“Yeah, there’s a girl. Barkley introduced us. She works at the Croft Clinic.”
Bailey gasped. “Sam? Taylor’s receptionist?”
Aiden shrugged. “Yeah.”
“She’s so nice. Please don’t hurt her.”
Aiden set his glass down, walked to the corner of the balcony, and leaned on the rail. He took a deep breath to hide his sudden annoyance. “Why do you always assume I’m going to hurt someone? You must think I’m some kind of monster.”
“No, I’m just going by your track record. When we lived at home, at least once a month there was some girl on our front porch crying her eyes out while you ‘let her down gently.’ I hope you told Samantha that you’re a serial dater, and you have absolutely no interest in a long-term committed relationship.”
He turned around and patted his thigh for Barkley to join him. The dog obeyed, leaving Bailey like yesterday’s newspaper. “In fact, I did. We had a long talk about what we expect and what we’re looking for, and guess what, she’s just like me. She doesn’t want to get married. She’s not looking for an engagement ring or any proclamations of undying love. We’re going to have some fun, hang out, and not let it get serious so nobody gets hurt.”
Matt glanced at Bailey, who rolled her eyes.
“What?” Aiden demanded of them both. “Just because you two are blissfully happy with your exclusive arrangement doesn’t mean everyone else has to do the same. Samantha’s the one who suggested this…and she’s totally okay with it. We’re friends with benefits. That’s exactly what I want and exactly what she wants.”
“Never ends well,” Matt whispered out of the corner of this mouth.
Aiden felt betrayed. As much as he liked the guy and was thrilled he was committed to Bailey, he’d expected some support on this. “Hey, I get why you have to agree with her. But come on, Kelz. You understand where I’m coming from, don’t you?”
Matt held up his hands in surrender. “I plead the Fifth.”
Bailey transferred her sparkling hazel-green gaze to Matt. “No, feel free to speak your mind. I won’t hold it against you if you agree with him…but I might not hold anything else against you either. If you know what I mean.”
Matt groaned. “You’re killing me, Aiden. Seriously, though, I’ve seen this kind of thing go south so many times. It’s all great for a while, then somebody starts asking the hard questions. Where’s this going? What are we doing? Can we date other people? Oh, wait, you’ve been dating other people and I haven’t? Then bam! All hell breaks loose.”
Aiden shook his head. “We talked about all that. No screwing around. We both agreed sleeping together is exclusive, and if we want to sleep with someone else, we say so first.”
Bailey let out a barking laugh that startled the dog. He crossed back over to her and sniffed curiously until she reached out to pet him. “You’re sleeping together exclusively? Nobody else? Aiden, dear brother, that’s a committed relationship no matter what you want to call it.”
“No, it’s just common courtesy. I mean, if we had other people to sleep with, we wouldn’t need friends with benefits, right? Isn’t that the point?”
Bailey shook her head in bewilderment. “What am I missing here? You’re not going to sleep with anybody but Samantha, and she’s not going to sleep with anybody but you, but you’re not really ‘dating,’ and you’re not committed to anything serious.”
“What’s so hard to understand about that?”
Bailey hauled herself up from the floor, still shaking her head as she left the balcony. “What’s so hard to understand is why a smart guy like you can’t see the inevitable crash and burn coming.”
Aiden glanced at Matt once Bailey had gone inside. “Okay, you don’t have to plead the Fifth anymore. What do you really think?”
Matt sipped his iced tea and shrugged. “If you can make this work, you will go down in history as a god among men.” Matt rose then, taking his drink with him to follow Bailey. “Odds are against it.”
Alone on the balcony now, except for Barkley, Aiden ran his hands through his hair. Without thinking, he checked his phone again. No missed call, no text from Samantha. Clearly, she was committed to the non-commitment, so what was everyone else’s problem? He caught the dog staring at him expectantly. “What? You’re a dog; you should understand.”
