Taste (3 page)

“I’m good,” I lied as I took a big gulp from my glass.

“You do know I can tell when you’re lying. It’s kind of my job,” he mused.

“Okay,
Detective
. I’m good, but I’m not. I’m hoping you can help with that.” I nodded toward a brown paper envelope he’d pulled out of his bag and placed on my coffee table before he sat down.

“I can, Aly. But there’s a reason why I came up to see you.”

“Why?”

“I probably need a few more drinks before I explain that. But I will tell you that I’ve been thinking about you. A
lot
.”

“I think
I
might need a few more drinks for this too then,” I said with a nervous laugh before finishing my glass. I leaned forward and nabbed the wine bottle from the coffee table and topped us up until the bottle was empty.

“Are we really going to talk, though? Honestly? Lay it all out?” he said before he lifted his hand to cup my cheek. “Because there are a lot of things to go over.” His words were cryptic, but in my heart I knew that I had nothing to worry about. Whatever it was, Aiden would never betray me or lie to me like Barrett had. It was Aiden, the man I should’ve already been deliriously happy and in a relationship with, if only he hadn’t lived in San Francisco. That’s not to say I hadn’t been contemplating the pros and cons of a long distance thing.

“I seem to have found a new appreciation for honesty,” I replied. Aiden raised an eyebrow and pinned me with his eyes, silently asking me to continue.

When I didn’t, he continued, “Will you tell me what happened last weekend?”

“Do you really
want
to know?” I countered.

“I’ll always want to know when it concerns you.”

I tilted my head to the side and looked at him, taking in his soft, soulful green eyes, his dark blond hair and perfectly sculpted lips that right then, I wanted to kiss more than anything. “Will you take your detective hat off and just be my
friend
, Aiden?”

“I’m not sure I can be
just
anything with you.”

“Me either,” I confessed, and it was true. When other things around me were uncertain and unknown, the man in front of me was the exact opposite. He was sure, he was proven, and he was everything I needed. He was
there
. He’d told me he wasn’t able to come back for a month yet he’d made a special trip up to see me.

As if he sensed that something had shifted in me, Aiden hooked an arm under my knees and swung my legs up to rest over his lap, carefully removing my heels. Then he started to draw maddeningly light circles on my calves while I began to tell him the story. The ‘boy meets girl on a plane, boy tracks girl down and sweeps her off her feet, boy turns out to be the paid lackey of girl’s soon-to-be stepfather’ story.

While I was speaking, he never once stopped stroking my legs. He also never interrupted me. That wasn’t to say he didn’t react to things I said. I didn’t miss his jaw tightening when I mentioned the date on the rooftop, or his body tensing when I recounted the conversation between Gavin and Barrett. And I definitely felt his anger when I told him about the hotel room when Barrett tracked me down and then walked out.

I had to take a large mouthful of wine when I’d finished talking. I’d more than deserved it. Telling the story out loud made it real. It also made me feel like an idiot for letting lust—and particular body parts of mine—make decisions for me that left me open to Barrett’s manipulation.

“So I guess you can say I was naïve and cock dumb,” I said, staring out the window.

Aiden was quiet for a long time before he spoke again, and when he did, it wasn’t at all what I’d expected him to say. “Barrett Matthews does not exist.”

“What?” I asked. My head snapped back to look at him, and my eyes grew wide as the words sunk in. “He
must
exist. I saw him. I fucking
touched
him!” I said sharply. “He gave me a business card. The flight attendant on the plane knew him,” I said, my voice growing louder. I quickly moved my feet off Aiden’s lap and stalked over to my laptop bag, wrenching it open roughly as I desperately tried to get my computer out.

“Beautiful . . .” Aiden said. He put his hands gently on my hips and pressed me around until I was standing to face him. “You can’t find something that isn’t there. That man was not Barrett Matthews.”

It was then, after a week of holding it in, I lost it. My head dropped forward, colliding with Aiden’s chest. His hands on my hips moved around to my ass and he lifted me up, my legs wrapped around his hips and my arms hooked around his neck as he carried me back over to the couch. He repositioned us and sat down on the couch with me in his lap. He held me close as I cried into his tee, stroking my hair and making me feel safe and secure.

“Tomorrow, Aly, we’re going to talk.”

“Tomorrow,” I mumbled sleepily as he continued to stroke my hair. Before too long, my exhaustion took hold and I had fallen asleep in his arms.

I woke up to the smell of coffee. Opening my eyes, I turned my head to the kitchen to see a bare-chested Aiden standing at the counter, coffee mug at his mouth and his eyes on me, a playful grin tugging at his lips. “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Hi,” I replied softly as I stretched my arms up above my head. “Sorry I fell asleep last night. Actually, sorry for falling apart, too.”

He placed his cup on the counter and walked toward me, sitting down beside me on the couch as I rolled onto my side to face him. He leaned forward and lifted his hand to my hair. Looping a stray strand back behind my ear, he then glided his fingers gently down the skin of my neck before resting his palm on my shoulder. Such a tactile display was not unheard of between us, but the response I had to it that morning was somehow amplified. For the first time I noticed the significance of his touch and the way it made me feel. The way
he
made me feel.

It reminded me of the same effect Barrett had on me the weekend before. Last night, finding out that Barrett—or whoever he was—had given me a false name, made me question every single thing I’d felt between the two of us in the twenty-four hours I’d known him.

All week I’d been confused and uneasy but last night, with Aiden there with me, I’d felt safe. He was familiar and had always been there; I just hadn’t seen it.

