The Pretend Girlfriend (32 page)

The floodgates really opened then. For a few moments, her mind whisked her back to the previous night, with its memories of their two entwined bodies writhing on Aiden's pillow top mattress.

Back in the present, she became intensely aware of Aiden's body pressed against hers. He was solid and broad, warm and comforting. And, judging by his reaction to the sensation of her body against his, his thoughts went along the same line as hers.

"So, what price are you asking?" Gwen said, wondering how alone they really were. Wow, I really have come a long way, she thought. Two-weeks-ago-Gwen would never be thinking about doing what present-Gwen had on her mind.

"I think..." Aiden said, his hands sliding down to encompass much more adult-oriented territory, "I'll take everything. Every last penny."

"Shame on you!" Gwen said, even as she tilted her head back a little to give him a better angle from which to kiss her. He obliged, his mouth hot on hers. In his enthusiasm, his arms encircled her more tightly than before.

It wasn't that Gwen didn't like the kiss; she just liked the ability to breathe more. She pushed against him, trying to pull her head back.

Maybe it was those signs of struggle, or perhaps her good-spirited shrieks from earlier. Whatever it was, Gwen suddenly felt something big ram against Aiden and bowl him over, tearing her from his arms.

"Hey! Hey, stop!" she said as a man in a dark uniform scuffled with Aiden on the ground.

Then Gwen saw the man's cap on the ground a few feet away. A cap adorned with the shield of the NYPD. Then she noticed more details, like the gun belt around the cop's waist.

He thinks Aiden was mugging me or something!

"It's okay!" Gwen said, "We were just kissing. He's my boyfriend, it's okay! You don't have to arrest him."

Apparently Aiden hadn't realized that the man currently trying to pin him to the ground was a cop. As soon as he heard the word "Arrest" he stopped dead. The cop then had no trouble flipping him over onto his stomach.

"Really, I'm fine. It was nothing, I'm sorry, officer," Gwen said.

The cop finally paused, one hand at his side in the process of opening up his handcuffs pouch. "Did you say he's your boyfriend?" the cop asked, looking over his shoulder. He was a lantern-jawed man with a broad nose to match. At that angle, Gwen couldn't see his nametag.

She picked up his cap and held it out for him. The officer took it and stood. "I heard screams, and when I came to check it out I thought you were struggling against him."

Aiden sat up in the dirt. His hair was disheveled. An ugly tear at the shoulder of his jacket ruined the expensive article of clothing. A few grass stains marred his slacks. Aside from that, he seemed none the worse for wear.

"Totally understandable, sir," Aiden said, fingering the tear in his jacket and shaking his head.

When the cop offered his hand, Aiden accepted.

"You two oughtta be more careful in here. People get mugged in broad daylight sometimes. What if I'd been a criminal?" the cop said. He looked a little embarrassed at foiling a make-out session rather than a mugging.

"We'll be more careful, officer," Gwen said. While in progress, the little scuffle terrified her. But now, amusement best described her mood. Here were these two grown men, looking rather bashful, trying to find some way to get out of this with as little embarrassment as possible.

Apologies went all around, handshakes, all that. The cop turned to go, when Gwen remembered that she and Aiden were following each other around in this maze.

"Sir, how do we get out of here? My boyfriend has no sense of direction," she said. Aiden shot her a look, and she winked back at him.

The cop directed them out, and they finally found themselves out by one of the greens. "Your poor jacket!" Gwen said.

"It's okay... That didn't go like I thought it would," Aiden replied.

"Oh? And how did you think it was going to go?" she said, giving him a poke in the side.

"Probably the same way you thought," Aiden said, "I guess we should probably leave, it's getting close to lunch."

His jacket reminded her of something at her apartment. "Let's go back to my place," she said.

"Mine is closer..." Aiden started.

"You're right. My place it is!" Gwen said.

Just being normal with each other, no armor in place, no contract, felt so right. The relationship seemed so much more genuine as they walked down a broad paved path, angling slowly towards a street where they could catch a cab.

They'd gotten nearly to the edge of the park when a middle-aged guy with a bulky camera hanging around his neck jogged over to them. "You guys want your picture taken? It's $5. Come on, you look so nice together. Don't you want to remember today?"

