by Force, Marie
Now I’m afraid that she thinks I’m criticizing her, but before I can correct that, the doctor comes in to see Maddie. He determines she needs stitches and recommends they be done by a plastic surgeon. “I’ve paged her, and she’ll be here within the hour.” He also orders a CT scan to check for a concussion and to make sure she’s not bleeding inside.
As new tears leak from the corners of her eyes, Aileen thanks the doctor while continuing to cling to her little girl’s hand.
“I’ll call Flynn and let them know she’s okay,” I say when we’re alone again.
“That’d be good. Thank you for everything.”
I’m standing next to her so it’s easy enough to put my arm around her and kiss her forehead. “I didn’t do anything.”
She looks up at me, her heart in her eyes. “You’re here, and that means everything.”
Fuck me to hell and back again. When she looks at me like that and says such sweet words, all my resolve to keep my distance disappears like I never had it to begin with. I want her. I burn for her. I need her. I crave her. And then she leans her head on my chest, and I’m fucking lost.
I’m supposed to be calling the others, who’ve got to be worried as they wait to hear from us. But for as long as she wants to lean against me, I’m not letting go.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be letting him comfort me this way, but I can’t seem to get the rest of me to cooperate with the message my brain is sending out. It feels so damned good to be close to him, to let his heat warm the chill that invaded my body the minute I saw the blood on my baby’s face.
His hand slides up and down my arm. He’s comforting me, but his touch is like a jolt of electricity waking up the rest of me to his nearness.
I’ll never forget the way he reacted when Maddie fell. He saw her going down before I did and was out of his seat and running for her before she even landed. That makes him that much more appealing to me. I wonder how it’s possible to be even more attracted to him than I was before.
Maddie is sucking her thumb and watching us, her face pale and her eyes big.
I take a deep breath, the first I’ve taken since she fell, and it makes me feel light-headed.
Kristian tightens his hold on me, and I find myself sobbing into his chest with both his arms around me. “It’s okay. She’s going to be fine and so are you.”
He says exactly what I need to hear and makes me feel less alone with my fears than I would be without him here with me. This is the closest I’ve ever been to him, and I can’t help but notice the way my body seems to fit so perfectly against his. I breathe in the warm, sexy scent I’ve found so appealing since the first time I met him.
I feel his lips brushing against my hair, and I shiver from the sensations that zing through my body, making me hyperaware of him. Suddenly, it feels wrong to be standing next to my daughter’s hospital bed allowing myself to get carried away by a man who’s just being nice and trying to comfort me. “I’m okay.” I pull back from him even though that’s the last thing I want to do.
He seems reluctant to let me go, but he does. Tipping his head toward the hallway, he says, “I should call Flynn.”
I nod in agreement. “Thanks.”
He leaves the room, and I focus on breathing. Deep breaths in and out. What the hell is happening to me? I’ve never wanted to crawl into a man the way I do him. The magnetic draw to him is the craziest thing I’ve ever experienced. It’s like I can’t help myself. If he’s in the room or anywhere nearby, I want to be near him. I want to touch him and hold him and let him hold me and tell me it’s going to be fine.
All of which goes against everything I believe in as an independent woman who has cared for two young children—by herself—for years while working and undergoing cancer treatment. I’m not a woman who needs a man to make things okay for her or her children. But damn, it felt good to let him comfort me, even for a few minutes.
I brush Maddie’s hair back from the uninjured side of her forehead. The hair on the other side is caked with drying blood, and her face is paler than I’ve ever seen it. For the first time in a very long time, her thumb is in her mouth, and I’m not trying to get it out the way I normally would. Whatever she needs, she can have. I was so terrified by the sight of all that blood. I almost fainted when Kristian lifted her off the pool deck and I saw how bad it was.
A nurse comes into the room to take Maddie for the CT scan.
“Can I go with her?”
“It’d be better if you wait here. We’ll be quick.”
I lean in to kiss Maddie. “I’ll be right here when you’re done, okay?”
“Okay, Mommy.” Her lower lip quivers.
I watch the nurse wheel the bed out of the room, and then take a seat. My legs feel like rubber. I finally look down to find the entire front of me covered in blood.
When Kristian returns a minute later, I notice the front of his shirt is also bloodstained. He comes over to sit next to me, once again putting his arm around me.
Like before, I lean into him because the pull is too strong to resist. “They took her for the CT. The nurse said it would be quick.”
“I talked to Flynn. He was glad to hear she’s okay. He said to call if you need anything.”
“You don’t have to stay if you want to go back to the party. I can get an Uber home.”
“I’m not leaving.”
Is it my imagination or does he sound annoyed that I suggested he might go?
“I feel badly that we ruined your evening.”
“You didn’t. I’m exactly where I want to be.”
His statement hangs in the air between us, filled with significance. Or is that my imagination running away with me again? I don’t know, and the not knowing makes me crazy. But then he pulls me even closer to him, and I begin to believe he means it when he says he’s right where he wants to be.
Watching Maddie get the stitches is complete agony. They give her shots to numb up the site, and her shrieks make me feel so fucking helpless. It takes fifteen stitches to close the wound, and by the time they’re finished, we’re all done in.
