Eight

Luna

The words take a second to penetrate…mostly because Aiden isn’t doing any penetrating of his own.

Even though I’m desperate for it. Even though I asked for it.

Even though I can feel him practically vibrating with need as he reaches for a condom.

Even though I’m shaking from my orgasm, my body still humming with aftershocks of pleasure…and the need for more.

For him.

So yeah, it takes a minute for the voice, the words, the footsteps to penetrate.

Aiden reacts faster, jumping off me, grabbing the blankets from the floor and tossing them over me…

Right as the footsteps grow louder, loud enough that I process exactly how close they are—that being directly outside Aiden’s bedroom.

And his door is open.

“Fuck,” I whisper, earning a flash of emerald eyes, one blazing second of contact that sears my insides, sends my pulse skyrocketing, my heart thudding hard against my rib cage.

That quick glance reveals nothing except that he’s feeling something big.

And I don’t know if it’s regret.

Or worry that I’m naked and people are walking toward us.

Or that it’s a woman calling out Happy Birthday.

The last is the worst. Or maybe the first—because if he regrets what we just did…I close my eyelids for a heartbeat, exhale silently.

The only one that doesn’t make me want to curl up into a tiny ball and pretend that the last eight hours—hell, the last eight days, eight months—haven’t actually happened is the middle one.

But it also doesn’t feel great.

Because I made a promise to myself last night that I wasn’t going through with this, wasn’t going to dump my shit on his doorstep…

And I’m still here.

I don’t have time to sit in those emotions, those regrets, because the footsteps come to a crescendo and Aiden is hurrying toward that open doorway.

He doesn’t make it there first.

A woman steps into the open doorway, and that has me clinging to the comforter Aiden tossed over me, wanting to melt into the sheets, the mattress, hoping for the floor to magically swallow me up and deposit me onto the street below.

Preferably with my clothes on.

But I’d take any escape at this point.

A man follows the woman. And then another woman, this one younger, and two more men follow her, both around the younger woman’s age.

No , I think.

I realize —my horror growing.

Because I know that the younger woman is thirty-two, her brothers—including Aiden—twenty-nine, twenty-seven, and…today, or rather at two-something last night, twenty- five .

Aiden’s family is standing in his hallway.

Shit.

This can’t be happening.

Not when I’m naked and in his bed and?—

“Surprise, baby!” his mother, Kathy, cries, rushing forward, closing the last bit of difference between them and throwing her arms around Aiden’s neck. “You didn’t honestly think that we would let your birthday pass without us being here, did you?”

“We even bought tickets to tonight’s game!” Matt, his dad, says, swooping in when Kathy releases him, giving Aiden one of those man hugs with not a ton of arm wrapping but lots of back slapping.

But then my mind locks on to something else.

Because… shit .

He has a game tonight?

And I showed up out of the blue at two in the morning? Then kept him up for hours?

I’m a dick.

A big, giant dick with dicky selfish tendencies and horrible timing and?—

I’m…well, I’m a dick.

Something I must verbalize because I draw Carrie, Aiden’s sister’s, focus. “Um, Mom?” she stage whispers, eyes going wide. “Maybe we should head back into the, um,…”

Kathy is too busy smiling at Aiden and looping her arm through Matt’s, resting her head on his shoulder to listen to her daughter. “We surprised you, didn’t we?”

Carrie nudges Ralph and I watch Aiden’s brother’s eyes flare with surprise as they drift over to me on the bed, where I’m still doing my best to disappear into the blankets.

Shit. Shit.

Why is this happening?

And why , I realize, when I manage to tear my eyes from Carrie and Ralph does my underwear and bra have to be all of two feet inside the room.

Front and center in front of the open door where Aiden’s family have gathered.

Something Ralph notices, apparently, his gaze going to the pile of my clothes, his brows shooting up, his elbow jerking out to jab at Aiden’s other brother, Dave’s, side.

“Stop,” he hisses, smacking Ralph away.

“Mom. Dad,” Aiden says, reaching for the door. “Let’s go to the front room and?—”

“Ow!” Dave glares at Ralph for a second but another rough prod of his brother’s elbow shuts him up…and clues him into my position in the bed.

Wide green eyes locked onto mine.

Then returning to his siblings. “Um, Mom,” Dave begins. “We really should go out into the living room—” A tilt of his head back down the hall.

“Not until I’ve gotten my fill of my baby boy.” Kathy leans in and hugs him again. “I’m just so happy to see you. Twenty-five.” A sniff, her fingers dashing beneath each eye before she hugs him again. “My baby is all grown up now. So strong and tall and?—”

Her eyes drift over his shoulder.

Come to a rest on mine.

Flare with shock, her mouth falling open.

Fuck my life.

“Oh, my God.” She drops back down onto her heels, leaning around Aiden and hissing at Matt. “My baby has a girlfriend?” She turns her glare to Aiden. “ You have a girlfriend and you haven’t told me?”

Seriously. Fuck. My. Life.

This can’t be happening.

“Right,” Carrie says, taking charge and, thankfully, finally putting me out of my misery. She reaches for her mother. “We’ve done the surprise part. Now we need to go back out to the living room and wait for them to?—”

Kathy swats at Aiden’s chest. “You have a girlfriend and her underwear is on the floor and we haven’t even met her yet!”

I bite back a groan, clutch the blankets even more tightly to my chest, know that my cheeks have gone fire engine red.

Please, universe. Please just help me disappear.

Just this once.

“Mom,” Aiden says, bending and—thank fuck—scooping up my bra and underwear, stuffing them into the pocket of his sweats. “Look. There’s a lot happening right now?—”

That’s the understatement of the fucking year, isn’t it?

“—but I need you to take a breath and walk back out to the living room. Make yourself a cup of coffee. Hell, have a beer if you need one to chill the fuck out?—”

“Aiden,” Matt says quietly. “Language.”

“I will watch my language,” Aiden replies, just as quietly, but with a lot more deadly intent and something inside me softens at the protective note in his voice, unfurling dangerously, “when you get the fuck out of my bedroom and away from my fucking woman.”

The air goes taut.

Matt’s chest puffs up.

Kathy’s gasps.

Thankfully Carrie and the others have my—or their brother’s, I suppose—back.

Carrie steps forward, snags her mother’s arm, drawing Kathy out of the open doorway and in the direction of the living room.

Ralph and Dave position themselves on opposite sides of Matt. “Come on, Dad,” Ralph mutters. “Let’s wait out front for Aiden, okay?”

Matt’s eyes narrow but then they slide to me, still frozen and under blankets, the material clutched tightly beneath my chin.

“Dad,” Dave presses.

He turns away, but maybe his expression softens as he starts to rotate, maybe there’s a hint of sympathy beneath that tough, hockey dad exterior.

Maybe .

Because the next moment, he’s gone, ushered out by Ralph and Dave.

Leaving Aiden and me alone.

“A girlfriend!” I hear echo down the hall. “How can he have a girlfriend and I don’t even know her!”

Fuck.

We’re alone, yes.

And yet, still without a lick of privacy.