$5 for a cheap Polaroid? That's a rip-off
, Gwen thought. She tried stepping around him, but the guy shifted from foot to foot like a basketball player on defense, blocking their way.

"We don't need a picture..." Gwen said, quieting when Aiden put a hand on her shoulder.

"One picture," Aiden said.

The guy directed them over to a nearby vacant bench, where they sat while he fiddled with the camera.

Aiden threw an arm over her shoulders and pulled her close. When the cameraman told them to smile, he did. Gwen followed suit.

"Aren't you two just adorable?" the guy said, waving the rectangular photo in the air in front of their faces.

Aiden paid the man, who then promptly ran over to another young couple to pester them.

"This is nice," Aiden said, holding the photo so that they could watch it develop. It was a bit grainy, and the guy's composition was questionable (he didn't seem to grasp the rule of thirds). But the smiles on their faces, as the picture took form, were genuine. And due to the picture quality, you could hardly see the tears and stains in Aiden's jacket.

"You know my phone takes better pictures than this," Gwen said, trying to sound annoyed. She had to admit the picture had a certain charm to it, a certain solidity and reality that a digital photo stored in a phone's memory couldn't touch.

"I don't know. I think it's nice. Worth every penny."

Gwen started saying something smart, but stopped when she saw the look on Aiden's face. He was genuinely happy. That quiet, reserved guy changed into a normal young man, out with his girlfriend for a walk in the park and getting a souvenir to remember the day by. Gwen relaxed, letting her head against his shoulder.

Why couldn't every day have something nice like this in it? She'd been so busy looking at the long-term that she forgot that life consisted of moments, strung together across the years. Most of the time, people let those moments slip by as they worried, or forgot about them. But that picture could always remind them of their adventure in Central Park.

He hugged her closer. When she looked up at him, she saw the way the sunlight caught in his eyelashes. They were long and fine and she could almost count them.

But, as she'd just remarked, life consisted of moments. Fleeting instances measured in heartbeats. And like all moments, especially, it seemed, the good ones, this one came to an end.

And she especially didn't want this one to end, knowing that there was still trouble ahead, still obstacles needing overcoming if they wanted this relationship to work.

Aiden pocketed the photo inside his jacket, careful not to dog-ear any of the corners. "Shall we?" he asked, shifting to stand up.

Gwen almost collapsed on the bench without his steady body there to support her. You wouldn't think a hard seat like that could be so comfortable, but Gwen knew that she could easily have dozed the afternoon away there, leaned against him.

He offered her his hands, not caring about how reaching out widened the gash in the sleeve of his jacket, or about how the people walking around them must think he was some hobo trying to pick up a girl.

"Come on. We'll get something nice to eat, trust me," he said.

"I do," Gwen replied, accepting his offer of assistance.

O
nce more, Gwen found herself standing in the entrance hall of her humble apartment accompanied by Aiden.

Unlike previous times, she didn't feel so self conscious. She didn't worry about him seeing her bedroom and the mess therein, or looking at her bed and somehow knowing about her dreams.

This time, as soon as the door closed behind him, Aiden pulled her close and kissed her, nearly knocking her over while she tried to kick off her shoes. She wrapped her arms around his waist, standing against him with only one flat on.

"So eager..." she said in between gasps for breath when he finally relented enough for her to lean back a little.

Aiden smiled down at her, brushing a strand of hair back behind her ear and then lightly tracing her jaw with one finger. When it reached her chin, he tilted her head back and kissed her again, once more leaving her breathless.

His lips unlocked all those lovely endorphins and other things in her head that made her feel wonderful, full of energy, loving every second of his affections. Before last night, she guessed that her body had been holding out on her, knowing that she wasn't sure about this whole relationship.

But now that she knew, that both she and Aiden knew, rather, how they felt for each other, the levies holding back the bulk of her feelings burst. Impulses and desires flashed through her, telling her that they needed to spend the rest of the day in bed. And the day after that. That they shouldn't ever be apart.

