“Why do you call me that?” I lowered my arm, peeking over at him.
Aiden gave me a rare smile and leaned over me, his fingers gently tracing my face. “Because you have the cutest freckles right here.” The brush of his fingers over my warm skin made me shudder.
“What’s your magic number?”
He made a choking noise, gawking at me like I’d lost my mind. “You do not want to know that.”
“Maybe I do.”
Maybe it’ll remind me we’re too different. The bad boy and the good girl trying to overcome her grief.
“You know my number,” I said. “It’s only fair I get to know yours.”
“Dayna, come on, it’s not the same.” Aiden shifted onto his side, leaning on his fist as he loomed over me.
“More than ten?” He grimaced, and my stomach dipped. “Okay, more than twenty?” I asked.
Aiden visibly flinched, and my brows furrowed. “Fifty?”
“Dayna…”
“More than one hundred?”
“I don’t keep a list,” he snorted.
“Wow, that’s a lot of girls.” A strange sensation went through me, plunking in my stomach.
He was so experienced, used to puck bunnies lining up for him, willing to give him whatever he wanted. And I might as well have been a virgin.
“I like sex. I’m always safe, and they know I’m not…”
“Looking for anything serious.”
“Yeah.” His eyes crinkled. “It is what it is. I won’t apologize for who I am.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I’ve never done this, though.”
“What?”
“Lie on a beach under the moonlight with a girl.”
“Are you saying I now own one of your firsts, Aiden Dumfries?”
“I’m saying,” he inched closer, running his hand along the side of my collarbone and curling it around the back of my neck. “You own two.”
“Two?”
He kissed me, shaping my mouth with his lips. It was different from the kiss before. As if he was savoring it, savoring me.
“Yeah,” he breathed, touching his head to mine. “I’ve never kissed a girl on the beach before either.”
“Mmm, I like this game.” I curled my fist into his t-shirt and yanked him closer.
“This is a bad idea,” he warned.
“I know what I’m doing, Aiden.”