Page 180 of Fractured Fate

“Everything I said and did was real. Everything. I just didn’t tell you who I was and my original intent when I approached you.”

“Yeah, and what was that?” Riley asked. “You got near her while no other rogues did. Why?”

“I got close to learn how much contact she had with Blaire. At first. I didn’t know where the others were gonna go with that information. I was only told to find out how close she was to Blaire now.”

Charlotte wouldn’t lie and say hearing how innocent his job had been, and how little he knew of the rogue group’s intent, didn’t affect her opinion of him. She wondered if he knew how far they wanted to go—hurting Blaire, attacking Charlotte—if he’d still have joined them. He couldn’t back out halfway through, even if he did like her. She understood the threat to his life if he did.

“Girls,” her mom said, pulling back the curtain of rainbow beads separating the craft room from the back hallway. “I’m about to close.”

“Okay, Sara. I’ll put the fabric away and we’ll get going.” Riley stood, moving to clean up the mess on the floor.

“It’s looking great, by the way,” Sara said, her gaze moving over the mannequin in the corner already accented with orange and pink fabric.

Riley bloomed under the praise, wiggling a little as she put the cut material neatly into a plastic bin.

“I have a dinner date with Liz tonight. We’re going out with a few friends. But I’d like to get together sometime for dinner with you and Aiden soon. If classes are starting soon, that academy is going to have you too busy for us.”

“Sure, Mom.” Charlotte smiled at her mom before she slipped through the curtain and back down the hallway.

“I guess you have to go,” Noah said when she returned her attention to him.

“Yeah. But we’ll talk to the headmistress.”

Riley rushed over and put her hands on the bench, looking down at the phone. Charlotte recoiled to give her space. “Lie low. Don’t meet that James asshole.”

“I’ll try. I can’t ignore him if he calls me.”

“Well, don’t meet him. If you don’t really know him, there’s no telling what he’ll do. But we won’t leave you hanging long. I don’t think you’re so bad. That’s high praise, so accept it.” Riley stood and sashayed over to the mess she’d made.

Charlotte laughed.

“She always like that?”

“A little bit.”

37

CONTROL

The smell of vanilla and orange stirred her senses, pulling Charlotte from the depths of a dream where Aiden lavished her body with attention. She didn’t want to open her eyes, afraid of losing the last remnants of the dream.

When a masculine groan sounded too real to be a dream, her eyelids fluttered open at the same time Aiden kissed down from her knee, over her inner thigh. At the sound of her moan, he looked up, meeting her eyes.

“Good morning,” he said, voice low and rough. He must have woken up not long before her. She loved his sleep altered voice.

“Morning,” she said with a smile.

Her eyes trailed over him. He sat between her legs on the bed wearing a pair of loose athletic shorts and a T-shirt she planned to steal before bed later tonight.

His hand cupped the calf of her bent leg; her other leg lay across his lap. She still wore her sleep shorts and his T-shirt, so he hadn’t done half of what he did in her dream. Still, the simple touches over her exposed skin made heat pool at her core and goose bumps rise on her skin.

The hand not holding her bent leg slid up her outstretched leg to her thigh, pausing at the hem of her shirt, his gaze flicking up to hers. She squirmed and slid down, forcing his hand to move up her skin and slip beneath the fabric.

His fingers curled against her flesh, biting into her skin. “Words.” He leaned over and kissed her knee. “Tell me what you want, Kitten.”

That familiar tension in her chest hit at the sound of the nickname, her nerve endings coming to life as tingles spread over her. Her heart fluttered inside her chest, her breathing quickening.

Most of the time, she talked little when they had sex until he reduced her to a babbling mess of obscenities and unfamiliar noises. It seemed he wasn’t having any of that today.