Page 102 of His to Cherish
Chapter 21
Home safe.
I pressed Send on my phone and climbed into bed.
We’d only stayed for another hour after Aidan had left, and it wasn’t too late, but my body was warm from tequila. Even though I’d only had a few drinks my eyes felt barely half open.
My phone buzzed on my nightstand and I smiled before reaching over and reading Aidan’s response. I expected a simple good night, but his reply made me smile.
Can you talk?
I didn’t answer by texting. I pressed the phone icon next to his name and started laughing when he answered before I even heard his phone ring.
“Are you okay?” he asked immediately.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
I heard him sigh and imagined him running his hands through his hair. “With Suzanne’s baby announcement, I was worried about you.”
My heart flipped inside my chest. That was what his sadness was about at the restaurant? “I thought you got sad when she mentioned it because of Derrick.”
“I did. But I thought of you, too. It can’t be easy for you.”
I was quiet for a minute, stunned into silence as my pulse fluttered inside my ears.
“Chelsea?”
I shook off the daze. “Yeah, I…I’m good. I’m just surprised, I guess, that you’d think of that.”
He exhaled a breath into the phone, and when he spoke, he took of breath mine with him. “I think that’s why I was so pulled to you in the beginning…at the wake that night. You seemed to understand my loss, I suppose, more so than anybody.”
My own voice quivered. “It’s not the same thing.”
“I know,” he said, his voice gruff. “But you know loss in a way many people don’t, and that makes it similar.”
“Aidan.”
He coughed, breaking the heaviness of the moment. Right then I wanted to say,I love you so much, come be with me.
But the moment was gone, and tension crackled through the phone when he cleared his throat, changing the subject.
“What are you doing right now?”
I shifted under my covers into a more comfortable position. “I’m in bed, talking to you.”
“In bed?” His voice lifted.
“Um, yes?” I said, suddenly shy but not fully understanding why. My skin began buzzing and I could feel my previously tired body awaken as Aidan asked, “What are you wearing?”
A brittle laugh escaped my lips. “Are we doing this?”
“Trust me, Chelsea, I’d like nothing more than to be there with you, touching you myself, but I promised we’d take this slow.”
I wasn’t sure phone sex was taking anything slowly. I felt exposed in a way I’d never experienced before.
“A tank top and underwear,” I whispered anyway, despite my nerves running rampant.
My hips rolled under the comforter, suddenly seeking some type of friction and relief.
