Yeah, it had been. She’d been repeating it over and over as she’d listened for him to shut the shower off and open the bathroom door and walk down the hall over the creaking floorboard and then shut his bedroom door. She’d repeated it over and over again as she waited the thirty minutes for him to relax and maybe even start to drift to sleep. And as she’d gotten dressed. And as she’d approached his door.
Dammit.
“Josie’s right, you know,” Jane said. “You weren’t just mad when he turned you down. It wasn’t just an ego thing. You were hurt. You’d been waiting for him, and you finally got your nerve up and then he shot you down.”
Zoe grimaced. “Okay, we all know. No need to rehash.”
Jane put an arm around her and gave her a side hug. “I’m just saying that it meant more than you’re admitting. It wouldn’t have hurt you if it hadn’t.”
Josie reached out and squeezed her arm with a smile. “Zoe, you’re not a casual kind of girl. Like Jane said. There is nothing in your life that is short term. Your business, where you live, your friendships, your recipes… everything has history and is a true part of your life. Sex is going to be like that for you too. And that is not a bad thing. But you have to accept that before you jump into it. Because Aiden’s already realized it,” Josie said. “And I think that’s pretty amazing. Even with you half naked and in his bed, he still knew that it was not going to be casual for you.”
Zoe felt a jolt of… something… shoot through her. Aiden had known that about her?
But yeah. She realized a second later that, of course he would have known that. If Josie and Jane knew that about her, then Aiden would. It wasn’t just her that knew everything about him. She was certain she could ask him right now what her least favorite food at Thanksgiving dinner was and he would know. He’d also know her favorite card game, and she was sure he knew she’d chosen a pink teddy because she loved the color. And it was his favorite. No, pink wasn’t commonly a guy’s favorite color, but it was Aiden’s. Not that he admitted it readily to his buddies. But she knew.
She also knew it was because of the bakery. His love of pink had started young when he’d come to Buttered Up with his mother. He associated the color with frosting and candy and cupcakes and happiness and sweetness and the fun and laughter that had always been part of the bakery. And especially the strawberry cupcakes that had been his mother’s specialty. He’d been requesting those for his birthdays even after he was a teen. Right up until his mother passed away. Zoe doubted he’d eaten a strawberry cupcake since.
“And once you sleep together, you’re going to have to be ready to at least give it a chance to really work,” Josie added after letting Zoe think for a moment.
Zoe felt like her whole body was swirling with emotions. And realization. Which wasn’t an emotion exactly, but she felt like someone had turned on a bright light in a previously dim room. Why had things felt so hot with Aiden? And so painful when he’d turned her down? And why hadn’t she gone out and found someone else in the past five months since she’d made this huge decision to end her virginhood? And why had it taken twenty-five years to get to the point where she wanted to end it?
Now she knew.
Josie was right. She didn’t do casual. And without even fully understanding it, when she’d decided it was time, she’d gone to the one guy who was the most long term in her life that she could actually get naked with. Who also didn’t do casual.
She blew out a breath.
“But,” Jane said, her grin sly, “that doesn’t mean you can’t torture him a little for turning you down the way he did.”
The way he’d done it had been born of sleepiness and shock, Zoe knew. When she wasn’t being irrationally angry at him about it. But he’d been pretty blunt about the no. And he had waited five months to come back and fix it.
“Yeah?” she asked, interested.
“For sure,” Jane said. “You’ll be living together. And Aiden will never do anything you don’t want him to do. So if, for a few days, you eat breakfast in your shortest nightgown, or take your bra off first thing when you get home from work, or blow dry your hair wrapped only in a towel with the bathroom door open…”
“I already do all those things,” Zoe said.
“Exactly.” Jane gave her a wink. “And why would you stop just because the guy, who’s practically like a brother to you and who was very clear about not wanting to sleep with you, is staying there.”
Ah. “He did say no,” she mused.
“Yes, he did.” Jane’s smile was devious. “And I can tell you from personal experience that really pent-up, waiting-forever-for-it sex is soooo good.”
“Almost as good as make-up sex, which this also will be,” Josie piped up.
Zoe was going to have to take their words for it, but she liked this idea. A lot.
Okay, so she wanted Aiden. And Aiden knew it. And she hadn’t actually gotten rid of her V-card yet. And Aiden at least suspected that.
That didn’t mean she had to just let him pick up where they’d left off without a little pain of his own.
But she was going to let him pick up where they’d left off. Where they’d left off in her bakery kitchen earlier tonight, as a matter of fact.
She couldn’t get that pink candy coating and the pink sugar out of her head.
Zoe took her bra off the second they stepped through the back door of the house.
The house.
The house where he’d grown up and where she was now living. The house where she’d tried to seduce him five months ago.
The house where he fully intended to make her his and then raise their children and live well into their old age together.
Yes, his drama about this whole situation had gotten more intense since actually getting to Appleby, seeing her again… and having her tell him he was insane.
He watched as she reached down the back of her dress, unhooked her bra, and then pulled the straps down one arm and then the other, pulling the pale pink bra fully off and tossing it toward one of the kitchen chairs. The tiny piece of silk caught on the back of the chair, swinging there, taunting him. Probably still warm from her body. Probably smelling like cake. And Zoe. Which was kind of the same thing.
