Bailed Out (The Anna Albertini Files #2) - Rebecca Zanetti Page 0,41

see you. It’s a mistake and I know it, but I don’t like this…discord between us.”

Discord? Freaking discord? My arms dropped to my side. “Are you, or are you not, involved in more illegal activity?”

“I’m not,” he said, for a moment looking like the kid who’d rushed into a cabin and beat up a monster to save me. Blood dripped over the neck of his shirt. “Do you mind if I jump in the shower? I’m bleeding all over.”

“Do you need stitches?” Against my better judgment, I leaned forward to look at his neck.

He shook his head, and a couple of brambles fell onto my floor. “Just a bandage or two. Do I still have some clothes somewhere?”

I rubbed my chest. “Yeah. In the bottom drawer of the dresser.” I wasn’t quite to the point of burning the clothing he’d left during our few weeks together. “Have you eaten?”

“No.” He turned for the bedroom and disappeared.

Sighing, I trudged into the kitchen and quickly heated up some of the stew. What was I going to do with him? Why wouldn’t he level with me? Against all rationality, I believed him when he said he wasn’t doing anything illegal. Yet he’d answered in present tense. Was he planning to do something illegal?

If not, why was he trying to stay away from me when he obviously wanted to be with me?

Maybe a baseball bat to the head would help. Or a wooden spoon. My Nonna was famous for smacking people on the head with her wooden stirring spoon, and for once, I saw the advantage of the practice. Somehow, I doubted Aiden would fall in line if I walloped him with a spoon. Even so, the thought cheered me.

The shower stopped in the other room and I bustled around, gathering my papers and setting the pink file folder on the counter and out of the way. Then I ladled soup for him and waited.

And waited some more.

After about fifteen minutes or so, I went into the bedroom to check on him. Aiden lay on my bed on his stomach, his arm flung out, bandages from my medicine cabinet across his neck. His torso was bare and led to his phenomenal butt in boxer-briefs. His shoulders were wide, his waist tapered, and his entire bruised body one belonging to a badass. His black hair was wet and combed back, already curling over his ears.

I sighed, my heart doing a flippy odd thing it only did for him.

Even his bare feet were somehow sexy and masculine. His face was half snuggled into the pillow and half facing the sliding glass door, his eyes were shut, and he breathed evenly.

How did you get a guy out of your heart when he looked like that? When he’d saved your life more than once?

I left the room and shut down the cottage for the night, making sure all of the doors and windows were locked. The A/C was on, so I left the windows closed, considering somebody had rammed a car into the guy in my bed.

Said guy didn’t move while I got ready for bed. The air conditioning kicked on as I slid beneath the covers, nudging him in the shoulder. “Aiden. Get under the covers.”

He mumbled something, rolled over, and slid beneath the sheet. In a move I was hoping he’d make, he tugged me into his body and spooned around me. His sent of leather, oil, and male surrounded me along with the oddest sense of Ireland. Of rolling hills and wild ocean crests.

“Tomorrow we are talking,” I murmured, meaning it as my eyelids closed.

He placed a soft kiss behind my ear, and the damn sensation shot right to my heart.

Seriously.

Chapter 15

Aiden was playful very early in the morning. This I knew well after our time together. So when I awoke with his hand sliding down my arm and his erection very firm against my butt, it wasn’t a surprise. In fact, usually it was an excellent way to wake up.

“Don’t even think it,” I said, my voice breathy and not convincing, even to my own ears.

“Too late. I’m thinking it.” His lips were close to my temple.

Desire shivered through me, landing in all the right places. Okay. I had to strike fast and right now. “I love you, and I want to have your babies, Aiden. I’m thinking five or seven because I like odd numbers. Unless you want four.” Even as I messed with him, I could see little black-haired babies with incredible