His eyebrows knit together and I can see the battle in his eyes: ask, don’t ask, embargo? At last, he nods but doesn’t press further. Maybe he wants the embargo to last a little longer too.
“So how come you’re awake at this hour?” I change tracks. “Can’t stop watching me drool?”
The beautiful, lopsided smile lifts his lips until the dimple forms on his cheek. “Something like that.”
“Do you want to go to sleep? It must be late.” I look at the night beyond the glass wall, wondering what time it is. It’s the worst possible question for me. How many hours do we have left? How can I leave after this?
“No. Unless you want to. I’m not the best sleeper.” He shrugs. But I know sleepless nights too well. Nights when the terror of your dreams is just as awful as reality. This is not one of those nights. And I’m wasting it on nightmares that would cause Freud to retire early, instead of ogling Aiden.
I scoot closer to him on the bed. He wraps his arms around me.
“So, if you don’t want to sleep, what do you want to do?” I ask, kissing the corner of his lips.
He watches me for a few heartbeats but does not pounce. Perhaps doing so on a woman who just had a nightmare goes against his morals.
“I want you to tell me something that’s not embargoed.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything.” He plays with my hair, giving me time to think. He is barely breathing, perhaps afraid of pressuring me.
In the silence that follows, I have a sudden urge to leave something behind—here, with him. Not on his bed, his wall or even his skin. Somewhere deeper, in a place only he knows. The urge becomes a compulsion. It crashes against my ribs with the urgency of someone strapped to an electric chair.
“Are you up for a midnight stroll?” I ask.
His eyebrows arch. Perhaps he was expecting a long story or, with my track record, a battle for information. “Where?”
“There’s a place I usually go to alone. It will be closed now but we can still go in. I’d like to show you,” I say, more than a little bewildered by my choice. Over Javier, over Reagan, over everyone I have met here, somehow it is this beautiful stranger who feels right.
Aiden smiles. “It would be my honor.”
That little ember between my lungs glows and vibrates while the rest of me starts hunkering down for what I’m about to do. Making the end excruciating. But I’ll worry about that tomorrow. And maybe this way he will share something that matters with me too.
“Let’s go,” I say, climbing out of bed. He does the opposite. He leans back on his elbows, his eyes traveling over me. I cover my breasts and scuttle to the other side of the palatial bedroom where my dress is in a heap on the floor. He laughs a buoyant, carefree laugh that fractures the night. It’s freeing, like the sound of a waterfall.
“Elisa, I have memorized for life everything you’re hiding. So you might as well let me enjoy the show.”
He’s right, idiot. He’s seen it all. Still, I pick up my dress and clutch it to my chest, blushing head to toe. He uncoils from the bed covers and saunters my way in nothing but flawless skin. I know he is walking at his normal pace but it looks like slow motion to me. In fact, I’m pretty sure angels are singing.
“Doing some memorizing yourself, Elisa?”
“Not really. Just realizing that memory does not do reality justice.”
He smiles but this time, the dimple does not form in his cheek. “Depends on the memory,” he says so quietly that I’m not sure I heard him right.
He reaches me, covers my hands with his and pries the dress from my fingers. His eyes start a path from the roots of my hair to my curled toes. He leans in, his mouth to my ear.
“Don’t hide from me.” His breath sends a fiery current over my skin. But the instant my breathing picks up, he pulls away.
“Tempting though you are, I don’t want you to be sore. You have to sit for your painting tomorrow.” He winks, and just like that, his humor returns.
Oh, bloody hell, my painting! Will he still insist on that when he hears the truth?
He strides into his walk-in closet—or rather, walk-in apartment—taking my dress with him.
“I don’t think my dress will fit you, Aiden. Might be a bit tight around the—ah—groin.”
He laughs that waterfall laughter again. The closet lights flicker as he crosses the threshold. He flits to the far back, the muscles of his exposed back rippling with tension even from this distance. Why? What causes this? I want to ask but I’m sure the reasons are embargoed.
He puts on a pair of dark jeans and a navy sweater with blinding speed. Then he digs some clothes from a polished wood dresser and is back to me in seconds.
I look at the mountain of clothes, horrified. “These are for me?”
“Yes. It’s cool out and you only have your dress with you.”