Barkley yipped, walked in a tight circle, and headed inside too. “Traitor!” Aiden called after him. He’d just have to lead by example and show everyone that he and Samantha could make this arrangement work, and no one was going to get hurt.
He headed inside, checking his phone one more time as he went.
Chapter Seven
Aiden aimed his weapon and fired, sending a high-powered ping-pong ball crashing into a pyramid of old-fashioned milk bottles. Sam whooped in delight as the bottles toppled, and the carnie running the game booth at the spring carnival handed her a purple stuffed monkey from the wall of prizes behind him.
“You’re a great shot,” she told Aiden as she hugged her prize. This was the third giant toy he’d won for her this evening. They’d donated the other two, a green dog and a plush ivory unicorn, to nearby children, but this one, she decided she would keep for herself as a souvenir of the night.
“It’s all in the angle. You have to hit the right milk can, and they all go down.” He twined his fingers in hers and tugged her toward the Ferris wheel. “Wanna ride?”
“Sure!” Her pulse raced at the idea of snuggling with him in one of the open gondolas and swinging hundreds of feet above the fairgrounds. She felt like a teenager, and she had to admonish herself again for being nearly giddy for days after he’d called to invite her to the fair. Between early Saturday morning when she’d left his apartment and late Thursday afternoon when he’d finally called her, she’d run through a complete psychological textbook of inappropriate emotions.
At first she’d been relieved he hadn’t called and had convinced herself it would be better for both of them if she never saw him again. Then she’d gotten angry that he hadn’t called, which lasted until the phone rang Saturday afternoon when he actually had called to see how she was. She’d been thrilled at first, then worried that he was getting too involved, so she’d played it cool and hadn’t even hinted that she wanted to see him again.
By Monday she was morose and convinced he’d only said he had a good time to spare her feelings, and by Tuesday she’d thrown him out with the dishwater and deleted his number from her phone.
She wouldn’t even think about her frantic attempts to get the deleted number back on Wednesday when she had a change of heart, and by the time he’d called on Thursday she’d found her calm place and decided to just go with the flow, whatever that flow was.
Brenda thought she was certifiable at this point and wanted her to check herself into relationship rehab. If the high she’d experienced from the moment he’d picked her up at her place continued much longer, she would definitely need professional help to kick her new addiction.
“You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” Aiden asked as they reached the line for the ride. “I took a girl up on one of these once, and she had a full-blown panic attack at the top.”
“Nope, I’ll be fine.” She squeezed his hand. “Just hold on tight and no monkey business up there.”
“Maybe we better leave him here, then.” He tried to tug the monkey out of her grip, but she held on tight.
“No way. He’s mine. He comes along as my chaperone.”
“Okay, okay.” Aiden paid for tickets, and they climbed into one of the swinging bench seats. Samantha shivered next to him as their gondola began to rise and jut out over the fairgrounds, which had been set up in a huge empty lot adjacent to the hospital parking area. From here they had an amazing view of the river and the lake, the park, and most of the large buildings in Spring River Valley and nearby Stanton.
The warm breeze turned cooler as they climbed, and once they reached the top, where the ride operator stopped them for a minute so they could
enjoy the rush of being suspended above the earth in nothing but a metal framework, Samantha pressed her body tight to his. He put his arm around her and looked into her eyes. “Awesome, right?”
She nodded, speechless.
“Are you scared?”
She shook her head. How could she explain what she felt right now? Her heart pumped furiously, threatening to jump out of her chest. She gulped air, trying to suppress the urge to cling to him. Her head spun a bit. It had been years since she’d ridden the Ferris wheel, not because of fear of heights, but because of the overwhelming sense of freedom she felt often left her weepy and unable to talk.
He tipped her chin up and looked into her eyes. She wanted to dive in and drown in the green pools. How on earth would she ever be able to maintain any kind of distance from him when right now, if she could have climbed inside his body with him, she would have? She wanted to be so close to him they could think the same thoughts. A tear escaped her eyes, which she prayed he wouldn’t be able to see in the blue twilight. “Hey, Sam…you okay?”
