Chapter 9

The next morning, with Gina, sweat glimmering on her skin and still shaking, splayed over the crumpled sheets of her bed, Aiden rushed from the room to attend a remote staff meeting. Sexy whore she may be, but Sophia Dumont had left him behind to run things, not gallivant across the country.

Besides, with time at a premium, much more needed addressing, and a few hours later, his footsteps angled through a parking lot. Only a handful of cars glinted under the bright sunshine. Chest growing ever tighter, he headed toward a neat, white brick and glass cafe on the edge of town.

After once again rebuffing her offer to accompany him, he’d kissed Gina goodbye and stepped from her car. While driving off, heading for work, she’d flashed him a smile. But a sharpened anxiety welled within him. The grin had hinted not only at her lingering hunger, but nervousness.

Although they’d snuggled all night, her easing him inside whenever his flesh hardened, plus that energetic early morning fuck, he’d also made it a point to take her hard and fast before leaving. Dress crumpled on the kitchen tile and bent over the tabletop in nothing but her collar, she’d once more become his to use. As the table creaked and her cries echoed, enormous surges of her desire had flared in sync with his. Yes, he was ensuring she understood—no, they both understood—he’d find a way to do better at satisfying her needs. Bonus...

“Heck of a fun start to the day,” he muttered, tracking her disappearing car.

Despite the vehicle shrinking to become a dot in the distance, the sensations they shared flowed like fuzzy, supple, comforting warmth. However, the smile faded, and he eased shut the gateway between them. Well, as far as it was possible to do so.

Once more, he focused on the cafe. A few customers, a mix of businesspeople and students from the nearby college, came and went through its glass doors. Although he couldn’t see her, she was waiting.

Right as Gina had peeled from his embrace to take a shower in the earliest dim sunlight, he’d asked. Her face had frozen, then morphed into an expression of utter shock. She was the stepmother of his best friend and ... Kate remained Dan’s wife. Proud grandmother, Gina, along with Dan, were the ones providing the photos of “their” daughter, the cutest girl in the universe, over the years.

“Really?” Her soul-melting, deep brown eyes had flashed in the shadows. “You mean it?”

Silly questions. She’d already read him and, while gathering her hair in one hand, was glancing at her phone. His first and most special lover had never given up hope that he’d reconcile, but long ago stopped nagging him. When she placed the call at breakfast, they’d both been shocked at Kate’s swift agreement to the meeting, then at her insistence it happen as soon as possible.

Although Gina hadn’t mentioned him standing beside her while they talked, when his hands found the zipper at the rear of her dress, a desperate whimper escaped her. Yes, another sensation had reached him; fear lurked within her.

Even after everything they’d shared, she remembered the sharp draw the younger beauty, her stepson’s alluring wife, had on Aiden. Thus, once she’d hung up, his fingers tugged the zipper downward, peeling the dress from her. Her eyes flashed, flooded with understanding, as he bent her forward. Hand tight to the rear of her collar, he’d done his best to reassure her, one powerful stroke at a time.

That final smile as she’d faded from view, though? Okay, he had another reason to visit her more often.

“Could be worse problems to have,” he muttered.

From the doors popped a pair of coeds, a curvaceous redhead and a wispy blonde, clasping tall cups. As he stepped aside, both gazes tracked him. Only as his footfalls entered a shaded, cool interior did he realize the ring hadn’t flared, tempting him to reach for the young stunners.

“Coward,” he whispered, then chuckled at its gloomy silence.

More likely cowed, it knew better. He’d been braced to restrain it. Yes, that quasi-stability lingered. Just as the thought slipped into him, he caught the flash of distant emeralds from a booth, and his heart staggered.