17. REJECTION

17

REJECTION

T he verdict when Charlotte visited the rental office after finishing her presentation, and classes let out for the day, made her question the legality of allowing residents to suffer in the sweltering heat for extended periods of time.

After going all week without a word from management, she realized she needed to show her face before another weekend of discomfort. Emails and phone calls going to voicemail got her nowhere.

"Air conditioning is a luxury, Miss. Walsh," they'd told her. Told her they were waiting on a replacement system for the entire building that would take another month to get online between the delivery and installation. Some poor excuse about service worker schedules, followed by informing her she could buy a window unit.

At least they fixed the water issue by mid-week. That level of quick repair fit more with how they handled things around the complex.

The building wasn't a dump. The entire place was chic. Rooftop pool. Exercise room. Even a coffee shop below the apartments. The rent wasn't cheap, but her student grants and loans helped with that.

With the high-end environment, she questioned why the air conditioning wasn't a big deal to them. Of course, no matter how well maintained a place was, they still fell victim to the whims of being forced into the schedule of someone else. She understood, so she took the information and left without complaint, though she hated making Aiden suffer through the heat.

Her apartment felt like a sauna some days. She didn't feel comfortable opening the window or the sliding glass door for fear of her stalker getting inside. She still kept the loveseat against the glass doors.

Her head rested against the elevator wall as the metal box climbed to her floor.

As much as she loathed to admit it, it was one of those days where she wanted to disappear. One of those everything is overwhelming days, and if she could not wake up—if only for the next twenty-four hours—that would be great. She didn't want to kill herself or die; it wasn't that serious, probably in part thanks to the medicine.

No, she simply felt bombarded from all sides and stopping sounded like a great idea.

It made her angry with herself that the thought even crossed her mind. Here she had her parents working hard back home to send her money to live on beyond the grants, school friends who wanted to take her out and give her a reason to want to stay, and a man currently sitting in her apartment giving up his summer break to ensure her safety. He'd already lost the week to her nonsense.

And what did she give back?

She kept secrets from her parents and wanted to change her major from something that would help them and show her thanks for their support. Continued to dodge going out with her friends for the safety of her apartment and the bubble she created with Aiden. And to top it all off, she kept finding herself lusting after her friend who had come to help her.

Maybe the last point wasn't as bad. He didn't appear immune to her either, but he kept a respectable distance. Even the touches and hugs in the early days of his arrival when everything hit the fan had ceased.

Because it was only to soothe you as a friend should, idiot.

Her thumb and forefinger pressed into her eyes. Oh, how she wanted to go to sleep and try again tomorrow. The solstice had arrived, and so far, she couldn't see where her life was any different. Had her mom missed the mark for once?

One positive thing she could speak of was her secret admirer—or whatever he was—seemed to have taken a backseat to her life all week after the break-in on Monday. He hadn't replaced the roses that were destroyed in the break-in.

Maybe Aiden's presence really worked.

The elevator dinged, arriving at her floor. She stepped into her hall and made it to her door before she smoothed her hands over the front of her navy-blue sundress. It fell to her mid-thigh, with a sweetheart neckline that tied between her breasts, and puffy short sleeves. She paired it with a pair of white, cork-board platform sandals that looped around her ankles several times and tied in a bow at the back.

She looked cute—or at least she thought she did. Aiden was still asleep when she left that morning, so she didn't know what he'd say about it. But the look wasn't for him.

She wanted to make an effort today to counter the dark cloud hanging over her head and the poisonous thoughts taunting her. If her life was meant to change today, she wanted to look her best .

She even had one of her favorite jewelry sets on. Silver crescent moon earrings and a silver necklace with a matching crescent moon pendant encircling a mother-of-pearl disc. A shorter, dainty chain rested below her clavicle, with a tiny sapphire to match her dress. She owned several with tiny colored gemstones.

Running her hands once more over the soft, fluttery fabric to push out nervous tension, she used her keys to unlock the door.

