Five Days Grace (19 page)

"I didn't arrange anything. I didn't even know you or that you'd be here."

"Which is the beauty of the whole thing, the way it all came together, just what you need. Hey, you can sleep in my arms every night," he offered, looking like a man who'd just played his trump card.

And it was a good one. An amazing one.

"Think about it. Two more nights of great sleep. You know how much better you felt after one? Imagine how good you'll feel after four nights of gloriously deep, peaceful sleep."

"If we manage to do nothing but sleep," she pointed out.

"A risk, I know, but I'm willing to take it." He stared at her for a moment, then said quietly, "Seriously, Grace. I haven't felt like there was anything good in my life, anything I was honestly looking forward to, in a long time. I doubt you have, either. Life is just too hard sometimes. Stay with me. It doesn't have to include anything sexual. Besides, you know I have an obvious handicap in that area."

She hesitated, and he pounced on that sign of weakness from her.

"I'd rather be here with you, without having sex at all, than be anywhere else with any woman I've ever been with." He just laid it out there like that.

"That's hard to believe."

"Really? You don't feel the same way? Is there any man you'd rather be with right now?"

Grace groaned in frustration. Of course, she felt that way, but she also knew she was crazy to feel that way.

"He really hurt me, Aidan. And it hasn't been that long. I'm still so mad and hurt and just bewildered. There are days when I can hardly believe it really happened, when I wake up and think Luc—my husband—is still with me. That we're together and nothing bad has happened, that it never will."

"I get that. I just can't stand the idea of you leaving now and me never seeing you again. That seems far crazier to me than you staying. I just want some time for us, Grace. We can take this cabin apart piece by piece every day, if you want. We can do nothing but walk around the lake and talk. You can tell me your life's story, as much of it as you want, and I'll tell you as much as I can stand of mine, and I'll be a happy man, just because you're here."

"Aidan—"

"If you leave now, you're always going to wonder what might have happened between the two of us," he said finally.

"I know I will," she admitted.

Chapter 11

Triumph flared in Aidan's eyes the moment she said it, and Grace thought he might come out of his chair and haul her into his arms.

But just then, her phone rang, saving her.

She was so grateful, she answered it without even looking to see who it was, and found her older sister, the shrink, on the line.

"Hey, sweetie, you made it through a day there. How is it?" Emma asked, because she knew how hard it was for Grace to be there with people who wanted nothing more than to talk about Luc and cry.

"I met..." She stared at Aidan, who was staring at her and waiting to see what she said. About him. "A dog," she said instead.

Emma laughed. "That is so not what I thought you were going to say. Where did you meet a dog at your in-laws'?"

"He's a rescue." After all, Aidan had rescued him. "His owner got sick, and he needs a temporary home, like foster care. I'm thinking about bringing him home with me."

"Oh."

"He's very sweet," Grace rushed on. "And he likes me. He makes me laugh. I think he'd be good company for me."

"Sure. Anything that makes you laugh is good."

"He's big," Grace said. "Gigantic, really. I'll need a fence. I was going to call dad, but is Rye there?"

"Not yet. He's picking up Jamie from soccer practice. Want me to have him call you when he gets in?"

"He could try and see if he can get me. My phone is going in and out on me. Or you could ask him if he and Dad could build me a fence. I'm sure they'll have a million questions, but I don't really care what kind, just something tall, to keep a big dog in."

"Around the whole back yard?" Emma asked.

"Yes."

"Metal or wood?"

"Whatever's easiest or that they can get up the fastest. If they need to use a crew to do it, I'll pay. Tell them they have to let me pay," she insisted.

"I'll try, but you know how they get about work for family."

"I know. Thanks."

"You sound good, Grace. Happy, even. All this because of a dog?"

"He's very sweet," she insisted, but she was staring at Aidan, who had a wicked grin on his face. He knew exactly what was going on in her conversation.

"Must be. Dad said you sounded better—"

"And you had to hear for yourself?" Grace guessed.

"Sorry. Caught me. It's just been so long since we've heard you sound like this."

"I know."

"If it's the dog, I'm all for it," Emma said. "Is it just the dog?"

Oh, how like her sister to just know. It was the most irritating thing sometimes, and sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes it was great to have someone who knew her so well and was so sensible and practical.

"I don't know. It just... hasn't been that long. How long does it take, Em, until I feel like I know what I'm doing or even trust what I'm feeling?"

"Oh, sweetie, I wish there was an easy answer to that. It's different with everybody, I'm afraid, and not a straight line, from bad times to good ones. More a lot of going back and forth, that life is back to normal one minute, and then it isn't, that it won't ever be. I know it would be so much easier if you crossed some imaginary line, and that was it. You were you again."

"That's what I want. To cross that line."

"Everybody in your position does."

"So, at least I'm normal in that."

"Afraid so." Emma sighed. "What can I do for you? Anything?"

"You're doing it. Love you, Em."

"I love you, too. Oh, when do you need the fence finished? When are you coming home?"

"Monday night," she said.

