Riding Curves (5 page)

My heart fell at those last two words.
Doubt clouded his serious gaze. Reverently he scooped my breasts
back into the bra and pulled down my shirt, his head sweeping left,
then right, with regret.

Standing, Aiden stepped toward the
trundle cart. "I'll finish up. You go back to the
house."

"Aiden..." I took a step toward him
but froze when he stiffened. "If I'd told you, you would have
stopped. But it doesn't mean anything, doesn't change anything.
Really..."

Half nodding, his back to me, he
gestured in the direction of the house. "Just go on back, Cece.
I'll be along in a few minutes."

********************

Mom had a look in her eyes when I came
back without any firewood.

"Aiden's finishing it up," I said
before she could ask. Hoping to avoid her all-knowing gaze, I
looked out the window to the porch where my dad was messing with
the fire pit.

"Is something going on with you and
Aiden?"

My eyes flicked her way as my cheeks
began to burn.

"Cecelia..."

Oh God, I did not want to have that
talk. I started toward the door mumbling something about Dad
needing a hand.

"Your father is perfectly capable of
scrubbing the grill, young lady." She tossed the dish towel over
the sink's divide and then her hand found her canted hip. Her sharp
gaze inspected my clothes. "Your button's undone."

Since I was wearing a t-shirt, there
was only one button and it was on my jeans. Cheeks burning, I
reached down to my belt line and fastened it. "I had to go
pee."

"Cecelia Harper, you've never once in
your life taken a pee outside!"

My shoulders slumped. It was a dumb
lie to tell a woman who knew me better than anyone else.

"You think I'm upset, don't
you?"

Hearing the faint smile in her voice,
I looked up to find her eyes sparkling at me. "You mean you're
not?"

"Upset, no." Her hand came up to wipe
nervously at her chin. "But I am worried."

"You mean?" I looked out the window to
where my father was dunking the grill in a bucket of water. I
wasn't sure how Dad would take the news if there was ever going to
be anything to announce. He was pretty protective when it came to
his "little" girl.

She shook her head.

"Mom, Aiden would never hurt
me."

"Oh, I know that." Her hand zeroed in
on her hip. "I'm worried about you hurting him."

Color me shocked. My mouth gaped and
she rewarded me with a little laugh.

"Honey, you're young. Aiden, on the
other hand, is at an age where he's looking to settle down." Her
mouth pursed thoughtfully. "Aiden won't want to stop at a
fling."

My eyebrows crawled halfway up my
forehead. It felt surreal having this conversation with my mother
-- about Aiden of all people.

"He has lots of flings," I reminded
her.

"Not with his good friend's daughter.
Not with a woman like you."

"Right, his flings are all at least
six sizes smaller." I snorted, my reply bursting thoughtlessly from
my mouth. "Aiden goes through women faster than the shop goes
through drafting paper, Mom. He doesn't even bother to bring them
around anymore, they're gone so fast."

"Aiden thinks you're beautiful. I've
seen the way he watches you, has been watching you the last several
years." She retrieved the dish towel and ran it through her
fingers. "Why do you think I replaced the pullout with a regular
couch?"

I stared at her, mouth agape. Was she
telling me, despite her warning, that she had actually been trying
to encourage the two of us?

"You..." My gaze jumped to the porch
where my father was attacking the last of the grill with gusto.
Even if she was trying to encourage it, she was seeing things with
Aiden that just weren't there before that day. "But
dad..."

Another laugh, this one loud enough to
draw the attention of the man in question. "Honey, your dad knows
engines. He can be kind of clueless about people. Where else do you
think you get that from?"

My jaw dropped closer to the floor. "I
haven't been clueless about Aiden, he…"

My protest petered out before I could
finish. Aiden had asked me in the kitchen if I had thought about us
before. Out in the woods, he had said he wanted to drive me so
crazy I wouldn't give any other man a second glance. Yet he had
never been possessive of his lovers before, never cared enough
about them to worry one way or another.

Had I really been clueless about his
budding attraction to me?

"He hasn't had a fling in over a year
-- the guys at the shop are all teasing him that he must be seeing
a married woman or something. But that's not it at all." Stepping
toward me, she put her hands on my shoulders. "I know you and I
know Aiden. If he's finally given into his feelings, you have to be
ready for forever, Cecelia."

Forever? Forever was a fairytale --
almost. I knew less than a handful of people that had been married
more than a decade. One of them had her hands on my shoulders, the
other was watching us through the window with a happy doofus grin
on his well-loved face. I started to shake my head, but she cupped
the side of my face.

"If you aren't ready, Cece, you need
to stop right now."

********************

All of my mother's fretting was for
nothing. Aiden returned a few minutes later, the cart loaded with
wood. He didn't tease me the rest of the day. Hell, he hardly
looked at me.

Utterly deflated, I begged off staying
up past ten.

On my way to bed, my mom hooked my arm
and pulled me into the bathroom. She opened her mouth, ready to
issue what I presumed was another warning to tread lightly with
Aiden's heart.

As if! He had changed his mind. That
fact was coming through loud and clear. I didn't need to spend
graduate school specializing in communications to catch that
message. I told her as much as an infuriating smile curved her
lips.

"Glad at least someone's happy about
it, Mom."

"You haven't seen him look at you
tonight when your back is turned, baby." Opening the little
cupboard under the sink, she pulled out a small dust-covered
box.

"Co--" I stopped before I yelled the
word. "Mom, really. Condoms? We're not...he -- he
doesn't..."

I finished with an emphatic shake of
my head, my arms folded across my chest. "And, might I add, gross!
Are those from before I was born?"

