done a piss-poor job. The only orgasm she’d ever experienced had been with Aidan.
But in the days he’d spent studying with her he’d gotten to know a lot about her. She was a fighter, determined to reach whatever goals she established for herself. And she was thoughtful enough to care that Pam not bear the burden of the cost of sending Jillian to medical school. She was even willing to sell her family home.
And he liked being with her, which posed a problem since they lived more than a thousand miles apart. He’d heard long-distance affairs could sometimes be brutal. But he and Jillian could make it work if they wanted to do so. He knew how he felt about her but he had no idea how she felt about him. As far as he knew, she wasn’t operating on emotion but out of a sense of curiosity. She’d said as much.
However, the biggest problem of all, one he knew would pose the most challenge to the possibility of anything ever developing between them was her insistence on Pam and Dillon not knowing about them.
Aidan didn’t feel the same way and now that he loved her, he really didn’t want to keep it a secret. He knew Dillon well enough to know that if Aidan were to go to his cousin and come clean, tell Dillon Aidan had fallen in love with Jillian, Dillon would be okay with it. Although Aidan couldn’t say with certainty how Pam would feel, he’d always considered her a fair person. He believed she would eventually give her blessing...but only if she thought Jillian was truly in love with him and that he would make Jillian happy.
There were so many unknowns. The one thing he did know was that he and Jillian had to talk. He’d given her fair warning that what they’d shared would not be one and done. There was no way he would allow her to believe that her involvement with him meant nothing, that she was just another woman to him. She was more than that and he wanted her to know it.
She stirred, shifted in bed and then slowly opened her eyes to stare at him. She blinked a few times as if bringing him into focus—or as if she was trying to figure out if he was really here in her bed.
Aidan let her know she wasn’t seeing things. “Good morning.” He gently caressed her cheek before glancing over at the digital clock on her nightstand. “You woke up early. It’s barely six o’clock.”
“A habit I can’t break,” she said, still staring at him. “You didn’t leave.”
“Was I supposed to?”
She shrugged bare shoulders. “I thought that’s the way it worked.”
She had a lot to learn about him. He wouldn’t claim he’d never left a woman’s bed in the middle of the night, but Jillian was different.
“Not for us, Jillian.” He paused. “We need to talk.”
She broke eye contact as she pulled up in bed, holding the covers in place to shield her nakedness. Aidan thought the gesture amusing considering all they’d done last night. “I know what you’re going to say, Aidan. Although I’ve never heard it before, Ivy has and she told me how this plays out.”
She’d made him curious. “And how does it play out?”
“The guy lets the woman know it was just a one-night stand. Nothing personal and definitely nothing serious.”
He hadn’t used that particular line before, but he’d used similar ones. He decided not to tell her that. “You weren’t a one-night stand, Jillian.”
She nodded. “I do recall you mentioning that last night wouldn’t be your only time with me.”
He tightened his arms around her. “And why do you think I said that?”
“Because you’re a man and most men enjoy sex.”
He smiled. “A lot of women enjoy it, as well. Didn’t you?”
“Yes. There’s no need to lie about it. I definitely enjoyed it.”
A grin tugged at Aidan’s lips. His ego appreciated her honesty. “I enjoyed it, as well.” He kissed her, needing the taste of her.
It was a brief kiss and when he lifted his lips from hers, she seemed stunned by what he’d done. He found that strange considering the number of times they had kissed before.
“So, if you don’t want to say last night was a one-night stand, what is it you want to talk about?” she asked.
He decided to be just as honest as she had been, and got straight to the point. “I want to talk about me. And you. Together.”
She raised a brow. “Together?”
“Yes. I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Jillian was out of the bed in a flash, taking half the blankets with her. She speared Aidan with an angry look. “Are you crazy? You can’t be in love with me. It won’t work, especially when I’m in love with you, too.”
Too late she’d realized what she’d said. From the look on Aidan’s face, he had heard her admission. “If I love you and you love me, Jillian, then what’s the problem?”
She lifted her chin. “The problem is that we can’t be together the way you would want us to be. I was okay with it when it was one-sided and I just loved you and didn’t think you could possibly return the feelings, but now—”
“Hold up,” Aidan said, and her eyes widened when he got off the bed to stand in front of her without a stitch of clothes on. “Let me get this straight. You think it’s okay for me to sleep with you and not be in love with you?”
She tossed her hair back from her face. “Why not? I’m sure it’s done all the time. Men sleep with women they don’t love and vice versa. Are you saying you love every woman you sleep with?”
“No.”
“Okay then.”
“It’s not okay because you’re not any woman. You’re the one that I have fallen in love with.”
Why was he making things difficult? Downright complicated? She had to make him understand. “I could deal with this a lot better if you didn’t love me, mainly because I would have known it wasn’t serious on your end.”
“And that would not have bothered you?”
“Not in the least. I need to stay focused on my studies and I can’t stay focused if I know you feel the same way about me that I feel about you. That only complicates things.”
He stared at her as if he thought she was crazy. In a way she couldn’t very much blame him. Most women would prefer falling in love with a man who loved them, and if things were different she would want that, too. But the time wasn’t right. Men in love made demands. They expected a woman’s time. Her attention. All her energy. And being in love required that a woman give her man what he wanted. Well, she didn’t have the time to do that. She was in medical school. She wanted to be a doctor.
And worse than anything, an Aidan who thought he loved her would cause problems. He wouldn’t want to keep their relationship
