“You’re welcome.”
After taking a bite of pasta, she glanced up to find Aidan staring at her chest. Self-consciously, she crossed her arms over her br**sts, trying to hide the fact they kept straining against the material. She cleared her throat, and he quickly looked away. “Aidan Fitzgerald, are you staring at my boobs like a horny teenage boy?”
He gave her a sheepish grin. “It’s kinda hard not to when they’re about to bust out of the shirt.”
She huffed exasperatedly. “Well, I hated to stretch it since it isn’t mine, and it fits everywhere but the chest.” She glanced down and shuddered. “Ugh, I so want to get a breast reduction.”
“Jesus, why would you ever want to do that? Your br**sts are amazing.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “That’s such a man thing to say. You have no idea what a real pain they are. My back kills me, not mention it’s hard finding shirts to fit. Then there’s the whole factor of them getting bigger when you’re pregnant.”
Aidan licked his lips. “They do?”
“Yes, pervert, they do.”
He laughed. “Sorry, but I’m a total boob man, so that prospect really turns me on.”
“A boob man as opposed to what? An ass or a thigh man?”
He nodded. “Of course, it goes without saying that both your ass and thighs are amazing, too.”
She gave him a sarcastic smile. “Oh, thank you so much. Here I was worrying that they were hideous, and you’d been traumatized to have to see them. Glad I’ll rest easy tonight.”
“I’ll overlook that sassiness considering the day you’ve had. Instead, I’ll offer you more wine,” he remarked.
She held up her glass. “Thank you. It’s delicious.”
As he poured, Emma glanced out over the fading sunlight shimmering across the water. “I’ve got to say I’m more than a little jealous of your pool.”
It’s actually what sold me on this place. Like I told you before, swimming was my passion growing up, and after I left home, I always wanted another pool.” He took a sip of wine and then turned his intense gaze on her. “So what was your passion when you were younger?”
“Hmm, it’s probably a total cliché but singing.” She ran her fingers over the rim of her wine glass. “Well, I guess it still is my passion.”
“Really?”
Emma was shocked by the eager expression on Aidan’s face. “Yeah, my family is really big on Bluegrass and Country. I grew up singing with a band that’s made up of five of my male cousins. We would play at festivals and at the bar my Uncle Gary owns.” Emma laughed. “I guess you would call it a honky-tonk more than anything.”
He shook his head. “Why is it almost impossible for me to picture you singing in a smoky, rough and tumble bar?”
“Oh, I didn’t just sing there. I did at church, too.”
Aidan grinned knowingly. “Ah, you’re a church girl. That explains a lot.”
She stopped swirling the pasta around on her fork and shot him a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Now I know why you felt the way you did about sleeping with me—why you don’t have any sexual partners in your past besides your fiancée.”
“Having morality and spirituality aren’t bad things,” she countered.
“I didn’t say they were. In fact, it’s what I like most about you.”
Emma snorted. “You can’t be serious.”
“Well, I am.” He moved his hand across the table to graze his fingers against hers. “Until I met you, I never knew innocence could be so damn sexy.”
Although her cheeks warmed at his compliments, she couldn’t help the smirk that curved on her lips. “You really are a smooth one, aren’t you?”
Aidan jerked his hand away from hers and crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t realize I was being smooth at the moment. I was just trying to flatter you a little.”
Emma chewed thoughtfully on a bite of shrimp. “I think it oozes so naturally you don’t even realize you’re doing it. I think you’d even manage to do it in a coma.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, all your nurses would be fawning over you—even the male ones. You would probably end up getting really shitty care. Not to mention there would probably be a daily fist fight over who got to give your sponge bath.”
Aidan threw his head back and roared with laughter. When he gazed at her, his blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “Jesus, Em, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed with a woman as much as I have with you.”
“I assume that’s a compliment, right?”
“Oh yes, a big one.”
Emma nibbled on the edge of her fork, trying to decide whether she had the courage to ask the question that had been plaguing her for a while. “So have you really never been in love before?”
Aidan choked on the bite of scampi he had taken. He succumbed to a coughing fit before taking a long gulp of wine. “That one came out of nowhere,” he replied, in a strangled voice.
“Not really. You just want to avoid the question.”
He made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. After staring out at the glimmering water, he finally said, “Yes, I have been in love before. Are you happy now?”
“That’s all I get?”
“Were you hoping for some salacious details?”
Emma grinned. “Maybe.”
“Well, I think that’s enough for tonight.” He picked up her empty plate and started to rise out of his chair when she reached over and lightly touched his arm. Emma could see the struggle in his eyes, not to mention he kept clenching and unclenching his jaw. He appeared to internally bashing himself about whether to be honest with her.
Not wanting to cause him pain, she shook her head. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. It was rude to ask.”
“No, no, I’ll give you the gory details,” he replied, easing back down.
Emma’s jaw dropped open. She couldn’t help leaning forward, expectantly waiting to hang onto every word. Between hearing about his parents and now his love life, so many pieces of Aidan’s puzzle were coming together.
“Her name was Amy, and we were fifteen. We were both on our high school’s swim-teams. She was my first relationship, my first sexual experience, and…” He fidgeted in his chair. “The first girl’s heart I broke.”