Aidan perked up at that. When she got off the phone, he said in mock outrage, "You lied to me?"

"I did not."

"You said Sunday night—"

"No, you did. I just let you think that. I can't help it if you, expertly trained to detect when someone's lying, can't tell when I am." She was ridiculously pleased with herself.

"That's it. You're mine until Monday. I'll pull out my gun if I have to."

Monday.

It seemed like a lifetime from now.

"Hey," Aidan said. "The woman who stripped down to her panties and a T-shirt, then got in the shower with me and the dog? She'd stay."

She certainly would. Which woman did Grace intend to be? She wasn't sure, but she wanted those days, wanted every moment.

With him.

* * *

They went to bed ridiculously early again, this time on a makeshift bed Aidan made from a couple of foam mattresses lashed together on the floor in front of the fire. Grace wouldn't sleep in the double bed in the other room. She hadn't even needed to tell him that. He'd fixed a new space for them without her saying a word.

So, he'd been serious with his offer. She got to sleep in his arms. She'd have been embarrassed to ask, to say she really wanted to and how much it meant to her. But he hadn't made her ask. He'd just made them a bed to share.

She was a little more nervous climbing into the bed that night than she had been the first night, because she liked him so much more now. He was so sexy in that tough-guy-with-a-huge-gentle-streak way.

Grace had the bathroom first, changing into a pair of her own pajamas to wear that night, and climbed into the makeshift bed, rolling onto her side, facing the fire. Tink came to stand over her with a puzzled look on his face, sniffing her and the blankets and then wandering away behind her. A moment later, she felt the foam mattress give with his weight as he settled in on top of the blankets behind her.

Aidan laughed out loud when he came into the room and saw them. He told the dog, "No. That is my spot. You, off."

Tink cried and looked to Grace for a reprieve.

"Sorry, baby. I love you," she said. "But he's even better to snuggle with than you are."

"Yeah, you heard it. Off," Aidan ordered him again, and Tink got off.

"He is nice and warm," Grace said, back on her side, facing the fire, as Aidan climbed into the bed.

"So am I." He rolled onto his side behind her.

Slowly, carefully, he fit the front of his body to the back of hers, with one of his arms stretched out straight under her head. The other arm circled her waist, a hand slipping beneath her pajama top to press flat and warm against her belly.

She shivered a bit, couldn't help it.

"Still cold?" he asked, his mouth so close to her ear she felt his breath warm against the side of her face.

"No," she admitted, turning her face back toward his to press a soft, quick kiss to his cheek.

He buried his nose in her hair and said, "Mmm. Am I making you nervous, Grace?"

"No... well, only because—"

"We both want more than this—"

"Yes," she admitted, the glorious heat of his body soaking into her.

"I'm not going to do anything. I'm not even going to let myself kiss you, not really. We can let this be enough for now."

It was so very good. Still, a part of her wanted to roll over into his arms and forget about everything they'd agreed to, wanted his hands all over her and hers all over him, every stitch of clothing between them gone. She wanted to just feel. No more thinking. No more worrying. Only feeling. She was sure he could give her that.

But they had agreed, and this surely was the smart thing to do.

They had three more days, after all.

Anything could happen in three days.

* * *

Aidan woke up exactly the same way he had the previous morning, with a hand cupping one perfect, luxuriously soft breast, their bodies pressed intimately together, toasty warm and so happy.

The only thing that could have made it better was an erection, and the fact that he didn't have one was really starting to piss him off. But that could wait for another time.

He closed his eyes and let himself feel the near-perfection of that early morning—Grace and how good she smelled, her sweetly curved bottom pressed firmly against his body, her breast in his hand. Showing what he considered a super-human level of control, he didn't let that hand move, didn't let his thumb go searching for her nipple to brush against it, didn't do anything but breathe and hold her. Life was sweet torture at the moment.

He was preparing himself to force his hand to move away when she surprised him. Her own hand came to rest on top of his, holding it where it was, on her breast.

"I didn't know you were awake," he whispered.

"I'm not. I'm maybe one-quarter of the way awake, just awake enough to sense that you were about to move, and I don't want you to."

He smiled, nosed his way through her hair to find the side of her forehead and kiss it.

"Tell me again why we shouldn't really do anything," she said.

"Well, we've only known each other for two days—"

"I'm betting you've met a woman and taken her home with you that same night," she argued.

"Okay. Yeah. Guilty. You?"

"No."

"Didn't think so," he said.

"That doesn't mean I can't."

"Doesn't mean you should start," he reasoned. "Especially not at this point in your life. You should be careful, Grace. Really think things through. You're so vulnerable right now."

"Okay, yeah. You're probably right. What else?"

"Other than the fact that I'm afraid I couldn't finish anything we started?" he said, hating that.

"We don't know that. Not unless we really try. And you want to know don't you?"

"Honestly, Grace, part of me is afraid to know. Figuring out that it's not going to work is really not what I want for the first time we're together." He wanted to dazzle her. He wanted to blow her mind, to make her scream, and leave her absolutely exhausted and completely, without question, satisfied.