CHAPTER 26
Aaron
Unlocking the door to the cottage, I’m still floating on the perpetual cloud that is any time spent with Easton. So, it’s not exactly embarrassment that has me engaging him. Making up excuses to talk to him has become my new favorite hobby.
“Are you proud of yourself?” I tease, locking up behind him once we’re inside.
“About what?” he chuckles, looking genuinely confused.
“That I made a fool of myself at the movie theater? Did you take me just to find out if I yell at movies in public like I do at home?”
“You only got a few dirty looks,” he says somberly, walking over and cupping my face. When he plants a kiss on my forehead, strands of worry wrap around me.
He’s been subdued lately, and it doesn’t seem natural. Our love-making these past three weeks has been on a plane I’ve never known, more sensual and emotional than I knew was possible. I have zero complaints, but it’s… unexpected not hearing his cocky jokes anymore when we’re in bed or messing around. His expressions get so serious, almost like he thinks I’m going to disappear.
I realize I haven’t known him in eight years and that I’m still learning about him, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d say something’s troubling him. I don’t think it’s me or us because he’s stayed here every single night since before I can remember. If I was what was troubling him, he wouldn’t stay. Right?
Heading toward the couch, he reaches across his chest and cups his hand over his opposite shoulder. I watch the way his head tilts, stretching out the muscles in his neck and upper back. I remember he said that tattooing can take a toll on your body. He has so many strikes against him from his former injuries, too. It hasn’t passed my notice the way his gait seems rigid sometimes now that it’s getting colder. He probably has more arthritis than a sixty-year-old after what he went through.
“Do you want to watch something and get the rest of it out of your system?” he jests, picking up the remote. “I know you were holding back at the theater.”
See? We’re fine. He does still tease me, even if not as much as at first.
“I have a better idea.” Taking the remote from him, I set it down on the coffee table. Turning him by the shoulders, I urge him toward the bedroom door. “Why don’t you go soak in the tub while I finish the dishes? It’s getting too cold for you to sneak off to that swimming spot you like. Warm water is better for your bones, anyway.”
“You could just tell me I stink.”
“You don’t stink.” For good measure, I bury my nose in the back of his shoulder and take a whiff. “I love your stink, actually, but you look tired and stiff.”
Arching his brows, he eyes me suspiciously. “Well, that boosted my ego. I’m supposed to be the younger one here.”
Rolling my eyes, I give him a playful nudge. “It’s not a contest. You work your ass off. Go on. You’ll love it. I promise.”
“Do I have to light a bunch of candles and play Joni Mitchell?” he calls even as he obliges and walks into my room.
“Go!” I laugh. “You stink!”
Heading to the kitchen, still chuckling, I shake my head at myself. Maybe I overanalyze things. I know it’s wise to question things in life. You can’t walk through it blindly without doubt, but you can’t have so many that you let them ruin something truly good.
Scrubbing the dishes, I stop mid-swipe, the sponge dripping in my hand. Something truly good. That defines perfectly what Easton is to me. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, we’re unconventional. I work in an office. He’s covered in tattoos. I’m eight years older and was once assigned to a professional guidance position over him. I’m afraid of everything. He’s afraid of nothing. Well, unless you count him being afraid to let me know he had a crush on me.
The sponge falls from my hand into the sink, splattering water droplets in the air.
I didn’t see it then. Why would I have seen it now?
Is he still afraid of us? Maybe that’s why he looks at me like I’ll disappear. He has to know that I’m right where I want to be. I thought I’d made it terribly obvious.
I feel warm with embarrassment right now, just thinking about how smitten I feel all the time. Have I been holding back, though? Does he need more from me? If so, I am willing and able to give it. Inhaling a deep breath, I dry my hands and start toward my room, determined. Brave. Open.
What I find when I pass through the doorway of the bathroom is a vision—and not just the sensual kind. It’s a vision of my future. The man leaning his head back on the tub, eyes closed, inked forearms draped over the sides, is the man I want in every tomorrow for eternity.
It’s like a curtain being drawn open, revealing the answer to a mystery. I’m simultaneously grateful for the revelation and feel a fool for all the choices I made prior to this moment in my life. When Jason, with all his initial charm and promises, asked me to marry him and move to Seattle, I remember thinking, why would anyone say no?
