I'll call the process server."
"Be assured I will accept the delivery. Have your server come to my house tomorrow morning."
I touched his shoulder. "Goodbye, Rade. I hope you find what you need."
As I eased the door shut, he raised his head. The resignation on his face tugged at my heart. He wasn't evil, just misguided and confused.
The door clicked shut, severing him from my life.
I watched through the curtains until he'd driven off down the long gravel road, dust pluming up behind his car. I grabbed my phone and called Tanner Pierson, arranging for him to deliver the papers after Rade arrived home tomorrow. After ending the call, I leaned against the desk gazing into the emptiness of the hallway.
It was over. A lightness rushed through me, as if my head floated high above my body.
Not over, something inside me whispered. Not over unless he kept his word and accepted the papers. Unless he stopped fighting the divorce. The lightness disintegrated and I slammed back down to earth. It wasn't over until the divorce was finalized.
Deflated by the weight settling onto me again, I shambled to the bedroom. The door hung open about six inches, the room beyond steeped in shadows. I eased the door further open, stole inside, and shut the door. The curtains, though thick, permitted a hint of sunlight to filter into the room and reveal an outline on the bed. A long, Aidan-shaped outline.
The shape moved and the beside lamp clicked on, spilling golden light over the bed and onto his body, burnishing his suntanned skin. He lay with one leg outstretched, the other bent so the sheet had slid off to expose the nakedness of his entire leg up to the hip. The sheet covered his privates, draping over his other leg, but the rest of his gorgeous body was on display. He linked his hands behind his head, gazing at me with a tight expression. Despite his casual pose, he was not at ease.
"That was your husband," he said.
I nodded. "He claims this time he'll accept the divorce papers. I've decided to believe him and let the process server try one last time."
"What makes you think your husband will keep his word?"
"He seemed sincere." I shuffled to the bed, perching on its edge, angled toward Aidan. "Rade said he loves me and wants a chance to win my heart."
Aidan's arms plunked down on the bed. "What did you say?"
"No, of course. I don't love him and I never will. He's done a lot for me and I'm grateful, but gratitude isn't enough to make me feel that way about him."
Aidan watched me, unmoving, unblinking.
"There's a bigger reason I can't love him," I said, scooting further onto the bed. "I'm in love with someone else."
"Who might that be?" No hint of sarcasm or playfulness. He spoke the words with no inflection, not the slightest hint of emotion. Hiding behind a stoic mask, like I'd seen Gavin do so many times.
I crawled across the bed on hands and knees to crouch beside him. "I love you, Aidan."
No reaction. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't move.
A smile stretched across his face, widening and brightening until a grin of pure joy lit up his entire being. "I love you too, Calli."
I gave his arm a halfhearted slap. "Why did you say nothing for so long? I thought you were going to reject me and I'd have to sick my vicious puppies on you."
"Rather get a tongue bath from you." He picked up my hand and splayed it on his bare chest. "Didn't pause to make you worry. I was in shock. After two weeks of working hard to seduce you and make you love me, I finally succeeded."
"Oh, poor Aidan. Two whole weeks you had to wait." I patted his cheek. "Think of it this way. Lachlan needed an entire month to get Erica to love him."
"You're right. I outdid Lachie."
"Sure did." I leaned in to whisper in his ear. "Turn off the lamp. It's time for your tongue bath."
When I sat back, I noticed the sheet had tented over his groin.
I clambered off the bed as he shut off the light. Disguised by the false twilight, I stripped off my clothes and slithered under the covers, my head beneath the sheet. I found his legs, running my hands up and down the corded lines of his muscular thighs. He was so sexy, so good, so amazing.
"There's a succubus in my bed," he purred. "Will ye drink the life from me?"
"Mmm, I think I
'll leave you just enough to keep this hard." I closed my fist around his erection. "I've got plans for it."
Positioned between his legs, I took his cock in my mouth, working it with my tongue and hands, my body stirred to tingling life by the salty flavor of him and the sensation of his cock whisking in and out of my mouth. He writhed beneath me, making desperate noises deep in his throat.
I released his shaft and laved my tongue over the moist head of his erection.
"Fuck," he growled.
