February Lover (6 page)

Aidan’s words faded off the second he noticed her. “Shit, Stacey. What’s wrong?”

He pulled her into his arms. She sobbed into his shirt, knowing she’d ruin the thing by snotting all over it. Aidan stroked her back.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be sorry.” His words came out in a hiss. “None of it ever had anything to do with you. Really, you were the one bright light in my life. I never expected to see you again, or if I did, I thought you’d be married with three children. I’d have to know it was over forever. We’ve got this time together and for that, I guess, I should be glad for my mom’s heart issues.”

She jolted, the unexpected laugh taking her entirely by surprise. “Whatever the reason.” Stacey wiped at her face. Some women looked cute when they cried. She did not happen to be one of them. “I’m glad we got to reconnect, too.”

Even though it’s going to kill me when you leave again
.

The sounds of live jazz music out on the street permeated through the door to her studio. The town had really hyped up with Mardi Gras getting closer every day. Tourists were arriving in droves and would continue to until the crowds tapered off in April. There would be a break until Jazz Fest brought a new set of them in. She could take advantage of the sounds on the street—and her curtains were fully drawn.

Nobody would know what they did in here.

“When I suggested I show you my studio, I didn’t mean for this reason. But I can’t think of anything else.”

“What, honey?”

She stepped out of his arms and moved toward the center of the room. As he watched, she pulled her dress off and dropped it to the floor. “Maybe we could do it someplace other than my apartment.”

Bending over, she let him get a good look at her cleavage through her black lacy bra. She picked up her purse and pulled out a condom. “I carry one around with me in case I run into you somewhere. A lady likes to be prepared.”

He held up his own foil-wrapped package. “Beat you to it. A gentleman would never let a lady be the only one thinking about such things.”

Aidan moved toward her. At some point, when they hadn’t been together, he’d stopped being young. At some point she had missed, he’d developed the swagger of a well-built guy who knew he had a lot to offer the female sex. It broke her heart to imagine how many women had gotten to know his tender touches, how many would feel them in the future.

Fourteen more days together
.

If she only had February, she’d make it the best month ever.

He pulled her nearly naked form against him. His cock pressed into her stomach, and she shivered. He must have liked her display because he’d gotten really hard very fast.

His hands roamed her body. “You make me so turned on. I’m like a teenager again.”

“I knew you then.” She cupped his cock in her hand, wishing they had no fabric between them. “You’re harder.”

“Better at it.” He undid his belt buckle, and his pants hit the floor. Another pull rid him of his briefs. They both pooled around his feet. “Give me the rubber.”

She did, and he slipped it on. Her mouth watered at the thoughts of what was about to happen. Where would they have sex? On the floor? She’d take him any way he wanted.

Like she weighed nothing at all, he scooped her up and moved with her over to the wall. He yanked her panties down and threw them on the floor. “Wrap your legs around my waist, honey.”

Stacey loved when he called her honey. She did as he asked, and he pushed himself inside her. She let her lids fall closed.

“Open your eyes and look at me. I want those big blues staring right at me.”

“Yes.” She opened her eyes, leaning her head up against the wall. “Oh God, Aidan. I want to take you all.”

“You are. All of me.” He exited her an inch and then jammed back in again.

She cried out. Aidan only ordered her around when they had sex and in those circumstances, she loved it.

He’d never looked at her with so much intensity before. She sucked in her breath; she couldn’t look away even if she’d wanted to. Aidan captured her soul in his eyes and even though she knew she was being ridiculous in thinking such things, she didn’t know if she’d ever get it back from him again.

In and out he thrust inside her. The wall rubbed against her back. Pressure built; the intensity of his gaze built. She wanted completion, needed it, and only Aidan could give it to her.

“I want to be in you forever.” He whispered.

She wished she could focus on what he said, but all she could do was feel.

“Come for me, sweet Stacey. I want to feel you fall apart.”

“I want to.” She panted. “Oh, I’m so close.”