He propped a hip against the counter just inside the back door and watched her cross to the fridge. She pulled the door open and took out a bottle of water. She bumped it shut again with her butt as she twisted the cap on the bottle. She took a long drink, meeting his eyes over the bottle.
After she’d swallowed she asked, “What?”
“Just waiting for you to keep going.”
“Keep going with what?”
He let his gaze drop to the front of her dress where her nipples were prominent now without the bra. Then he glanced at the bra on the chair.
“Oh. I didn’t even think,” she said, waving her hand like it was no big deal. “That’s always the first thing I take off.” Then she kicked her shoes off. “Then the shoes.”
“Don’t let me being here stop you.”
She gave him a smile. “I won’t.”
“And don’t worry about picking your shoes up from in front of the fridge so I don’t trip on them and break my neck.” He looked at the shoes.
She took another drink from the water bottle and lifted a shoulder. “It is my house. And you think you want to just insert yourself in my life… well, this is what it’s like.”
Uh-huh. That’s what he’d thought. In all the times he’d stayed over here, and previously at Maggie and Steve’s, Zoe had never taken her bra off in front of him. She didn’t exactly treat him like a guest—they were hardly formal—but she did act like he was a guy who… well, who she didn’t take her bra off for.
“Good to know,” he said. He crossed to where she stood. She straightened as he got closer, awareness flaring in her eyes. But he simply bent and picked up her shoes. He tossed them over by the door, out of the way of foot traffic. “I mean, if this is what I can look forward to
around here”—he let his gaze drop to her breasts again—"I’m never leaving.”
He was never leaving anyway.
She started to lift an arm, almost instinctively, as if to cover herself, but then she thought better of it. Her arm dropped and she took a breath.
“I’m glad you’re fine with us just both being… ourselves. Comfortable. Just doing whatever we usually do,” she said.
“Of course. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
She nodded. “Okay. I’m going to take a shower and go to bed, then.” She turned and headed for the hallway and presumably the stairs up to her bedroom.
“Zoe.”
His low voice stopped her in the kitchen doorway. She looked back at him over her shoulder.
“Sweet dreams.”
“Yeah. You too, Aiden.”
She headed down the hallway and then turned up the staircase.
He leaned around the door, expecting to see at least one more tease.
He wasn’t disappointed. Her dress hit the hallway floor when she was far enough up the stairs that he couldn’t see anything more than her ankles.
And then a scrap of pale pink silk floated down on top of the dress.
She was a brat. And she was going to torture him over turning her down at Christmas. Make him horribly sorry. Maybe even get him begging before she gave in. Make him come to her this time.
“Can do, Miss McCaffery. Can do,” Aiden said softly as he snagged the panties and dress on his way up to his bedroom.
He tossed the dress in front of the bathroom door, which was already closed with the sound of the shower running behind it. His body responded to the thought of her naked and wet just behind a slab of wood. Not that he’d ever do anything he wasn’t absolutely sure she wanted him to do. And he wasn’t absolutely sure she wanted him to join her in the shower tonight. Besides, shower sex wasn’t first-time, take-her-virginity kind of sex. It was on the list for eventually, of course, but that wouldn’t be their first time.
Yeah, he was 90 percent sure she was still a virgin.
But he intended to find out for sure. Before he took her to bed. He was taking her to bed either way. He’d meant it, absolutely, when he’d told her he now intended to be her last. But if he was her first—and good God, he wanted to be her first—then their first time needed to be even extra special.
Okay, really, he needed to know so he could be a little more careful. He wouldn’t want to hurt her, and with how he was feeling about her, he wasn’t so sure words like “ravage” and “pounding” wouldn’t be applicable. He needed to know how easy he needed to take her the first time.
They could work up to ravaging and pounding.
His body liked that idea too.
He looked down at the panties in his hand, then at the bathroom door. The tease. Well, two could play this way. He tucked the panties into his pocket and headed for his bedroom.
This was going to be a hell of a lot of fun.
As long as his balls didn’t explode before he teased her out of her panties when she was within reach.
8
She was pretty sure he’d kept her panties.
After her shower, she’d found her dress outside the bathroom, obviously tossed there by Aiden. His bedroom door was shut, and she hadn’t heard him stirring around in the bathroom until after she’d paraded down the hallway in only a towel, changed into her pajamas, and gotten into bed.
Her bra was still on the chair in the kitchen when she went down for coffee in the morning.
But she couldn’t find her panties anywhere. Which sent her thoughts spinning. If he’d taken them… why? What was he doing with them? Why was that hot?
She was thinking about all that, staring at the Keurig while stirring hazelnut creamer into her coffee, when she heard, “’Mornin,’ Zoe,” in a deep, rumbling voice behind her.
She jumped and turned.
Okay, he’d taken the “do whatever we usually do” thing to heart. It looked like he usually grabbed his first cup of coffee dressed in only the boxers he’d slept in. She knew he slept in only boxers because of last Christmas.
