“‘What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe. O time, thou must untangle this, not I.’” For some reason, my attention fell on Aidan as I said that line. He sat in a seat in the front row and as our eyes connected, his expression darkened. The woman who’d crashed our rehearsal was still there, sitting beside him. I ignored her and finished my monologue. “‘It is too hard a knot for me to untie.’”
“Terrible,” Aidan announced immediately and loudly. “The accent, the lack of emotion. You’re all alone up there. You need to command the attention of the audience. Even as Cesario, the men in the audience who know better, should wish they were Orsino. They should desire you. You’re as appealing as a fart in a spacesuit up there.”
“Now, wait a minute—” Jack started but I lifted a hand, halting him. He stood on the aisle near the edge of the stage and clamped his mouth shut in frustration. But I must’ve looked pretty pissed off because he remained silent.
And I turned my fury on the man who’d caused it. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Aidan looked surprised. “I’m—”
“That was a rhetorical question,” I snapped, my voice ringing out loud and clear in the auditorium. Tense silence followed but I didn’t let it settle. “You have done nothing but insult me—not critique me, which I might add is not your place to do so—since the moment you entered this theater. You want to play the part of the egotistical asshat, go ahead, but I am playing Viola, and I am a member of this company, so you either show me some goddamn respect or you get the hell out.”
It wasn’t my place to say so.
But I said it nonetheless.
Aidan’s eyes blazed up at me but this time, I couldn’t read his expression.
“Nora.”
My stomach sank as Quentin’s voice rang out from behind Aidan. When my eyes connected with my director’s, I was surprised he was smirking at me. I’d thought he’d be livid. “Thank God you finally reprimanded him for his ghastly behavior.”
Relief moved through me as Quentin got to his feet and walked around to face Aidan. “We’re friends, mate, and I am truly grateful you want to write music for this, but I have to support my actor.”
Aidan stood up and patted his friend’s shoulder, looking apologetic. “You’re right. You’re right. The girl is fresh and needs encouragement, not harsh words. It’s not my place, either. It’s the bossy arsehole in me, I’m afraid.” He turned to me, a false smile on his lips. “Apologies, Miss O’Brien. It won’t happen again.”
We eyed each other, like two opponents in a boxing ring, until Quentin called time on rehearsals. I hurried offstage and Jack caught up with me as I gathered my stuff to leave. “Well done,” he said under his breath. “Ye needed to do that.”
“I know,” I agreed. “Hopefully he’ll back off now.”
Jack looked over his shoulder. Aidan and his model were approaching.
“Nicolette, it was a pleasure,” Jack said pointedly to the woman.
She gave him a flirtatious half smile back.
“Goodnight, Jack,” Aidan nodded his head in acknowledgment.
He didn’t look at me.
I didn’t exist.
And off he walked, out of the theater with his arm around the beautiful Nicolette.
I attempted not to feel hurt but it was impossible.
“Ignorant arsehole,” Jack huffed. “Why is he such a dick to ye?”
Because I think he thinks I broke his heart.
“I don’t know.”
“You know he and Nicolette aren’t exclusive. Apparently, the jammy bugger has a woman on every fucking continent. And she’s okay with it,” he said incredulously.
The news was like a knife between my ribs. I gave my friend a bleak smile. “Good news for you.”
“Aye.” He grinned. “She gave me her number.”
I wasn’t surprised. Jack was no Aidan Lennox, but he could charm the pants off most women.
“As for you,” he said, “don’t listen to him. Ye’er brilliant up there.”
I returned his kiss on the cheek from earlier. “Thanks, Jack,” I said sadly, unable to hide my feelings now that Aidan was gone and I didn’t have to.
However, I didn’t want Jack’s pity. I grabbed my stuff and hightailed it out of the theater, dreading the next rehearsal.
And boy, did that piss me off even more. Why the hell was Aidan here? This was merely a favor to him, but the theater was my joy.
