“I’m just…not a spontaneous person,” I finally admitted.
“You mean like letting me kiss you last night?”
“That was…that was…” What the hell was that? My heart began to pound. I had no words for it. I couldn’t even imagine myself in that situation though clearly I had allowed it. “I don’t even know your name.”
He smiled, lighting up his eyes.
“Hunter,” he said. “Aiden Hunter.”
“I’m Chloe,” I said.
“You told me last night.” Aiden grinned again as he stood up and offered me his hand. It was also covered in tattoos. There were stars around his wrist, a flower covering the back of his hand, and tribal markings all the way down his fingers. I hesitated, but good manners got the better of me, and I let him haul me to my feet with my other hand still clasping my jacket to my chest. I looked around on the floor.
“Um…where are my clothes?”
“In the bathroom,” Aiden said. “They’re probably still wet. I washed the puke off them in the sink, but I don’t have a dryer.”
I quickly excused myself to the bathroom to locate my clothes. Aiden had been right—my jeans and T-shirt were hanging over the shower door, and though the shirt was only slightly damp, my jeans were still soaked. I pulled the shirt on just as Aiden’s head popped in the doorway.
“Want to try these?” Aiden held a pair of grey sweatpants out to me. “They’re going to be big, but there’s a drawstring. Should be enough to get you home.”
The idea of wet denim was unappealing enough for me to agree.
“Feel free to take a shower or whatever,” Aiden said. “There’s also an extra toothbrush in the cabinet.”
He walked out, and I pulled the ill-fitting sweats up over my legs, tied the drawstring, and rolled up the hem so I could walk. My sandals were on the floor of the bathroom near the shower, so I slipped them on too. I hated taking showers in strange places but did open the medicine cabinet to find an unopened, green toothbrush and made good use of that.
I caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror and stared at the smudged, mascara-darkened area around my eyes. I saw dull blue eyes, hair all over the place, and I still smelled a little like a bar. I looked like hell and wondered just how much worse I must have appeared last night when Aiden brought me here. No wonder he didn’t touch me.
I rolled my eyes at my reflection. Was I seriously disappointed that he hadn’t taken advantage of the situation? That would have been date rape, wouldn’t it? If you can’t give consent, it’s the same as not giving consent—I’d heard that from all the sexual harassment training I had to complete at work every year.
We hadn’t been on a date, of course.
Placing my hands over my face, I groaned in the back of my throat. I had to get out of this place, get home, and take half a bottle of painkillers. I obviously couldn’t think rationally here. I wasn’t even sure what to do with the toothbrush I had used, so I placed it next to the blue one that was already there in the little cup on the vanity.
After rubbing some of the makeup off my face with my fingers and cold water from the bathroom sink, I went back into the main room of the tiny apartment. Aiden was dressed in a white T-shirt with the sleeves cut out of it, tan cargo shorts, and a red baseball cap perched backward on his head. The shirt showed off a lot of his tattoos, but there were so many, my head swam whenever I tried to make sense of them. He was sitting in the single chair, flipping through channels on the television. He turned it off as I walked in.
“You sure you don’t want to eat first?” he asked.
“I’m sure.” I tried not to stare at his arm muscles, but they were just so big. And decorated. Very, very decorated.
“Give me a minute, and we’ll get you back, then.” He disappeared into the bathroom while I stood in the middle of the room, not knowing what to do.
Glancing around the room, I saw my purse sitting on the card table and retrieved it. I checked my wallet nervously and then sighed when I saw all the cash and credit cards were still there. I silently scolded myself for being so distrustful of a man who really hadn’t done anything other than help me out, but the whole thing was so far out of my comfort zone, I didn’t know how to react.
There was definitely the desire to examine my surroundings up close, but I didn’t want to appear rude. Aiden was only gone for a few minutes anyway, and I would have died of embarrassment if I had been caught snooping around. As soon as he came out of the bathroom, I retrieved my wet jeans, and we left.
Outside, Aiden opened the passenger door of a small, silver Civic and then walked around to shove his huge form into the driver’s seat. I buckled up and looked around. I knew the apartment complex from when I had been hunting for one myself, but I’d given it a miss. The neighborhood was a little run-down for my tastes, and the closest shopping was a strip mall with nothing more than a c
onvenience store and take-out Chinese. It was a cheap place to live, but I could afford much better.
“What do you do for a living?” I asked Aiden.
“Sales,” he replied.
“What do you sell?”
“I’ve sold a lot of different things,” he said. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.