Sinful Ever After - Vivian Wood Page 0,26

blushing furiously.

Aiden purses his lips. “Okay, I think it would be wise if we started with learning to hold your breath…”

He does teach me to swim, there in the dusky summer afternoon. But I can’t help wishing that he would do more than that…

Chapter Ten

Aiden

The sun beats down on me, almost as relentless here as when I was in Afghanistan. I’m stripped down to my waist and wearing a ton of sunscreen, but I’m still going to be pink by the time I’m done today.

“Aiden!”

I look down at the ground from the ladder I’m balancing on to find Margaret at the bottom. Scaling down the ladder, I wait until I am almost at the bottom. Then I make sure to make my voice loud, as if I’m on stage in a play.

“What can I do for you?” I wipe the sweat from my brow.

Margaret, I notice, is wearing a sweater over her dress and still manages to look cold. I hold my breath, thinking that I should just ask her if she remembers my mother. She might be refreshed by my asking.

Then again, she might fire me on the spot. I wrinkle my brow.

“Carter is picking me up and taking me to see my daughter. Will you let Olivia know that I will be gone for a few days? I would, but she hasn’t come back up to the main house for a while.”

Looking off in the direction of the path to the servant’s quarters, I nod. “Of course.”

“What?”

I clear my throat, then speak louder. “Of course! I got it.”

“Thank you!” she says, smiling. Then she shuffles off, around the front of the house. I head back up the ladder, listening to a car pulling off down the lane a minute later.

Olivia.

Her name echoes in my head. I have to give my brain something else to think about, otherwise it defaults to playing the exact sound she would make as I go down on her on loop. I bet she’d whimper.

Or is she more of a moaner?

That truly is something to ponder.

Scraping the paint off the outside of the manor is both mindless and so fucking boring. It actually reminds me of being in the Navy, in the early days at least. The long hours of back breaking menial labor and endless tedious tasks were sort of soothing, in retrospect.

Also the sweating. I remember sweating a ton in the Navy, maybe more than I sweat here.

Leaning against the second story of the house with the sun beating down on me, I scrape at the old wood of the house. But my mind wanders a lot. And more often than not, it ends up in one place.

On Olivia. Her dark hair, her shy smile. The way her ass looks from behind.

Okay, if I’m honest with myself, it’s a lot more of the latter. I also spend hours trying to imagine what her small breasts would feel like in my hands and how her nipples would taste on the tip of my tongue.

It’s probably only because there is no one else to fantasize about, but I obsess about her a little. My work is monotonous and hard, moving the ladder and chiseling away at forty years of grimy paint. But having Olivia to focus on makes it more bearable.

Knowing that she’s actually here though… that is pretty tough. I could act on any of my fantasies, at any time.

Except I won’t, because Grayson would be so, so angry at me. I can’t disappoint the one person who has been my friend for so many years. I’ve never made friends easily. It’s not exactly like I can go out and pick up another best friend, anyway.

As the sun dips lower and lower, I finally reach a stopping point. Climbing down from the ladder, I try to decide what to do. It's still hot as fuck outside. I guzzle down the water I left for myself in the shade of the house.

Picking my shirt up from where I tossed it earlier, I squint up at the sun. A quick dip in the ocean would be really nice.

Olivia comes up behind me, catching me off balance. “Hey, have you seen Margaret?”

I whirl, shooting her a look. “She told me to tell you that she would be gone for a few days. Actually… that was hours ago.” I look her over, taking in her very casual outfit. Teeny tiny shorts, a white tank top, and sandals. If I’m not very much mistaken, I think I see