Accidentally On Purpose

by Kaitlyn Ewald

  “I never would have remembered this was the house without the GPS telling me I’d arrived at my destination.”

  He smiled knowingly, his feet propped up on the patio swing he was occupying.

  She took a seat in a swivel chair across the table from him, sure to keep some distance between them.

  Better safe than sorry, right?

  She had no idea what the evening held in store for either of them, but the way his eyes perused her body told her he had something on his mind.

  So did she, if she were being honest.

  “Yeah, you were pretty drunk the other night.”

  She smacked her thigh and sat back in her chair.

  “I most certainly was, but not drunk enough that I didn’t know what I was doing, so don’t worry about it.”

  She smiled in his direction and he laughed.

  “What have you been up to?”

  She shrugged, taking a look around.

  “Not much, what about you?”

  He watched her intently for a second.

  “You ever wonder about your past mistakes?”

  His question caught her off guard.

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged, paused for a moment before he said anything.

  She watched the way his hair fell into his face, the way he chewed on his bottom lip for a moment before he sucked in a deep breath and pierced her with his gorgeous peepers.

  “After everything we’ve been through, you and I, do you ever wonder if one all the wrong choices you’ve made led you here? I’ve made the wrong choice plenty of times myself, so I can’t judge ya for it…yet, here we sit, like we haven’t learned our lessons.”

  She nodded, a slow smile creeping onto her lips.

  “I can only speak for myself, and I don’t know about you, but me sitting here with you is a huge sign that I’ve learned my lesson, Aiden.”

  He seemed to like her answer because his eyes widened almost imperceptibly as he watched her.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. My ex was awful, and I found out too late, and I paid for it handsomely in the end. Your track record isn’t much better, and that’s okay, but I’ve slowly had to re-learn my self-worth and the fact that I’m sitting here across from you, tells me I’m on the right track.”

  He leaned forward in his swing, his feet touching the cold ground.

  “My ex wasn’t the greatest, either. For the longest time she had me convinced that if I just worked a little harder, that everything would work out, ya know? Like, it was all a mind game and I couldn’t keep up. I knew I wanted something different, I just didn’t think it would ever come around for me.”

  When he looked up at her, she could feel the electricity between them sizzle and snap like a bolt of lightning.

  “And, now?”

  He ducked his head in that shy way he usually did.

  “I really like you.”

  To Lynn’s twenty-five year old heart, those four words meant more than they ever had before.

  “I really like you, too.”

  He didn’t break eye contact as he swallowed audibly.

  “What we talked about the other night- the secrets you spilled- I want you to know that I wouldn’t ever do that to you. The last thing I ever want to do, is put you down.”

  She stiffened at the mention of her drunken ramblings.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything- “

  “No, you should have. I’m glad you did. After everything the two of us have been through, the lying, the cheating, the heartache…the fact that we can open to each other so effortlessly tell me that this is different. That you are different.”

  There it was.

  A public declaration that he felt it too, that she was special in some way, that she wasn’t crazy for thinking that Aiden fucking Dawson was hers.

  “I feel the same way,” She breathed.

  He smiled softly, his bright eyes trained on her.

  “I didn’t expect you.”

  She laughed.

  “I didn’t expect you, either. I was so afraid that meeting you wouldn’t live up to the hype, and it sounds so damn juvenile, but I just…had this gut feeling. I can’t explain it.”

  “I looked you up, months ago. But, I saw that you were married, so I guess I thought it would be impossible.”

  “Yeah, same,” She joked.

  His eyes narrowed for a second.

  “I meant it when I told you that I’m looking for something serious. I don’t want to play games anymore. I’ve spent a lot of time alone, and I know what I want.”

  “I’ve been through hell in the last six months. It took me a long time to be okay with trusting someone again, and I know I won’t be the best at it, but I shared more with you the other night than I have with any other man, and that’s the truth.”

  “I know it takes time. I know trust takes a while, and that taking your walls down won’t be easy, but I’m not in a rush. Time will prove that. I thought you were gorgeous, by the way.”

  She felt herself blush and she shifted in her chair uncomfortably.

  “I mean it, Lynn. The other day when you were at the garage and you jokingly called yourself a goddess? It’s true. You are.”

  “Why are you being so nice to me?,” She asked skeptically.

  “This is what you do when you like someone, when you enjoy them. I know you’re not used to it, and neither am I, but with you…it just comes naturally. I had a really hard time connecting with people for a long time because I truly believe that it should come naturally. With you, I don’t have to question anything. With you, it feels normal and maybe that’s only because it’s been a few days, or maybe…”

  She was sitting on the edge of her seat by now, drawing herself nearer to Aiden.

  “Maybe what?,” She whispered.

  He leaned in closer too, his nose nearly brushing hers.

  “Maybe you are different,” He said.

  His breath landed on her bottom lip, and suddenly her brain was filled with images of his mouth pressed against hers. Her mouth flooded with the taste of him, and she sighed.

  “I want to kiss you,” She said softly.

