Page 28 of Pillowtalk

She turned at his presence; her deep chocolate eyes would most definitely be haunting his dreams tonight.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice trembling from the cold. Her gaze fell to the couch briefly before returning to him, and Aaron noticed that she’d propped Jared’s ashes up against one of the cushions. Aaron cleared his throat and filled his mind with the sole purpose of getting her warm.

He nodded to her wet clothing, which clung to her petite, feminine body. “Let’s get you dry.”

Something about that statement amused her, and he watched as her lovely lips tilted up into a smile. “You, too.”

He’d hardly noticed his own soaked clothing, but as her eyes drifted to the floor, he followed her gaze and let out a laugh at the puddle beneath his feet, which Charlie had taken it upon himself to clean up.

“Come on,” he said through a chuckle, reaching for the edge of the towel. There was the quietest intake of breath from her as he tugged her behind him toward the laundry room. “Watch your step,” he warned, not only because of the trail of water they were spreading around the place, but because Aaron hadn’t exactly been expecting company, and there were baskets of overflowing, unfolded laundry neither Austin nor Aaron had gotten around to yet.

He noticed Kennedy bite back a grin at the state of the room. “Looks just like mine,” she said, and Aaron laughed, grateful that she took it all with good humor.

“They’re clean,” he assured her as he dropped the towel and started sorting through his basket. He had a few shirts that that would most likely cover all of the private areas of her body, though Austin’s wardrobe would be a more appropriate covering. If Aaron was being honest with himself, however, he was looking through his own clothes purely for the selfish reason of seeing her in one of his shirts.

His plaid overshirt was so wet that it kept dripping into the dry clothes as he searched. Getting frustrated with it, he laughed and wriggled it down his shoulders, the material slopping to the empty basket they kept on top of the washer for dirty clothes. Kennedy’s laughter at his struggle had him playfully glaring over his shoulder at her. Though there was a smile on her face, her gaze distinctly trailed down the length of his back and a stunning blush rose in her cheeks.

He shook his head, his wet hair spraying his hands as he went back to his search. Damn it, he couldn’t even look at her without his blood rushing under his skin, draining from his head and making reason seem impossible. If she were anyone else, any other woman who happened to be in Lyra Valley at the same time as he, there would be no hesitation. If he’d connected with someone half as beautiful and easy to talk to and interesting and adorable and fun and deep and intoxicating, he’d have her up in his room, helping her out of her wet clothes and into a warm shower. He was half-tempted to do it now, but his better half knew better. She had been Jared’s, and if that weren’t reason enough, he believed that part of her, the most important part, still was Jared’s and always would be.

His hand clenched around one of his plaid button-ups, knowing the long sleeves and extra fabric would give her the warmth and coverage she would need while her clothes went through the dryer.

“This should do it,” he said, trying his best not to look directly at her as he handed it over. “I’ll let you change.”

He wouldn’t allow himself to think she looked disappointed, or that she wanted to say something to the contrary, or that her hand twitched out to him as if she didn’t want him to leave. He couldn’t think those things, and he pushed all that away as he left and took a much-needed breath out in the hallway.

Was this a test? A second chance to prove that he wasn’t a bad guy? If it was, he’d already failed, and he was doomed to fail even more. Kennedy was more than a pretty face that crossed his path—she had to be the person he was inexplicably drawn to and who had an addicting personality to top it off. She didn’t make him feel like such a bad guy, and was that really so wrong?

“Ugh,” he groaned to himself, leaning against the wall and sliding down a few inches. He knocked the back of his head against it once, twice, three times, trying—and failing—to rid himself of the image of her stripping out of her wet clothing, running the soft towel over her pale skin, sliding her arms into the sleeves of his shirt. His gaze automatically flicked down the hallway, and his head jerked up as he noticed the laundry door cracked open.

Turn away,his conscience told him. But the strip of skin he could see just through the crack locked him in, and a rush of warmth ran through his chest and almost had him picking up his feet and closing the gap between them.

Kennedy stretched up her arms, her smooth, bare back facing him as she wrung out her short hair. The water fell onto her porcelain skin, tracking down over her shoulders and sneaking into the line in the center of her back, soaking into her skin near her hip, where a pair of damp pink panties covered a perfect, heart-shaped bottom. Aaron gulped, blinking through the lust spotting his vision and reaching down to adjust what it had done to him below the belt.

He blew out a sigh, muttering, “Shit,” under his breath. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Charlie, who had been lapping at the rainwater pooling around Aaron’s feet, plopped down on his hindquarters obediently, assuming Aaron was ordering him to “sit.” Aaron laughed at the pup, his arousal alleviated for a very brief moment until the sound of the dryer door opening brought his attention back up to Kennedy.

Her silky-looking legs were crouched in front of the dryer, Aaron’s plaid bunched around her hips as she tossed in her bundle of wet clothing. A spot of pink dropped from her pile onto the tiled floor, and she quickly picked it up, revealing a plush, lacy bra. Aaron’s head fell back to the wall, and he rapped it a few more times, but all it did was give him a headache.

“Um…Aaron?” she said, and he tried not to look so anxious as he gazed over to her peeking from the cracked door. “Did you want your clothes in here, too, before I start it?”

His shoes squeaked against the floor as he made his way over to her, his breath locked tight in his chest. He tried his hardest not to be so obvious about it, but he couldn’t help but drop his gaze to the dry, warm plaid hanging limply on her body, the top three buttons left undone and open, giving him enough of a glimpse at her perfectly mounded chest. He gulped back a groan, resisted the urge to grasp her waist and pull her into him.

She let out a long, raspy breath that broke him out of his haze. He flicked his gaze back up and watched her teeth slowly pull and play with her bottom lip in a way he wanted to try for himself.

She’d asked him a question. For the life of him, he could not remember what it was.

There was a six-, seven-second beat before Kennedy reached out, stopped to think about it, and then dedicated herself. Her fingers tucked under the hem of his wet undershirt, grazing his abdominals and leaving a fiery trail in their wake. Aaron held his breath, locking his eyes with hers to be sure it was really happening and not just his overactive imagination. She stepped into him, pushing the material up the muscles he usually hid. When she got to his pounding heart in his chest, he lifted his arms and pulled at the back of his neck to help her get the rest of it off his body.

They both released a collective breath, as if the simple act had taken everything in them to do. Kennedy dropped the shirt into the dryer behind her, not taking her eyes off Aaron’s bare torso.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she blurted out, slamming her eyes closed and tugging on the bottom of the plaid shirt she was wearing. Aaron’s mind was so far gone that he didn’t hold back the truth, though he probably should have.

“I’m thinking…that Jared would kill me if he knew what I was thinking.”

She let out a small laugh, her warm breath hitting the bare skin over his collarbone. With his roundabout admission of how she affected him, he assumed her confidence spiked, and she reached out and ran a tantalizing finger across his abdomen. His blood rushed south, and a few lightbulbs shut off in his overworked mind. He wrapped a hand around her hip, drawing her close enough that her warm, pliant body pressed firmly against his. He felt her supple breasts crush against his chest, her hesitant touch growing more sure as she put a hand on his shoulder and trickled her fingers down over his biceps.

She shook her head, her hair tickling the scruff on his chin. It put a pause in his next move, and he swallowed hard above her.

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