Page 20 of His to Cherish
His shoulders shook and he looked at the door.
“When you’re ready,” I whispered.
“I don’t know when that will be.” He pulled his arm away from me, breaking contact with my hand.
I took a step back and wrapped my arms around my stomach, trying to hold myself together. I’d ruined something in that moment. I knew it, and I hated it.
I’d broken some sort of unspoken rule that I didn’t remind Aidan about his loss, even though I knew I had to. I had to be some link to the son he was trying to hold on to. Why else would he come to my house?
But I still shouldn’t have said anything. I hated that I did.
“I’m sorry,” I told him when his fingers wrapped around the doorknob. “I was just trying to help.”
I wiped the tears on my cheeks and then jolted in shock when he touched me.
Aidan’s thumb swiped under my other eye and my jaw dropped. My breath froze in my lungs and I could do nothing but stand like a marble statue and stare, shocked, into his green eyes that were mixed with gold flecks.
I wanted to stare at them forever.
I wanted to look away and move out of reach of his touch, but as his thumb wiped away my tears and then dragged slowly across my cheek, I couldn’t do a thing.
His thumb and finger hit my hair and ran through a small strand until he was at the tip. He stared at my blond hair as if it’d been spun with gold. Or held the answer to his problems.
I know it didn’t, but I watched his eyes soften, his jaw relax, and then his eyes hit mine again.
“You are.” He swallowed and dropped my hair from his fingertips like it’d burned him. “You are helping.”
He opened the door and walked through, closing it behind him before I could move.
Or think.
It was long after he was gone when I finally moved, and when I did, I sank against the door.
My body tingled all over.
My pulse raced.
Perhaps I hadn’t ruined things as much as I thought I had.
And I couldn’t help the smile that stretched my lips as I replayed the way he looked at me while he brushed his hand across my flesh.
I wanted him.
And by the look, by the feel of it…he might have wanted me, too.
