Aiden had ridden in more elements than she knew. Weather ranging from stinging needle-tipped raindrops to air so cold it frostbit his nose. He took a step closer to her, already anticipating a lengthy good-night kiss. “Why, you worried about me?”
“Just being polite,” Sadie snapped, her tone saying How dare you accuse me of caring.
Damn. He did love her.
“I promise to be careful,” he said. At the door, Aiden experienced been-there-done-that when he stepped onto her porch and told her good-bye. Light reflected in a halo around Sadie’s golden hair. Her face was placid, angelic, and didn’t reflect the heavy emotional toll the day had taken on her.
Aiden leaned in and pressed his lips to hers and Sadie sighed into his mouth. The soft, feminine sound tore into his chest and pulled out his still-beating heart. Her fingertips grazed his stomach, lighting twin trails down his legs. He needed to end the kiss before he hauled her legs around his waist and pushed her up against the nearest wall.
God. This woman.
When their lips parted with a subtle smooching sound, Sadie uttered one word. A word that floated out on a breath, curled around his heart, and squeezed. “Stay.”
His nostrils flared, his earlier good behavior incinerated by the jolt of lust hitting his gut like an electric shock.
“On the couch,” she added, fizzling out the pornographic images in his head. “I promise I won’t drag you to bed and make you take advantage of me.”
She was teasing, but the part of him pressing painfully against his fly didn’t know that. He glanced at the garden hose hanging on the brick wall behind her flower bed and considered sticking it down his pants and turning it on full blast.
“I am worried,” Sadie admitted, her eyes going to Sheila, parked right next to Sadie’s car. “I would sleep better knowing you were safe on my couch instead of wrapped around a tree.”
The weather was moderate, the roads practically empty this time of night. Aiden didn’t live all that far from her place. But those reasons paled in comparison to the gorgeous woman asking such a simple request.
“Okay,” he heard himself answer. “I’ll stay.”
* * *
Sadie wasn’t a morning person, but she found it impossible to sleep later than six a.m. knowing Aiden was sprawled across her couch.
She crept down the stairs, careful to skip the overly creaky one in the middle, and sat on the second to last step, peering at Aiden around the banister. He showed no signs of stirring, asleep on his stomach, his arm dangling over the couch. The sheet she’d given him was on the floor, his body bare save for the black briefs stretched over his amazing butt. She’d always thought of herself as a boxer kind of girl, but seeing Aiden laid out like he was had her fervently switching sides on the debate. She allowed her gaze to roam over all his tanned flesh, liking how much space he took up, one leg nearly off the couch, his bare foot hanging off the edge of one cushion. His breathing was steady, his hair a mess over his forehead, his lips parted in the most seductive, tempting way.
She’d thought about waking him and dragging him back to her bed a hundred times last night. Just for sleeping. Just so she could snuggle against him. But last night had been volatile enough without her tossing gasoline onto an already steadily burning fire.
And she didn’t want to look any needier (if that was possible). The last blow to her stinging ego would be Aiden rejecting her again. She could hear it now: Are you still trying to get me to sleep with you?
Aiden sucked in a breath and rolled over, his hand sliding over his flat stomach, then down to the impressive bulge hiding beneath the confines of his underwear. He adjusted himself and Sadie stared, mouth open, hand clutching her throat. She bet that part of him was as glorious as the rest of him. Oh, how she’d like to see it. Just once. She licked her lips and his hand moved away, his slightly amused voice slicing into the air.
“You keep looking at me like that and you may get more for breakfast than you bargained for.”
Sadie’s face went hot. She stood and wrapped her robe tighter, her movements jerky, and beelined for the sanctuary of the kitchen. “Want some coffee?”
Aiden caught one of the ties on her robe and pulled her onto his lap, where the part she’d been ogling earlier pressed against her hip. Keeping his hand fisted in the slippery material covering her, he watched her for a few agonizing seconds before his lips, rimmed in a sheen of sexy stubble, formed the words, “I’d love some coffee.”
He released her and Sadie scuttled away like a frightened crab.
She popped the individual plastic coffee container into the single-serve maker and pressed a button, lamenting not having extra steps to busy her hands. The task of pulling out a filter, counting scoops of coffee, and measuring out water would have helped distract her from the fact there was a sexy, aroused man in the other room.