Love Garage

by Liz Crowe

  “How was school today?” she asked, glancing around to take in whoever had walked into the restaurant.

  The way she called the community college writing classes he taught “school” set Aiden’s teeth on edge. But he reminded himself not to be a dick. She meant no harm, as usual, only making conversation, being nice, whatever.

  “Fine, thanks.” He stuffed a bite of the garlicky seafood into his mouth.

  “Hey, isn’t that Antony? With a woman not his fiancée?” Renee whispered, leaning over the table and giving him a class-A cleavage view. He blinked at it, processing her words.

  “What?” He started to turn.

  “No, don’t look, jeez.” She picked up her glass.

  But he did anyway. And there they were, tucking into a booth toward the back of the cheesy chain restaurant with the addictive breadsticks. Aiden squinted and tried to understand what he saw. Antony’s face split into a wide, genuine smile, like Aiden remembered on his formerly easy-going, yet responsible, oldest brother. He’d not seen anything like it in years, even since he’d been back and dropped into the middle of the Rosalee/Antony courtship.

  Margot looked like a million bucks, as usual, in a short skirt, silky blouse, her long blonde hair tumbling around her shoulders. She matched Antony’s grin. Aiden blinked. He was a fairly decent reader of body language. And the borderline-intimate way they were talking made him suck in a breath. At one point Antony crooked a finger. Margot tilted her head and they seemed to whisper about something then they laughed and accepted drinks from the waiter.

  What in the hell would possess the man to bring her there on some kind of a date, in plain sight? He had to know gossips like Renee would be around and see them. It must be some extension of therapy, a friendly dinner.

  But the expression on Antony’s face right then, the intense manner in which he seemed to be studying the striking woman across from him, told a different, and more complicated story.

  “Well, if I were Rosalee Norris, I would not like that one bit,” Renee declared, before chewing a single lettuce leaf in a thoughtful way.

  “It’s nothing,” he muttered, fiddling with his fork. “I’m sure of it. He wouldn’t bring her here on a date. That’s too dumb, even for Dominic.”

  “Speaking of….” Renee prefaced her next launch into some random, latest illicit bit of gossip about his pussy magnet of a brother.

  Aiden sensed them behind him, burning into the back of his head like a branding iron the entire time.

  “Aiden,” Renee said sharply, as they waited for the check. “You need to wipe that moony look off your face right now. I think maybe you all need to talk, you know, about her.” She raised a carefully arched eyebrow.

  Alarm bells rang in his head. Handing the credit card he’d just obtained to their waitress, he asked, “About who?”

  “About Rosalee.” Renee stood and shouldered her purse. “I am not sharing you with her. Get your head straight, Aiden Love. I mean it.”

  He sat, frozen, watching her go, in all her hip-swaying perfection, trying to sort out how in the world she’d figured that out. When a hand landed on his shoulder, he nearly jumped a mile.

  “Problem?” Antony nodded toward the door where Aiden’s date had just departed in a proverbial huff.

  “Um, no.” He signed the check. “You?” He made a show of craning his neck around to see Margot, who seemed uncharacteristically flustered.

  “Nope, no problem. Just finished therapy, thought we’d eat before….” Antony stopped and glared at Aiden. “I don’t owe you any explanations.”

  He shrugged. “Nope, I guess not.”

  Margot stepped out from behind him. “Hi, Aiden.” Her classic, cool beauty struck him once again. The way she kept blinking as if she’d been caught in the dark, confirmed his worst suspicions.

  “Hey there.” He accepted the folder from the waitress, signed, and tossed the receipt on the table. “If ya’ll will excuse me, I need to try and go salvage my date.” Part of him was furious, part of him hopeful, and a very small part of him sad for the situation, and for Antony. The brief thought of going to Rosalee straightaway and telling her what he believed might be evolving between Antony and the beautiful therapist flashed in and then straight out of his brain.

  None of your business. Go. Find Renee. Get laid. The end.