He was ruining my freaking joy!
To say I was in a foul mood after rehearsal was the world’s biggest understatement, and that foul mood continued on into the week. My colleagues at the pub avoided me like the plague and I didn’t contribute much to the tip jar at the end of the bar, so I offered to let Kieran and our other colleague Joe share that between them.
Thankfully, that made them hate me less.
I’ve never understood people who want to be around others when they’re in a black mood. If you can spare people being infected by that crap, why wouldn’t you? So I stayed home alone on Saturday, but there was no avoiding Seonaid on Sunday. She called and when I tried to bail on our monthly Sunday catch-up with Angie, she threatened to come personally haul my ass there.
Angie’s delight to see me somewhat soothed my irritation, and it was nice to be fawned over by a mother figure as she ushered me into the kitchen where Seonaid and Roddy were. They were standing by the coffee machine, Seonaid backed up against the counter, Roddy’s body pressed into hers, and he murmured something against her mouth that made her smile.
Envy unlike anything I’d ever experienced around them slithered through my veins like a poisonous serpent. It fueled my frustration with its toxin and it started to transform into suspicion and anger.
Angie cleared her throat. “Not in my kitchen,” she warned, but she looked anything but annoyed.
She was happy her daughter and the boy she considered a son were happy.
I was happy for them too.
I was.
But right then, my theory about Aidan was making my gut churn with irate anticipation.
“You’re here.” Seonaid brushed by Roddy and came toward me, wearing a big grin on her lovely face, a grin that fell when she saw my expression. She stopped. “What’s wrong?”
Something took over me. My need for answers. And it didn’t care if Angie and Roddy were in the room. “Did Aidan come looking for me? When I left?”
She paled.
And the breath was knocked out of me. “Oh my God.”
“Nora.” she stepped toward me, appearing panicked. “He showed up at the salon a few days after you left.”
My confusion and rage exploded out of me. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I yelled.
Seonaid flinched and Roddy was at her back, glowering at me. “Want tae cool it?”
“This is none of your business,” I snapped at him. “Seonaid?”
“He asked where you were and I told him you’d gone back home. He stormed out as soon as I told him. That was it. That was the extent of our conversation.”
“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me. I thought he was in California!”
“I couldn’t assume that he hadn’t come back. I didn’t know why he was there, Nora.”
“But you could have told me!”
Her expression turned pleading. “He wrecked you, Nora. I thought he was back to mess you up again and you needed to be at peace for once. Okay, I’m sorry if that was high-handed of me, but I didn’t see any point in telling you. And when you came home, you were so content and so focused on you. Life was about you for once. You didn’t seem to care anymore about Aidan, and I assumed that he was a blip in your history.” Tears shone in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
I slumped, the fight draining out of me at her words. Why the hell was I yelling at my best friend when I completely agreed with every word coming out of her mouth? Except one thing. “I wasn’t over him,” I whispere
d.
“Oh God, Nora—”
“But I am now,” I cut her off. “I have to be. You’re right. My life is finally where it should be and he made it messy.”
There was a moment’s quiet and then Angie spoke up. “I have absolutely nae idea who or what ye’er talking about … but sometimes the most beautiful things in life are the messiest.”
My chest ached a little at her wisdom, but I remained strong. “And sometimes something comes along that’s so beautiful, it’s agony to lose it. I’ve had enough loss to last a lifetime.” I looked at Seonaid. “I’m sorry for yelling. You did the right thing.”
Seonaid didn’t look so sure. “Did I?”
Despite Seonaid’s warning that I couldn’t keep my feelings bottled up, I tried very hard to convince myself that I was okay with how things had played out with Aidan. That I needed to be okay so I could go on living my life in perfect contentment. While he gallivanted around the theater with his beautiful women and horse-assery.
Finding my Zen, however, was proving more difficult than I’d thought. I was a bundle of confused feelings. At war with myself.