"Oh no, we haven't gotten to that yet." I flung the sheet off of us. The fabric billowed and settled down at the foot of the bed with a soft rustling sound. "Condom?"
"What?" He sounded drunk, or at least dazed.
"Hand me a condom, please." I rose to my knees, walking forward on them so knelt astride him. "Unless you want to keep lying there fully aroused and on the verge of coming."
A big, warm hand seized mine and flipped it upside down. Something scraped across the beside table. He slapped the condom packet into my palm.
"There," he grumbled. "Hurry, love."
"Feeling pressured?"
"If ye donnae hurry, I'll lose my — "
"Verve?" I tore open the packet and unrolled the condom onto engorged penis. "Can't let you suffer, can I?"
"Bloody hell, would ye — "
I plunged my body down onto his cock. Seated atop him, with the full length of his erection buried within me, I slanted forward to lay my palms on his chest. He'd slouched down onto the silky sheets with his head elevated on a plump pillow.
He let out a groan of such depth, such intense relief, that it resonated in his chest. His hands found my buttocks and gripped them. "Please, mo leannan."
"I love it when you beg."
My hands on his chest, anchored to him by his palms clamped on my ass, I lifted my hips and slid back down onto his cock. He cried out, hoarse and sharp. I rocked my hips, riding him at a leisurely pace, loving the feel of him inside me and the blissful friction of our bodies melding and separating amid the slapping of our flesh. The darkness made it hotter, our joining charged with an erotic electricity, the power of the unknown wildly seductive. When I could stand it no longer, I worked my hips with mounting vigor, my breasts bouncing in his face, as my own pleasure escalated into a burning need, an inferno that consumed me from the inside out. He thrust up each time I slammed down on his cock, our movements in sync, and I felt his heart pounding beneath my palms even as my heart pounded, the blood thundered in my ears, and the nerves in my sex throbbed.
"Aidan, oh God!"
He sputtered something in Gaelic and flipped us both over with me pinned beneath his sweat-sheathed body. His hips pistoned even faster. He shoved his hands under my hips, hoisting them up as he drove into me with frenzied force and speed. The squeaking of the bed mingled with his grunts and my strangled shouts. I clutched the slats of the headboard, my fingers aching from the strength of my grip on the wood.
I threw my head back, my back arched, and I screamed. "Yes-oh-God-yes!"
The world seemed to vanish, there in the dark, while I came with convulsive force and flung my legs around his hips to ride out the magnificent fury. He punched into again, so deep he almost penetrated my soul, and I let out a whimpering cry as my climax pulsated on and on. One more thrust and he came apart inside me, bellowing with from the ferocity of his own release.
My breaths heaved so hard and fast I couldn't speak. The joy of our love, of declaring it to each other at last, had fueled a passion more exquisite than any we'd achieved before. At least, any I'd achieved.
Aidan collapsed beside me with a thud that rocked the bed. He nuzzled my ear, his breaths blustering over my skin and ruffling my hair. "Are ye mine?"
"I'm yours, always."
"Ahm yours too, mo chridhe. Yours forever." He hooked an arm over my belly. "That was the best sex I've ever had. And I thought making love to you couldn't get any better."
"Same for me. I love having sex with you almost as much as I love you."
He chuckled, enfolding me in his arms, cradling me to him in the twilit serenity of our room. We lay like that for several minutes, silent except for our breathing, our hearts slowing with every passing second. The world seemed to have telescoped down to this room, this bed, the two of us entwined.
A noise roused me from my trance. It sounded like bagpipes. Distant bagpipes.
"My phone," Aidan mumbled. "Forget it."
"It might be important. Maybe Jamie needs you to rescue her from my ravenous brother."
Sighing, he heaved his body off the bed, turned the lamp on, and rooted around on the floor until he found his jeans. He dug the phone out of a pocket, answering with a groggy hello.
He jerked ramrod straight, his eyes wide. "What happened?"
I could hear the tinny, indistinct sound of someone talking from the other end of the call.
Aidan's expression went as stony as his stiff posture. He responded to the caller with grunts and the occasional half-growled "aye."
He hung up, tossing the phone onto the table. It clacked onto the wood surface.
"Everything okay?" I asked, pushing up onto my elbows.