  “I’m trying really hard to be good, here. I didn’t ask you to come over so we could sleep together again,” He reassured her.

  “What if I want to?,” She asked.

  His gaze dropped to her mouth, and then lower, and then traveled the length of her until their eyes met again.

  “I don’t want you to think that’s all that I want.”

  Aiden didn’t look like he was doing a very good job of fighting it, because every breath shared between them brought him a little bit closer.

  “I don’t know what to think other than this, whatever it is,” She stopped to gesture at the air between them, “Feels magnetic.”

  He sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth before he wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and pressed his mouth to hers. He sipped her lips, caressed her tongue gently with his, until they were both gasping for air.

  “We’re gonna give the neighbors a show,” He said against her mouth.

  “Maybe,” She said distractedly as she gripped his shoulders.

  Without missing a beat he stood, lifted her into his arms, and carried her towards the porch; they never stopped kissing.

  “What if this doesn’t work?,” She blurted.

  He stopped mid-kiss to shake his head.

  “That’s not an option.”

  Her hands gripped the back of his neck as she stared down into his eyes.

  “Why not?”

  Tell me something I’ve never heard before, I want to believe you.

  “I’ve been waiting for you for a very long time, Lynn.”

  Her mouth sought his with a flourish, her grip on him tightening. His hands slid past her waist, gripped her thighs like he was afraid to let go.

  Just in case.

  Just in case what?

  I disappear?


  No one had ever cared about that before and it was like a drug to her. He carried her to his bedroom, a place she did remember, where he laid her out flat across his black sheets. She didn’t remain still for very long, instead opting to crawl to her knees and meet him halfway.

  His shirt fell to the floor in a slow drift as she ran her hands along the lines of his chest. Seeking, learning, memorizing.

  His breath was hot on her neck as she rocked against him, her hands going up above her head as he tugged her deep blue shirt over her head and tossed it towards his.

  They were a tangle of limbs and truth and Lynn was mesmerized by the way he looked at her when their gazes met in the darkness.

  It didn’t feel so imposing, the darkness that is, when he was holding her. It’d always been her worst fear apart from being abandoned, but she she’d already survived both too many times, she reasoned.

  She didn’t need to be afraid with Aiden, and that was almost a tangible thing between them that she could feel with her skin and with her heart.

  Their palms met, held briefly, as he kissed her.

  She sank into the kiss at the same moment she sank into his arms, choosing to let him lead. He pushed her back against the soft sheets and gripped the waistband of her jeans. Popping the button, he slid them down her thighs, only pausing to press a kiss right below her navel.

  She shivered at the sensation, watched him through wide eyes, as he tugged her pants from around her ankles and dropped them on top the of pile he’d already started.

  He paused to remove his own jeans, and she listened to the rustle of the fabric as they too were disposed of.

  He reached for her, wrapped her up in his arms, pushed her hair out of her eyes so he could see her better. When he smiled, she returned it. No words needed to be said when their naked skin met.

  Lynn was filled with a roiling ball of emotions, none of which she was prepared for.

  It felt…overwhelming, but in the best way.

  His calloused palms lifted her hips and she felt the tip of his cock seeking entrance to her pussy again, and for a brief moment, it felt like she’d known him her whole life.

  Is this what is means, to find ‘the one’?

  His tongue made love to her mouth as his hips shifted, filling her completely. The sensation had her eyes rolling into the back of her head as they closed, her lips caressing his. She wrapped her legs around his hips and held on tight, so wrapped up in the emotions inside of her chest that she it felt like time was once again slowing down.

  She didn’t want it to end. She wanted it to keep going. She didn’t want him to stop touching her, worshipping her body.

  Her back arched under his hand as his skilled fingers circled her clit and his teeth nipped at her neck. His name fell from her lips like a siren call, and his shaking inhale told her he was just as affected by her as she was him.

  This was the magic she thought she’d imagined, if only for a second. This wasn’t what she’d planned on happening, but it was, and she wouldn’t change it.

  “Don’t stop,” She pleaded.

  His chin lifted and he kissed her softly, “Never.”

  Chapter 11

  Aiden stomped out a cigarette behind the garage and lifted his phone in his hand.

  Lynn’s name scrolled across the screen, an incoming text, and he smiled.

  This is what it feels like, huh?

  Lynn…What a surprise?

  It’d been a few weeks already, and he couldn’t get her out of his head. He tried like hell at first, to fight it. He avoided seeing her pictures, didn’t bother to text, and he definitely didn’t think about asking her out more than a few times.

  Liar, liar, liar.

  After he’d been lied to and used so many times before her, he was afraid to experience it again. He was dead set against spending time with anyone who didn’t have the potential to mean everything, and that was only because he’d promised himself he wouldn’t settle. He’d been single for years, with good reason, and that’s what made Lynn so damn special to him.

  For the longest time, he’d been convinced that he didn’t deserve to have someone genuine in his life. It never worked out that way before, not with the cheating and lying he’d already experienced.