She nodded again, quickly. “Fine.” The word came out like a groan. He’d never believe her. Suddenly the gondola was in motion again, heading downward in fits and starts as the operator stopped the wheel to let riders off at the bottom.
Once their bench reached the bottom, Aiden offered his hand to help her out. When her feet hit solid ground, she let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “That was amazing!”
Unsmiling, Aiden pulled her aside, away from the crowd gathered to get on the next ride. “What happened up there? You’re not fooling me. You were petrified.”
“No, I wasn’t really.” She swiped at her eyes, hoping he’d mistake the tears for a reaction to the strong wind up at the top of the wheel. “I just get…ugh.” She sighed. Why not tell him? What did she have to lose? “I get choked up when I’m up there. It feels like my heart is going to explode. I’m not afraid; I’m…expanding. Does that make sense? It sounds ridiculous, but I feel like I’m a cloud and I’m just wafting away over everything. I can see the whole world, and it’s so beautiful I want to cry.” She let out a sob that turned into an embarrassed laugh. “Stupid.”
Aiden stepped up to her and cupped her face in one hand. He kissed her softly, just a brush of his warm lips over hears. Liquid heat coursed through her. “Not stupid. It’s incredible. I’d love to feel that way.”
She sniffled and wiped her eyes again. “You’ve never felt that? Like there’s so much in front of you that you can’t stand how amazing it is?”
He shook his head. “No…I didn’t know a feeling like that existed, until now.”
Sam hugged him. “I’m sorry. I hope you can find that some day.”
He put his arms around her, and together they headed off toward the next attraction. “I hope so too.”
*
Hours later, Aiden and Sam stood in her kitchen, too exhausted from laughing to do much more than stare at the mess they’d just made. The idea to make chocolate milk shakes had sent them to the grocery store on their way home from the carnival, and after assembling all the ingredients in her blender, he’d distractedly turned it on without securing the lid. Now dots of melted ice cream and chocolate syrup coated everything in the kitchen. The barely blended concoction dripped from his T-shirt and his pants and both of their faces.
“Sorry,” he said nonchalantly as he wiped milk chocolate slurry from his eyes.
She burst out laughing again and almost slipped in the puddle of liquid ice cream that spread out around them on the floor. “Have you never used a blender before?”
“I make a protein shake every morning for breakfast. I’ve never had this happen. Yours must be defective.”
“It works fine if you put the lid on right.” She laughed again, her gaze following drops of chocolate up the wall to the ceiling which was also spattered. “Ohmigod. There goes my security deposit.”
He looked up too. “I can clean that right up. No problem. Do you have a step stool?”
“I’ll get it, and a mop.”
For the next hour they cleaned the kitchen, laughing all the while. Finally when they’d wiped up every last drop of their failed experiment, Samantha reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it off. “You’re next, dirty boy. I can throw your clothes in the wash.”
“What do I wear while you do that?”
She peeked innocently into his pants. “Your underwear is okay, but there’s chocolate in your hair. Do you want a shower?”
“Mmm.” He pulled her close and kissed her, tasting the remnants of the syrup that had splashed on her face. “You could use one too.”
They made their way to her tiny bathroom, stopping only to peel off items of clothing. Wearing nothing but a hot little pair of powder blue panties, Sam gathered their clothes and stuffed them in the small washer hidden in her apartment’s utility closet. “Actually, I can’t turn that on while the shower is running or all we’ll get is ice-cold water.”
Having taken half a dozen cold showers in the week since he’d seen her last, he had no desire to cool himself off at the moment. “That will never do. We’ll just have to shower and hang around naked until the clothes are clean.”
“Who’s this ‘we’? I have a whole closet full of clean clothes. You’ll be the only one naked around here, unless you want to wear a pair of my yoga pants and a Girl Power T-shirt.” The sparkle in her eyes made him want to get much dirtier before they got clean.