So it wasn’t any wonder I reacted the exact opposite of how I’d hoped when Aidan finally confronted me in private.
Having to meet up with another student to work on an assignment we had for a tutorial, I hadn’t seen any point in heading home to Sighthill only to have to return to Tollcross for rehearsal. I’d grabbed a salad from a shop on Potterrow, and walked to the theater. I was ninety minutes early so no one was there. Thankfully, Quentin was usually at the theater during the day so the doors were open. When I got inside the auditorium, however, it was pitch black.
“Quentin?” I called out. “Are you here?”
My voice echoed.
Nothing.
“Anyone?”
But the silence told me I was alone. I wondered if Quentin had accidentally left the theater unlocked. I’d need to let him know.
Switching on the stage lights to make me not feel like I was about to become part of a horror movie, I found my way into an empty dressing room.
Eating my salad, I worked on a paper, waiting for the minutes to tick by.
A noise far off in the distance made me still like a rabbit caught in headlights. I cocked my head, listening, and sure enough, footsteps approached. Blood rushed in my ears as my pulse raced. I then cursed myself for being freaked out when it was obviously a cast member who was—I glanced at my watch—an hour early.
I waited, and the dressing room door I had left slightly ajar squeaked open.
My breath caught at the sight of Aidan filling the doorway.
He crossed his arms and his ankles and leaned against the jamb, staring at me dispassionately.
All I could do was stare back, my emotions whirling in a mess of feelings, like a tornado, with no thought to what it was sucking up into its wind funnel. “What are you doing here?” I finally said, my voice hoarse.
“I was sitting in the coffee shop across the way and I saw you come in.”
“You followed me?”
“I argued with myself about it for a while. But aye.”
Adrenaline coursed through me and made my hands shake. I curled them into fists and hoped I looked back at him with as much boredom as he was bestowing upon me. “Why?”
“Curiosity.” He shrugged.
“Curiosity?”
“Were you always such a heartless robot and I was just too fucking blind to see it?”
I flinched, knowing this was the moment I should tell him that Laine had lied to me. But I couldn’t get the words out. I wanted to and I didn’t want to.
So fear of him hating me and fear of him loving me left me in some kind of exasperated, frustrated no-man’s land. I shot to my feet. “If you came here to use me as your emotional punching bag, you can leave,” I hissed.
His eyes flashed and he pushed off the jamb, coming into the room. For the first time, I hated that I had to tip my head back to look up at him. “Not before I tell you what I really think of you, Nora, instead of hiding it behind the subterfuge of giving a fuck what happens with this play.”
“Aidan—”
“You are the biggest coward I’ve ever met in my life. You’re weak and emotionally defunct. What’s worse is how fucking manipulative you are—”
“Aidan—”
“I’ve never met anyone who had me so fucking fooled!” His chest heaved as his cool fled in the wake of his rage. “You lied and strung me along, fled when the going got tough, not once but goddamn twice, and I’m the idiot who let you do that to me.”
“Aidan—”
“But rest assured, Nora, you are the last woman who is ever going to make a fool out of me. I see you now. Who you really are. A fucked-up, selfish, self-involved, immature little—”
Whatever horrible thing he was going to call me next, I swallowed it in my kiss. Unable to bear his contempt any longer, but not knowing how to make it stop, I went with my gut.
And my gut told him to grab his T-shirt in my fists and use it to haul him down to my mouth.
What a mistake.
Because I remembered him now.
I remembered how beautiful he felt.
So when his hands gripped my forearms and tried to pry me off, I let him, only to slide my arms around his neck and cling on tighter, kissing him in desperation.
He grunted and grabbed my arms again and just as I feared he would shove me away, he broke. Aidan jerked me closer, his mouth opening under mine, his tongue searching for my tongue.
Quite abruptly, he was in charge.
I found myself lifted off the ground and then dropped on the dressing table counter. He forced my legs apart as we continued kissing hungrily. Our hands were everywhere, just as starved. Mine slipped under his T-shirt, roaming the hard muscles of his abdomen, while his roughly caressed my sides, squeezed my breasts, and finally delved under my dress.