"Aiden?" she called out when she didn't see him right away.

When she didn't hear anything, she crossed the kitchen toward her bedroom, eager to take her shoes off and tuck them away in her closet. Stepping around the corner next to her computer desk, she squeaked when she caught sight of Aiden standing with his back to her in nothing but a fluffy white towel.

Water droplets dripped from wet, midnight black hair and trailed down his back over a gorgeous tattoo of a large raven flying over his shoulder blade. Feathers fluttered in a trail across his spine to the other shoulder blade.

Her eyes traveled down from the tattoo, tracing the rigid muscles of his back to a set of dimples right above the towel. As if the guy needed to be any more attractive, he was blessed with the dimples of Apollo.

She shook her head and lifted her gaze from his lower back, catching him staring at her in the mirrored doors of her closet.

"Sorry," she mumbled. "I called your name." She rubbed her lips together, feeling the slide of her lip gloss. "You didn't respond," she added lamely. Of course he didn't respond. He knows that.

Her eyes dropped to his chest in the mirror, and his pecs flexed in reflex. She assumed it was reflex.

It was rude to stare, but she couldn't stop, and he wasn't stopping her. Why wasn't he stopping her ?

Trailing her gaze down his torso in a slow descent over chiseled abs and a deep V, she sucked in a sharp breath when her gaze reached his towel.

Tenting his towel in an obscene manner, his cock pointed right at the mirror.

His eyes followed where she looked when he heard her intake of breath and he pivoted his hips away from the mirror, cursing to himself. "It's not what it looks like."

She spun around to face the kitchen to give him a modicum of privacy. What she should have done to start with. "It's," she started, but her voice sounded pitchy, so she cleared her throat. "It's normal. If you just got out of the shower, I mean. Hot water does that, right?"

She could have sworn she heard something about hot water making men's penises thicker. Did the heat give them erections? She didn't know, but she wasn't about to Google it right then.

It wasn't like she made a habit out of seeing men fresh out of the shower—or in the shower under hot water. And certainly not Aiden in the shower. Ugh, don't think about him in the shower now! Even with her ex in high school, she never saw him like that. The couple of times they went all the way weren't in the best situations to follow up with a shower.

She rationalized it with the phenomenon of morning wood. Guys woke up with erections, why couldn't hot showers trigger the same? They taught them as kids in sexual education classes that rogue erections weren't uncommon in males.

Aiden made a grunting sound that she wasn't sure meant an acknowledgment of truth or a denial of her assumption. It didn't matter either way.

"I'll leave you to get dressed in peace."

"You look… nice today," he said as she stepped away .

What a weird thing to say, all things considered. Though it made her feel more confident in her choice of attire.

A few minutes later, Aiden came around the corner into her living room in a new pair of medium-wash jeans and a black V-neck T-shirt that stretched snug over his biceps, shoulders, and chest. It fell loose from the ribs where his torso tapered in to his waist and came to rest above his pockets. His wet hair looked longer, smoothed back as he ran the fingers of both hands through it to finger comb the hair into place.

"Hey," he said, dropping his arms at his side. His chuckle sounded uncomfortable.

"Hi?" She unlaced the ribbon around her ankles and slid the sandals from her feet, groaning in relief as she wiggled her toes. Beautiful shoes, hell on the feet. "Sorry for walking in on you. I really didn't know you were here."

A faint hint of pink on his sharp cheekbones at her words didn't escape her notice.

"Nah, it's fine. You've seen me in either boxers or shorts at bed time. Not like you haven't seen everything, anyway."

"Not the tattoo," she said, tactfully choosing not to address the fact she'd never seen his cock before. Well, she didn't see it then either, only the estimated size based on how far out the towel looked in the mirror. She didn't even see the thickness or shape. Stop thinking about his dick.

"Huh? You've never seen it?"

"No, you sleep on your back, and I looked away before I saw it at Tybee Island."