Since the scan was clear, they allow us to take her home to sleep in her own bed. They bring in a wheelchair for her, but I insist on carrying her, and she curls up to me like she’s been doing it all her life. Even though sobs continue to jolt her little body, she’s asleep before we reach the car.
I hand her in to Aileen, who holds her in her arms for the ride to Venice Beach. When we arrive, I again retrieve Maddie and carry her inside, following Aileen, who deals with locks, doors and lights.
“You can bring her into my room,” she says.
I can hear the exhaustion in every word she says. There’re boxes waiting to be unpacked in every room, but the house already looks like a home, and they’ve only been here two days. As I enter Aileen’s bedroom, it’s almost funny to me. If you asked me where was the last place I expected to be tonight, her bedroom would be right at the top of the list. But here I am with her and her little girl, and somehow it just feels right.
We settle Maddie in the middle of Aileen’s queen-size bed.
“I should wash her hair,” she says.
“The morning will be soon enough.” I draw the covers up to cover her small chest, which is still hiccupping from the sobs at the hospital. Now that Maddie is settled in bed, I should go. I should get up, tell Aileen I’ll check on them tomorrow and get the hell out of here. But my limbs don’t agree with the orders from management.
“I can’t thank you enough for everything tonight,” she says, looking at me from her perch on the other side of Maddie.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You did everything, and it meant a lot to me.”
“It did to me, too.” I can’t stop myself from spilling my guts to her. “She’s such a sweet little girl. I hate to see her hurt.”
“I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.”
“Yes, please. A really big drin
k would be great.”
“Your friends left some good stuff here yesterday. Shall we see what we’ve got?”
“Lead the way.”
I follow her into the kitchen, where we investigate the bottles sitting on her counter from the get-together I missed yesterday.
“You like vodka, right?”
“I do.”
She hands me a bottle of Absolut Citron, and I pour a healthy amount into the glass of ice she provides. She pours wine for herself, and I touch my glass to hers.
“Cheers,” she says.
“Bottoms up.” I take a healthy drink, keeping my gaze fixed on her gorgeous face as she sips her wine. Everything she does, even drinking wine, is sexy to me. “We look like we just survived the apocalypse or something.”
She laughs. “If you want, I can toss your shirt in the wash with my dress. We can probably save them if we get them in soon.”
Every instinct I have tells me not to remove my shirt. But if I let her wash my shirt, that means I get to stay a little longer. The shirt is clearing my head before I have time to second-guess the wisdom of being half-naked in front of the woman I want so desperately.
At the sight of my chest, her mouth drops open and then slams shut, as if she realized she was gawking and thought better of it. I wish she hadn’t.
She takes the shirt from me. “I’ll, ah… I’ll put the wash in and be right back.”
“Okay.” I love that she’s as rattled as I am. I want to ask if I can help her out of her dress, but that’s one impulse I manage to contain in an evening when my impulses are completely out of control. While she’s in the other room, I send a text to the Quantum group chat.
Maddie is home and resting comfortably after 15 stitches. The plastic surgeon said she shouldn’t have a scar. CT scan showed no sign of concussion. All’s well that ends well.
The responses flood in, filled with relief and good wishes.
How’s Aileen? Natalie asks.
Rattled but okay. We’re having a drink, and then I’ll let her get some sleep.
Tell her to sleep in. Logan is fine with us tomorrow.
Thanks, Nat. I’ll tell her.
Aileen returns to the kitchen, having changed into a tank top and pajama pants, which are as sexy on her as lingerie would be on another woman. I wonder if she would find it weird that I want to hug her some more. Probably.
On many Saturday nights, I’d be at Club Quantum, a willing sub at my feet and hours of debauchery to look forward to. Tonight, I’m completely satisfied with a good strong drink and the company of a single mom who makes me yearn for things I’ve never wanted before.
“Let’s go outside,” she says.
“Will we be able to hear Maddie?”
She holds up a device I hadn’t noticed she had in her hand. “I set up the baby monitor in there. I’m glad I decided to bring it. I came this close to getting rid of it before the move.”
“Good thinking.”
We go outside to the deck, where it’s warm but not overly humid.
After she stretches out in one lounge chair while I take the one next to her, she takes a deep breath and a sip of her wine. “I love that I can smell the beach from here.”
“You like the beach?”
“I love it. I always have. That we can walk to Venice Beach from here is such a huge treat. We were there earlier today. Or I guess it’s yesterday now. What time is it anyway?”
“Just after one.”
She moans, and that’s all it takes to make me hard for her. “I’m going to be a zombie tomorrow.”
“I texted the group to let them know Maddie is home, and Natalie said to sleep in. They’re fine with Logan tomorrow.”
“That’s so nice of her. He’ll be thrilled to have Ms. Natalie all to himself. He adored her as his teacher.”
“He’ll have to share her with her very territorial husband.”
Aileen laughs, and the sound goes straight to my heart. “True. Flynn is nothing if not territorial. That lucky bitch.”