He pressed his hand between them and played with her clit while his cock pushed her to heights she didn’t know she could reach. Her world exploded. Colors traveled in front of her eyes.

“Oh, Aidan.”

He came within her. She could feel each strong pulse he made into the condom. In another life, they could have been skin-to-skin together with no barrier between them. But there was no use wishing for the impossible. In the present, she had no complaints.

Aidan had taken her up against the wall with his pants still around his ankles. She giggled at the thought.

“Something funny?” He pressed his forehead against hers.

“Us. I still have my bra on. You’re half-dressed with your pants around your feet.”

“Never let it be said we can’t be really, really excited. And do things our own way.”

She rubbed the back of his head. “We are quite a pair.”

If he heard longing in her voice, he didn’t remark on it, which she supposed was best. He pulled out of her and gently placed her on her feet. Her knees threatened to buckle, so she leaned against the wall for support.

He redressed, and she decided she should do the same. After a few minutes of silence, she looked up at him.

With her heart in her hands, she spoke. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Aidan.”

He smiled. “You too, Stacey. It really was a hell of a night, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

The sounds of the street filled the room. She took his hand. “Take me home.”

Her bed would be a welcome sight.

“Can I go with you?” He bit down lightly on her shoulder. “Or have you had enough for the night?”

“Come home with me.” Fourteen days until he left. She would make every one of them count.

“Mom. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

His mother looked up from the television. He’d never seen her watch it, ever, during his childhood but she seemed to do it incessantly. “Yes, I know, dear. I have the lovely nurse you found me, and you’ll skedaddle down life’s highway to wherever it is you decide to go. Not one thought for your mother or anyone here.”

Untrue. He might never get his month back in New Orleans out of his mind. Between his mother’s recovery and the way he’d fallen for Stacey again, he’d need more beer then he could ever drink to get over it. As it was, Aidan never let himself get drunk. For obvious reasons.

He sat down and used the remote to turn off his mother’s angry-chef program. “I want to talk. I want you to pay attention.”

“Ordering me around? Don’t forget who you are speaking to.”

Aidan laughed. “I never, ever could, Mom. Don’t you worry about that.”

“Then what is it you want so badly you’d take the TV away from a sick woman?”

He leaned back in his chair. “Your vitals are good, your blood work clean. Even if I didn’t have a medical license, I’d tell you the last couple of days your skin color has been much better. You’re on the mend, and we need to talk.”

“About what?”

Aidan held up a hand. “I don’t want to discuss what Dad did all those years. I don’t. There’s no point. You know what happened. I know what happened.”

“Why do you have to bring these things up when we’re getting along so famously?”

“Because there are things to be said.” He patted her leg. She was an old woman. He really didn’t intend to give her more stress. If anything, in the end, he hoped she’d have less.

“Then say it already.”

There was his mother’s nasty side. If she could do be rude, he wouldn’t imagine her frail.

“Okay. I will.” He smiled. “Things are never going to be easy between us. Even not living in the same city, I’d like for us to be back in touch. More than we were.”

“You barely communicated in fifteen years.” She sniffed. “You could have been dead.”

“If I’d been dead, the army would have let you know.” He supposed this a futile argument, yet he made it anyway.

“Aidan, you ran in to a fire.” She looked away from him.

“I did.” He sighed. “And I’d do it again.”

“I know you would. You were always the bravest kid on the block.”

He opened and closed his mouth. What had she said? “That’s not how you guys felt about me. You always called me a coward. Or other equally disgusting words.”

“Your father did. Not me.” She huffed.

He stood up, his chair hitting the ground from the force of his ascent. “You never stood up for me. Mothers put themselves between their children and bombs. I wasn’t alone when I rushed into those flames. One of the kid’s mothers was there, too. She burned to death. He lived for me to save. Not once did you ever even say, ‘Michael, get your hand off the child.’ And then you actually told a group of people I was a—”

She held up her hand, interrupting him. “I know what I did. I don’t see the point of rehashing it. I’m a bad mother. Maybe I didn’t have the right instincts for it, or there is something simply wrong with me.”