  In the end all he’d ever wanted was a mutual loyalty that lasted. A promise that was kept, a love that made him feel better instead of worse, a woman who he knew he could count on.

  Lynn was the same. She was also that woman. He’d been waiting his whole life, twenty-eight years to be exact, to feel it. That flutter, that magnetic tug, that out-of-this-world attraction that stopped him in his tracks. When Lynn walked into his shop all doe-eyed and smiles, he was lost.

  He was a goner, and he knew it. He’d been through enough bad shit to recognize something good when it basically stared him in the eyes.

  Lynn was imposing, and fierce and so damn strong, and he knew that she didn’t need him. He knew that about her, and it didn’t scare him away. It made him more intrigued to unfold her like a piece of complicated origami.

  She wasn’t his usual type, not in the least. He was a sucker for a damsel in distress, but her…She wasn’t in distress. She’d been through the worst of it, survived, adapted, and she thought that he was worth her time.

  He couldn’t figure out why, didn’t want to question it really, but he was increasingly grateful. He kept expecting that to change; he looked for the signs, the red flags, the sirens wailing in his head that would warn him to back off and let her go.

  But, they never came.

  Every second he spent with her, he liked her more and more and when he wasn’t with her, he was thinking about her. She was a little distant at times, almost hesitant, like she was waiting for the same thing he was. The rug to be swept out from underneath the both of them.

  It just…didn’t feel like that was going to happen. It wasn’t even that scary, and he was used to keeping himself far enough away from the situation to know when to skip out. He was used to walls and defenses and difficulty, but she didn’t bring that out of him.

  She made it hard to keep himself distant.

  Aiden wasn’t generally so sure about things, let alone people, but Lynn felt like his the second their eyes met. His whole body jerked with a sort of recognition, like he knew her, like his brain was whispering, ‘finally,’ when he wrapped her up in his arms.

  She fit perfectly, too, like she was made for him.

  Aiden wasn’t used to nice things, didn’t often seek them out for himself either, but now?

  Now, he didn’t know what he would do if she was gone.

  He couldn’t imagine a life without her in it, and that was c-r-a-z-y because it hadn’t been that long. Days, even.

  How do I even explain that?

  He didn’t know, didn’t want to look into it too far lest the entire situation change and then he would truly be hurt.

  It’d been so long since he’d been anywhere near someone that held that power over him and now he didn’t know what to do.

  What if she leaves?

  What if she changes her mind?

  What if she wakes up next to me, and somehow I disappoint her?

  His mind was constantly roiling with new thoughts, scary thoughts, but even still… it was worth the risk. He couldn’t deny it, and he’d tried.

  His phone dinged in his pocket and he pulled it out, expecting to see Lynn’s name scrolling across the screen, but instead he saw an unknown number.

  Unknown: You look so good right now.

  He looked up, confused.

  He didn’t see anyone watching him, so he looked back down at his phone.

  Aiden: Who is this?

  No reply, not even after he paced for a solid ten minutes before returning to the bay.

  He didn’t have any time to waste on some prank dialer, so he shoved his phone into his pocket and tucked his hat back onto his head. He was in a rush as it was.

  He had three cars lined up and he had no i
dea how he was going to finish all of them before his date with Lynn that night, but he was going to try his best. The sooner he got to her, the sooner he would feel better, and the sooner he would get to taste her.

  ∞∞∞

  Lynn laid sprawled out across her apartment floor, cigarette in hand. She didn’t smoke often, and she knew that Aiden would be leaving to meet her for their date at any second, but she was stuck. Her head was stuck in the past.

  Memories floated around her like the smoke coming from the cancer stick in her hand, but she was powerless to fight it.

  The taste of the nicotine did nothing to quell the taste of sadness on the back of her tongue as she turned the pages of her small journal.

  While cleaning earlier, she’d stumbled upon it and set it aside.

  Don’t fucking read it, she’d told herself, Just leave it be, but in the end, she’d been too confused to do so.

  The green leather-bound journal was rough against the soft pads of her fingers as she turned the pages and wiped the moisture beneath her eyes.

  She hated crying, and she’d done such a good job avoiding the act all together for months.

  Agony. A-g-o-n-y…It wasn’t the same anymore. It wasn’t the concept of moving on, it was healing that scared her. It was starting over, as a new woman, as a blank canvas, that had her terrified.

  It was the fact that she’d literally turned herself inside out, handed the best parts of her over palms-up, and gotten none of it back.

  None of it.

  Lynn didn’t know if it would have even made her feel better to get any of it in return, but she would have liked the choice. She would have liked to be able to look in the mirror and recognize herself.

  She would have liked to know that she hadn’t done it all for nothing. What did years of her life amount to?

  A random woman online, an empty apartment, a drawer full of clothes she’ll never wear again, and this not-so-subtle ache that rested just beneath her sternum.

  It was constant, sometimes dormant, but she knew it was there and it honestly had nothing to do with Jake.

  It had everything to do with what he took from her, what she gave away willingly out of nothing but pure love, and where that landed her.