The Lover's Vow

Chapter 23: Aidan

I woke up slowly, taking a few moments to figure out where I was. I groaned quietly when I noticed one of my arms was completely numb and I had a crick in my neck. I blinked into the darkness and realized I was still on the couch with Callie from when we put in the movie. I squinted at the clock on the wall illuminated by moonlight to figure out what time it was. Barely three in the morning.

I looked down at the source of warmth enclosed in my arms. My chair reclined all the way back with the leg rest out, and Callie had taken up the rest of the couch with her body pressed against my side. She had an arm looped around my stomach and I breathed slowly so I didn't wake her. Her scent filled my nose and I tried to tamp down the rising desire it invoked.

I knew I wasn't going back to sleep right away so I decided to enjoy the moment. It felt peaceful here, just holding Callie and lightly playing with her hair. We sat through two movies, putting in Better Off Dead after White Chicks, but we hadn't really watched much of the movies. We hadn't had sex either- we'd just ended up talking through them. I might have teased her a little bit but she'd stopped that when she'd started questioning me about my tattoos. I thought back to the conversation, a smile on my face with strands of Callie's soft hair falling through my fingers.

"Aidan, what does this tattoo mean?" She traced her fingers over the tree tattoo placed on my heart. It transitioned from fully blooming and alive to completely withered and dead going left to right.

"It's a representation for family, and how it can change sometimes."

She was quiet for a second. "And what else?"

I met her eyes, startled. Her intuitiveness caught me off guard and had me telling her the rest of it despite my original reluctance to go into detail. "I got it after Serena and Caleb passed. I wasn't in a great place, so the idea behind it at the time was that beautiful things die and you can't stop it because that's life so you deal with it." I took a breath. "But later on, I realized it also meant that just because something dies it doesn't mean it wasn't beautiful, or that it can't be beautiful again with passing time and patience."

I stared at the TV screen while talking, avoiding eye contact. I wasn't sure what I was so afraid to see in her eyes, but I knew it would break me one way or the other. Callie didn't say anything after that, just leaned up and kissed the tattoo softly, wrapping her arms around me. After a hesitation, I put my arms around her as well and held her tight to me. I was grateful that she sensed what I needed at the moment and my heart pounded while I tried to sort out what was happening there. Before I could overthink and scare myself with the depths of my feelings for Callie, she distracted me with another query.

"What about this one?" She lifted herself up and rubbed a thumb across the one by my hip. The touch lit me up but I ignored it to answer her question.

"That's a tribal-style Scottish thistle. Even though I don't know my birth family, I am proud of my heritage. The flower is a representation of Scotland and its people; beautiful, resilient, and fierce."

"Yes, I can see why you'd be proud of it. It's just like you."

My chest swelled with pride again at the memory of her words. She'd asked about a couple of my other tattoos, and I gladly told her about them. They were a collection of who I was, and by her asking about them it was like she was asking about me. I wanted her to know me; hopefully whenever this thing with us ended she'd remember who I was and not the asshole I felt like right now.

Every moment I spent with her only made me like her and want her more. I chalked it up to adrenaline with the situation, or even possibly some kind of "encouragement" from Aphrodite to keep me on the path. I'd never felt like this about anyone, not even Lucy. It was so hard to believe that it was all genuinely coming from myself. There had to be some outside influence for why I was reacting so strongly to Callie.

She shifted against me, mumbling something in her sleep that I couldn't quite catch. It was adorable, and I grinned at her scrunched up little face that was now tilted towards me. I leaned forward a little so I could softly kiss her forehead and I lingered for a few seconds longer than I had planned to. As I leaned back again I noticed that her face had smoothed out, and a small smile was even ghosting her lips.

"Oh Aidan," she breathed out softly. She was still asleep, and my body reacted viscerally at the thought of her dreaming about me. I liked the idea of that way too much, and I'd give my left lung to know what she was dreaming exactly. She shifted again, this time her eyes fluttering open. Her hazy eyes fixed on my face and she reached a hand up and softly patted my face.

"C'mon baby, let's get you to bed," I whispered.

She nodded softly and curled into me, wrapping her arms around my neck while I gathered her in my arms and stood. I padded to her room and set her down on her bed. She didn't let go of me and a surprisingly strong tug from her caught me off guard, making me fall into bed with her. I almost squished her in my surprise, but braced my arms on either side of her head in time, heated gaze meeting hers again.

"Please don't leave me Aidan. Stay." She rasped the words out and my semi-hardness turned into a raging hard-on in a millisecond. That heavenly voice of hers would do me in every time. I hesitated for one more second and the look in her sleepy eyes turned haunted. "I don't want to be alone anymore," she whispered.

My heart seized, and I capitulated. Bending my elbows, I leaned down and brushed my lips against hers. She tilted up to meet me, but I kept the touch fleeting. Now wasn't the time to delve deeper into her. I pulled away and her arms tightened around me, silently begging me not to leave. I smiled at her before situating us so that I was spooning her. I put one arm around her and the other beneath the pillow her head was resting on.

She snuggled closer and I bit back a groan at the feeling of her rubbing against my crotch. The wildness her action called up in me was immediately calmed when a whispered "thank you" reached my ears. I waited the short minutes until her breaths evened out before kissing the back of her head and responding before falling back asleep myself.

"You're not alone anymore Callie. Not while I have you."