  But when he walked out onto the sidewalk of the cookie-cutter suburban strip mall, he didn’t want anything but his laptop and a beer, preferably one brewed by Dom. He had some new ideas, ways to freshen the manuscript and the urgency to get back to it hit him hard.

  The rejections were bombarding his inbox fairly regularly by then. After the first dozen or so, he’d become immune—and stubborn—determined to find a place for what he honestly believed to be a classic novel of southern family life based, not to loosely, on his parent’s relationship.

  He tucked his hands in his pockets and whistled while he walked out to the car his father had sold him—one of the old family junkers, a hideously ugly Oldsmobuick of some age. But thanks to Antony’s deft hand, it ran like a charm, and had an FM radio. Not bad, even if Aiden did have to hand crank the windows open.

  Once home, he let his mind enter a place he’d inhabited twenty-four-seven while at the Masters of Fine Arts writing program at Iowa. After popping open a Love Brewing Heartshaped IPA he fired up the laptop, sipped, and opened up the one-hundred-thousand-plus word document he’d slaved over for the last two years. Then, with a satisfying knuckle crack, he highlighted three chapters, hit “copy” then “delete.” After sticking them unceremoniously in a side document, he dropped into the cool comfort of his writing cave, where there were no disapproving, or possibly cheating siblings, no girlfriends of siblings to tempt him, no girlfriends at all. Just Aiden, and his words, and his brew.

  A loud knock on the apartment door made him flinch and nearly spill beer all over the keyboard.

  “All right already, hold your water,” he muttered, dragging his focus away from the killer scene he’d just concocted. Slugging back the last of the bottle, he opened the door—no call for peephole-checking in this tiny town. It could be one of maybe five people anyway. But when he registered who it was, he choked and spluttered. Rosalee had to whack him on the back before he could speak.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, once he could talk again. His ears buzzed and his fingertips itched in a way he knew well and understood even better. But he shoved his hands in his pockets and kept plenty of distance, or as much as his three-room roach-motel of a place would allow. Dressed in her banker lady get up—slim skirt, plain blue blouse, modest heels with her riotous hair secured in a semi-severe bun—she was chewing on her lip and looking everywhere but at him. She seemed ragged out, not like a woman planning the happiest day of her life—something she and Antony had agreed would be on December seventeenth. A “Christmas wedding,” that she claimed as something she’d always dreamed of as a little girl.

  Aiden shook his head, hoping to clear it of the random wedding minutia he wished he didn’t know. But his mother had gone into full-throated paroxysms of delight at the concept of a “red and green wedding,” and since she’d recuperated so quickly, she and Rosalee had been planning like mad, or so Aiden assumed.

  Making a valiant attempt to close his mind and senses to her—or at least put more space between them, he moved past her. When she grabbed his arm, he didn’t resist, much. They froze, facing in opposite directions, joined by the touch of her palm to his skin.

  “Don’t,” he whispered. Moving in a kind of weird slow-motion, he put his lips to her ear. “Why are you here?” She shut her eyes. Aiden stuck his nose closer, touched his lips to her neck, and tried not to lose it.

  “We need to talk,” she said, tightening her grip on his arm.

  “Okay.” He took her shoulders and moved her around to face him. “Go ahead. Talk. I’m listening.” Moving fast, letting his body lead, he smiled and unfastened the first buttons of her bank-logo blous
e, going slow until he had it open all the way, before flipping her bra open. She flinched and stepped back, but he held onto her, determined not to let this moment pass.

  His brain lit up with purpose. This would go his way tonight, no matter what. He’d gotten sick and tired of dancing around it.

  “We um, oh….” She blew out a breath when he put his palm around the warm curvature of her breast, flicking his thumb across the peaked nipple.

  Watching her eyes, he kept teasing her with one hand and reached up under her skirt with the other. “You didn’t come here to talk,” Aiden insisted, his voice raspy. He kissed her then, forcing her lips open, making her take his tongue. Wrapping her arms around him, she made that maddening little sound in her throat, a sort of whimpering moan he’d heard way too many times down the hall at Antony’s, and that night at his parent’s house when Antony had run home to beg her to move up the wedding.

