Loving Siblings: Aidan & Dionne (6 page)

She was speechless. Her mind was spinning
and her body was on fire. She opened her mouth, but no words would
come. What could she say? That he didn’t affect her when it was
obvious he did? Yet, she still made an attempt to deny it, and
shook her head as she began a stuttering denial.

“
Aidan, this isn’t—”

“—
Yes, Dionne,” he nodded. “It is.
It’s real, and it’s right. You know it, too—”

“—
It’s
wrong!
” she suddenly snapped, and he fell quiet
again. He saw how upset she was; saw the pain in her honey-brown
eyes. She was closer to tears than laughter.

“
If that’s what you want to believe,
because you’re not fooling me,” he finally said with a grim look on
his handsome face.

She pressed her eyes shut for a moment.
“It’s how it is,” she said quietly, opening her eyes to see his
hard, grim profile. “Aidan? Please listen to me. I know what you
must be thinking after my behavior—”

“—
Just go, Dionne,” he said, cutting
her off. He pushed back from the lockers, and turned his back to
her before he stepped over the bench. Every muscle in his back was
tense and defined. He was quiet as he bent and snatched up the deo
stick with an angry swipe.

“
I can’t go and leave you feeling this
way, Aidan—” 

“—
Just
go
, all
right
?!” He shot her a withering glare over his
shoulder.

“
Not while you’re like this,” she said
stubbornly, but mostly concerned.

“
Oh?” He looked over his shoulder with
a sarcastic, arched brow. “You’re offering to help me then? Is that
it, Sis?”

“
Well, of course! Since I’m the one
who put you in that state—”

“—
Then what are you waiting for?” he
dropped his hand from the locker, and turned to face her again.
“Get undressed.”

She looked at him as if he’d just grown a
second head. “What?”

“
You said you wanna help me with my,”
he motioned with his eyes down his front, “problem. So help me
already. Take off your clothes.”

Her jaw dropped. “That’s NOT what I
meant—”

“—
Then GO, already so
I
can,” he said with a hard
look.

He was in NO mood for any
conversation,
not
while he
had a painful erection under the towel that wouldn’t go flaccid
until she was out of his sight. The taste of her lips, and her
scent were nearly choking him.

“
Aidan—”

He snapped around, threw his deo stick into
his sports bag, threw the locker door shut, and slammed his palm
against it, making her jump a little. Silent tension filled the
sizable locker room before he took a deep breath, and bent his
head. 

“
Go, Dionne. There’s no reason for you
to be here. I’m through talking.” 

Then she remembered why she was there in the
first place. The surprise party.

“
I-I was thinking,” she began with an
uneasy smile, “since Helmut has to be in Loma Linda Hospital for
his internship this evening, you might want to come with me to
Black Angus. You know? To celebrate your fourth championship win in
a row for Arcadia High,” she said, but he didn’t respond. “Unless,
of course, you have more interesting things to do this
evening—” 

“—
A
aaaaaay
d
aaaaaan
! Where are you, Baby?” a purring, female
voice called out, echoing through the locker room.

He raised his head and looked over his
shoulder at a shocked Dionne. He arched a meaningful brow before he
said, “It appears I do.” Then he pushed back from the locker just
when a svelte, sexy blonde appeared on the other side of the same
row of lockers as Dionne.

It was obvious she hadn’t seen her yet,
Dionne noticed. Then again, with Aidan in the room, that happened
all the time.

“
Hey there, Champ,” the blonde purred
as she leaned sensuously against the lockers before turning to face
him as he turned to face her with a wolfish grin. “I was hoping you
hadn’t showered, yet. I was sooo looking forward to washing your,”
she let her gaze roam down to the front of his hips, “back,” she
cooed. Then she untied her long, blue raincoat, and opened the
folds to reveal her absolutely, unequivocally naked body
underneath.

“
Hey, Candace,” he said. “I don’t know
if you’ve ever met Dionne?”

“
What?” she asked, a little alarmed.
Then she shot big blue eyes to the brunette down the row of
lockers. She looked positively uncomfortable.

At the same time, Dionne snapped out of her
stunned state of mind, feeling hurt, angry, and embarrassed all at
once! How dare he put her on the spot like that! And in front of a
girl she’d always felt most uncomfortable with, a typical Arcadian
beauty.

Candace had perfectly tanned skin, a
lean body cultivate through
hours
of aerobics, and her long, luxurious, tumbling locks were as
blonde as any hairdresser could get them—and she was there for her
brother for
very
obvious
reasons.

Dionne couldn’t have felt any uglier, or any
more unwanted, than she did at that moment.

“
Oh!” Candace cried, snatching her
raincoat over her naked body as her powdered cheeks flushed with
embarrassment. Much like Dionne’s. “I-I didn’t know your sister was
here. Hey, Deanne! I’m Candace,” the girl said as she hurriedly
walked to her to offer her hand, but Dionne was so flustered, so
embarrassed, and so distraught that she quickly snapped around, and
on those brand-new, tight brown pumps, RAN.

“
Dionne!” she heard Aidan call, but
she wasn’t planning on sticking around.

She ran as fast as her feet could take
her, surprised she had that kind of speed! She tore out of the
locker room and into the late afternoon California sun, briefly
blinded by it. But there was no way she was going to let anything
slow her down. She barely registered Shawn coming up to the doors,
greeting her as she ran like the wind, and she
wouldn’t—
couldn’t
stop until
she made it into the nearly empty school parking lot, and her
maroon Prelude.

She fumbled for her keys in her skirt
pocket, and saw how hard her fingers shook.

“
Dionne!”

“
Christ!” she whimpered, hearing her
younger brother calling her, but it affected her more than she at
first thought when she dropped her keys. She quickly shot down,
snatched them up, and tried to hurriedly unlock the
door.

