Page 34 of Small-Town Secrets
I couldn't remain in this house with my children.
My gaze shifted to Aaron.
"Does your offer still stand?"
15
Laurence
Inever thoughtI'd find myself actually moving in with the biological father of my children—who still wasn't aware of this fact—but Aaron helped me cart all our belongings over to his place that very night. The process didn't take long. We didn't have much. In fact, we had embarrassingly little. I'd made sure that the twins had a bunch of clothes to tear through, but I could fit all my own personal belongings in a small backpack.
"Are you sure we got everything?" Aaron asked after our last trip, and after I'd finally managed to put the twins to bed again in Marvin's old room, which had been converted to a guest room. They'd been riled up from all the excitement, but as soon as their heads finally hit the pillows, they were out, overtired.
I kind of felt that way too.
"I'm sure," I said, setting my backpack down by the couch in the living room. Aaron only had one guest bed, so I figured this was where I was crashing tonight. "Thank you for everything. Seriously." A yawn escaped me at the end of that word and I flopped down on the couch, more than ready to call it a night. I had work in the morning too.
"Don't worry about it." Aaron shot me a smile. I knew he was tired too, but he didn't look it. He looked almost excited.
Why? Because I was here now?
Wait, did he expect me to put out?
Usually my mind wouldn't have gone there. Back when I was pretty, I would get cat calls all the time, but these days? Ever since my face had been disfigured, my life had been a lot quieter. I didn't mind, I liked it that way. It meant people left me alone. At the same time, though, the lack of attention made me acutely aware that I wasn't desirable anymore. And I hadn't been able to get with Aaron even when I was—not without some chemical help, anyway.
But he'd kissed me earlier.
So yeah, I had some reason to think he'd moved me here because he expected some things. I wasn't naive enough to believe he'd done it out of the goodness of his heart.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Aaron asked.
"Like what?"
"Like I'm the big bad wolf and you just got lost in the woods."
"I'm trying to figure out what you want from me. But I think I have a good idea."
"I already told you, Laurence. All I want is—"
"You kissed me," I cut him off before he could launch into his silly speech about wanting to see me safe again. I couldn't start thinking of him as my knight in shining armor. I'd made that mistake once with a different alpha, and I wasn't going to make it again. Not even with Aaron, even though it was hard, because I'd spent most my teenagehood idealizing Aaron in my head, and the first years of my marriage trying to forgot about him.
And even now I wanted nothing more than to kiss him again and buy into the illusion that he returned my feelings.
But if I did that I wouldn't be able to keep a cool head, and my children depended on me to do just that.
Aaron took a step toward me and I took a step back. Because I didn't know what I'd do if he kissed me again. Lose all reason, probably.
God, I wanted to kiss him.
Aaron held his hands up and stilled. "I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to do, okay?"
I felt a lopsided grin take over my face at that. How to tell him that the problem was that I wanted too many things I shouldn't want? Whenever I inhaled and Aaron's scent entered my nose, I wanted to throw myself at him. I wanted him to doall sorts of thingsto me. Which didn't mean that any of them were a good idea.
I hadn't even told him about the twins yet. Nor did I have any idea how to. Or how he would react. And now we were all living in his house.
I really didn't need things to get evenmorecomplicated than that.
Aaron let his hands sink to his sides again. "I really like you, you know."
