Five Days Grace (13 page)

"And surely," he went on, "you don't expect me to believe that you... that someone who I suspect is a very good girl, would—for reasons I can't understand—take off your clothes in front of a man who's practically a stranger, just to help him out with a problem like this?"

"Maybe I'm tired of being a good girl. Look where it's gotten me. Not that I mind being here with you. I'm talking about having a cheating rat of a husband. I still ended up with my life in a mess, good girl or not."

"So this would be about getting back at him?" Because that made some sense to him. It wasn't smart, and he didn't think she'd actually do it, but he could understand the impulse.

"Not completely. I just... You brought it up," she reminded him. "And made a joke about it. So I thought it was okay for me to joke about it, too. But I guess, like you said, guys really don't think anything about that is funny."

He just looked at her, her cheeks flushed, hair wet, face bare... She had gorgeous skin, and long, spiky, wet eyelashes, and big, pretty, blue eyes, and she was teasing him about being impotent? The world was a dark and twisted place at the moment, and yet, at the same time, full of possibilities and laughter and her, which meant there was no way it could truly be grim. Still, she was teasing him about this?

"I understand that it's really none of my business," she went on. "And if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. I just thought... You haven't really tried to see if everything works, right? You said you hadn't been near a woman in months, so you really don't know what will happen, right?"

She'd asked him that? Really?

"You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to," she offered.

"No, it's..." He groaned. "We really are going to be those kinds of friends? Telling each other every damned thing?"

"If you want to."

He laughed, short and quick, couldn't help it. What the hell? "Okay, no. I haven't really tried. I mean, I haven't actually taken a woman's clothes off and climbed into bed with her and... tried."

"Well, there you go," she said, as if she'd proven her point.

He couldn't believe this. "You had a husband, Grace. You lived with a man for... how many years?"

"Three."

"Okay, three years. Surely you know it doesn't always take any... deliberate effort? For something like that to happen?"

"Yes, but you've been hurt. All that trauma you mentioned. So even if it hasn't happened on its own, I would think you really won't know if you're okay unless you... you know... make a deliberate effort to make it happen."

Aidan felt like his head was about to explode, having a conversation like this with the most beautiful woman in the world.

"Grace, you slept in my arms last night. You were all over me, and believe me, I'm not complaining. I loved it. I mean, I really loved it. And I wasn't trying to start anything, I swear. But you are so beautiful and funny and sweet, and..."

Shit,
he didn't want to say it, but guys could probably take one look at her and get hard. She had to know that.

"I was trying not to think anything... sexual about you," he told her. "But I'd have to be a monk not to, and I'm sorry if that offends you, but... What can I say? I'm a guy."

Except for that part of him that really wasn't guy-like anymore.
Fuck.

"The thing is, all night, with you sitting on my lap, and... nothing," he admitted. In fact, it was soon after he got up and outside that morning and stopped thinking about what an incredible night they'd had and waking up with his hand on her breast, that he'd thought for the first time he really was done, sexually. If she couldn't do it for him, nobody could.

And wasn't this a lovely conversation to be having?

"Okay." She was quiet for a second, then said, "Well, still, I don't think that constitutes really trying. Do you?"

"I, uhh... guess we could try harder," he said, then instantly backtracked. "Me, I mean. I guess... I could try harder. One day. With someone." Maybe. When he worked up his nerve and was ready for the humiliation that could come with that. Why not? What did he have to lose except a little pride?

"So, a shower with the dog doesn't sound like a terrible idea, then."

She said it with such sincerity he wondered if she'd actually been here over the last few minutes they'd spent talking about it. Maybe he'd just lost it at the mere idea of her being on the other side of the bathroom door all naked and wet and soapy—sans dog. Maybe it had been too much for him, and the whole conversation had been some absurd fantasy gone wrong. Because in any decent fantasy, he'd be naked, in the shower with her and hard as hell by now.

So it was a lousy fantasy at best.

Or worse, some hideous moment of reality.

"Okay, I guess I really can't tease you about this. I'm sorry. No more. Promise." She smiled sweetly, innocently. "Although, I don't have to be naked in the shower. There's nothing that says you have to naked in a shower, especially with a dog. I can wear my underwear. It'll be like I have a bathing suit on."

No, really, it wouldn't.

He doubted he could explain that to her, either, but a pretty little bra and panties, especially soaking wet, was just not the same in a guy's head as a bathing suit. It was somehow way sexier. Maybe it was a guy thing, but it just was.

And even after that conversation they'd just had, she was still going to take her clothes off?

God, help him.

"Or a T-shirt," she suggested. "Panties and a long T-shirt. That'll cover even more of me than a bathing suit."

Yeah.

A wet T-shirt.

Because no guy ever had fantasies about that, either.

"You still look unhappy," she said, sounding puzzled by it.

"I'm..." Dumbfounded. "How old are you, Grace?"

"Twenty-nine."

"Are you sure you've been loose in the world, all by yourself, for twenty-nine years? Because you really don't do something like that with a guy you don't know really well."

"Aidan, I slept in your arms last night," she reminded him. "I trust you."

And what could he say to that?

I'm still a guy.

He knew an erection wasn't what made him a man, but it sure felt like an essential part of it to him. And once again, he had to think, at this point in his life, she just had to show up? Now? Really?

It couldn't have been six months ago? A year ago? When he'd been strong and healthy and sane? Or maybe a year from now, if he actually got his shit together by then and things were okay?

No. She was here now.

Merely to torment him? To show him everything he'd be missing from now on? Just an extra little kick in the teeth? Really?