Or he was just torturing her right back.
That was equally possible.
Though she wasn’t sure she minded. At all. Because he looked very, very good in those boxers. At Christmas the room had been dark, and she hadn’t fully appreciated just how hard and long he was. She’d felt some of it. But she’d been so worked up about the whole situation and nervous and then distracted by the kiss and then by him saying no and physically setting her back off of him that she hadn’t really taken time to feel him the way she would have liked to.
She could make up for that right now. If she reached out right now and put her hand on his chest—his wide, hard, probably hot-to-the-touch chest—he’d welcome it. He might grasp her wrist with his big hand and pull her close. Or maybe he’d move in and press her against the counter like he had against the fridge last night.
It was a thrilling feeling knowing she could reach out and run her hand over his abs, and lower, and this time he’d absolutely take her up on it.
That was a really thrilling feeling. Whatever crazy thoughts were going through his head, one was clear—he wasn’t going to push her away this time.
It was also a heady feeling knowing she could pretend this was all no big deal.
She could keep him guessing. She was in control.
But she could also parade around her kitchen in a t-shirt and panties and ogle him in his boxers and think dirty thoughts and flirt and not worry.
This was Aiden. She could be different with him than with any other guy. She could… practice. Flirting, teasing, being sexy, having fun. It wasn’t meaningless the way she’d made her thoughts about Christmas sound. In fact, it was more meaningful. Because she could be herself. She might be awkward or clumsy about it, but that would be okay. Then again, maybe she’d be good at it. That would be okay too. She didn’t have to worry about leading him on, hurting his feelings, giving off mixed signals.
Because she would mean everything he thought she meant.
She took a deep breath and gave him a bright smile, leaning back against the counter nonchalantly. She was wearing only a big t-shirt, which hit just below the curve of her butt, and a pair of red panties this time. They matched the sparkly words “Inside” and “Hot” on the front of her t-shirt. Zoe braced her hands on the counter behind her so Aiden could better see the shirt she’d worn just for him. There was an oven and a cake pan. The oven said to the cake pan, “I want you inside me.” The cake pan responded, “That’s hot.”
Aiden definitely read it. Or at least, he looked at it. She wasn’t wearing a bra now either, and he took his time dragging his gaze over her breasts. She was hardly well endowed but he didn’t seem to mind. His attention lingered there nice and long. Her nipples responded. Which made his gaze stay. But eventually the corner of his mouth quirked up, and she assumed he’d taken in the whole shirt.
“Good morning,” she greeted. “I didn’t know you’d be up this early.”
She went to the bakery at six every morning except Sundays.
“Well, I knew if I wanted to catch you in your skimpy pajamas, I’d have to be up.”
He moved closer and she caught her breath. But he only reached past her left ear to the cupboard that held the coffee cups. She didn’t move though. There was no reason to move. She wanted to be this close. To smell him. Feel his heat. Tease him.
And herself.
But after he’d retrieved a mug, he didn’t move back. He stayed way closer to her than was necessary to put the pod into the coffeepot and pushed the buttons.
As the fresh brew poured into his cup, he put a hand on the counter next to her hip and leaned in. She looked up, tipping her head back.
“And I definitely wanted to catch you in your skimpy pajamas,” he said, low and husky.
He smelled good. She felt his body heat soaking into her skin.
She took a big,
deep breath. “Well, it’s not a pink lace teddy. But I’m glad you like it.”
He definitely liked how she was dressed. His erection was obvious. The boxers wouldn’t have hidden it anyway, and he was doing nothing to shift the hard length away from her hip where it was pressed.
His hand skimmed down her side to the edge of her t-shirt, and he inched it up, then looked down. “There’s some lace.” He dragged his finger over the lacy top edge of her panties.
Zoe felt tingles trip through her, her nipples beading even tighter as she sucked in a deep breath.
“And you in a sassy t-shirt is a lot more appropriate than a teddy.”
She narrowed her eyes. “So if I’d worn this into your bedroom at Christmas, you would have taken my virginity?”
When she said taken my virginity heat flared in his eyes. Interesting. He liked that idea. He’d been acting all jealous and possessive yesterday, but she’d been so flustered about seeing him and her own reactions to him and just general surprise over him assuming they’d now get married, that she hadn’t really thought about that.
“I still would have said no,” he said, his voice gruff. “But…” He looked like he was fighting the instinct to keep talking.
Zoe pressed against the erection that was hot and hard against her. “But what?”
“I would have kissed you longer and touched you a lot more first,” he admitted. “I might have even slipped a finger into those silky panties.” He ran his finger down the front of her panties now, pressing against her clit, before sliding under the elastic edge and brushing over the hot, now wet, folds between her legs.
She gasped, then moaned, reaching up to grasp his opposite arm.
He leaned in, putting his mouth against hers. “I might have even—I should have—made you come before I sent you back to bed.”
Her body shuddered. With need. And irritation.
Only Aiden could make her feel both of those things at the same time.
“I could have had an orgasm except I wore the wrong outfit?” she demanded. Or tried to demand. Being breathless with her heart pounding made it difficult.
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