More Than a Mission - Caridad Pineiro [77]
“If we do this tonight—”
“It will be for all the wrong reasons, wouldn’t it?” she finished for him.
“I think I should leave, Lizzy,” he said and rose from the bed, but she reached out and grabbed hold of his arm.
“I don’t want to be alone tonight, Aidan. I just want you to…Just hold me.”
He obviously couldn’t resist her plea. He toed off his sneakers, slipped onto the bed beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
She went willingly, settling into his side, one hand laid over his heart. He placed his hand over hers, rubbed it as if to warm it. Not that he could. A deep chill had established its hold over her core earlier—when she had heard Walker say Dani was dead.
“I feel…cold inside. Numb,” she admitted.
“It’ll go away,” he replied and rubbed a little harder.
“When?” she wondered aloud and snuggled closer, the warmth of his body calling to her.
He sighed heavily. “When Mitch was killed…It took a while.”
Nodding, she eased back a bit so she could examine his face. There was a closed look about it. His jaw was set tightly and his eyes were hard. Frigid. Like the ice of an arctic glacier. She knew then that the cold…the pain it represented…never really went away.
“I won’t believe she’s dead until I see her, Aidan. Until I can hold her hand one last time. Kiss her goodbye so she knows someone cared.”
He cursed before gripping her arms tightly, so tightly she suspected she would have bruises in the morning. “She knows you cared, Lizzy. You were with her when…She knows, damn it.”
Somehow she knew his anger was about more. She reached up and caressed his cheek. Ran her finger along his lips before inching up slowly and brushing a kiss there. “Mitch knew it also, Aidan.”
He expelled a harsh breath and cursed again. “Close your eyes, Lizzy. Try to get some rest.”
She inclined her head in agreement, but kissed him again lightly before relaxing against him and shutting her eyes.
He moved his hand to the small of her back, slipped it beneath the hem of her shirt, as if needing the contact with her skin.
She welcomed it, craving his touch. Wanting to feel anything besides the numbness inside.
“Aidan?” she said and glanced up at him.
“What is it, Lizzy?” he asked and cupped her cheek with his free hand.
“I don’t care that it’s for all the wrong reasons.”
Chapter 27
A shudder ripped through him at her words.
He didn’t care, either.
Bending his head, he kissed her. Gently at first, wanting to push away the thoughts of what had happened today. Wanting to ease her pain, if only for the night, since in the morning…
He opened his mouth, invited her to join him and she did, easing her tongue inside his mouth. Tasting him.
He cradled her face as if it was a precious work of art. Tracing the lines and shape of it with his hands as he kissed her, he remembered that somewhere on an ice-cold slab, a woman with an identical face lay dead.
It tempered his passion, turned it into something…deeper. More intense.
She must have sensed the change in him. She withdrew from him so she could see his face. Running her hands over it so as to soothe what she saw, she whispered, “It’s okay, Aidan. I understand this doesn’t change anything.”
It already had, he thought, bending his head to kiss her again. He might be unable to voice his thoughts since the emotion was too strong, but he could show her. Let her feel it as he made love to her.
He kissed her over and over while he moved his hands down, and then cupped her breasts. A little hitch in her breath told him she liked it. Wanted him to continue.
He did, barely brushing his fingers over the tips until they hardened into tight peaks. Taking those peaks between his fingers, he kneaded them until her breath came uneven against his lips and her hands gripped his shoulders, pulling him close.
He slid his hands beneath the hem of her borrowed shirt, moved it up