"Aidan?" She'd gotten way too close to him while he'd been lost in his thoughts, was practically nose-to-nose with him, her kind, gentle hands on his face, guiding him to look right into her eyes. "We're friends now, right? Good friends?"

He nodded, fighting the almost blinding need to kiss her like crazy.

"I'm really sorry if I offended you. Are we okay now? You and me?"

"Yes," he said, because what could he say to that? That he was pissed, not at her or anything she'd said, but the condition of his own body? His own life? That it was worse than she knew, way worse, and he didn't want to tell her how bad it was, both because he didn't want to worry her and because he was still bewildered and really pissed off about how, exactly, he'd ended up in this grim, dark place?

And because it wasn't nearly as grim with her here, and there was no way he would do anything to make her want to leave. She could even talk to him about his impotence, temporary or otherwise, if she really wanted to. That was how much he wanted her with him.

"Okay. Good." She pulled his head down, kissed him softly on the cheek and then disappeared into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

When she came back a moment later, she was wearing a long, loose T-shirt with no bra and—he hoped—a pair of panties. The way his luck was going, he'd bet they were little, white panties, nothing overtly sexy, just girly and with a little bit of lace, maybe a tiny bow somewhere.
Good-girl panties
. A guy would have to work really hard to get her out of those.

That was who she was, and those were the kind of panties she would wear. Yeah, he'd thought about that, too, because he was a guy, whether everything on his body worked or not.

He might have made some wimpy-assed, whimpering sound. He couldn't be sure. Maybe he'd kept it all in his head, that truly pathetic sound.

"What?" she asked.

Okay, maybe not
. He winced, shook his head.

"Let's just try it, okay?" She walked into the bathroom, all T-shirt and tanned, toned legs, the dog trotting after her, stopping at the doorway and giving her a look. "Come on, baby. It's okay."

In the dog went, because who wouldn't follow her anywhere, especially with her dressed like that. She looked up at Aidan as if to say,
See? No problem.

She opened up the shower door and stepped in, and that's when the dog figured out something was up. "Come on, Tink. It'll be fun."

Tink whined a bit and looked back at Aidan, who'd stepped inside the bathroom and closed the door. Then the dog got really worried.

"In you go, buddy," Aidan said, trying to herd him in, while the dog dodged and circled him, fussing and crying, and Grace tried to grab his collar and tug. She had to bend over to do it, and yes, Aidan was right. He caught a glimpse of little, white, lacy panties.

A ridiculous struggle ensued. One wouldn't think a hundred pounds worth of dog could possibly evade two people so successfully in such a tiny space, but he did.

"I think I might have to pick him up and drag him in here," she said finally.

"No way. He has to weigh as much as you do," Aidan protested.

"Well, you can't do it. I won't let you."

Finally, she stood barely inside the raised lip of the shower door, and Aidan somehow managed to trap the dog right in front of her. She patted her chest and told Tink, "Up, baby. Come on."

Bad, bad idea for the dog, but he didn't realize it at first. He rose up on his hind legs and planted his big, dirty paws on her shoulder. He was that tall. She held him there by his paws and backed up until Tink had no choice but to stumble forward into the shower, crying like crazy the whole time.

Grace laughed outrageously, flashing Aidan a look of pure triumph and joy, as he held the door shut, all except a few inches, so he could see inside but the dog couldn't get out.

"Okay, you got him there. Now what? You can't hold him like that the whole time," he pointed out.

"I know. Turn on the water."

"Grace?"

"Hold the door just like that and turn on the water. I'll hold him like this, and you can wash his back and... whatever else you can reach. My shampoo is right there. Hurry, he's heavy."

So he did. He turned on the water, which was warm rather than hot because she'd just gotten out of there. Tink howled and tried to get even closer to Grace. Grace gave a little yelp as the first blast of water made it past the dog and to her, and Aidan tried really hard not to look at anything but dog fur.

He took shampoo that smelled just like Grace, soaped up his hands and started working on the dog, while doing his best to hold the shower door halfway closed with his knee. Of course, he got soaked himself in the process.

Grace was trying to reassure the dog, baby-talking to him and telling him what a good boy he was, laughing as she did it, sounding happier than she had the whole time she'd been here. And damned if it wasn't worth it just for that—to hear Grace laugh like she didn't have a care in the world. If it was possible, she was even more beautiful when she laughed.

A beautiful, happy, kind-hearted woman?

Aidan hadn't been sure such a thing existed, but here she was, in the shower with him and nearly staggering under the weight of a giant dog. She had to be completely soaked, but thank goodness, the dog blocked most of Aidan's view of her. He worked as fast as he could, now trying to get the soap off the dog's back. Then it was time to do his belly. But if it wasn't pressed right up against a dripping-wet Grace, it was close, really close.

"Just do it," Grace said, seeing him hesitate. "I can't hold him much longer."

So he soaped up his hands again and slid them around the dog, between dog fur and wet, gorgeous woman in a soaked T-shirt and good-girl panties.

The dog squirmed, still trying to get away. There was some room between him and Grace, but not much. Aidan felt the back of his hands brush past her breasts more than once, her belly, her thighs. At least, they had the dog between most of him and her. He tried hard to concentrate on nothing but the dog.

"Okay, I did everything I could. You're going to have to turn around with him so we can rinse his belly."

"Oh. Okay."

She did a little shuffle step around in a circle, until her back was pressed against the wall where the showerhead was, so the water missed her and blasted the front of the dog. He howled even louder and struggled more.