“Watched you, sweetheart.”

I bite on my inner cheek. I’ll never get used to that no matter how many times he says it.

“That’s stalkerish, you know.”

He says nothing, and I can almost imagine him shrugging his shoulders. Aiden would never be apologetic about this part of him.

“So I know you like chess, football, swimming and working out,” I say. “Is there anything else you like doing?”

“Fucking you, sweetheart.”

My eyes fly open as my cheeks heat. I elbow him without looking back. “Something else.”

“Sucking on your little pussy. Fingering you to orgasm. Teasing your tits. Take your pick.”

“Aiden!”

“What? You asked what I like doing. You’re my favourite thing to do.”

You’re my favourite thing to do, too.

I pause at my sudden thought. I didn’t mean that.

I can’t mean that. Aiden isn’t my favourite thing to do. That’d mean he’s my favourite person and that’s not true.

...right?

“Something that doesn’t involve me,” I nudge.

“Hmm. There aren’t many of those.”

“How about your hobbies? Your favourite music? Your favourite film? Your favourite book?”

“You know about chess, football, and swimming. Those are hobbies, I guess.” He pauses. “I don’t listen to music. As for films, it’s probably Twelve Angry Men. It was the last film I watched with Alicia and Jonathan. Books. Hmm. I have no favourites, but the ones I remember the most were written by the renaissance era’s French philosophers.”

“Because Alicia read them?”

I feel his nod.

“If you didn’t watch that film with Alicia or read the books with her, would you still have favourites?”

“Probably not.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t understand why people obsess about favourites. It’s a matter of preference and shouldn’t be given so much weight.”

That’s his lack of empathy speaking. I honestly think he doesn’t know why people are emotional about things he considers trivial.

But he based his favourites — or what he thinks are his favourites — on his mother.

There’s something there.

Something deep and raw that I wish to uncover. If I figure out Alicia’s exact relationship with Aiden, I might figure out why he’s become the way he is after her death.

“How did you spend time with Alicia?” I ask.

“How did you spend time with your mother?”

His question catches me off guard.

“You know I don’t remember that.”

“Then maybe I don’t remember either.” The closed-off tone means that he’s done opening up.

I remain quiet despite the frustration rising inside me.

My eyes get lost in his arms surrounding me and his arrow tattoos covering the scar.

“Tell me something,” I murmur.

“Tell you what?”

“You went down on me. That counts as oral sex and you have to tell me something in return.”

The silence stretches for longer than comfortable.

I slowly turn around and find him peering down at me with narrowed eyes.

“That doesn’t count, sweetheart. It’s a continuation of last night.”

“Nope, Aiden. You’re not manipulating me on this. New day, new story.”

“Hmm. Still doesn’t count. You asked me not to stop. Demanded it even.”

“My reaction doesn’t matter. Our deal does.”

He watches me with that cold calculative streak and I know he’ll manipulate himself out of it like usual.

I place a hand against his mouth before he can speak. “Don’t even think about it. That deal means a lot to me. If you don’t keep it, I won’t keep any of your rules.”

He wraps a hand around my throat. “Careful, sweetheart. You know I don’t like being threatened.”

“Then keep your word,” I’m glad my voice comes unnegotiable.

He lets his hand flop in the water. “Only this time.”

I bite my lip against a grin. I got him in one of his games. That makes me so proud.

“Turn around,” he tells me.

I noticed this the other time and it solidified yesterday. Aiden doesn’t face me whenever he tells me these stories.

Yesterday, he said that he doesn’t want to look at my face because he’s pissed off. Is that what he feels whenever he tells me these tidbits?

Angry?

I face ahead, but I let my hand fall under the water. I wrap it around his hand that’s holding me to him by the stomach.

“Those two friends always had women at their disposal, but they got bored of easy women. So they had a bet to marry a mentally unstable woman and make her fall in love with them.”

“That’s an odd bet. Did it work?”

“It did. Until they got bored and moved on to their next bet.”

“And what was it?”

“That, sweetheart, is for another day.”

“Ugh. Aiden.” I face him. “You can’t keep throwing me crumbs like this.”

He smirks. “Sure can.”

“You’re such a sociopath.”

“Hmm. Are sociopaths born or made, sweetheart?”

I crane my head against his shoulder. “Why are you asking me?”

“You’re smart and you psychoanalyse me a lot in that head of yours.”

“I do not.”

“Sure do, or you wouldn’t have been able to thwart my plans.”

I thwarted his plans? When the hell did I do that? I need to commemorate the moment on my wall.

“Sociopaths are made,” I say. “It’s the circumstances and the upbringing that makes them what they are.”

“So a good upbringing can kill their sociopathic tendencies?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“Only sometimes?”

“Well, yeah. Some people remain sociopaths no matter what type of upbringing they have.”

“Hmm. Interesting.”

“What are your thoughts about it?” I ask.

He lifts his hand, strokes my hair back and swipes his thumb along my lower lip.

“Monsters are born.” He leans over to bite my lower lip then whispers in dark words. “As they grow up, they either deny it or fully embrace it, but it doesn’t change what they are.”

29

Elsa

Despite the bubble bath, I’m still walking a little funny at school.

Aiden has me glued to his side with his arm wrapped around my shoulder.

It appears casual, but there’s nothing casual about Aiden. He just uses casualty to appear normal.

We both know he isn’t.

My gaze strays to his bandaged hand dangling off my shoulder. I asked him about it when he was bandaging it earlier, but he just deflected his way out of it.

Aiden isn’t an open book, but he’s not completely closed off either. He has multiple layers that he carefully chooses which to hide and which to show.

His methodical thinking is maddening sometimes.

Okay, most of the time.