“Aaron, look—”
He kissed away her words, his hand lightly fondling her, caressing her breast while he kissed her thoroughly. He raised up to roll over so he was above her as he kissed her.
She was stiff in his arms for about ten seconds and then she melted against him, knowing she was lost.
It was two hours later when she grabbed the sheet and stepped out of bed. “Aaron, I’m going to shower alone,” she said emphatically. “There are things I think I should do today and if someone came looking for either one of us, I would be mortified.”
He grinned. “You shouldn’t be. First, it’s none of anyone else’s business. Second—and most important—you’re passing up a chance to spend a day in bed with me.”
She had to laugh. “You do tempt me beyond belief, but I know there are things I can get done and sooner or later someone will ask me to help in some manner. I’m going to shower.”
She heard him chuckle as she left the room. When she came out of the shower, he was nowhere around. As she looked through the suite, she realized he must have left.
She found a note and picked it up. In scrawling writing, she read, “Meet me in the dining room in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes from when?” she said aloud to no one. She shook her head and went to get dressed to go to the dining room and eat with him.
She spent the day running the errands on her list, making calls, going by the hospital again. At dinner she ate with Aaron, and for a short time after he talked to her more about dealing with the press, until she was in his lap, his kisses ending the coaching session on how to deal with the press.
They had grown more intimate, spent more time together, yet he still shut himself and his past off from her.
She could ask someone else about Aaron, but she wanted him to get close enough to her to stop keeping part of himself shut away. Moments still came when she could sense him emotionally withdrawing and at those times, she thought they would never really be close or deeply in love with each other. Not in love enough to marry.
Why was true intimacy so difficult for Aaron when he was so open about other aspects of his life?
* * *
The days leading up to the Dallas trip flew by.
Sunday morning Aaron went to church with her. After the service he stood to one side waiting as people greeted her and stopped to talk briefly.
When she finally joined him to go eat Sunday dinner, he smiled at her.
“What are you smiling about?”
“You. How can you lack one degree of confidence about talking to crowds? You had as long a line of people waiting to speak to you as the preacher did.”
She laughed. “You’re exaggerating. They were just saying good morning.”
“Uh-huh. It looked like an earnest conversation three or four times.”
“Maybe one or two had problems.”
“Sure, Stella. Sometime today or tomorrow I’ll bet you do something about those problems.”
“Okay, you win. I still say helping people one-on-one is different from talking to a group of people I don’t know and trying to get them to donate to the relief effort in Royal.”