Aaron pushes himself inside me slowly, so slowly that I feel the stretching of all my muscles as every inch of him finds its home. Each stroke is deeper than the last, long and sweet, deliciously erotic. His heavy breath in my ear is seductive, and I don’t remember ever feeling this way.
Like right now, in this moment, it’s just me and him and the love that’s finally out in the open.
Like everything is perfect.
“Aaron.” His name is a desperate plea from my lips as I feel the orgasm inside, coiling and sculpting deep in my belly, sending red-hot shoots of pleasure out.
“Easy, baby.” He kisses my neck, lingering on my pulse point.
“Please… I need…”
He pushes right into me, hitting the right spot, and pulls back out. He does this again, still slowly, still gently, still with a remarkable amount of restraint. I push my hips into him when I feel his c**k swelling inside me, and as soon as he presses his thumb against my clit, I feel the first red-hot spurt of his come inside me and let myself go.
It hits me so intensely, so incredibly strong, that tears spill from my eyes. When it’s all over and Aaron’s tucking us into bed, they’re still falling, leaving wet patches on the pillow.
He pulls me into his chest and wipes the tears away with his thumb. “Sex and crying is a habit with you.”
I choke a laugh, covering my mouth with my hand, and nudge him. “Shut up. I just…”
“Just what?”
“Love you,” I whisper, tilting my face back to look at him. His lips curve on each side, a light sparking in his eyes. “I love you. That’s all.”
“That’s all, she says. Like it’s so simple.”
“It is, remember? You told me it’s simple.”
“So I did.” He presses a gentle kiss to my tender lips. “I love you, too, Bambi. I love you so much.”
Chapter Eighteen
The grey skies and heavy rainfall in Seattle are a stark contrast to the early summer sunshine we left behind in London some sixteen hours ago.
“I want to go back,” I mutter, putting up the umbrella the flight attendant just handed to me before I get off the plane. Thunder rumbles overhead. Of course we’d land back in the middle of a rare frigging thunderstorm.
“Come on, woman. Stop complaining.” Aaron nudges my back and I sigh.
“Okay, but if I ruin these shoes in all those puddles…”
“I’ll buy you another ten pairs. Now go.”
I laugh and walk down the steps, the damp air making me shiver through my thin cardigan. Note to self: check destination weather before getting on a plane.
Aaron rests his jacket over my shoulders with a kiss to my cheek. I smile gratefully at him and lift my umbrella for him to come under. He raises his eyebrows, but I give him a hard, no-nonsense look.
Not that I’m averse to that white button-down shirt getting wet, of course. I’m just not prepared to deal with the inevitable man flu if he gets soaked.
We hurry into the airport and speed through our checks. I shake off the umbrella before lowering myself into our waiting car and drop it by my feet.
“Well, that’s my shoes ruined.”
“From a little rain?”
“That’s not a little rain. If I’d have known it was raining, I wouldn’t have worn these.” I lift my leg and flash him my black Louboutins, the iconic red underside showing as I do.
Aaron’s strong fingers grasp my lower leg and he lifts my foot higher. I slump back in the chair, pursing my lips, unimpressed, and he kisses my ankle.
“I like these. I’m definitely replacing them. They’ll match that red thing you bought.”
I roll my eyes. “You and the red thing.”
“I like you in red. You look like the temptation you are.”
“Like a great big chocolate cake in front of a dieting person?”
His lips quirk. “If you say so, Dayton.”
I smile and tug my foot from his hold, righting myself in the seat. Arriving back in Seattle is a blessing and a curse. The blessing falls in knowing that we’re both on the same page about this relationship. Well, mostly, anyway. We know it’s real. There’s no money, no obligation, no forcing. Just very real, very consuming feelings.
That’s not to say that this will be easy. Obvious things aside, a relationship is based on more than sex and love. Those things can’t make a relationship. They can make it better, oh yes, but they can’t make it something strong enough to go the distance. Sex and love don’t make a relationship something real enough to last forever.
It’s the little things that do that. Like Aaron said in Vegas, it’s the little things that mean the most. The things you pass on by because they’re seemingly irrelevant although they’re really the most important things.
Love is how the other person likes their coffee on a morning. How long they put their toast in the toaster for. How they like their throw pillows on the sofa to be arranged. How hot they have their shower water. How many bubbles in the bath.
How they always leave empty glasses on the bar in the kitchen, and how they know exactly how you take your coffee. How they know how many candles to light around a bathtub before you get in, and how chilled your wine has to be before it’s an acceptable drinking temperature.
We still have so much to learn about each other, and while I know there’s no rush, I want to know these things. I want to know if he prefers butter or jelly on his toast on a morning and if really he prefers tea over coffee, which I suspect he does.
I want to know if he changes the temperature of the shower water to my preference of red hot instead of a normal hot. I want to know every little thing I don’t.
Because at the end of the day, when it gets hard and you’re in the middle of the room shouting at each other over something trivial, you won’t remember the huge declarations of love. When you’re sitting against your bedroom door crying because you hate fighting, you’ll remember the way he smiles at you over breakfast and the way he trails his thumb down your spine to make you shiver.
You’ll remember all the crazy little things that remind you that, no matter what, no matter how difficult or impossible it may seem, there’s no one else in this world more perfect for you than he is.
“What are you thinking?” Aaron strokes the inside of my wrist with his thumb.
I roll my head to the side and smile. “I’m thinking I’m really glad you hired Mia Lopez.”
He leans forward and kisses me with his own smile playing on his lips.