Every Part of You Taunts Me Read online

  “Fuck me anyway,” Simone said, and he was lost.

  * * *

  Four voice mails from Aidan. A dozen or so texts. An e-mail. And now, Simone thought, surprised and irritated but also flattered, he was instant messaging her.

  Don’t keep ignoring me. I see you’re online. Pick up the fucking phone and talk to me.

  With a sigh that felt like it had been dredged up from the tips of her toes, Simone thumbed Aidan’s contact listing. The phone barely rang before he answered it, but he didn’t say hello. She waited, listening to the sound of his breathing.

  “Aidan,” Simone said sharply. “For fuck’s sake.”

  “I wanted to see if you were going to hang up on me.”

  “Ugh. I just called you. Why would I hang up on you?” She flopped into her chair and put her feet up on the desk. “I’m at work. I can’t just be chitchatting all day long with you. What do you want?”

  “When are you going to stop ignoring me?”

  “Um, I guess now? Since I fucking phoned you from work.” With a grimace, Simone rocked in her chair. She actually had a bit of a break right now, but he didn’t need to know that. And the truth was, she was getting the warm fuzzies from how desperately he’d pursued her.

  Plus, she’d missed him.

  “Are you still pissed at me?” Aidan asked.

  “That’s a complicated question.”

  He snorted laughter. “Isn’t everything complicated with us?”

  “Well. Yes. But the answer to your question is, no. I’m not pissed off at you anymore. I wasn’t really pissed off at you to begin with.” She paused, frowning. There was no point in lying to him. Aidan knew her too well for her to be able to get away with that.

  “You’d like her,” he said quietly.

  Simone laughed harshly. “Somehow I doubt that.”

  “C’mon, Simone. You haven’t even given her a chance.”

  “Do you want me to be besties with your sub? Is that it?” She got up from her chair to pace as she talked. “God, Aidan!”

  “You’ve been friends with my girlfriends before.”

  “Sure. When you and I weren’t fucking, yeah. Or when they weren’t serious. This is different. And you know it. And I just … “ She sighed, pausing in front of the window to look down into Elliott’s office.

  She still hadn’t rearranged her office so that she could easily watch him through the window the way she used to. She didn’t have to now, because she saw him a few times a week. Without glass between them. Without anything between them but their skin …

  Aidan had said something she missed because she’d been looking for Elliott.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “I said, I miss you.”

  “Oh, Aidan. I miss you, too.” Simone sighed.

  “You’ll always be my girl, Simone. You know that.” His voice had dropped. Not like he was trying to be sexy. Not like he was trying to hide what he was saying from someone else, either.

  Almost, Simone thought, like he was sad. And that made her sad, too. But what could she say? Denial would hurt him, and might really be a lie, anyway. Part of her always would be Aidan’s girl, at least as much as she could ever be anyone’s.

  “Let me take you to dinner,” he said.

  “Tonight?”

  “Yeah, tonight. We can go to that place you like, that Indian place.”

  She kept the smile out of her voice just to scold him a little. “What makes you think I don’t have plans tonight?”

  “Oh. Shit. Do you?”

  Simone looked out the window, but the sun had angled through the building to block her view of Elliott’s office. If he was even in there. She hadn’t seen him yet today, though they’d had a few quick texts back and forth this morning. Nothing important. He’d texted her “Good morning,” and she’d said “Have a great day.”

  Talk about something that should be simple getting complicated. Or maybe it was the other way around, something complicated becoming simple. Either way, she did not have plans tonight beyond a long, hot shower and watching movies in bed until she fell asleep.

  Alone.

  “Sure. I’ll do dinner. You’ll pick me up?”

  “You don’t have a car yet?”

  It was an old discussion, one he’d ragged her about often. “Why do I need a car when I can ride my bike, or take a bus, or bum a ride off an old friend?”

  “You have a free parking spot!”

  Simone laughed. “And if I bought a car, that free spot would cost me several thousand bucks a year. Right?”

  “I’ll pick you up,” Aidan said. “You know I will.”

  “And dinner’s your treat.”

  “You are such a conniving brat.”

  She laughed, loud and long and hard, her heart lifting suddenly from a weight she hadn’t been willing to admit she was carrying. “Oh, I’ve missed you. So fucking much.”

  “Me, too, babe. See you tonight.”

  * * *

  Aidan had brought her along.

  Simone shouldn’t have been surprised. The girl was Aidan’s girlfriend, and his submissive, a combination he’d been looking to find for a long time. A good friend would’ve been happy for him … and Simone was going to try her best to be.

  The girl wore her pale blonde hair in a long braid. Dark glasses with square frames. Black fitted T-shirt and black capri trousers. Nothing about her stood out as unique, but she had a pretty smile, and she shook Simone’s hand firmly, without hesitation.

  “You should’ve told me,” Simone said under her breath as they took their seats at the table and the girl–her name was Corrina, Simone reminded herself. Corrina excused herself to use the restroom.

  “I thought maybe you wouldn’t come if you knew.” Aidan gave her what looked like one of his old cocky grins, except there was a shadow of uncertainty beneath it.

  He’d been really nervous, Simone saw. Genuinely worried. Touched, she reached for his hand, linked their fingers. She brushed a kiss along his knuckles.

  “I might not have. But that would’ve made me the asshole,” she told him.

  He squeezed her hand and pulled her closer for the hug he hadn’t given her when he picked her up at her apartment. It was awkward, stretching across the empty chair between them, but for the moment it felt so good to be hugging him that it didn’t matter. He kissed her cheek, hard.

  “Don’t go away like that again,” Aidan said fiercely into her ear.

  He pulled away when Corrina came back to the table, but not quick enough. The girl saw the embrace. She was good about hiding her feelings, though. She gave Simone a smile that seemed almost genuine. It was better than the one Simone would’ve been able to make if the situation were reversed, that was for sure.

  That was the moment when Simone decided to like her.

  “So, Corrina,” she said. “Tell me about yourself.”

  * * *

  Later, when Aidan had paid for the meal and talked her into going back to his place instead of having him take her immediately home, Simone had the chance to see Corrina in a different light. The moment she walked through Aidan’s front door, she took off her shoes and set them carefully on the mat next to the door. Then she knelt and unlaced Aidan’s and set them aside, too.

  “No, thanks,” Simone said when Corrina looked first to Aidan for affirmation, then up at her. “I’ll take care of my own.”

  “Go change and then bring us a couple of coffees, sweetheart,” Aidan told her. When she turned to go, he stared after her for so long Simone wondered if he were going to simply wait until she came back before he even turned to her.

  “You are in so fucking deep,” she murmured, shaking her head and pushing past him to take a seat on the couch.

  She pulled her phone from her bag, thumbing the screen to check for messages, but there was nothing but a few alerts from apps she barely used. Nothing from Elliott. She opened her lists of texts, just to check and be sure, but the last thing on it was her message t