“You know, I’m thinking, why waste a good shower?” He leaned in and kissed the sweet spot where her shoulder met her neck. She shivered. He loved that…loved the way she moaned when he touched her intimately.
That was “loved” in a strictly “liking” sense, of course.
Before he finished that thought, she was in his arms, kissing him, steering him toward her bedroom. “I like the way you think.”
He wondered when he actually had time to think these days, since his brain seemed to know only two things, Samantha, his friend and Samantha, his lover.
No time to analyze. She pushed him down on her bed and straddled him. With nearly surgical precision they helped divest each other of their underwear, and she produced a condom from…he wasn’t quite sure where. He’d have to remember to ask her later.
In a moment, he was inside her, kissing her, holding her, feeling her body’s every delicious response to him. This was only their second time in bed—if no one counted the five condoms they’d used at his place last week—so how had they managed to find such a perfect rhythm with each other so quickly? Why did every movement seem exactly right? There was no fumbling, no awkward questions about what would be more comfortable, no colliding noses or knees. She obeyed his every silent command, and he knew instinctively where to touch her to bring her to a shuddering end.
They locked eyes and held on until the waves of pleasure ebbed, leaving them spent and sleepy, and then he lay beside her and took her in his arms.
After a few deep, steadying breaths she said, “We do that so well.”
“I know. Maybe it’s because there’s no pressure. No expectations.”
She raised her head and met his gaze. He brushed a pale lock of hair out of her eyes. “I think you’re right. There’s no self-consciousness. I don’t feel like I have to be…I don’t know, a supermodel or something.”
“A supermodel in bed?”
“You know what I mean…well, maybe you don’t because you’re a guy. Guys don’t have the same insecurities.”
“Like hell. We’ve got to be better than the last guy, whoever he was. And we have to be better than the next guy, whoever he may be—because we all want to think ‘she’ll never have better than this. She’ll be thinking about me no matter who she ends up with.’”
She rose up on her elbows and squinted at him. “I thought men thought…” She feigned a deep voice, “‘She’ll never want anybody else after she has me.’”
“Yeah, well, that too. That’s in the regular relationships,
the ones that are supposed to be forever, and they never turn out to be forever. You’re thinking, ‘She’ll never need anybody else. She’ll never even want to look at anybody else if I do this right.’”
Sam raised a brow. “Interesting fact. I will share this with all my female friends.”
Aiden rolled over so he was on top of her again, stroking her lips and her cheeks with his thumbs. “So guys are thinking that, and women are thinking, ‘Does my butt look fat in those panties he just threw on the floor?’”
She giggled. “Something like that. And…‘He’s expecting Penny the Porn Star. How will he feel about getting the Stay Puft Marshmallow Girl?’”
“Oh, come on. You can’t think that about yourself. You’re perfect.” He pinched her hip lightly. “This is definitely porn-star material.”
She slapped one of her thighs. “See that jiggle? That’s marshmallow.”
“I like marshmallow.” He dove down to kiss her thigh, and she shrieked.
She moaned while he nibbled, and when he came back up she kissed him. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For letting me be myself. Like I said, I can be comfortable with you because it doesn’t mean—” She stopped, but he could have sworn he already heard the next word in his mind. Anything. This didn’t mean anything, so she wasn’t self-conscious about it. “It doesn’t… I mean…”
Aiden covered the sudden sting with a laugh. “Go ahead, say it. It’s the truth. This is just fun and games. It’s okay. That’s exactly what we wanted it to be, so we don’t have to feel weird about anything we say or do. We’re friends first. We’re not trying to drag each other to the altar, so we don’t have to have any secrets or play any games.”
“Right.” She nodded vigorously, but he could tell she’d choked on her words. She hadn’t wanted to hurt his feelings because she’d forgotten for a second that they’d both agreed not to have any real feelings about this. He had no idea why there was a spot in the middle of his chest that now hurt, but he would definitely have to man up and get over it.
Spring River Valley: The Spring Collection (Boxed Set) Page 20