Anyone…
How am I just now realizing that I asked myself the wrong question? It didn’t matter what anyone would have done. I said yes because I couldn’t find a reason to say no .
Easton’s eyes peel open and find me, a lazy smile turning up a corner of his mouth. “I scrubbed. I promise.”
I tug my sweatshirt over my head because touching him is an urgent necessity. I shuck the rest of my clothes because as I stare at him, I know without a doubt I could never find a reason to say no to having him in my life. Everything about him is a resounding yes for me.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I murmur, stepping into the tub.
“Ah, this was a setup. I knew it,” he deadpans, even as he sits up to make room for me. “You just needed someone to wash your back.”
Sliding my feet next to his hips as I extend my legs what little I can, I feel home when the tops of his shins slip underneath my thighs. I once morosely mused that I could live in here. Now, it’s absolutely true. I felt slightly less lost when I returned to Maine, but I’m truly home when I’m with him.
I stare, just appreciating him until his brows quirk. Even that is endearing. How can someone so beautiful not be used to being looked at?
“You’re too far away to wash my back.”
Pulling myself forward, the water makes his skin glide like oil against mine as I rise. His lips are cool, but the rest of him is warm and inviting beneath the surface as I finagle my feet underneath his legs. The water level rises when I settle myself onto his lap, lying on him like a human blanket. I can’t hold back anything anymore now that I’ve seen my heart’s secret. Maybe I was waiting for permission from myself to fall in love again.
Like the other half of my soul, so in tune with my emotions, he reaches up, cupping my jaw. The searching look he gives me, the expression of awareness over my need to be one with him right now, is all the proof I need that my heart is giving its consent to be given away. A younger version of me might have thought, who could say no to that look?
The version of me today says no one else will have the chance. It’s mine. Only mine.
Rocking my hips into his, our cocks glide against each other between our stomachs. I answer his inquiring gaze with a kiss meant to ease all his worries.
“Do you have any idea how happy you make me?” I whisper, trailing a hand possessively down his side. Not groping; just claiming. I want him to know that he’s mine, every inch of him.
“How happy?”
The vulnerability in his expression tells me my assumption earlier was right. I want to wipe it from the pages of history. Cupping his face, I press a gentle kiss to his lips and gaze into those mesmerizing eyes.
“A level of happiness that might terrify some people.” Another kiss. Another picture of that heartbreaking look. “But I’m not terrified,” I assure him.
“No?” he croaks, wetting his lips.
“No. Because I’m never going to lose you again.”
His stomach rises against mine. A thick exhale leaves his lips, and his hand palms the back of my head, pulling me to his mouth. He kisses me like I set something free inside him. I kiss him back, letting him know he can have the key forever.
It’s not even foreplay, the way my hips are rocking against his now. It’s a carnal, possessive act of my body showing his body that I’m his mate. When his hand grips my ass and lifts, my mate instincts answer.
Reaching into the water, I wrap my hand around him, angling him to where we both need him right now. The second I feel his cockhead at my entrance, I thrust myself down on it like a starving savage. Our moans crash into each other’s mouths, a feral sound of relief and anguish.
I don’t want to tear my lips away, but I have too big of a message to impart with my body. Gripping the sides of the tub, I straighten up. He shifts inside me, slipping in deeper, well past my prostate. I don’t care that there are better ways to stimulate it. I just want him there as deep as he can go. I want the fullness during this moment. I want it rooted inside my body like a waypoint for the thickness of the emotions between us. Rising, I descend slowly, holding his gaze as he fills me again.
Teeth bared, he snakes his hand in an S down my torso, fingers gripping needily at my flesh. Some people talk dirty in the heat of the moment. Some people say flowery things. For a man whose job it is to get people to speak, there’s probably an irony in how much I enjoy his silence when we make love. I don’t need words. It’s all there in his face, in his little grunts that almost sound like growls. Easton uses his entire body to communicate, a special language just for me. Leaning forward, he grips my neck and pulls me to his mouth, shifting his hips into me as I ride him. I’ve abandoned my slow, sensual rhythm. It’s nothing short of pouncing on his cock at this point, water sloshing over the sides of the tub.