Aidan scrubbed his face with both hands, then flopped onto the bed on his back. The mattress bounced and the frame squeaked. Staring up at the ceiling, he said, "Lachlan and Erica spoke to Seona."
"Okay." I rolled onto my side facing him, braced on one elbow. "Did it not go so well?"
"She told them why she wants money. She needs it for the bairn."
"The what?"
He covered his face with both hands again, letting them slowly slide down. The anguish on his face made my gut clench.
"A bairn's a baby," he said, without looking at me. "She's pregnant and she says it's mine."
Chapter Thirty-One
A weight crashed down on me with such mental force I felt I might plummet straight through the bed and the floor, down into the depths of the earth. With shaky arms, I pushed up into a sitting position. I couldn't speak. Had no clue what to say. The man I loved might be having a baby with another woman.
Might be. Should I cling to the hope it wasn't true?
"They're sure," I said. "Lachlan and Erica are sure it's true. Seona is really pregnant."
"Yes." Aidan kept his gaze glued to the ceiling, his hands on the bed, his body stiff and motionless except for the rising and falling of his chest. "Seona is very pregnant. Hard to tell for sure, but Erica guesses maybe six or seven months along."
"Is that — Does the the timeline match up?"
"Sounds like it. The last time I slept with her was the night before the accident, about six months ago. I was sure I used a condom."
I felt like such a creep for asking, but I had to know. "She could've slept with someone else, couldn't she?"
He pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes shut. "I suppose so. We were casual, not exclusive."
"You didn't ask her if she was with someone else."
"Calli." He swiveled his head to look at me, his face the picture of grief. "How can I ask that? If she says it's mine, I have to take her word unless I find out otherwise."
A coldness had infiltrated me from my skin all the way down to the core of my being. "What will you do?"
"She nearly died, and for all I know, it was my fault. If the bairn's mine, I won't leave her out in the cold. I'll take care of them both."
"You'll marry her."
"Donnae know."
He didn't know? Aidan was an honorable man and I loved him for that, but now his honor would tear us apart. After two weeks of pursuing me, making me love him, I could lose everything and I didn't even have the option of resenting it.
As everything he'd told me percolated through my mind, the suspicious part of me woke up and demanded some answers. "She didn't admit she's six months pregnant until today? The woman's been harassing you for money but she failed to mention the baby. Doesn't that seem suspicious to you?"
"Donnae know."
"That's why I'm flying home tomorrow. To find out." He levered himself off the bed, sitting with his arms limp at his sides, his body slumped forward. "Any sort of paternity test will take time. If she fights it, I suppose I'll have to try for a court order."
Which would take more time. I'd waited so long to be free of Rade and with that endpoint finally in sight, Aidan and I got punched in the face by Seona's revelation. Maybe this thing with Aidan had been a huge mistake. How well could I know him after fourteen days? Maybe the universe was sending me a message that marrying him would lead to more trouble.
Maybe this wasn't meant to be.
"I need to talk to Jamie," Aidan said. "She's coming home with me, whether she likes it or not."
He stood and collected his clothes. I watched in numb silence as he dressed and headed out the door. I sat there, unable to move, while he staggered down the hallway. The sliding doors zipped open and shut.
Tomorrow he'd be gone. Would I ever see him again?
I wrapped my arms around myself. If Seona was having his child...
This just wasn't meant to be.
*****
The morning arrived and flew past, hurtling toward the afternoon. The afternoon when Aidan would leave me and fly back to Scotland, possibly forever. An ache had sprouted in my chest this morning, when I rolled over in bed to gaze at Aidan's sleeping form, and the ache hadn't eased up since. His head had been turned toward me, cradled by the pillow. His lips were curved upward at the corners in a contented smile.
My beautiful Scot. Sweet, considerate, intelligent, funny Aidan.
He wasn't mine, though. Seona could lay claim to him with a tie much stronger than any I'd forged with him. She might be having his baby.
Now, hours later, I lay on the bed again. On my back this time. Fully clothed. I stared at the ceiling while Aidan gathered his things, stuffing clothes into a suitcase. My gaze drifted to the foot of the bed and the two puppies curled up there, observing Aidan with solemn faces, as if they sensed he was abandoning us. They loved him almost as much as I did.