No. Those were not thoughts a block of ice would have.

Aaron walked out of the bathroom in silence, still dressed in his button-down, which now had two new undone buttons—which, I reminded myself, did not affect me—and headed directly to his side of the closet. Returning the silence, I slipped in the bathroom, so I could change and wash up.

Once done with that and clad in my jammies, I filled my lungs with a deep and hopefully energizing breath and returned to the bedroom.

I didn’t know what I had expected to find, but I was surely not prepared for the sight of Aaron in only a pair of sleeping pants. They hung low on his hips—so low that I could see the waistband of his underwear—and they were a dark shade of gray that complemented his skin.

My gaze trailed up, and there it was. That glorious chest that I had witnessed shining under the sun with droplets of sweat that—

Jesus, no, no, no.

I needed to stop gawking. Eating him with my eyes as if I had never seen a naked chest before. It couldn’t be healthy. Good for my mental health.

Turning away from him a little too briskly, I fumbled with my discarded clothes. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him slip on a short-sleeved shirt.

Good. That was definitely good. Cover those chiseled pecs and abs, stupidly flawless man who loves Up.

I opened the drawer of the narrow dresser and stared into it. Realizing I didn’t need anything from there, I closed it again. I threw open one of the wardrobe doors and realized the same damn thing. Cursing under my breath at my evident show of stupidity, I sensed Aaron move behind me.

My hands twisted the clothes I was holding into a ball.

A soft brush on the back of my arm derailed my inner pep talk, immediately lighting on fire my attempts to convince myself I was cool and unaffected.

“What’s wrong?” He skimmed those fingers up and down the back of my arm. “You are fidgeting.”

“Nothing is wrong. I’m okay,” I lied, and I heard my own voice shake. “I’m … cool.”

I so wasn’t.

Aaron flickered his fingers one last time across my skin as I remained with my back to him. It felt like he was waiting for something, and when the silence that followed my comment stretched, he sighed. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

His voice had sounded all wrong, so I finally turned to face him. He was walking away, so I reached for his arm, wrapping my slender fingers around his wrist. I could feel his pulse against my skin.

“Don’t,” I whispered. “I told you, you don’t have to. We will sleep on the bed. Both of us.” I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. “That’s not what I’m worried about.” And that wasn’t a complete lie. I knew that Aaron would gladly sleep with half his body hanging off that bed if I so much as looked slightly uncomfortable. Hell, he’d sleep on the floor if I let him. “I’m just …” I shook my head, not knowing how to finish that statement. Not daring to.

It’s not you in bed with me that I’m scared of, I wanted to tell him. It’s me and everything that’s going on inside my head and that stupid organ in the center of my chest—that’s what I’m scared of. It’s me and what I could possibly let myself do, what I’m terrified of. It’s this whole charade we have been executing that is messing with everything I thought I knew.

It hadn’t even been a day since we had landed in Spain, and I felt like everything between Aaron and me had changed more in twenty hours than it ever had in almost two years.

How could that be possible?

“Tell me what’s going on inside your head; you can trust me.” He lifted his free hand and cupped my face in his palm. “Let me show you that you can trust me.”

Oh God, I wanted to let him do that. Badly.

But it felt like jumping off a cliff. Bold. Too reckless. It petrified me.

Meeting his gaze, I realized I could drown in the blue of his eyes if I allowed myself to. Which only fueled my fear. Long gone was that block of ice I had preached about a handful of minutes ago. That simple gesture—his warm hand cupping my cheek—melted me to the ground. Dissolved me into nothing more than water. He had that power over me.

“I don’t know how.” I leaned my face into his palm. Just for a heartbeat. That was all I allowed myself.

Then, Aaron’s touch was gone, and the forgotten clothes that I still held under one arm were snagged out of my grip. He placed them somewhere else. The floor, the dresser, the bed—I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. Not when a very particular emotion had solidified in his gaze. Determination.

Deep in my gut, I knew he was going to show me that I could trust him. That perhaps I could jump, and it would be okay. That maybe he wouldn’t let me drown like I felt I would.

Something settled in the air around us. Something thick and sultry changed the atmosphere in the small room.

“Close your eyes,” he requested. Although it hadn’t been a question. Not really.

It didn’t matter because my eyelids fell immediately shut.

For the first time in my life, I did exactly as Aaron had said without putting up a fight. Not a single bone in my body was willing to do anything else but follow his directions. Letting him show me whatever he was after.

Taking the weight of answering his question off my hands.

Eyes closed, I felt him stepping closer, his proximity like a warm blanket I wanted to wrap myself in.

With each lingering moment that passed, where I waited, every other sense gradually heightened. I could hear my heavy breathing, feel my chest heaving up and down, sense the way my blood was being pumped through my body, reaching my temples with growing intensity. I could feel the warmth radiating off Aaron’s large body in waves that seemed to be in perfect sync with my heartbeat.

And as his silence crowded the space between us, I kept waiting. In the darkness that had swallowed me, I anticipated his words, his touch, his next move like I had never anticipated anything in my life. Like I was ready to come out of my skin if he didn’t follow up that first command. Hating and relishing in every second that separated me from whatever was going to come next.

“Once, I told you I was patient.” Aaron’s breath fell on my temple, sending a rush of sensation along the back of my neck. “That I wasn’t scared to work hard for what I wanted.”

Closer. He was much closer than I’d thought, his proximity warming my skin even though not a part of our bodies touched. I could change that. I only needed to lift my hand, and I could be brushing those lips that were so close to my ear with my fingers. Or I could push him away and end this torture.

But then he continued, “I might not have been completely honest.”

I did neither of those two things. My hand didn’t reach out or push him away. Instead, I let the anticipation simmer in my blood. I let him take that choice away from me. And just as if he could read me like an open book, he did exactly that.

His lips finally brushed the skin right beneath my ear, triggering an outbreak of shivers that ran down my body, not sparing a single inch of flesh. “It’s becoming really hard to make myself wait.” Another pass of his lips over the same patch of skin. “You are very close to driving me out of my mind.”

A humorless chuckle left his lips then, the soft puff of air caressing and tickling my skin too. I sensed him come a step closer, and my heart raced.

“But I am a man of my word.”

My breath hitched in my throat when his lips came into contact with my neck once more, that time remaining there a heartbeat longer.

Aaron’s fingers trailed up my arm, reaching the other side of my neck and cupping my face. Just how he had done earlier. “Do you want me to step away?” His thumb grazed my jaw slowly.

My lips parted, and all I managed was a weak shake of my head.