Page 14 of Tied and Tangled

“What are we doing, Aiden?” she asked without expectations.We’re starting our forever.The words were on the tip of my tongue, but that stupid motherfucking plan stopped me.

Why had I set that up?

Did I have to send the girls away to boarding school?

Or was I only using that as an excuse to get my life back on track to before my one night with their mom had exploded in my face?

“Do you want to stop?” I found myself asking, holding my body stock still as my hand came off her lower back. She watched me for a moment. Probably for a second, but fuck me, it felt like a goddamn eternity.

“No,” she answered confidently.

“Good.” I kissed her; it was small but fucking possessive. I might not have been able to tell her she was mine with words, but my kiss seared my claim on her.

Pulling away, I pointed at her dish, and she smiled, opened her mouth, and I fed her another bite.

“Good girl,” I praised, and she blushed. There was no hiding the way those two words seemed to affect her. About halfway through dinner, something started to crackle and pop between us. There was no denying the attraction.

“Aiden?” She whispered my name softly. My eyes locked with hers. “Do you think, umm…” She pressed her lips together with hesitation as my fingers stroked her lower back.

“Do I think what?”

“I could stay tonight?” she whispered. The fork fell out of my hands, clanking against the dish. “It’s late, and I was thinking about what happened in the elevator and my room—"

“You want more?” I surmised. She nodded slowly, her eyes hooding over. My dick, who’d been rock hard since the elevator, strained against my pants.

Who the fuck had I been kidding?

This thing between Aria and me might have taken a year to get where we were, but it was inevitable. I needed to taste her more than I needed to breathe. “I take you—"

“The world will end?” she cut me off and bit that plump lip, unknowingly taunting me.

“Aria.”

“I’m not asking you to promise me anything. Not forever or the world. Not even tomorrow,” she admitted. “I’m…me. And you’re you.” Her hand moved up to my face, stroking my jaw gently. Softly. Before I could ask her what she meant by that, she kept talking. “I just want one night.”

“One night,” I repeated hoarsely. I could do that. Couldn’t I? One night wouldn’t change the rest of my life. Who the hell was I kidding? I knew firsthand what one night with someone could do to my plan. Yet, I didn’t give two shits about how my life was about to change.

One night with Aria would ruin me.

“Ari baby…” I was at a loss for words. Dazed with lust and yearning with need, all I could see was the woman in front of me.

Innocent.

Beautiful.

Captivating.

“I like when you call me that,” she confessed softly. She blinked her big brown eyes, and I could see something starting to flash in them.

Doubt and worry mixed and melded into a storm. A storm I was stupidly putting there with my silence.

“If you don’t want me, it’s okay. I understand.” The defeat in her voice killed me. She tried to stand from my lap, but I wasn’t going to let her.

“Ari,” I rasped. I was holding on by the thinnest, weakest thread.

“I can go home. I can get out of your hair, and we don’t have to talk about it ever again. It was a kiss. Just a kiss.”

She was letting me off the hook.