The sheer volume of it all left her body tingling. And it was like Aiden was a whole new man, gentle and affectionate, with the true strength of his own desires showing up in hints here and there. Like the barely-contained strength of his arms around her, the heat of his mouth against hers, things along those lines.

Gwen ran her hands up his arms. Her fingers caught in the tear on his shoulder, which she'd pretty much forgotten about with all the other things happening.

"Your poor jacket!" she said, running her fingertip over the jagged bit of cloth. It hadn't torn neatly, probably totaling the jacket.

"Don't worry about it," Aiden said, leaning over in an attempt to start another round of kissing.

Much to his chagrin, Gwen extricated herself deftly from his arms. Now that her attention focused on the results of that little scuffle with the police officer, she couldn't help seeing other marks that hadn't been so apparent at the time.

The top of a scrape near the back of his neck poked out from beneath his shirt collar, suggesting more hid beneath his shirt.

"You poor thing! Does it hurt?" Gwen said.

"Does what hurt?" Aiden replied. She didn't know whether he was just trying to be all macho for her benefit, or if he really didn't notice the scrapes and bruises.

So she reached up and lightly touched the scrape on his neck, "This."

Aiden jerked away from her hand, hissing between his teeth. "Yeah, it does. Actually, now that you mention it, it kind of hurts all over."

"Come with me," she said, leading him by the hand to the bathroom. It wasn't nearly as nice as the one back at his condo, but it would have to do. At least it had a pretty long mirror over the vanity, and plenty of light. And there was also a first aid kit in the cupboard beneath the sink.

"Take off your shirt," she ordered him, pulling out the red soft-shelled kit with the white + on it.

"Yes, nurse," Aiden said, beginning the task.

The jacket had protected his shirt and tie, and they looked none-the-worse for wear.

It did feel nice to play at being the nurse, with Aiden the gallant hero fresh from the frontlines, in need of her ministrations. She grinned at herself in the mirror while watching Aiden's reflection.

Then she gasped.

"Oh, your back!"

"What? What is it?" Aiden said, twisting so that he might see it in the mirror. That scrape on his neck was just the tip of the iceberg. Big, purplish bruises like a pair of ugly butterfly wings spread out just below his shoulders, with more scrapes by his ribs.

He let out a slow sigh while he examined his battle wounds. "Well, I would deserve nothing less if I really had been a mugger. Far more, really."

Gwen made him sit on the toilet so she could better tend to him. He hissed a little as she dabbed at the scrapes with a ball of gauze dipped in disinfectant, and he breathed out in relief when she pressed some ice wrapped in a hand towel to his bruises.

She also got to admire his shoulders and back, an angle on a guy you didn't really get a good look at during romps in the boudoir. And he had nice shoulders, broad and smooth. The muscles in his back made a pleasant V-shape bordering his spine.

"Your hands are nice," Aiden said when she let her fingers brush against his skin. He caught one hand as it started sliding down his bicep, brought it up to his mouth, and let his lips graze her knuckles.

The touch sent a jolt of desire through Gwen's body. Gooseflesh prickled her all over.

Noticing his effect, Aiden didn't stop. He flipped her hand over so that he could kiss the sensitive skin over her wrist.

"Oh..." Gwen said, her mouth going dry at the sensations playing within her. Then, trying to regain some of her composure, "What are you doing?"

"You've taken such good care of me. I thought it was only fair that I take care of you, too," he said.

Before she could stop him, (and not that she wanted to) Aiden stood and held her close, pressed against his bare torso.

"I suppose that's only fair..." Gwen said, her knees giving her the rubber band treatment again. Aiden licked his lips as his eyes glanced from her eyes down to her mouth. It was one of the sexiest things she'd ever seen.

The close quarters of the bathroom amplified the sounds of their mutual desire. Gwen let her hands play over his bare flesh, wanting to feel every inch of him. He hissed in pain when her exploring fingers found one of those big bruises on his back.

"Sorry, sorry!" she said, wondering if she'd ruined the mood.

Apparently, she didn't. Aiden grabbed the hands and pinned them to the small of her back while his mouth ravished her. She gave herself over to his control, loving the heat of his breath on her skin.