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the pain, the grief, and her demands, he couldn’t deny his body’s reaction to her. Six fucking years since he’d last stroked her golden skin, kissed that made-for-sin mouth. Six years since her slick, tight flesh had squeezed the hell out of his fingers, almost sending him head over ass into orgasm with her. The pull shouldn’t be so strong, so visceral. Especially since they’d only crossed that physical line once. But that didn’t stop his cock from hardening like a rock and pressing against his zipper so he could count the number of metallic teeth imprinted there.
    He closed his eyes, and as if his brain was just waiting for that moment, memories flooded him, unchecked. And he was too tired or drunk—possibly both—to shut them down.
    His mother had started dating Frank Rana when Aiden was sixteen and Noelle eleven. The two of them didn’t move in with Caroline until two years later, when Aiden left the house for college. Over the years, his disgust for Frank’s laziness grew. While Aiden viewed Frank’s daughter as an added burden on his mother, he didn’t mistreat her, because she couldn’t help who and what her father was. But the quiet girl with the blue eyes that seemed too big and old for her face always unsettled him. And as she grew older, the feeling strengthened. Because the time came when he couldn’t ignore her any longer. Not when the slightly awkward girl blossomed into a sultry beauty who stunned and drew him.
    Though he tried to stay away, when he received a call from her at one o’clock in the morning one November night, he hadn’t hesitated to go to her. Home from college for Thanksgiving break during her sophomore year, she had gone to a house party, and the girl she’d rode with was drunk and refused to leave. The tremble in her voice when she’d asked him to come pick her up had echoed in his head the entire time he drove to the house. And when he’d stalked into the house and saw her standing in a dark corner, a plastered asshole touching her face, he’d barely restrained himself from kicking the guy’s ass before escorting her out.
    That night had been the start of a friendship and close bond. One that had been theirs alone. For the first time, he came to know the intelligent, gifted, funny woman who hid behind a shield of shyness. And for the first time, he allowed her in, lowering his guard and sharing parts of himself that only Lucas had been privy to. But after a few months, their relationship changed. He started to glimpse the same desire that always simmered inside him in her eyes. A tension that hadn’t existed between them before sprung up, imbuing every word, movement—hell, breath—with a sexual awareness that he fought…until he didn’t. Until the one night her innocence no longer restrained him. He’d eventually recovered his control, but not before he had her stripped naked, her cries caressing his ears, her sex clenching his fingers…
    And then Caroline had gone into the hospital. Cancer. Stage four. Two months to live . The words had hammered him, driving nail after nail of guilt into him. While he’d been consumed with Noelle, his mother had been ill, dying , and he hadn’t noticed any of the signs. The woman who had sacrificed everything for him—college, a man who wanted her to have an abortion rather than have her son, her youth—didn’t get to live, see her son walk down the aisle, hold her future grandchildren. And there Aiden had been…with Noelle, reaching for a happiness that should’ve been his mother’s. She’d earned it, damn it. She deserved it.
    He opened his eyes, snapping the connection to the past. Exhaling, he dragged his palm down his face, echoes of pain pulsing in his chest. He’d distanced himself from Noelle after his mother had entered the hospital. Because when he thought about Noelle, he couldn’t separate his overwhelming guilt from his need. The two were inextricably entwined, and wanting her shamed him. And then the