“And?” He cups my face and pulls me back from him when I don’t answer. “And f**king what, Dayton?”
“And I’m going to tell her I’m done. I’m leaving. I quit.”
His lips crash into mine with a ferocity I never believed possible. They stoke a fire deep in the pit of my belly with each hard and forceful movement across mine.
“Does this mean you forgive me?”
I nod against him. “I do.”
“I don’t know how you do, but I’m… God.” He kisses me again. “I’m the luckiest bastard.”
“I know,” I mumble.
He buries his face into my hair and takes a deep breath. “You’re incredible, you know that? I am so very, very lucky to have you.” He presses his lips to my collarbone, and the words tumble from my lips before I can stop them.
“Why won’t you say it?”
“Say what?”
I swallow and step back from him, closing my eyes. “Why won’t you tell me you love me?”
“I have. So many times.”
“No. No, you haven’t.” I turn back to him. “You’ve said you’ve never stopped loving me. You’ve said your heart belongs to me. You’ve said you’ve never loved anyone else, but you’ve never actually said it. You’ve never looked me in the eyes and told me you love me.”
“You know I do, Dayton. And if you don’t, I want to know why.”
“I do. I know it, but I need to hear it. I just stood here and told you that I’m giving up my life to be with you and you still haven’t said it.”
Silence lingers between us, growing steadily heavier until Aaron finally speaks.
“That’s what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it? That’s what you wanted in my office—when you said you wanted me to strip myself bare and tell you how I feel.”
I nod and close my eyes. “It’s stupid, so stupid, but it’s like hearing those words will make me realize that I’ve made the right choice in choosing you over my life. I don’t care if that makes me weak or pathetic. I wish you would say them, but not because I’m standing here asking you to. I want you tell me because you want to. Because they’re—”
“True,” he finishes. “They are. I haven’t said them because you are this crazy independent woman who fights me at every turn. I can’t do anything without you pushing back at me, and your independence is one of the best things about you. You don’t hang on to my arm and beg me for things. You don’t look at me like I can buy you the world. You look at me like I’m a pain in your ass half of the time, and that’s why I haven’t told you. You balk every time I talk of something more serious than a night together.”
His palms are warm as they close over my cheeks and tilt my face up to his. I open my eyes and stare into his.
“But I do, Dayton. Don’t ever doubt for a second that I love you. I love you when you wake up in the morning, your hair is a mess and your eyes all misty from sleep. I love you when you’re spilling soda on your shirt and brushing crumbs from your lap. I love you when you’re glancing at me, thinking I don’t notice, and I love you when you’re asleep and you’re whispering my name.” He rests his forehead against mine. “I love you every second of my life, and that love is so strong that it encompasses everything else I feel.”
I hiccup as he folds his arms around me. His heart is pounding inside his chest, thumping against my chest, and I know mine is doing the same. They’re beating the same, right down to the same rhythm. Like they were always meant to. Like there’s no other rhythm they could possibly beat to except for the one reserved just for us.
“It scares me how in love with you I am, Dayton. I think I love you even beyond love itself. You’re my obsession, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you. You have to know that.”
I nod again, fisting his shirt.
“There,” he whispers, walking back with me. “I’ve told you. Now let me show you.”
Aaron sweeps me into his arms and carries me upstairs, unzipping the back of my dress before setting me on the edge of the bed. His fingers are soft against mine as he slides the sleeves over my shoulders, exposing the turquoise bra he loved so much.
He ghosts his fingertips over the curve of my breast. “So I get to take it off after all.”
I smile at him, and he dips his head. His kiss is slow and languid, an exploration of my mouth that’s filled with revelry and adoration. It reverberates throughout my whole body, a sweeping caress that touches every part of me.
“This isn’t fair,” I whisper when he kisses my jaw, tugging at his shirt.
He smiles against me and straightens. His fingers work the buttons and he shrugs it off, leaving it to drop to the floor behind him.
My fingers, like they have a mind of their own, sweep over the taut muscles of his stomach. They trace each shadowed indent of skin, finally following the shape of the ‘v’ muscle and resting on his hips. I lean forward and kiss the patch of skin above his pants, his skin is scorching hot beneath my lips.
Aaron leans me back on the bed and slides my dress down my legs. His mouth travels down my body and over my br**sts, leaving a blazing trail of seduction as he goes. His hand slips beneath me and unclips the bra, which is gone a second later.
This is different. This time, as he explores my body, there’s no rush, no hurry, no desperation. There are no whispered words of naughty promises that send my body into overdrive. There’s only his breath coating my skin in murmurs against me I can’t decipher.
And when his mouth reaches the apex of my thighs, the removal of my panties is slow, and the journey back up my legs is accompanied by a thousand peppered kisses. It’s joined by a crazy anticipation of what’s coming, of a silent beg from me for the show he’s promised.
His tongue’s strokes are as slow and easy as his kisses were earlier. His hands are wrapped around my legs, keeping them open, and he sucks lightly on my clit. He slides his tongue between my folds and inside me and over that tender bundle of nerves until I come apart beneath him in a way that’s crazily intense.
His pants hit the floor with a clunk of his belt, and he leans over me, his lips covering mine. “You taste good on you,” he whispers.
I smile. “Like your own personal heaven and hell all in one, right?”
“Exactly like that, beautiful woman. Exactly like that.”