Page 36 of Stranded
Oh fuck.
“I’m sorry,” I said into his hair, my arms tightening around him. “I’m so fucking sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have touched you. If you want to find someone else, Aiden, I understand.”
“I don’t want anybody else.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to take advantage of you, and that’s what I feel like I’m doing, but I’ve been married to your mother for almost a decade. It’s not fair to her for us to run off together into the sunset without consideration of her feelings. Ihaven’t worked out everything yet, but I will. I promise. Just give me some time, baby. Can you do that?”
“Then what am I supposed to think?” he demanded, his voice cracking again. “You won’t touch me. You barely look at me. And then she—” He sucked in a shaky breath. “I hate it, Jackson. I hate seeing her with you.”
I pulled back just enough to look at him.
“I hate it too,” I admitted quietly.
He stilled in my arms.
“I don’t regret anything that happened between us,” I continued, holding his gaze. “Not one second of it. But I need to figure out how to handle this without blowing everything up in a way that hurts you.”
His eyes searched mine desperately. “So I just have to keep pretending?”
“For now,” I said honestly.
He huffed. “Fine, but you gotta know every time I see you with her, it’s making me resent her a little more.”
“And you can have that resentment, but what will you not do?”
He mumbled something I couldn’t hear.
“Come on, Aiden. Tell me.”
“I won’t search for hitmen on Google.”
“Because you and I know you wouldn’t actually hurt your mother, who’s innocent in all this, but other people might not know that. Okay?”
“Okay, Daddy.” He kissed my neck and melted into me, and it felt so good to hold him like this again.
“I’m going to fix it,” I said, combing my fingers through his hair. “I’m going to find a way for us to be together. Just a little more time, baby. That’s all I ask.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” he whispered.
I nodded, holding him even tighter. “You should because I mean it.”
15
AIDEN
Ihated being back home. One minute we were fucking happy in the cabin, exploring the attraction we felt for each other, then bam, we were back home. I should have been thrilled about it, but I felt out of place. In the two weeks since our return, we’d talked to the local news about our experience. Leaving out all the sexing we did, of course. But then life went back to normal. I’d found a job at a little boutique that sold clothes I could barely afford even with their twenty percent employee discount.
While it felt good to have my days occupied and to be earning a salary, I hated that the job took me away from home.
But what I hated the most were the nights I was alone in my bed, hugging my pillow while Jackson was in bed with my mother. One thing kept me sane, though, and that was that we were on the same page. He might still sleep in her bed, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t having sex with her. Still, sometimes I got nervous about the arrangement.
Too often I felt like I was reaching my limit and would fuck everything up by marching into their bedroom and blurting out that Jackson belonged with me, not her.
Since being back, Jackson had been extra cautious around me. All the sneaking around I’d envisioned would happen didn’t, in fact, happen. We’d managed a quickie in the garage once, me leaning over Mom’s car while Jackson fucked me hard and fast. But it hadn’t even lasted five whole minutes. Although we’d both come, I’d missed the lengthy time he usually spent exploring my body or the sex after sex after sex.
How much longer would he make me wait before he’d figure out what we should do? I’d already suggested we elope together and start over fresh. No one would know us, and we could be seen in public, kissing and touching. I wanted that with him, not all this hiding and sneaking glances at each other over the dinner table.
I paid the cab driver and walked up the driveway. The garage door was partially open, and Mom’s car was inside. Shit. Why did she spend so much time at home all of a sudden? She used to go out with her girlfriends, sometimes all weekend. Since we returned home, she’d been extra attentive.