He walked over on bare feet to sit next to her on the loveseat. She turned to face him, drawing her knees up onto the cushion.

"I would have figured you'd have seen it when we got ready for bed or something."

At night, she was either already in bed or trying not to look at him until they were both beneath the safety of the covers. In the mornings, she either got up and left before him, or he was up before her and dressed before she got out of bed. More often than not, if she didn't have classes, he got up and left for about an hour.

She had no idea where he went, but he always came back with a ton of energy compared to how he seemed to drag at night if they were up late.

She suspected it had to do with his nightmares. Although she hadn't witnessed any, he told her he sometimes woke up with them. She knew that already from their video calls and late-night chats before he ever came to visit.

"Do you want to see it?" His brows drew in. "I mean, a closeup. I don't mind." He chuckled. "I remember you like tattoos," he said, explaining why he offered likely in response to the confusion she knew was written on her face.

"Well, yeah. If you don't mind."

"It's on my back. It's not like it's on my ass."

She couldn't stop the giggle his sassy comeback elicited.

He grinned. Reaching behind his head, he pulled his shirt off with both hands and turned to face the wall, putting his back to her.

"How long have you had this?" she asked, leaning in to study the intricate lines of the raven's wings. Goose bumps prickled where her breath brushed his skin. "It's beautiful."

"Got it on my eighteenth birthday, so… it's June now, right?"

"Mmhmm. The twenty-first."

"So, almost two and a half years ago."

Reaching out, she absentmindedly brushed her fingertips across the bird's head, over the impressive wingspan, and into the chaos of fluttering loose feathers. Again, his skin responded to her by chasing her fingers with goose bumps.

"The ink's held up well," she said, lowering her hand, her fingers brushing over his shoulder blade, lingering a little longer before slipping away from his ribs where no ink existed.

She closed her eyes, steadying herself while he kept his back to her in silence. Leaning back into her corner of the loveseat again, she said, "Aiden?"

"Hmm?"

"You okay?"

He pulled the shirt back over his head and turned, drawing one leg up on the cushion to face her. "Yeah, I'm good."

She looked up at him, taking in the way his damp hair fell disheveled over his forehead and into his eyes. He normally kept his hair pushed back, showing off the cropped sides, but with removing his shirt, it looked in disarray. She could now see how long he kept it.

He said nothing as she studied him, almost as if he was allowing her to do it. It made her feel better to think he was letting her look rather than the likely reality that she was ogling him like a creep.

A heavy knock on the door made them both jump, breaking eye contact.

"I'll get it." Aiden stood from the loveseat and crossed to the front door. Looking out the peephole he said, "What the… No one's there." Unlocking the door, he pulled it open, and she watched as his shoulders and back went taut with tension.

"What is it?" She lowered her legs to the floor, standing.

Picking up whatever was on the floor that held his attention, he turned. He clutched a fresh bouquet of pink roses in his hand. Saying nothing, he marched over to the trash can and dumped them inside.

"Wait! What are you doing?" She raced across the floor to the bin and retrieved the bouquet, looking at him like he had lost his mind. "Why did you throw them out?"

"Why are you keeping them?"

Her head tilted back. She hadn't told him.

Tightening her hold on the bouquet, she said, "The last time I threw them out, I received a note on my door about it. It was the first time he contacted me in any way outside of the flower delivery. I didn't want it to happen again."

"Well, that ship has sailed now." He leaned back against the kitchen counter, folding his arms over his chest.

"Still. I don't want to bring extra attention than I already do." She walked over to the counter. She had an old vase she could use since her other shattered during the break-in.

"Nothing happened Tuesday," Aiden said, watching her with a tense set to his mouth.

He was angry she was keeping the roses, but what else could she do? Unless he proposed a better solution, she saw it as the appropriate response to avoid additional problems.

She bent to pull out the old vase and crossed to the sink to add water. "What are you talking about?"

"I tossed the ones that came Tuesday morning while you were in class, and nothing has happened."

