“Sorry, man. I didn’t catch your name.” The taunt had the other man straightening to his full height, about four inches short of Aidan’s six foot two.
“It’s Rick.”
Aidan reached for her, his hand coming to rest on the small of her back, and her wine sloshed perilously close to the rim of her glass as Kaylee’s knees grew woozy at the unexpected familiarity of the touch.
“Well, if you’ll excuse us, Rick, our table is ready.”
And with that, Aidan escorted her past her would-be suitor and to a prime spot, closest to the window.
Game, set, and match.
Not that she could imagine Aidan playing anything as civilized as tennis, but she had no idea what cavemen used to say when they bonked each other over the head and declared victory.
Kaylee savored the drama of the exit, and even though she was mostly sure he only held out her chair for Rick’s benefit, it was still something to have Aidan Beckett being so chivalrous to her.
She sipped her wine and watched as he took the seat across from her. God, the man could sit in a chair. When she was young, she was so in awe of that—his confidence, the way he wasn’t afraid to take up space in the world. She admired it because all she’d wanted back then was to shrink, to hide from her mother’s judgmental gaze.
Polite society dictated she say something innocuously charming now. Compliment him on his choice of venue. Ignore the thing that she most wanted to know in favor of something bland and acceptable.
The rebellious streak that was the bane of her mother’s existence reared up, as it usually did, and instead of opening with polite small talk, Kaylee got straight to the point.
“So, what was with the Mr. Macho routine back there?”
Aidan shook his head, doing a credible job of looking like he had no idea what she was talking about.
“I was in the middle of a nice conversation. That could have been a love connection,” Kaylee lied.
“What, that guy?” Aidan scoffed. “He’s not your type.”
Right as he may be, his certainty pricked the edge of her temper, but she watered it down with self-deprecation. A lady never feels too much in public. “Oh really? And what put him out of my grasp? Was he too handsome? Too charming? Or maybe he was too—”
“Boring.”
Kaylee tipped her head and raised an eyebrow at that pronouncement, watching as he brought his glass to his lips. The muscles in his throat worked as he swallowed, and just like that, the visceral want that plagued her when he was near tingled along her nerve endings.
When she was a teenager, it had been a vague restlessness—the hollow ache of not quite understanding what her body was asking for. Now she knew precisely what she wanted from him, exactly how Aidan’s touch could make her burn.
She looked at her wine. “Well, we can’t all run with the bulls, Mr. Pamplona.”
“Hey.” He shifted forward in his seat, bracing his elbows on the edge of the table and hunching forward over his drink. He ran his thumb hypnotically up and down the tumbler. He had sexy hands. Big. Strong. Capable. A couple of scars and some calluses to keep them from being too perfect. The flaws only made them more appealing.
She could still feel them running over her body if she really concentrated. Which she had. In the shower before she’d gotten ready for tonight. She’d thought it would be a good idea to take the edge off. Instead, it had her feeling primed for action. She shifted in her chair. A bit of a backfire on that plan.
Aidan tapped her knee with his under the table, and with a sigh, she relented. When she flicked her gaze from his hands to his face, he was closer than she expected, and his earnest expression did weird things to her pulse.
“He didn’t make a single move when I stole you out from under his nose. And you deserve better than that.”
To combat the heat spilling through her chest at the sentiment, she let out a desperate-sounding laugh. “I’m pretty sure not wanting to get his ass handed to him by the big, intimidating guy in the biker jacket just proves that he’s also really smart.”
Aidan leaned back in his chair at that, a smug grin lifting the corner of his sinful lips.
“What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.” He let a beat slip by, eyes lit with a wicked gleam. “And thank you.”
Kaylee took a sip of her merlot and tried not to rise to the bait, but she couldn’t help herself. “For what?”
“For your confidence that I could take him.”
Not that it was much of a contest. Aidan could probably take any guy in here.
“But you’re wrong about him being smart. If he was, he’d be sitting here instead of me.”
The compliment warmed places inside of Kaylee that were already overheating, and she reached for her wine. The sip she took did nothing to cool her, so she took another.
“Well, on the upside for him, it looks like his night turned out okay without me.” She lifted her chin in the direction of Rick, who was laughing with a pretty blonde in a green dress.
Aidan hooked his arm over the back of his chair and turned to follow her sight line. After a moment of observation, he turned back to her, shaking his head. “What’s happening over there is a lie staged completely for your benefit.”
She shot him a skeptical frown. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Because he keeps glancing over here to see if you’re watching. He took the path of least resistance and now he knows he made a mistake. That’s what happens when you don’t fight for what you want. The what-ifs haunt you.”
Kaylee swirled the wine in her glass and idly wondered if he was still talking about Rick. “Do you have what-ifs that haunt you, Aidan?”
The question stilled him, furrowed his brow. She leaned forward, bracing an elbow on the table. “Things you want?” she pressed, her voice husky, knowing she was pushing her luck but unable to stop herself.
His eyes snapped to hers, something dangerous in their depths. Something hot. She squeezed her thighs together at the flare of heat that had sparked between them.
