Chapter Twenty-Six: Withholding
It's been days after their kiss and the tension didn't disappear after the kiss.
If anything, it multiplied.
Aiden wasn't ignoring her. Not exactly.
He was just… cautious. Measured. Like he was trying to untangle a wire that had been pulled too tight for too long.
Elena, for her part, wasn't exactly helping. Every time he walked into a room, her pulse did something unreasonable. Her face blushed and her heart beat out of rythym,so loud she was sure he heard her heart run away each time he came in.Every time he looked at her, really looked at her, she forgot half the vocabulary she'd spent her life building.
It was infuriating.
It was electric.
It was unavoidable.
---
They spent the morning in separate corners of the penthouse. He was in his office. She was in the sunroom, laptop open, mostly pretending to write.
She typed the same line three times.
Deleted it four.
Finally gave up and grabbed a book she wasn't really reading.
Her brain was too busy playing reruns of That Kiss. And worse—wondering what it meant.
Worse still? Wondering if it would happen again.
---
She didn't have to wonder long.
Around noon, she wandered into the kitchen, hoping food would be less emotionally complicated.
It was not.
Aiden was there.
Leaning against the counter like a poster boy for "I have thoughts and none of them are safe."
Dressed down in simple but screaming money White T-shirt. Black jeans. He was barefoot with his always conditioned hair tousled like a bed's nest.
He rarely looked this relaxed... But they've been making small progress. And Elena doubted she could tell how she went from being the unwanted wife to sharing a kiss with her husband and now seeing him in his full manly glory...
You're so far gone Elena,she thought as she stared at him without shame....
She hated how good he looked in sunlight.
He glanced up. "You hungry?"
"Starving. Emotionally and otherwise."
He smirked. "I made lunch."
"You cooked?"
"I reheated. Let's not romanticize it."
They sat. Ate in mostly silence.
Until he asked, "You're avoiding me."
"I'm right here," she said, biting into a piece of bread.
"That's not what I mean."
"I know."
More silence.
Then:
"I don't want to mess this up," he said.
Her hand paused.
"This?"
He nodded, watching her too closely.
"Whatever it is we're doing."
"Well," she said carefully, "we kissed. So I'd say we're doing...something."
He leaned in slightly.
"And would you say you liked it?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Are we doing this? Are we flirting like actual people now?"
"Answer the question."
She set her fork down. Met his eyes.
"Yes, I liked it."
He didn't look away.
"Good. Because I want to do it again."
"You have a very casual approach to starting emotional fires."
He reached out, took her hand.
"I have a very specific approach when it comes to you."
Oh.
Well.
There went her ability to function.
---
They ended up back in the sunroom. No idea who led who. One moment they were standing. The next, she was backed against the bookshelf, his hands on either side of her face.
They stared into each other's face. As their faces moved slowly towards eachother before they met heatedly at the middle. Their lips lofked with so much intensity that elicited a soft moan and simultaneous groan from them. He kissed her like the world had narrowed down to the space between her lips and his.
She kissed him back like she'd been holding her breath since the first time he said her name.
Their bodies pressed together. Slow but certain.
His hand slipped to her waist.
She tangled her fingers in his shirt.
He pulled back just enough to speak.
"You drive me crazy."
"Good," she breathed. "You deserve a taste of your own chaos."
He laughed against her mouth.
Then kissed her harder.
---
They didn't sleep together. Not yet.
But it wasn't because they didn't want to.
It was because they wanted to too much.
They parted slowly. Reluctantly. Breathing fast.
Aiden rested his forehead against hers.
"I don't want to rush this."
Elena nodded. "Me either."
"But when we do…"
She looked up.
"When we do," she whispered, "you better mean it."
"I will."
---
That night, Elena wrote just one line in her journal:
> Withholding only works if you're not already his.
And she knew the truth.
She was already his.
She just hadn't said it out loud yet.