Chapter 10
The second his lips touched mine, every nerve in my body was set on fire. I pulled him against me. I matched his ferocity with my own. I needed my hands on his skin, and I pulled his shirt free from his trousers to make sure I could get my hands on him.
When he moved me down the sofa, I let him. I moved with him. I needed to feel him on top of me, pressed against me. I wasn’t disappointed when he did either. The warmth of his body on mine, and the feeling of his rock-hard cock pressed against my stomach, had my sensations overloaded.
I kissed him back hard. I touched his skin roughly, grabbing at him, needing him to be closer, knowing he wouldn’t be close enough until he was inside me.
“Fuck, Aiden,” slipped from my lips when his mouth moved to my neck. I moaned, grinding my hips against his, desperately needing more.
I hadn’t been with a man since my husband died. Not a kiss, not a date, and certainly not a fuck. I wanted it all from Aiden, and I wasn’t embarrassed to admit that I would happily take it now if he wanted to give it.
I felt one of his hands undoing my buttons as his mouth settled back on mine.
I moaned against his mouth when his hand finally came into contact with my bare skin.
He kissed over my jaw line, over my neck, and kissed over my now exposed chest. When his mouth enclosed my left nipple, I felt my cock throbbing, begging for attention.
He felt it too, because a moment later, his hand cupped my cock through my trousers, rubbing my length, making me moan like a horny schoolboy.
Jesus Christ. If he kept this up, I was going to come all over my boxers.
His mouth moved over my skin, heading to my stomach.
He palmed my cock harder, and my hips instinctively moved up against his hand, looking for more.
His mouth teased my stomach, his hand moved against my waistband.
Suddenly, I knew exactly where this was going, and I panicked.
All I could think about was Tim, and how no one had touched me since him.
I pushed at him. I scrambled out from under him and hit the floor with a thud.
“I can’t!” I gasped. “I’m sorry.” I pulled myself off the floor and started to button my shirt up.
“Ellis,” he pleaded.
I couldn’t look at him. I would give in to what I wanted, and I would keep going wherever this was going, and all I could think of was that I was cheating on my husband. My dead husband.
“I’m so sorry,” I blurted, and I fled, grabbing my coat and my bag and not even waiting for the lift. I bolted down the fire stairs, down all six floors, and out onto the street. I didn’t stop sprinting until I was two streets away and I hailed down a London cab.
What the hell was I doing?
* * *
“Hello, son.” Sylvie smiled when I walked into the living room. “What’s wrong?” She read the expression on my face far too well.
I flopped onto the sofa beside her. “It’s nothing.”
She raised her eyebrow at me. She wasn’t buying it, and I didn’t blame her. I wasn’t exactly convincing. “Are you going to tell me?”
“We kissed.” I winced, blurting it out. I felt like a cheater. I felt like I was betraying her and the memory of her son. That feeling had lifted me out of Aiden’s office and into a cab and home.
“You kissed Aiden?”
I nodded. "Well, he kissed me, but, yes."
Sylvie got giddy with a big grin on her face.
“Oh my God. Darling, that’s brilliant! What’s he like? Is he a good kisser? Did it turn you on? Could you feel it in your toes?”
I looked at her with my mouth open.
“What? You thought I would be angry?” She patted my arm.
I shrugged. “I’m angry with myself. It’s like I’m saying Tim didn’t matter to me.”
Sylvie rolled her eyes and looked at me. “Do you think my son was the kind of man who would have wanted to see anyone he loved hurt or miserable?”
I shook my head. That was as far from anything Tim would have wanted could possibly be. “God, no.”
“Well, Ellis, he loved the bloody bones of you, so why would you be any different?” She shook her head at me.
“He wouldn’t want you to be miserable for the rest of your life.
You’re still so young, my darling, and I know that Tim died, but you didn’t.
You owe it to him and to yourself to have a life and enjoy it and live it to the fullest.” Sylvie hugged me hard.
“Now, answer the damn question. Is he a good kisser?”
I smiled and held her tight to me, kissing her cheek. “I love you, Sylvie.”
“I love you too, son. And so did Tim.” She paused. She stared. “AND?” she asked again.
I laughed. “You’re terrible, Muriel.” I grinned. She slapped my thigh and I admitted defeat. “Okay! Okay! Yes! Yes, he was a damn good kisser, and I felt it everywhere.”
She clapped her hands like an excited little child. “And?”
“And what?”
“Are you going to see him again?”
“Well, I work with him, Sylvie. I think it’s highly possible I’ll lay eyes on him again.”
Again, she slapped my thigh.
“Jesus, okay, bully! I don’t know. He’s got a habit of blowing hot and cold, so I really don’t know what the fuck to expect when I get back into work in the morning. And anyway, I fucked it all up, didn’t I?”
She stared, silently asking me to clarify.
“It was good, and I got hot for him, and it was going a certain way, and then I fucked it all up by freaking out and pulling away and running.”
Sylvie bit her lip and pity filled her features.
“All I could think of was the last person I was ever with that like that was Tim, and I just couldn’t do it.”
She nodded. “Sweetheart, I get it. The first time I was with someone after Tim’s dad left us was hard as hell.
And he was a wanker. Had I been still mourning the loss of a decent man, I might have had the same reaction.
He’ll forgive you. You just need to explain, and if he lets you slip through his fingers after all that, well then, he’s a damn idiot and you can tell him I said that. ” She waggled her finger at me.
I laughed at her again. “You know, I’ve actually started to like this job. I’m not sure that threatening him with you is going to let me keep it. Nor is my behaviour tonight.”
Sylvie glared, and I walked away before she had a chance to wallop my thigh again. “I need a bath. Night, gorgeous.” I laughed.
“Brat!” she shouted up the stairs after me.