“Things you’re willing to fight for?”
He wouldn’t have to fight too hard for her right now—that was for sure. If the table wasn’t in her way, she’d already be straddling his lap.
Almost as though he heard the dirty direction her thoughts had taken, he shut it down. Two blinks and he was back to the usual unaffected neutrality with which he’d always looked at her. She was Max’s little sister again.
“I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about you shooting drinks with guys who don’t deserve you.”
She forced a smile through the disappointment. “So the moral of your story is ‘Don’t trust guys in suits.’”
His expression turned serious as their gazes locked. “The moral of my story is Don’t Trust Anyone.”
“Except for you,” she teased, hoping to lighten the mood a little. Restore some of the friendly intimacy they’d shared tonight.
Aidan took a swig of his drink, shaking his head as he set the tumbler back on the table. “Not even me. People are inherently selfish, KJ. When it comes down to it, they’ll pick themselves over you every time. You need to look out for yourself.”
His voice sounded almost...bleak.
“That sounds like a lonely way to live.”
“You think I’m lonely?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow and leaning back in his chair.
As if to reinforce his implication, she could see at least a half-dozen women eyeing him up like they would be happy to relieve him of that particular condition.
“Having anonymous sex with strangers in back rooms doesn’t mean you’re not lonely.”
Aidan stiffened, and Kaylee winced at the blunder. Shit. She set her wine back on the table. Why had she said that? She was entering dangerous territory. Okay, maybe her pride was a
little hurt that he hadn’t put it together, but wasn’t that what she wanted? To keep her secret? That was what made their rendezvous so hot. That it was clandestine. And it was better to keep it that way, she reminded herself.
Despite that, she remembered the stage, the power of performing, the want in Aidan’s eyes, the feel of his body driving deep into hers. And with a deep breath, she set it aside.
She’d gotten her fantasy night. Now they were back to normal.
Well, not quite.
“You’ve changed,” she noted. The charming boy she remembered had been quick to smile, quick to flirt. This Aidan was harder. Still easy with his movements, but stingier with them, too. It seemed to Kaylee that he only moved, only spoke, economically.
He didn’t deny it. Just stared contemplatively at her in that way that made her want to roll her shoulders to alleviate the resulting buzz under her skin. She needed a distraction.
“Tell me about Pamplona.”
His lips quirked with a hint of a surprised smile. “You don’t want to hear about that.”
The teasing words were a ghost from the past, part of the little game they played.
“I want to hear everything,” she recited back, and she could tell by his hesitation that he was recalling the same memories.
He loosened up as he told her about his adventures, and a familiar ease had settled over the two of them when he got to the part about the Spanish emergency room and the beautiful nurse—Aidan’s stories always had a beautiful villain for her to seethe with jealousy over. By the time she was seventeen, she’d begun to think he oversold whatever leading lady featured in his adventurous tale just to see her frown.
The storytelling he was doing now was automatic, the verbal equivalent of changing into sweatpants. As natural to him as breathing. Light. It used to be enough, but it wasn’t anymore.
No matter how much she tried to talk herself out of it, she wanted the heat. Now that she knew what it was like to have Aidan want her, to be the focus of his attention, to see those jade green eyes darken with need, she craved it.
To think she’d spent the entire morning worried he’d figure out who she was, and now, two hours into this farce of a “date,” she was offended he hadn’t connected her with their kinda-public tryst. It was stupid, but she was jealous of herself. Of the hard truth that Aidan couldn’t even fathom that Kaylee Jayne Whitfield had the power to bring him to his knees.
Asshole.
She finished her wine with an unladylike swig that would have scandalized her mother.
A gorgeous, gorgeous asshole with a killer smile and some serious prowess in the bedroom. Well, the supply closet anyway.
Man, she felt good all of a sudden. Loose. Like she was floating a little. “I’m going to powder my nose,” she lied, needing to pee so badly that she didn’t even grab her purse to perpetuate the fabrication women had been using for decades to excuse themselves. “Don’t go anywhere.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
AIDAN KEPT AN eye on her retreating form as he dug into her sparkly purse with quick efficiency. Since the tables were close, he took no chances, setting their phones side by side so that they touched when he hit the button that would load the malware. Kearney wasn’t kidding about the easy install. When it was complete, he tucked her phone away, leaving everything as he’d found it.
He drowned the flare of guilt with the final sip of premium whiskey in his glass. He shouldn’t have told her about Pamplona. That had been...purely sentimental, and he wasn’t that anymore. He’d known it was completely ridiculous when he’d morphed the proficient, elderly woman who’d taken care of him into a nubile Spanish goddess just to make Kaylee frown at him in that cute way she used to. She hadn’t disappointed.
The first time he’d mentioned a pretty girl in one of his stories, she’d been real, and Aidan had realized it was an easy way to keep Kaylee’s crush on him in check. The way she used to look at him sometimes, like he was all good things, had vacillated between humbling and fucking uncomfortable. She’d cast him as a hero, and everything in him rejected the mantle and the expectations that came with it. He hadn’t deserved her devotion back then, and he sure as hell didn’t deserve it now.