She spun on him; the water sloshing in the vase. "You did what?" Her voice was loud, indignant. How could he do that? The realization her stalker had sent a replacement bouquet soured her stomach.

"Keeping these gifts on display is not only a constant reminder of the creep, but also feeds into his delusions. If this is about what the majority of stalker cases are about, you're feeding into his fantasies."

She placed the vase on the counter. "What fantasies? What do you think this is about?" It was something she questioned every day .

She had done nothing to grab anyone's attention. The flowers seemed like something from a secret admirer, so at first, she thought the person liked her and handled it poorly—not that she would give them the time of day, because handling it poorly or not, you don't follow someone around. But with the addition of breaking into her home, the creepy calls, the dead bird… She didn't know anymore. She had hurt no one or made anyone angry since her arrival to warrant the negative attention.

"He's a sick man who wants you," Aiden said in a flat tone.

She gave a rapid shake of her head in disbelief. "I thought he might like me, but not, like, want me."

She poured the plant food into the water and stirred it with the stem of one rose. Grabbing the scissors, she got to work on the mechanical task of preparing the roses for longevity. It became second nature; she'd done it so many times.

"Do you honestly believe that?" He pivoted to face her. "Someone who goes this far doesn't just like you. They are obsessed . Obsessed and twisted. Blaire's TA was obsessed with her and look what happened."

Her shoulders rose to her ears at the reminder of her best friend's abduction. That dark time had been the first time she really spoke to Aiden one on one. They all thought Blaire left Blackthorn Academy without telling anyone. That she broke up with Lukas and ghosted him. It wasn't her way. Blaire didn't act like that. Aiden thought Charlotte might have information, so he sought her out.

She hadn't even been told Blaire had been gone for a month already. It was a stark reminder of how she no longer fit in her best friend's world. Her new friends didn't even think to tell her. Now they were her friends too, but the memory still stung.

Putting the rose she cut into the water, she turned to him. "Didn't y'all say she disappeared without any sign?" At his nod, she continued, " And did she receive strange gifts or threatening calls? Did the guy break into her dorm room?"

Aiden's forehead lined as his face contorted into a look of frustration. "No, but it doesn't always have to happen the same way. Vincent was around us daily. He got to see her up close and personal. Talk to her. This guy doesn't have that as far as we know. Until we know his identity, we can assume that. He seems to keep his distance, from what you told me. If he doesn't have easy access to you, it could explain the way he's acting."

She turned and put the rest of the flowers into the vase, and then dumped the trash.

She hadn't considered it that way before. Of course she knew the man was obsessed—twisted too if she considered the dead bird, but obsessed with wanting her instead of obsessed with tormenting someone? That theory settled like a lead weight in her belly.

Her eyes tracked down to the feminine outfit she wore. Legs on display, cleavage she couldn't really hide unless she wore a T-shirt or full coverage blouse. Even the designers made her dainty shoes to enhance her feminine appeal. She wanted to look cute, but the startling reality was she had attracted a monster.

She had ignored the warnings found online. Maybe if she had dressed in jeans and T-shirts instead of cooler outfits that were pretty and trying too hard, she never would have been a target.

"Charlotte?"

She glanced over at Aiden, realizing she'd fallen silent at his revelation. "Yeah?"

"What are you thinking?"

Her hands gripped the edge of the counter, her fingertips whitening around the navy-blue nail polish she wore to match her dress. "I think I need to change. "

"Change?"

"Clothes." When he said nothing, she turned to him. "What?"

"I don't think I'm following."

"Look at me," she said, throwing her arms out to each side of her hips, hands palm up, facing him. "It's not like I'm trying to be subtle and reserved. I'm not dressed like a hoe or whatever, but I'm certainly not giving the ‘stay away from me' impression."

Aiden's eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward, backing her against the counter, putting his hands on the counter's edge on each side of her. He brought his face down to eye level.

"No," he said once he had her where he wanted her. Caged in and unable to move away from him.