I reached my hands up and cupped his jaw, pulling his head down to mine and gently brushing my mouth against his and touching my tongue to his lips. Pushing him back slightly, I looked into his eyes and saw the depth of feeling in them. Aiden moved for me, dipping his head down again for a much-needed second round. It was a long kiss, one I savored and lost myself in. His tongue slid slowly over mine as he teased and took my mouth over and over. My fingers gripped his shoulders and my nails bit into his skin when he deepened the kiss.

When he eased back, he kept his face close to mine, our breaths intermingling as we recovered. “We didn’t get to talk last night,” I said breathlessly.

“No. You needed sleep and I felt better knowing you were doing it in my arms.”

“Aiden . . .” I whispered.

“We’ve got time, Aly. I’m going to help you find out exactly what happened last weekend and why it happened to you. And while I’m doing that, I’m also going to show you what you mean to me and how good we are together.” He stopped and gave me a gentle kiss that included a slow sweep of his tongue in my mouth. “And
then
we’ll talk.”

For the rest of that weekend, Aiden and I talked through everything that had happened between me and Barrett in Vegas. Over and over again, he interrogated me like he would do with a suspect in any other investigation. The difference this time was that he had something personal at stake—me. I watched his reaction to what I said, noting every time he’d tightened his jaw, or ground his teeth. He
definitely
didn’t like hearing about Barrett’s visit to my hotel suite—both before the restaurant and again after, when he tracked me down.

By the time Aiden had to leave late that Sunday night, it was the most time we’d ever spent together at one time and—funnily enough—the first time we’d ever spent longer than a few hours together without ripping each other’s clothes off and losing ourselves between the sheets.

This time was different. The intimacy between us was still there, but it had been stronger and so much more intense. It was like Aiden was determined to show me that he truly wanted more from me. In all honesty, he’d
always
been showing me that. It was just that this time, I actually took notice and realized that I wanted it as much as he did. I felt like I’d been blind to something—someone—that had been right in front of me the whole damn time.

Deep down, I knew I was still raw from Barrett and Gavin’s deceit, and was not in any position to consider taking things further with Aiden. That didn’t mean I didn’t relish having him with me for two days, in my apartment and in my bed. I felt safe, I felt protected, and for the first time in a while, I didn’t feel like I had to feel responsible for everything by myself because I had Aiden by my side and at my back.

“You sure you don’t want to come home with me? You can stay at my house, use my office, work remotely,” he’d said, as he held me in his arms at SeaTac.

I looked up at him and smiled. “You can’t be solving crimes and saving lives if I’m distracting you.”

“You’re always a distraction, whether you’re near or far.”

My belly fluttered and my body melted into his as I leaned into his chest and placed a soft kiss on the hollow of his neck. “Will you call me?” I asked, my voice surprisingly steady.

His hand dipped under my chin and tilted my face up toward his. “Every chance I get if you’ll answer.”

“Aiden . . .” I said breathily, and he gifted me with a knowing grin before he lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me.

When the final call for his flight was announced over the loud speaker, we pulled apart, and I stood up on my toes to give him one final closed-mouth kiss. “You’ll call,” I said, definitively.

“And you’ll ring that private investigator I recommended.”

“I will,” I replied with a smile. He tightened his arm around my waist, put his lips to my forehead and then pulled away. “I’ll be back in a month, beautiful. We’ll sort this all out, and then I’ll be doing
more
than kissing you.”

“I’ll hold you to that, Detective.”

“I hope you do, Aly,” he said, walking backwards toward the gate. I watched him hand over his boarding pass and disappear from sight.

And he was true to his word. That night, while I was sitting on my couch with a hot chocolate in hand and a sappy romantic comedy on the television, he called me, and we talked for at least an hour.

Two days later, I called him.

The following Friday, I met with Harrison Jones—a private detective who used to work with Aiden. I talked him through what happened and explained what I needed him to find out for me. An hour later, I’d paid him a sizeable deposit and left him with Barrett’s business card, as well as having told him every detail I knew about both the man in question and Gavin. He advised he would be in touch when he found anything.

Then I tried to put it all behind me and get on with living my day to day life. I focused all of my time and attention on my company and the new magazine we were about to launch. I ended my nights talking to Aiden on the phone, or video calling him, and falling asleep with a smile on my face. The feelings between us were growing deeper and stronger, and I was more than looking forward to having him back in Seattle with me, even if it was just for a weekend.

Two weeks after leaving Las Vegas, I received a surprise phone call from my mom while I was knee deep in writing a report.

“Alyssa, I have wonderful news for you,” she said, her voice jovial.

“You’re coming to visit me?” I guessed, my voice filled with hope. I wanted to spend time with her by herself. I wished I’d seen her more when I was in Vegas, and I desperately wanted to find out more about Gavin and whatever he might have been involved in so that I can protect her.

“I wish I could. But guess what? Gavin surprised me yesterday with an impromptu wedding!” she cried and I froze, a cold chill washing over my body.

“You what?” I shrieked, unable to filter my reaction.

“Isn’t it romantic? He organized the dress, the reception, everything. I’m now Mrs. Gavin Barnes.” I heard the happiness in her voice, and my heart squeezed. “I wish you could’ve been here, sweetheart.”

“I wish I was too, Mom.” A bad feeling settled deep in my stomach, and I suddenly felt the need to call Aiden and tell him what had happened. Before I could contemplate that, she continued.

“We’re going to Bora Bora for our honeymoon tomorrow, but I wanted to tell you the good news and let you know that I would be overseas for the next two weeks. Two weeks! I can’t wait,” she continued excitedly.

“Mom, I’m worried,” I said.

“Sweetheart, you don’t need to fret. I’m happy. Finally, happy.”

“I’m glad, Mom, I really am. Can you just put my mind at rest and email me your travel details.” I paused before saying, “just in case there is an emergency or something.”