Hearing her say that Natalie is lucky to have such a possessive husband sends me reeling. Is that what she wants for herself? If so, where do I sign up?
She looks over at me, her soft expression making my heart swell with affection for her. “You were really great tonight. Thank you so much for taking such good care of us.”
I can barely swallow around the huge lump that settles in my throat. “Sure,” I say gruffly. “It was no big deal.”
“It was to me.”
“I should probably go and let you get some sleep.”
She reaches over to take my hand. “Don’t go yet.”
Chapter 6
Her skin brushing against mine sends a charge of heat through me. Stunned all over again by my unprecedented reaction to her, I pull my hand back, though that’s the last thing I want to do. “Aileen…”
“Did I do something wrong, Kristian?”
The question shocks me. “What? Why would you ask that?”
She takes a deep drink of her wine, as if seeking liquid courage. “I can’t help but notice that you are, or you were before Maddie got hurt… different.” She swallows hard. “Toward me. So I wondered if maybe I did something—”
“No.” That she could think such a thing is unbearable to me. “No,” I say again, more emphatically this time. “It’s not you. It’s me.”
“Nothing good ever comes of that statement,” she says with an ironic laugh that’s followed by a sigh.
I’m making a goddamn mess of this, so I decide to level with her. “You could do so much better than me, Aileen.”
She stares at me, her eyes big with shock. “Why would you say such a thing?”
I could give her so many reasons, but I decide to go with the most important one. “You deserve better.”
“Do you know why I wanted to move here?”
Thrown off by the change in direction, I say, “Because Nat and the others talked you into it?”
She shakes her head. “It was primarily because you live here.”
Closing my eyes, I rest my head back against the chair. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t deserve her sweetness, her honesty or her blatant desire. But God, I want it. I want it all so badly, I burn with the need for more of her.
“Should I not have said that?” she asks in a small voice.
I keep my eyes closed as I shake my head.
“Did I read this wrong?”
“Aileen…”
“I’m sorry. I’ll get your shirt into the dryer so you can go.” The rustling sound of her getting up has me opening my eyes and reacting.
Like before, when Maddie fell, I’m moving before I decide I should. I grasp Aileen’s arm, catch her off balance and bring her down to my lap, my lips landing on hers before either of us can take the time to ponder the massive implications. I cup her face in my hand and try to remember to be gentle with her. My inner Dominant needs to stand the fuck down. There’s no place for him here.
When I use my tongue to coax her lips apart, she whimpers, another sound that goes directly to my cock, which has been hard since she moaned about the time. I kiss her with months’ worth of pent-up desire that’s made all other women pale in comparison to her since the day I met her. I don’t want anyone but her, and now that she’s warm and soft in my arms, I want to show her what she’s come to mean to me.
My heart is pounding and my palms are sweaty. I’m light-headed, off balance and out of whack. Everything about this is new to me, as is the craving desire that swamps me when her tongue brushes against mine for the first time. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! I’m so screwed. One taste of her has me addicted. It’s never going to be enough. In the scope of two seconds, everything I want to do with her and to her runs through my mind like the dirtiest movie I’ve ever seen.
That has me pulling back from her, gentling the kiss, putting a stop to this before it gets even more out of control. I stare at her swollen lips and the stunned expression on her face. “Does tha
t answer your question?”
“I seem to have forgotten the question.”
Smiling at her witty reply, I say, “You asked if you read this wrong.” I kiss her again, tipping my head to better the angle. “You didn’t. You read it exactly right.” I force myself to keep my hands still when they would love to wander. I want to touch her everywhere, but her little girl is sleeping inside, and this is not the time for that. However, in the last five minutes, I’ve begun to accept that this, whatever it is, is going to happen, whether I think it should or not.
“Something is different, though,” she says, her lips hovering near mine, her hand caressing my face as she gazes into my eyes. “You are different.”
It is both upsetting and exhilarating to realize she already knows me well enough to see that I’m troubled. “I don’t mean to be.” Nuzzling her neck, I breathe in the fresh, clean scent of her. It’s not perfume or anything other than her. “I couldn’t wait to see you again.”
“Then where were you yesterday?”
“I was…” I start to tell her I was sick, but I can’t. I can’t lie to her. “I had myself convinced that this couldn’t happen. I still don’t think it should.”
“Why?” she asks imploringly. “Is it because I have kids? I wouldn’t expect you to take them on or—”
And then I’m kissing her again, because I can’t bear to hear any more about her being afraid I don’t want her because of her kids. I kiss her voraciously, forgetting that I’m supposed to be gentle and soft with her. She makes me so fucking crazy. “Your kids are adorable, well-behaved and beautiful, like their mother.”
She snorts with disdain. “I’m not beautiful. I’m scrawny and pale, and my hair is growing back curly, and I have no idea what to do with it.”
Her description of herself enrages me. “You are beautiful.”
“So are you,” she says, her voice husky and sexy. “If you knew how much time I’ve spent thinking about you since the day we met, you’d run away from here and never look back.”
“Aileen…” Filled with despair, I drop my head and try to find my resolve. “Sweetheart…”