  Aiden wanted to hear it, a lot, and only for him—he wanted to own that damn noise.

  As he swept into her mouth with his tongue, he hooked a finger into her panties and gave a yank, ripping them in two. “You came here so I would do this, didn’t you, Rosalee?” He slid both hands up to cup her breasts before diving down to suck first one then the other nipple into his mouth. She tasted so very good, like a real woman, not covered in lotions and perfumes like Renee.

  Her lusty energy coiled up in his brain, fueling his determination as he grinned into her flesh and she fisted his hair, making that glorious sound again. Blind and deaf to anything but her, Aiden picked her up and set her on the kitchen counter, shoving up her skirt and kissing her again, licking, teasing, caressing her lips with his.

  “Tell me why you’re here.” He ran a finger down her face, catching a tear. “No crying allowed.” Keeping up his pressure down below, sensing her flesh filling and hardening under his touch, he took a long, shaking breath. “Because I think I know.” He teased one breast with his other hand. “I think you’re here because I have something you want.”

  “Yes,” she muttered into his neck, tugging at his belt buckle and unzipping his trousers. “No. I’m not here to talk.”

  “So which is it?” Slow and determined, he slipped a finger into her, while keeping pressure on the outside, teasing her nipple with his other hand. He exhaled into her mouth then kissed her, unable to stop, loving the taste, the feel, the smell of her all over him.

  “Which is what,” she asked, angling her hips and moving closer.

  He tugged harder on her nipple, watching her face, soaking up her reaction, reveling in her unbelievable perfection. Everything about the woman turned him on, on so many levels, it terrified and exhilarated him all at once.

  “It is no?” Still rubbing and teasing he pressed his finger deeper into her. “Or….” He moaned into her mouth as she came, relishing the grip of the orgasm, the pulse against his hand, and that sweet, sweet noise she made. “Is it yes?” Whispering the last words, he put the finger he’d just had inside her to his lips. Shuddering, she tipped her head back, exposing the long porcelain line of her neck. The moment shimmered between them, ripe with possibility.

  She jumped down and yanked him close, slanting her mouth over his, ripping at the undershirt he still wore, and shoving his khakis down. “Yes,” she ground out, before going down on her knees and deep throating him so fast, he had to grip the counter top behind her and focus on conjugating Spanish verbs.

  “Okay, okay, but here’s the thing.” On the ragged edge, he tugged her back to her feet. Furious with them both for what they were about to do, but helpless to stop it, he forced his mind to still. “I think we’ve been here, done this, know what I mean?” He placed his palm against her cheek, loving the potential, but needing more. “You say you came here for something I have. So, I say…” Her hair, once freed from its holder, fell around her shoulders. He threaded his fingers in its wild abundance and closed his fist, making her head fall back and a hiss escape her lips. His need to be inside her so badly, to be connected to her, consumed him, making his arms and legs shake.

  His lips found her collarbone and he licked his way down to her breast. Her breath caught in her throat.

  “Fuck me, Aiden,” she whispered, bringing instant goose bumps to every inch of his skin.

  “What’s that?” he asked, nibbling his way back up her neck to her lips.

  “I…need you…to fuck me.” Her eyes were bright, but without tears. Her hands were on him, moving up and down his dick, cupping his balls. The scent of her lust coiled up in his head and blinded him in a way he should not be susceptible to as a grown man. But this, and her, and those lips….Grinning, he grabbed her hips. “Hang on tight,” he said as she wrapped her legs around his waist and he walked the few steps to the couch he’d liberated from the Love lower basement. Still holding her close, he lowered them onto the cushion. Their lips hovered but didn’t touch.

  “This,” he said with a sigh, shoving her skirt up so she could spread her legs wider. “This is what you wanted from me?” His voice hitched, but he clamped down on emotion, focusing instead on the pure eroticism of the moment.

  She cradled his face between her hands and angled her hips taking all of him at once, making them sigh in unison.