“Can you spare me the drama, please?” He shouldn’t have talked back. Before he’d attempted this conversation, he’d decided he wouldn’t be snarky. Besides, the point was to end their impasse, not start it anew.

“I was terrified to leave him.” Her hands shook. “What would I have done? I don’t even have a college education. How would I have supported us? He would have made sure I got nothing. Those people, the ones you point to as the reason for your military career, they were part of living the way we did. Their good opinions brought business to your father’s law firm, paid for your private school education, your car, our food.”

With each word she listed, she became more animated. He took a deep breath. This had to stop. Her blood pressure needed to be maintained at an acceptable level.

“Mom. I know you were scared.” The next part would be hard. “I was frightened all the time. We had that in common, and we didn’t know it.”

“Right.” She wiped at her eyes, although she wasn’t crying. “Was that what you wanted to say?”

“No. What I wanted to say to you is I forgive you.”

He might not really ever actually feel entirely that way. But it had to be good, for both of them, for him to say it.

***

Aidan had loaded up the car. He had a few more things to put in it. Technically it was his father’s old car, but the old man wasn’t going to use it anymore. He might as well take it.

His mother wanted him to have it.

Some of the things from his old room he actually wanted. Who knew when he might actually like to have all those old Bruce Springsteen albums on vinyl? They’d been vintage even when he was young. Maybe he could sell them on eBay.

He’d called Stacey to tell her he’d be coming over to say good-bye. She’d been quiet but pleasant about it. Aidan sighed. His one regret was leaving her. If he knew exactly where he was going, he would ask her to go with him.

Her studio was established here. But maybe she would get he didn’t want to live in New Orleans, and he’d make a convincing-enough case to entice her into coming. Aidan needed a city first. A job. An apartment.

Three interviews lined up: one in Houston, one in San Francisco, and one in Baltimore. Maybe one of them would be the right move, maybe not. He’d have to listen to his gut.

Of course right then, all his intuition told him was he was going to be a miserable son-of-a-bitch without Stacey’s laughter to greet him every morning and her warm, welcoming body to send away the day.

A car drove down the street. From the way it hugged the centerline, he knew Stacey had arrived. He sighed. The girl could not ever drive. She pulled to the side and.

“Hey.” He raised his hand in greeting. “I told you I’d stop by your place.”

“I know.” She waved back while she sprinted toward him. He expected her to pull him into one of her requisite hugs but instead she stayed a distance away.

“Are you okay?” He tugged her to him instead.

“No.” She patted him on the chest and tried to disengage their bodies.

He wouldn’t—couldn’t—let her go yet. This wasn’t at all how he had envisioned the day going.

“What’s wrong? Look, I know this is hard. I’m not going to be out of touch for fifteen years. We’ll figure out how to see each other.” Because he had to smell her hair and see the blue-and-white pajama pants she seemed to wear every other night.

“I know. And eventually it’ll fizzle between us. That’s not what I want. You became my February lover. A chance for us to finish what we never could before.” She opened and closed her mouth like she wanted to say something else, and then didn’t. “This has to be good-bye. I can’t stand another episode of you coming my door to say good-bye. So let’s do it here.” She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ve got to go. Drive safe. Wherever you land, I hope it’s someplace cool. When I run into your mom, I’m sure she’ll tell me where it is.”

Stacey turned on her heel and bounded toward the vehicle.

What? His heart raced and an ache formed at the back of his head, an ache traveling all the way to his eyes. “Wait a second.”

This was not the ending he wanted. If she had let him explain, he could have told her he craved them being together.

She was
his
girl.

He rushed toward the car, but she’d already put it in drive. Tears streamed down her face, visible through the front windshield. “Stacey!”

She drove away, coming to a stop for a change. With her turn signal on—possibly the first time he’d ever seen her use it—she properly left his home and turned onto St. Charles Avenue.