Shifting his legs, he manages to cross them underneath my ass, leaning me back against my end of the tub. I hold on, feeling weightless, but for my arms. It’s like fucking on a cloud. His hands grip my hips, my buoyancy allowing him to thrust me easily onto him over and over. I never take my eyes off his. With each yank on my hips that makes me feel wholly at his disposal, I watch. He watches me back, looking completely lost over the symbology of how it says loud and clear that I trust him to do whatever he wants to me, to use me, to have me, to consume me body and soul. That I’m his . Completely his.
“Yeah,” I concur with that unspoken message. “Yes. Yes.”
It might be just wishful thinking or passion, but I can feel his love saturating the room, the air, the water. “Aaron,” he pants.
It’s not a plea to speed up the climax. It’s not a warning that he’s near. It’s a statement of desperation. It’s the weight of suffering an overwhelming love. I know because I can feel it too in my chest, swelling around my heart.
“Come, baby,” I beg, saying that silly word I’ve never called anyone before. “Come.”
A low noise in his throat says he was holding back but can’t any longer after hearing those three words. He flexes inside me, so I reach for my cock, although it’s hardly necessary. He likes to watch. I’ve learned that much. So, I listen to him yell a broken sound as he shudders and stares at me as I work myself through the water.
It’s too much. So much that I have to close my eyes as the waves of pleasure ripple through me—electricity running up my legs, his heat billowing inside me, his flexed muscles brushing against my wet skin. Neither of us has any air left, but I greet his mouth eagerly when his lips crash into mine.
It’s not even kissing, just sloppy exchanges of lips. Silent gratitude.Addiction.
I exert what little energy I have left to wrap my arms around his neck as his weight collapses onto me. Closing my eyes, I decide I’m not going to let go until he makes me. The world could end tomorrow, and I wouldn’t be bothered right now.
Sometime later, I wake to a chill in the water and a chaste kiss on my lips. Eyelids heavy, they open to the sleepy, smiling face in front of me as his warm body draws back.
“Why don’t we move this to the bed?” he suggests.
“Mm,” I grunt in disapproval.
I was already home. I don’t need to go anywhere else.
Smirking, he rises and eases his way out of the tub, making me sigh until I catch a glimpse of the dimples in his gorgeous, glistening ass. Sated and exhausted, I blink through my drug-like state, watching his simple acts. Grabbing his towel off the wall hook—the one he’s claimed weeks ago. Drying himself leisurely with no sense of modesty or flair—a man in his natural habitat. My lungs ache with wistfulness at how age-old it all looks and feels, how permanent, how perfect. He could be across town right now and I think I’d still sense his presence, still feel his effect on my heart.
“Did I ever know what love was?” The mesmerized words leave my lips as a quiet thought, but they’re so much more. I realize that as soon as he hears them, but I’m not sorry that what is felt is now spoken.
My breath hitches, worried that claiming it aloud was too much for him, but I want him to know. He looks neither scared nor uncomfortable, though, rather speechless. Smiling, I lift one shoulder from the lukewarm water as if to say, it couldn’t be helped.
It couldn’t. Falling hopelessly in love with Easton was unavoidable.
In two strides, he reaches me. Bending down, he hooks his fingers under my chin and leans in. The acceptance in his eyes is like a balm, making my eyes slip closed as he presses a soft kiss to my lips and holds it there.
“Come on,” he whispers, sounding choked. Slipping his hand underneath my arm, he gives it a gentle tug. “Come to bed.”
I rise without a care in the world, a mass of sated dead weight. He wraps a towel around me, but I don’t get the chance to take it from him. I stand obediently in my bliss, watching through tired eyes as he dries my body. Tossing the towel to the wet floor, he takes my hand.
I find myself put into bed. The light goes out, and a lean, warm body slides in next to me. I can feel the ridges of the scar tissue on his legs when they slip over mine as he entangles us under the covers, pulling me closer and tighter than he ever has before.
The thump of his heart against my ear lulls me further toward sleep. I sink deeper into the soothing darkness amid periodic kisses to my head and the gentle circling of his thumb over my arm.
No. I never had a clue what love was—until now.
A scratchy whisper dusts my temple. “I’m very happy too.”
I used to make him try to speak when what I should have done was listen. I’ve never been so grateful as witnessing how silent is the heart. It’s the loudest, most beautiful sound in the world.