He caught sight of Rick across the bar, still flirting with some other woman who didn’t hold a candle to Kaylee, and his right hand fisted with the urge to throw a punch. Expelling a deep breath, he forced his muscles to unclench. It bothered him that he cared.
What had happened at the bar earlier was no big deal. He’s been protecting a friend from a creep. It meant nothing.
His conscience chose that moment to remember the heat that had arced between them when her hazel eyes had grown stormy and her voice had turned husky, asking him about things he wanted. Igniting a lust in his veins that made him want to shove the table aside and haul her into his arms.
Christ.
He was all turned around. Being back in LA had him on edge. He couldn’t wait to conclude his business and get the hell out of here, to wherever caught his fancy next.
Aidan wasn’t prepared for the nostalgia Kaylee brought out in him. It made him realize that he’d been alone for a long time. It made him wonder what he’d been missing out on.
And that was a dangerous path. One that had him thinking dangerous things. About Kaylee.
Who had been like a sister to him. The Whitfields were like family. Well, they used to be. Now they were the enemy, and he’d do well not to forget that again.
When Kaylee came back she stumbled, bracing herself with a hand on his shoulder. He had the distinct impression of warmth in that moment of contact, a warmth that didn’t fade as much as it should have when she let go.
“Sorry.” She giggled, dropping into the chair with less grace than she had the first time she’d sat.
He noticed the flush in her cheeks.
The glassiness in her eyes.
A quick mental tally told him she’d had two shots and a glass of red since he’d arrived an hour and a half ago. Not wasted, he decided, but depending on when she’d last eaten, definitely feeling no pain. He should have taken her to dinner instead. Shit.
He had the disquieting thought that Max would be pissed if he knew Aidan had gotten Kaylee drunk, and then chastised himself for thinking it. Max was none of his concern.
Kaylee, on the other hand...
“You okay there, kiddo?”
“I feel so amazing,” she told him expansively, “that I am going to let that kiddo slide.”
He had to bite back a smile at that. “In that case, I think it’s time I took you home.”
Her pretty face lit up. “I’ve never been on a motorcycle before.”
Aidan got to his feet, and Kaylee followed suit, though more slowly and more deliberately.
“Well, you’re not going on one tonight, either.”
She gave him her best puppy-dog eyes.
“I’m not scraping you off the pavement,” he told her, reaching over to grab her forgotten purse from the table and pushing it into her hands. “Max and I have enough problems already.”
“Max wouldn’t care.” Bitterness crept into the words, dulling her inebriated dreaminess from the moment before. “Well, I mean, it might be inconvenient for him because then he’d have to hire another PR director. But I guess he has to anyway now that I quit. I only did it so he’d ask me to stay, but he didn’t. He didn’t even care.”
Aidan stared at her as they made their way out of the bar and into the elevator. Was that really what she thought? That she meant nothing to her brother? Defense of his former friend welled up on his tongue, but Aidan squelched it with a sudden frown.
Fuck Max. His life and the people in it were none of Aidan’s concern. Let the bastard fend for himself.
Aidan jammed the lobby button with more force than necessary.
“And if there’s one t
hing Max hates,” Kaylee rambled on, blissfully unaware of Aidan’s mental strife, “it’s to be inconvenienced.” She laughed in the way people did when they’d said too much. “My death would definitely annoy him.”
Kaylee went silent for a moment, and he felt her glancing uncertainly at him, though he kept his gaze stubbornly forward.
“You wouldn’t understand because Max likes you.” A cute little frown crumpled her forehead. “Well, not anymore,” she said bluntly. “But he used to. What happened with you two anyway?”
This was not the time or the place to discuss it. And she definitely wasn’t the person. You didn’t explain the battle plan to the grenade. Especially when you still had no idea how much she knew.
Thankfully, the doors slid open, and he grabbed her elbow, partly to steady her and partly to hurry her through the lobby and outside. The evening air was warm but stagnant. Tonight, it reeked of big city—concrete and exhaust and a hint of urine. “Which way is your car?”
She stepped away from him, turning in a slow half circle as she oriented herself.
Two guys walking past took a good long look at her, and Aidan frowned, mostly at them but partially at the sudden protective streak that had him stripping off his jacket and holding it out to her. “Put this on.”
Her dress was the kind of sexy that snuck up on you. The classy kind that left something to a man’s imagination instead of showing him exactly what he was in for. And though he had no problem with being shown what he was in for—his Friday night with Lola had been epic—there was definitely something in the tease of filling in the blanks. Despite his earlier resolve not to, he liked it a little too much.
Her dreamy smile hit him right in the gut.
Yeah, right. Protective. Such a load of bullshit, but he clung to it because the alternative was... There was no acceptable alternative.
“You’re not gonna have any jackets left,” she mumbled nonsensically, pulling it on and snuggling into it.
Aidan set his jaw against the charming scene. “You got keys somewhere, KJ?”
She shoved the sparkly purse at his chest and he took it as they headed toward the silver Audi she’d left in a nearby pay lot.
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