Page 30 of Be With Me

Chapter 10

Ailee

The next day I was getting ready to head down to the studio when my phone rang. I was in my closet looking for my favorite yoga pants to wear. It was Friday, and I was only going there to go over some accounting stuff and wasn’t expecting to see anyone. I found them on the shelf hiding behind some jeans and made it to my phone right before voicemail picked up. It was lying face down on the bed, and I picked it up, hitting the accept call button without looking as I sat down and started pulling on my pants over my pink underwear. “Hello?”

“Hey, Ailee.”

I froze with one leg in and one leg out as the husky deep tones of Tyler’s voice brought goose bumps to my skin. “Hey.” I’d just seen him the day before, and the meeting had been pretty anti-arousing. So why was I reacting this way now? I abandoned the whole getting dressed thing for the moment and cleared my throat. “What’s up?” Good. That sounded casual enough.

“I was wondering if you’re free tonight. I’d like to take you out on that date I promised you.” He paused. “Ailee?”

I couldn’t respond right away. This guy, this confident, sexy guy I could feel over the phone was the Tyler I knew. But my brain kept bouncing back and forth between the man I was talking to and the guy I saw at the store yesterday.

“Ailee? Are you there?”

“Um, yeah. Yes. Sorry. Bad connection.” I rolled my eyes at the lame excuse. Even I wouldn’t believe myself.

“I was asking if you’d like to go to dinner tonight.”

My loins tightened at the thought of seeing him, even after all of the weirdness of the day before. I had a flash of this Tyler staring at me hungrily through the glass door of my apartment building. I didn’t know where that guy was yesterday, but I wanted to see him again. “Um, yeah. That sounds great.”

“I can pick you up at your place around six. Unless you’d be more comfortable meeting me somewhere?”

“Uh, no, I’ll meet you outside at six. That sounds good.”

The smile he was wearing came across loud and clear in his voice. “Great. Perfect. I can’t wait to see you again.” A pause. “It’s been way too long. And again, I apologize for disappearing the way I did. Um, I’ll explain more tonight.”

“Tyler, that’s not necessary. Really.” I didn’t know why I was giving him an out. Maybe I didn’t want to be too involved in his life, and like Stef kept telling me, I was holding myself back. Or maybe I just didn’t want to know something that would threaten whatever this was blooming between us.

Because despite my hesitancy, I kinda fucking liked it.

“I’ll see you tonight, Ailee.”

His words held a promise I intended to hold him to. I needed to stop flipping back and forth on this. I liked Tyler. I was attracted to him, and then some. I wanted to get to know him better. A LOT better. I didn’t know what had happened yesterday. Maybe he’d acted weird because his sister was there and he hadn’t told her about me, yet. Maybe there’d been some kind of family discussion going on and I interrupted it. I didn’t know. But I’d give him a chance to explain.

Decision made, a thrill zipped through me. “See you tonight.” After we hung up, I sat there for a few minutes staring at the blank screen of my phone. Emotions I hadn’t felt in a long time crashed around inside of me—excitement, dread, arousal, fear—and in a brief moment of panic I almost called him back and cancelled. But in the end, I finished getting dressed and went down to my studio.

I spent the remainder of the day firmly pushing Tyler from my mind and concentrating on work stuff. Not an easy task while dealing with numbers. I wasn’t a math person, and doing the necessary bookkeeping for my business tended to make my eyes glaze over on a good day. I really needed to hire someone to do this for me. I could afford it. Only the task of going through the process of finding someone I liked and trusted held me back.

Four hundred and seventy-three years later, my books were balanced and it was time to go home and get ready for my date. A cold drizzle was falling, and autumn was definitely in the air. Typical for September. I smiled to myself. I loved this time of year in the Pacific Northwest, despite the constant rain. It was cold enough to feel like autumn, and if I wanted snow for Christmas, all I had to do was drive about fifteen minutes down the road into the Cascade Mountains.

In the hall, I said hi to my neighbors, a young couple with a new baby, and let myself into my apartment. Setting my bag down on the table, I carefully kept my mind blank as I got a cup and a teabag out of the cupboard. I made my tea, but it did nothing to warm the chill in my bones, so I decided to jump in the shower to warm up.

The warm water jolted my sensitive skin the moment I stepped under the spray, making it quite obvious to me that Tyler wasn’t as far from my thoughts as I liked to believe. I moaned aloud. My body hadn’t felt this alive in years, and in spite of my recent decision about Tyler, I both reveled in it and resented it.

Ever since my divorce, I’d been shut down sexually. And that had been fine by me. I didn’t have time to sit around pining for a man to make me feel good. Instead, I was too busy turning the hobby my ex-husband scoffed at into a business successful enough to support me. I still didn’t have time. I had a business to run and a life to live. A life I chose. A life I loved.

I frowned as I wet my hair. Actually, that was wrong. It had happened years before we legally separated. My husband hadn’t been easy to live with, though I think he’d cared about me as much as he could, and I now realized I’d stayed with him a lot longer than I should have. It was such a cliché, but I’d done it for the kids. However, I often wondered if I’d done them more harm than good by letting them grow up watching two people in such a stagnant relationship. I could only pray they were smart enough to know that our marriage hadn’t been anything resembling a healthy relationship, and it’s not something they should strive for in their own relationships. If I’d been any kind of a mother at all, I would’ve left him right after our first was born and taken him out of that toxic environment. But instead, I’d smiled through the hurt—both emotional and, at times, physical—and pretended everything was fine.

I was really good at that.

As I ran the shower puff over the front of my body, I ignored the way my nipples puckered and ached at the slightest touch. And I absolutely, positively, did not let my soapy fingers linger between my legs, inserting them into the sensitive folds until my heart was pounding and my breath was coming in pants as the ache in my lower belly grew in waves.

And I seriously did not imagine it was Tyler touching me.

Grinding my teeth together, I pushed the fantasy from my mind and forced my hand away as I finished my shower. But no matter how much I fought it, the memory of his heated gaze lingered, heating my blood.

Was I doing the right thing, agreeing to see him? My doubts were still there, in large white font, on those red flags that were still waving away.

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