Another one of her laughs, that one
sounding like a lusty bar maid. "Not quite, dear."

Reaching up, she gripped the point of
my chin so I couldn't look away. "Just take one with you to bed.
I'm too young to be a granny. And, whatever you decide, I want it
to be because you have a choice."

She turned, her hand resting lightly
on the door. "I'll make sure your father stays in bed. You and
Aiden at least need to talk, young lady."

I closed my eyes, refusing to talk
about it any further with her. Aiden didn't have anything he want
to discuss -- or do -- with me. No matter what she thought she saw
when he looked at me, she was wrong. Clearly, she wasn't as
infallible as I had once thought. Aiden had made his mind up back
in the woods. He might have genuinely wanted me, was maybe even
turned on by the curves that made other men's stomach roll in
disgust, but he didn't want a virgin.

The irony of that Catch-22 wasn't lost
on me, only it hurt too much to laugh.

"Honey, have you...before, you
know?"

Her voice sounded as pink as my
cheeks! Groaning, I presented her my back, not even realizing she
could read every last wrinkle of my horrified expression in the
mirror.

"Kevin didn't exactly like girls, did
he?"

My eyes flew open. I saw her
reflection, her eyes brimming with tender concern.

"His mother might have been blind, but
not me." Her gaze dipped and I could tell she was remembering just
how awful Kevin's mom was. "You were a good friend to him,
Cece."

I nodded, my throat too tight to say
anything. Maybe she was all seeing after all.

"I really am, dear." She threw a wink
at me in the mirror and then disappeared into the hall, her
laughter light and drifting behind her.

I retreated to the second bedroom and
stripped down to my tee and panties. I waited in bed, restless as
the hours ticked by. Mom turned in around eleven, dragging Dad with
her. I was half certain Aiden had decided to spend the night on the
couch when midnight passed and I was still alone.

Close to nodding off, I heard the door
open softly around twelve-thirty. My eyes had adjusted to the dark
and I watched him toe off his boots and socks and slide from his
jeans. He folded the jeans over the bottom edge of the bed and then
pulled his t-shirt off and placed it alongside them. He kept his
back to me the entire time.

Unwilling to let him off the hook by
pretending to sleep, I pushed up on one elbow and whispered his
name.

"Aiden…"

In the low light, I saw him run a hand
over his chest and then he raised it to brush a lock of his short
hair behind his ear.

"Damn it, Aiden. You could at least
talk to me about this." I managed to keep my strangled voice low. I
wanted to yell and throw my pillow at him. He had been more than
ready to fuck me earlier that dad. Why should he freak out and do a
one-eighty because it would be my first time?

Surprising me, he turned and crossed
over to my bed. Sitting center edge of the mattress, he brushed his
fingertips along my cheek. He bent over me and kissed the other
cheek, his hand cupping the side of my face.

When a mournful sigh left him, I
punched his shoulder. "Don't you dare back out."

Grabbing my wrist, he folded my arm
across my chest and leaned closer. "Little girl, there's nothing to
talk about. When I touched you earlier, I wanted your complete
surrender. I lost control, did something I never would have if I'd
known you were a virgin."

A part of me thrilled at his
confession. He had sought to dominate me, to mark me as his own by
doing something those novice college boys would never have the
balls to do. That didn't mean I was going to let him off the
hook!

"So you'd rather I found some boy at
school to fuck first?" It wasn't so much a question as an
accusation.

He growled against my ear, but
finished with a softly voiced, "Maybe."

I threaded my fingers through his
short hair and tugged. "Not gonna happen."

It was more than my having lusted
after him so many years. Other men might have taken me merely
because they could. A cherry to brag about, a warm, moist hole on a
lonely night. But Aiden wanted me as much as I wanted him. He was
turned on by my curves and the shelter of soft flesh against his
hard muscled planes. I trusted that he wasn't thoughtless and would
never hurt me intentionally. I couldn't say that about any other
potential lover.

I gave another tug, my voice
threatening to break into tears. "Aiden, it matters to me that
you're my first."

He brushed his cheek against mine, the
stubble sending a delicious shiver all the way down to my toes.
"Baby girl, I was aiming to be your last."

My last.

My forever
lover.

My fairytale.

Mom was right. I could hear it in
Aiden's voice. It was a hard thing to imagine -- a girl like me
able to break the heart of a man like him.

When I didn't say anything, he started
to pull back. Hearing a shaky breath escape him, I tightened my
grip. My own breathing had altered, shaped by his words into
something slow and deep. I lifted my head, pressed my lips to
his.

I had memorized that kiss out in the
woods and I repeated it. Only this time, I was in
charge.

"Baby girl, you don't know what this
means to me."

But I did. I knew and I welcomed it.
Hadn't "forever" always been the other half of my Aiden fantasies
-- nestled between all the imagined hard kisses and warm, liquid
press of flesh.

I rolled, pushing him onto his back on
the narrow bed.

"Don't worry," I promised. "I'll drive
slowly."

My panties still on, I straddled him
and removed my shirt. I leaned forward, letting my bare breasts rub
against his chest.

A soft moan escaped him, but he
otherwise held himself rigid.

I curled my arms around his head,
holding him motionless while I pressed a soft kiss against his
forehead, along his brow. He bit at his lower lip, his stomach
clenching as he tried to sink into the mattress.

I kissed the side of his jaw and then
the little dip just below the center of his mouth, my palms
trailing from his shoulders to cover his nipples.

Aiden drew in a rough breath, his
hands finally leaving the mattress to grip my waist. He held them
there and I wasn't sure whether he was working up the will power to
ease me off him. No way in hell was I going to give him a chance to
retreat to his bed.