“
Dionne!”

He was coming closer.

“
Go away!” she cried, just when she
got the key into the lock, twisted, and pulled the door open—only
to have it slammed shut by a big, brown hand. “Leave me alone!” she
shouted up at Aidan’s grim face, but to her dismay, not only was
she trembling from head to toe, she was also looking up at him
through a blur of tears.

“
I’m sorry,” he said with a deeply
remorseful voice. “I shouldn’t have—”

“—
No.
We
shouldn’t have,” she cut him off.

“
I was saying,” he said slowly with an
irritable tone, “I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that.
But I’m not saying I’m sorry for kissing you.”

She looked away, and quickly wiped her tears
away. “We can’t do this, Aidan.” She raised teary eyes that nearly
tore his heart out. “I can’t do this.”

He stared at her for a few moments, but then
he looked down to the ground. Then he nodded and raised his head as
he looked at her little, miserable face. “Okay,” he said. “I guess
I know how you feel. I came on too strong—”

“—
No, Aidan. That’s not it. This
should’ve never happened—”

“—
It’s okay, Dionne,” he said. “I get
it.”

She stared at him for a few moments in
stunned silence. “You do?”

“
Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I do.”
Then he smiled, and she gave a hesitant one. “I’ve gotta get back
to the locker room—”

“—
Yes, because we wouldn’t want Candy
to feel lonely, would we?” she blurted before she could think. She
could’ve
kicked
herself for
not keeping her mouth shut.

“
No . . .” he dragged, “because I’ve
got to get dressed and head over to Black Angus. I don’t want to
keep the team waiting, do I?”

Dionne looked at him with big, shocked eyes.
“You knew they were throwing you a party?”

“
Why else would they send you to fetch
me?” he said. “Since I know you
never
break with Dionne protocol by going into a
guys’ locker room unless you were certain I was the only one there,
you had to be sent, right?”

Dionne swallowed and nodded. “Right.”

He flashed a big smile. “So . . . are you
coming, too?”

“
I-I can’t—”

“—
Okay,” he said with a chipper tone.
“Anyway, can’t stand out here only in my Levi’s and bare feet. I’ll
see you when I see you, Dionne.”

“
O-Okay,” she answered with a stunned
look. She couldn’t help but feel a little relieved but a lot more
disappointed. He gave up so quickly! Then again, it’s probably
because he’s finally realizing how idiotic all of this
was.

She was, after all, his sister—adopted, or
not.

When standing in the same room with a beauty
like Candace, and comparing her to that blonde sex-kitten, reality
tends to give you a wakeup call in the form of a firm slap in the
face. And she just got hers. She should be grateful he was giving
up on that silly notion they could be anything more than siblings.
So why did she feel like crap?

He smiled before he turned to return to the
locker room, but then she remembered something. And maybe it was
just to feel some semblance of normalcy between them, or just
something to make her feel . . . wanted by someone. A feminine ego
booster, as it were.

“
Oh, and Aidan?”

He turned with a quizzical look, brow
arched. “Yeah?”

“
Be happy Helmut was there when you
told me that fib about kicking the ball accidentally his way. I
would’ve otherwise bitten your head off for that stupid little
move. You forget,” she arched a brow, “I’ve seen you play all your
life, and you’ve never sent a ball anywhere you didn’t intend it to
go, so that excuse of it being an accident rang hollow. The very
least you could’ve done was put more effort into looking
remorseful.”

“
What makes you think I feel any
remorse?” He arched a cocky brow.

“
Look,” she sighed, “you don’t have to
pretend to like him—”

“—
I hate his guts,” he flat out said.
She was silent as she blinked big, stunned eyes. “I thought I made
that perfectly clear.”

“
Can’t you at least try to be just a
little civil toward him—?”

“—
No.”

“
Why?!” she cried.

“
Because we’re both competing for the
same thing, Dionne, and I guarantee you, he won’t win. That makes
him a loser in my book, and I don’t waste my time with losers. You
shouldn’t, either.”

He said those words with so much confident
determination, it took her breath away. Literally. She stared at
him, totally flabbergasted. “I-I thought we agreed—”

“—
Gotta go, Dionne! See you around!”
and with that, Aidan sprinted his way back to the large facility,
leaving his sister completely stunned.

And yet . . . feeling twice the female she
did before her eye-opening visit to the locker room, because
despite that blonde Aphrodite waiting for him there, he came out to
her. With a smile, Dionne turned and opened the door, feeling so
much better than she had in days.

**~~**

Chapter
Four
:
Dionne’s Secret
Dilemma

“
What a predicament,” Dionne sighed as
she dropped on her bed, wrapped in a big, white fluffy towel. She’d
just showered, and was busy combing back her long, wet hair,
looking mighty pensive.

It was a hot evening, and by the time she
parked her Honda Prelude in the family drive, she was nearly
sticking to her seat. Although the shower was physically
refreshing, it did nothing to relax her mind. Not one iota. Perhaps
she should’ve had a bath instead. That always seemed to help.

“
No,” she said softly to herself. “Not
this time. Nothing can.”

She arrived home to find an empty house, and
a reality check. Then she felt this profound sense of nostalgia.
She was deeply conflicted about the emotions Aidan evoked for some
time now, but what troubled her more was the fact that she’d
allowed herself to welcome them. She knew she wouldn’t be able to
put the genie back in the bottle. How could she be so stupid to
allow herself to feel this way?

On one hand, her feminine pride was elated
he’d come out to her on the parking lot while there was a beautiful
blonde in the locker room waiting for him. On the other, the
reality part that bothered her now, was that he’d gone back to that
beautiful blonde in the locker room waiting for him. There was very
little doubt what they were going to do in that big ol’ empty
locker room—