Hot Christmas Nights by Farrah Rochon Read Free Book Online Page B

only shown interest in him because of his connection to Cameron, Aiden was pretty confident that a couple of them had been genuine. Yet not one of them had ever elicited the feelings within him that Nyla had.
    Nyla’s beauty radiated from the inside out. It was in that reassuring smile that came so readily, in her uncanny ability to sense when he needed to get something off his chest, or when he needed someone to silently be there, just so he knew he wasn’t alone.
    What he’d told her earlier was the truth. She
got
him.
    When others in his family brushed off the rejection he’d received on a paper he’d submitted to an academic journal, Nyla provided a shoulder to lean on. Even though she’d only known him for a few months at the time, she somehow understood what was important to him better than people who had known him his entire life. That’s just the kind of person she was: unique and special and giving.
    And she was on the other side of that door.
    “Just tell her how you feel,” Aiden whispered.
    But he didn’t have to tell her. That was the thing that was driving him crazy. He would bet his last dime that Nyla knew exactly how he felt about her. She just wasn’t ready to face it, just as she hadn’t been able to face it three years ago.
    She’d allowed others to shame her into thinking that she had taken advantage of him. Cameron, his parents,
her
parents, many of her friends; they had all put the blame at Nyla’s feet. She had even convinced herself that she had somehow led him on, as if he wasn’t mature enough to recognize that the attraction that had exploded that last night between them hadn’t been building for months.
    He never should have let her get away without owning up to the fact that she had been just as attracted to him as he had been to her. She’d wanted that kiss. She’d wanted even more than just that damn kiss.
    Aiden started for the door, but once again stopped before opening it.
    If he went in there demanding she acknowledge feelings she wasn’t ready to admit to having, it could ruin these few short days he had with her.
    “Dammit.”
    He couldn’t bring it up again. Not yet.
    But he would. Eventually, they were going to talk this through.
    Shaking his head, he finally opened the door. Upon entering the room, he was met with the sound of the shower. His mind instantly conjured the image of Nyla standing naked underneath the spray of rushing water, her body glistening with rivulets of steamy moisture running down her skin. He nearly lost all feeling in his legs. Aiden fell back on the bed, covering his eyes with his forearm.
    He would give up every single comic book in his Marvel collection—including the 1941 mint-condition Green Lantern—to be able to step inside that shower and have her wrap her arms around his neck. He wanted to feel her lovely, soft breasts pressed against his naked chest. He would give anything to wedge himself between her slick, soapy thighs and finally,
finally
discover what it felt like to make her his.
    A groan tore out of his throat.
    He could forget reenacting his favorite scenes from
Gladiator
at the Colosseum tomorrow. Pent-up lust would have him dead by morning.
    “Hey, you okay?”
    Aiden sprang upright. He hadn’t even heard when she turned the shower off. She was dressed in calf-length pajama pants and a black-and-pink tank top with a glittery martini glass on it. She looked ridiculously good with her soft brown skin freshly washed. She smelled delicious, like peaches, as if she’d rubbed a bit of Georgia on her skin.
    “Aiden?”
    He shook his head. He had to snap out of this.
    “I’m good.” He grabbed his bag and headed to the bathroom, taking the quickest shower known to mankind. He wasn’t wasting any of this short time he had with Nyla.
    When he reentered the room she was already in her bed, under the covers. She had the bedside lamp on and was flipping through the magazine that was on the table.
    “You read Italian, too?”