The one-word command made her eyes round with surprise.

"No," he repeated softer. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to blame yourself for this. You did nothing wrong. This is all on him." He pointed an accusing finger off to the side before returning his hand to the counter. "You're not dressed like a… hoe. And even if you were, you still aren't inviting anything. Is that what you wanted by putting this dress on today?"

Her head moved from side to side.

"What did you want, then?"

"I wanted to look pretty," she whispered.

His eyes slowly pulled away from hers, moving over her face to her throat as he eased away from her to stand upright. His gaze slid over her necklaces and down across her cleavage, traveling south over the dress she wore.

"You didn't succeed." His voice was husky and dark. It made her want to squirm. "Not even close."

Her arms rose to wrap around herself as insecurity swamped her, but he didn't let her put up her shield. He grabbed her biceps and stepped into her, bringing their bodies flush. She sucked in a sharp breath.

"You misunderstand." His slow words and low tone had her heart hammering in her chest, ready to take flight. "Pretty isn't the word I would use to describe you in this little dress." He slid his hands down to cup her elbows, stepping back to add a few inches of space between them.

She knew her gulp was audible. "Then what?" She hated how her voice sounded meek. Hated how she sounded fragile.

"Tempting."

The one word made every nerve ending in her body fire at once. She rubbed her thighs together as subtly as possible. She could feel her pulse in places she shouldn't. Not in response to him.

Her body tensed when his forehead dropped to her shoulder. His breath tickled on her chest, coming heavier than before. She bit the inside of her lip hard in an effort not to make a sound, drawing blood.

"You look beautiful," he said through gritted teeth. "Never change out of fear. I promised I would protect you, and I meant it. Don't change who you are. Don't let him break you."

His words penetrated the haze of desire hanging over her mind. Words he forced out, with how strained and raspy they came.

Lifting his head, he looked into her eyes.

Her lips parted, and his eyes latched onto them instead, making her breath hitch.

"Too tempting," he mumbled, his hand coming up to cup her cheek, thumb sliding back and forth over her skin as she leaned into the touch.

Lowering his head, his lips brushed over hers. A gentle graze, giving her the opportunity to stop him if she wanted, but quickly morphing into something deeper .

His tongue trailed over her bottom lip, and she whimpered, which gave him the access to slide inside and meet her tongue in a slow caress.

A deep rumble sounded in his chest as his arms moved to band around her, pulling her close to his body as the kiss went from slow and languid to consuming fire in an instant.

One of his hands moved up to cradle the back of her head, while the other slid down her back over her dress and around her hip, gripping so tightly she suspected there would be a lingering bruise. She wasn't opposed.

He jerked her lower half forward against his, and she wasn't sure if what she felt against her belly was arousal through his jeans or not. It sure felt like it. Hard, thick, long. Yeah, he wanted her, and she didn't know what to do with herself.

Her hands found themselves tangled in his damp hair, tugging on the length as she struggled for gulps of air between kisses.

If only she were a little taller.

If only he would pick her up.

No, not for you, she chastised herself.

The last time she wanted a man was in high school, and that had been a boy. A fumbling, unsure boy who was overeager and lacked finesse.

Nothing compared to the dominant man pressed against her, claiming her mouth like he owned it.

When a growl vibrated against her lips, she gasped. The sound felt hotwired straight to her clit, and she squeezed her thighs against the sensation. She'd never heard a man sound like that.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," he cursed against her lips. "I can't." He tore his mouth away from her and fled to the bathroom with a look of horror on his face. A stain of red painted his lower lip .

She brought her hand up to her mouth and touched it. Her fingers came away glistening with blood. She bit the inside of her lip harder than she realized earlier.

Her body sagged against the counter as she panted heavily, trying to sort through the mental gymnastics that was what happened between them.

She felt sexual frustration around him but had no idea it could be going both ways.

What she didn't understand was why he ran away like his ass was on fire.

The rejection stung.