If. If, if, if, if. Fucking if.
My life has been one big goddamn ‘if’ since Aaron Stone walked back into it. Everything I planned and everything I thought I knew would happen has been ripped away and torn into a thousand pieces. The certainty I prided myself on has been worn down, stripped back, destroyed. Now everything about me is uncertain.
How I’ll feel tonight, tomorrow, next week. What I’ll do when we get to Paris. What I’ll do when this trip is over. How I’ll feel. What I’ll want. Where I’ll go.
I know none of it and I can’t even begin to contemplate it. I never thought I’d see Aaron again, and when I did, pulling away that certainty, he made me his client. I let go of the freedom and ignored my gut. Then he didn’t want to be my client anymore, and in one traitorous beat of my heart, I agreed.
I agreed to be us. And that’s the problem. Us is so uncertain. Us always has been. Even the first time around, we were uncertain and impulsive and surprising. This time is no different. Each touch, kiss, whispered word… They’re all spur of the moment.
I don’t like spur of the moment.
A spur-of-the-moment phone call and job are what got me in this emotional f**king mess.
“Sometimes I look at you and wonder if you’re really here or if I’m imagining it again.”
I turn at the sound of his voice. “Again?”
He rubs his wet hair with a towel and paces to the kitchen. “Teenage girls aren’t the only ones who get lost in dreams and wake up wondering if they were real or not. I did that plenty of times after Paris.”
“You dreamed of me?” My lips twitch.
“Dreamed of you, saw you in places you weren’t, thought I was hearing your voice shout my name across the street.” His blue eyes pierce mine. “What? You never did that?”
“Never.”
“Liar.”
“I didn’t!”
He walks to me, his lips twisted in a smirk. “I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to believe me.” I walk backward, holding my arms up. There’s a hint of mischief in his eyes, one I recognize, one that sends promises of forever flooding through my body like they were whispered yesterday. “Aaron.”
“Admit it.” He stalks me, coming closer.
“There’s nothing to admit.”
He grabs me and throws me on the sofa. I laugh as he lowers himself over me, eyes sparkling, mouth grinning. “Admit it, or I’ll tickle.”
“Tickle? Mr. Serious can tickle?”
He lays his fingers at my side in a threat. “Every part of you.”
I push at his chest through my laughter, and he makes good on that threat. I squeal and arch my body into him to make him let go. “Crap, stop! Aaron, stop it!”
“Only if you admit it.”
“You’re a…grown man,” I breathe, squirming. “You don’t need the validation from teenaged memories to prove our love was real!”
“Yes. I do.” He covers my mouth with his in one swift movement, plunging his tongue between my lips. His fingers still, and I bury mine in his hair as he continues a delicious assault of my mouth. “And ‘was’? No, Bambi. There’s no ‘was’ about it. When you have a love that runs as deep as ours, it’s always alive and very, very real. It doesn’t die just because time passes.”
I draw in a deep breath. I know this. Of course I do. The kind of love that spreads through your body, possessing and controlling it, doesn’t just die. It keeps living the way a broken heart keeps beating.
“Yes,” I whisper into his mouth. “I did it. I looked over my shoulder every day hoping you’d appear from behind a tree. I heard your voice whispering my name whenever there was silence, and I felt your touch when no one else was around. And I saw you everywhere. You were every tall guy with dark hair, and I called your name and waited for them to turn, each time hoping it was you.” I grip his hair tighter and squeeze my eyes shut.
“And then?”
“And then when everything changed, I stopped wanting to see you but kept living in a hopeful fear you’d walk around the next corner. I needed to see you, but I didn’t need you to see me the way I am.”
He brushes his thumb across my cheek. “Why?”
“Because out of the handful of people whose opinions mattered, yours was always the most important.”
“Then you rounded the corner and I saw you anyway.” He softly kisses me again , a touch filled with truth. “And all I see is what I saw then. A beautiful woman with dreams she doesn’t think she can fulfill.”
“That’s because happiness always comes with a price.”
He pulls me up and wraps his arms around me. “Lucky for you, I can pay it.”
I smile into his chest and shake my head. You already are.
“And the price for today’s happiness is a coffee, and you’re paying.” He turns me in the direction of the kitchen area and pats my butt.
I shoot him a look over my shoulder. “What if I don’t want to pay?”
His blue eyes twinkle with a lusty mischief. “Then I’ll lock you in the suite.”
“What exactly will that achieve?”
“I have no idea, but the thought of you being locked in here all day is giving my c**k ideas.”
I press the button on the machine and lean on the island, my arms squeezing my br**sts together. His gaze flicks from them to my mouth and then to my eyes.
“And you can tell your c**k its ideas are completely useless considering it’ll be with you in a meeting all day. You can lock me in this suite, Mr. Stone, but if any orgasms happen, you won’t be a participant. They’ll be of my own making.”
The mischief dissipates from his stare, morphing into a dark heat that sends shivers through my body. “Of your own making?”
I dip my finger into the sugar pot and lick it off. “I’m quite adept at providing my own orgasms. I’ve done it plenty of times. I know all the right spots.”
He crosses the room in a few quick strides. He flattens his hands against the counter and leans forward until we’re barely a breath apart. “Let’s get something clear, Dayton,” he rasps. “If anyone makes you come, it’ll be me. And if I decide you can do it yourself, you’ll be doing it while I watch you.”
The idea of his eyes fixed on me while I touch myself makes me ache.
“Are we clear?”