I gasped into his mouth as his fingers slipped under the waistband of my underwear and fisted, ripping them down to my knees. His lips abruptly left mine, his angry glower burning into me and holding me totally captive as he hurriedly unzipped his jeans and pushed them down his hips to free his cock.
My eyes dropped to it, but I only had a second to take it in and question the fit of the huge, throbbing erection pointing right up at me, before Aidan gripped my hips, his fingers bruising. He drew my gaze back to his as he tilted my hips upward. Face fierce with need, he guided his dick between my legs and slammed inside me so deep, it was painful. I whimpered, clinging onto him as my inner muscles pulsed around him, trying to get used to the overwhelming hot fullness of him inside me.
His hold on me tightened, his movements rough, hard, and frenetic, but I didn’t care. I wanted him to stay so deep inside of me, no one would be able to pull us apart. Already the tension had started to coil within me, and my sputtered breaths and cries for more mingled with his animalistic growls and grunts.
My skin was on fire, my thigh muscles burning, but every thrust of his dick brought less pain and more and more pleasure until my own fingernails were digging into his lower back and my hips undulated against his drives, reaching for more.
I wanted to rip off my clothes so my skin was against his, finally, both of us bared to one another, but that would mean stopping, breaking apart, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop. I wanted more. I wanted it forever. “Aidan,” I begged.
One hand left my hip to grasp the back of my head and he crushed his mouth over mine in answer, a panting, gasping, slide of lips and tongue, no finesse … just a wild need to mimic with our mouths what his dick was doing to my insides. He tilted my hips up further, dislodging my mouth from his as I held on. His green eyes were like a dark forest of possessiveness as he pounded into me.
Each thrust was like a hit to my internal thermostat, each slide into me stoking my flames, until I wasn’t sure I could come without taking the whole building out in a fiery explosion.
The org
asm hit in wave after wave, and I yelled out his name, the sound garbled in pleasured shock when he came with a “Fuck!” and I felt the delicious sensation of my inner muscles contracting around his pulsing cock. His hips jerked against mine and my hold on him slipped, my muscles liquefied. Aidan collapsed against me, his hands caressing my thighs as if to soothe them from his harsh grip. I felt his breath as he panted against my neck, and his chest heaved inches from my face.
It felt longer. The entire explosive encounter. But when I looked back, I realized it had all lasted minutes.
However, he didn’t even stay inside me a minute and as he pulled out, I froze with the cold, hard reality of the fact that we’d had sex without protection. I was on the pill, thankfully, and had been since Jim, and saw no point in coming off it because it regulated my period.
But if Aidan was out there screwing a ton of women, I was stupid for letting him inside me without a condom.
I was the stupidest woman on the planet.
Completely controlled by my freaking hormones.
Aidan cursed and grabbed tissues out of a box on the dresser beside us. He turned from me and presumably cleaned up before zipping his jeans up. Feeling more vulnerable than ever, I used the moment while his back was turned to slip off the counter, clean myself with the tissues, and pull my underwear back up and my dress down.
When I looked up again, Aidan was glaring at me like he loathed me.
I withered under that expression, fighting the need to burst into tears. Instead I tipped my chin up haughtily, like him hating me didn’t matter.
“Are you on the pill?”
I nodded. “Are you clean?”
He nodded.
I scoffed. “And I’m to trust you?”
Aidan sneered. “Out of the two of us, I’m not the one who can’t be trusted.” He shook his head, dragging his eyes up and down my body like I was a slug he’d found in his salad. “I can’t believe I used to care about you. What the fuck did I see?”
I’d never been shot or stabbed, but I had to wonder if anything in this life could’ve hurt as much as Aidan Lennox saying those words to me after we’d had sex.
After I’d had the roughest, most pleasurable sexual experience of my life.