  “Yes. This is what I wanted. Is that bad?” When he reached down to tweak her nipples, teasing her in a way he’d learned she liked, she moved faster. “Oh. I’m gonna….” A noise rose in her throat and filled his ears. Tugging at her flesh, he met her with thrusts of his own. The orgasm hovered, taunting him.

  “I love you,” she gasped, then tilted her head back and cried out, gripping him so hard, he lost all control and pressed his face into her breasts, his hips moving fast. His vision darkened then lightened, and he heard her say it again.

  “I love you.”

  They sat, joined, breathing heavy, arms wrapped tightly around each other. She moved first, standing up and nearly falling over. Useless to anyone at the moment, he sat, watching as she tugged her skirt back down and tried to refasten her bra with shaking hands. Remorse and gut-churning guilt roiled through him. Finally, he stood and found his pants, got mostly back together then grabbed some tissues.

  She took them from him, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. And at that moment, he didn’t want to see them. They’d only reflect back at him what they’d done, what he’d just done with Antony’s fiancée.

  He groaned and closed his eyes.

  Damn her for coming here anyway. Damn me for being so weak willed.

  “So, we cleared the air, I think.” She tossed the used tissues into the garbage can then yanked her hair up more or less into the same arrangement she’d been wearing before he’d gotten his hands on her.

  “Uh, yeah.” He leaned against the kitchen counter, willing her to come to him so they could really talk. But wishing at the same time that she’d just go and leave him in peace. As she straightened her blouse, tucked her feet back in her shoes and faced him, Aiden had to chew on the inside of his cheek not to grab her, toss her in his bed and never let her escape.

  “I am marrying Antony,” she stated, unnecessarily. “We—you and me—are done.”

  He raised an eyebrow, noting how her hands shook when she messed with her hair. Words he should say died in the back of his throat.

  “Stop smirking.”

  “I’m not. But, I really wonder how done you want us to be, Rosalee.”

  He took a step closer, which forced her backward, but she raised her hand as if to ward him off. Eager yet horrified at the same time, he grabbed it and slowly tugged her into his arms.

  The sound of a key in the door made them leap apart. She pointed to his naked torso. Skin tingling, he ducked into the bedroom and grabbed a fresh T-shirt, emerging to find Renee in the doorway, staring at Rosalee then at him.

  “Well, hey there,” she said in a high voice, tossing her keys on the table and sauntering up to him. “Sorry for interrupting.”

  “You didn’t,” Rosalee squeake
d out. “We were just talking about…Mrs. Love, and wedding stuff, and…Jeffrey.”

  Aiden sighed when Renee slipped an arm around his waist. He bent into her hair, feeling protected—from what, he wasn’t sure, but the sensation was both pleasant and god awful all at once. She held him close, exchanged a few more pleasantries with Rosalee then bumped him with her hip once Rosalee made her frazzled exit.

  “What the hell are you up to, Aiden Love?”

  He dropped to his knees, gripping her waist, his lips pressed to the line of perfumed skin between her shirt and jeans waistband.

  “Marry me, Renee.”

  She frowned and glanced at the door where Rosalee had just left.

  “Get up, Aiden, seriously. You’re actin’ crazy.”

  He couldn’t see, or hear, but his chest ached with guilt and horror at what he’d done—the ultimate betrayal of a sibling. And how badly he wanted to do it again. If it took a legal shackling to someone, someone nice, and easy, and simple, like Renee, well then, by hell, that’s what he would do.

  He stood and pushed her down in a chair before kneeling again in front of her.

  “I’m not crazy. I’m not joking. Marry me. Please.” He prayed that she couldn’t hear the desperation in his voice.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Halloween

  Rosalee rolled her shoulders and got up from her teller station, eager for her shift to be done. The wedding to-do list still contained items like “decide about the flowers,” and “pick the DJ,” and lay there beneath her desk blotter like a beacon of shame. The rush to the altar had made this sort of thing more challenging, but it seemed even more necessary to her now. The sensation of trying to stay one step ahead of her own guilt over the ill-advised tryst with Aiden, but also of Antony’s growing dependence on his therapist, made her a nervous wreck most days, and sleepless at night.