“In my room,” I called out, weaker than I ever would have wanted. “What are you doing awake?” Sleepy Pants had gone to bed at his usual time: nine. Three hours ago.
“The thunder woke me up.” Another big flash of lightning illuminated the body filling the doorway a moment later, and I flicked my flashlight at his legs.
His bare legs.
He was only wearing boxer briefs. There wasn’t a shirt over his chest. Aiden was standing in my doorway in just boxer briefs, his medallion around his neck, and muscles.
So many muscles.
Stop it. I needed to stop it right away.
“Jesus. How bright is that thing? Point it at the floor, would you?” he said in a voice that confirmed he’d been dead asleep just minutes ago. I flicked the light toward the ceiling instead. “You all right?”
“I’m okay,” I said, even as an unnecessary shiver racked my spine. “Just pissing my pants. No big deal.” The laugh that came out of my mouth sounded just as fake and awkward as it felt. I sounded like a crazy person.
The sigh he let out made it seem like he was completely putting himself out as he strode forward, around the side of the mattress before stopping, towering. “Scoot over.”
Scoot?
I wasn’t going to ask. I should, but I didn’t as my heart seemed to climb into my throat and take a seat.
I scooted. Neither one of us said a word as he climbed onto my bed and under the covers as if it was no big freaking deal, like this wasn’t the first time he’d done it. I didn’t let myself get all shy and prude-ish, or anywhere near it. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I wasn’t going to say no to the other half of my paperwork getting into my bed when I’d rather not be by myself.
Lightning flashed brighter than bright through the two windows in my room once more before plunging the house into that eerie darkness that creeped me the hell out despite the beam of light aimed at the ceiling.
Without a shameful bone in my body, I wiggled over the foot between us until his elbow touched mine.
“Are you shaking?” he asked in a strange tone.
“Only a little bit.” I scooted an inch closer, soaking in the heat his body was throwing off.
Aiden sighed like I was torturing him while all I’d done was mind my own business in bed. “You’re fine.”
I moved the light in the shape of a circle across the ceiling. “I know.”
Another great big sigh only possible from a man his size made its way out of his throat. “Come here.” His voice seemed to rumble across the sheets.
“Where?” I was already next to him. I rolled onto my side.
“Closer, Van,” he ordered, exasperated.
I wasn’t anywhere near being worried about how weird it was to be in bed with someone who hadn’t even given me a real hug once in the entirety of the time we’d known each other. I definitely wasn’t thinking about how he was mostly naked and how I only had underwear and a tank top on.
So I moved over, right on over until I realized he wasn’t on his back any longer. He was on his side. I practically pressed up against him, my face right between his pecs, my arms between my chest and the middle of his.
He was warm, and he smelled wonderful, like the expensive coconut oil and herbal soap he used. The same stuff I used to order him from online once upon a time when things between us had been so different. I couldn’t begin to imagine that Aiden—that same man who had spent a minimum of five days a week keeping me at arm’s length five months ago—was in my bed right then because he knew about my phobia.
Later when I was capable of it, I’d think about him waking up and coming to my room, but right then wasn’t the time.
He shifted a little, just a little. The bristles covering his chin brushed my forehead for a split second. He made a noise, a soft one, a relaxed one, and his facial hair touched me again, lingering just a moment longer on my skin. “How have you survived the last twenty years being terrified of the dark?” His question was so cottony, so pliable, I opened my mouth to answer before I thought twice about it.
“I always have a flashlight,” I explained. “And except for these last two years, I’ve always lived with someone. Plus, it’s rare that I’m ever in complete darkness. You learn how to avoid it.”
“You lived with a boyfriend?” he asked casually, his breath warm on my hair. If his tone was a little too casual, I didn’t pick up on it.
“Uh, no. I’ve never ‘lived’ with one. I’ve only had three and it never came up.” I locked my gaze on that shiny gold medal draped high over his left pectoral. “Have you ever lived with a girlfriend?”
The scoff that came out of Aiden made me jump just because it was so unexpected. “No.” His tone sounded either disgusted or disbelieving that he would do something so stupid. “I’ve never been in a relationship.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Ever?”
“Ever,” the smug-ass responded.
“Not even in high school?”
“Definitely not in high school.”
“Why?”
“Because every relationship will end up one of two ways: you’ll end up breaking up, or you end up marrying the person. And I don’t like wasting my time.”
That had me tipping my head back so I could meet his eyes. His expression said he thought I’d lost my damn mind, but my mind was too busy to be lost. He had a point about the outcome of relationships, but the rest of it… His lack of dates. The religious medallion around his neck. It all suddenly made sense.
“Are you…” I couldn’t get it out. “Are you saving yourself for marriage?”
He didn’t throw his head back and laugh. He didn’t flick me on the forehead and call me an idiot. Aiden Graves simply stared at me in the shadowy room, his face inches from mine. When he was done staring at me, he blinked. Then he blinked some more. “I’m not a virgin, Vanessa. I had sex a few times in high school.”
My eyes bulged. High school? He hadn’t been with anyone since freaking high school? “In high school?” My tone was as disbelieving as it should have been.
He picked up on what I was trying to hint at. “Yes. Sex is complicated. People lie. I don’t have time for any of it.”
Holy. Shit. I watched his face. He wasn’t lying. Not even a little bit. That suddenly explained what the hell he did in his room for hours by himself. He masturbated. He masturbated all the time. I felt my face get hot as I asked, “Are you a born-again virgin?”
“No.” Those lashes lowered over his eyeballs again. “What would make you think I was?”
“You’ve never had a girlfriend. You don’t ever go on dates.” You jerk off all the time. Crap, I needed to stop thinking about him and his hand and all the time he hung out in his room.
Aiden was definitely giving me a ‘you’re an idiot face.’ “I don’t have time to bother trying to have a relationship, and I don’t like most people. Women included. ”
I wrung my hands, which were still between our two bodies. “You like me a little.”
“A little,” he repeated with only a small curve to the corners of his mouth.
I let his comment go and reached forward with one of my index fingers to point at the St. Luke’s medallion around his neck. “Isn’t this a Catholic saint? Maybe you’re religious.”
His big hand immediately went up to touch the quarter-sized object he carried around with him always. “I’m not religious.”
I raised my eyebrows, and he gave me an exasperated expression.
“You can ask whatever you want.”
“But will you answer?”
He huffed as he settled that massive, mostly nude body in front of me. “Ask your damn question,” he quipped brusquely.
I held the tip of my index finger directly above his medal before drawing my hand back toward my chest, feeling uber shy. I’d wanted to ask him for years, but I’d never been confident enough to. What better moment than when he was commanding me to ask? “Why do you always wear it?”
Without a hint of reservation, Aiden answered. “It was my grandfather’s.”
Was that my heart making a racket?
“He gave it to me when I was fifteen,” he went on to explain.
“For your birthday?”