Chapter 22
aris
“Oh my god, I didn’t think you guys were ever coming out!” I said as Noah helped Danielle into the front seat and folded up her wheelchair. I popped the trunk and then raced around the car to help him load it up.
“We didn’t think we were either!” Danielle exclaimed. She was positively radiant with so much energy, I felt it bouncing off her—and it even seemed to be bouncing off Noah as well.
After Noah and I both got buckled in, I put the pedal to the metal, the tires squealing as I got the fuck out of there.
“Whoa! Be careful with my car!” Noah scolded me.
I ignored him. Naturally. “What happened in there? Why are you guys so…um…energized?” That was the only word I could think of for the energy they were emitting.
“Well, let’s just say there’s not a soul in that building who doesn’t know who Danielle is now,” Noah said with a laugh.
“And that I’m Noah’s fiancée,” Danielle added.
“Well, does that include Alexandra and her father?” I needed to know.
“Oh, yeah. There’s no doubt. We sat with two hospital board members—you know Kurt Walker and David Shepherd?”
I groaned as a mental image of the two most stereotypical conservative white men in the universe filled my mind. “Oh, those guys are the worst!”
I got the whole scoop on the fifteen-minute drive back to our house. I couldn’t believe how much happened in the four hours they were together. I noticed something else too.
They were finishing each other’s sentences.
They went to this event as strangers. Well, practically strangers.
They seemed like best buds now.
Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Time would tell.
I knew one thing though: I was anxious to get some time with Danielle. I had been thinking about her in that dress and reflecting on our dressing room adventure all night, and my cock had been so painfully hard, I had to take care of myself twice.
It wasn’t enough.
I needed her pussy.
I hoped she wasn’t too tired, but she seemed wide awake and energized. I planned to use that to my advantage once I got her inside.
To my dismay, Cynda, Jason, Darth and Sushi were also wide awake and eager to hear how the evening went. The latter was bouncing around the room chasing a feather on a stick that Jason was whipping back and forth like a madman.
I groaned as I sat down on the sofa and Danielle and Noah animatedly shared their exhilarating tale.
There was something about a storage closet and Seven Minutes in Heaven?
My ears perked up when I heard that. Then I looked over at Danielle, and she was curled up next to Noah, and they were holding hands.
Holding hands?!
Cynda had obviously noticed too because she sent me a concerned look. I smiled. I wasn’t mad about it…well, not exactly.
I just felt a little blindsided.
Was I…jealous?
I hadn’t been given an opportunity to sort out my thoughts, but Danielle was still wearing that dress, and I was still envisioning ripping it off her.
Okay, probably not ripping. It was a five-hundred-dollar dress.
That Noah bought…not me…
Nah, that would still be rude.
Finally, Danielle stood up. “Okay, I’m coming down from my actor high now.” She yawned and stretched her arms over her head, balancing on her good leg. When she started to wobble, Noah caught her on his lap.
I stood up as well. “Yeah, I’m going to bed too. If anyone cares to join me.” I looked right at them.
Cynda shot me a look that seemed to be a warning, but I didn’t care. I didn’t like being left out, and right now, I felt like I was being left out.
Are they going to tell me what’s going on?
“Everything okay?” I asked Aris as I leaned on him for help down the hall.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” he said, but it was a lie, and, as he wasn’t very adept at lying, it was a pretty obvious one.
Noah turned halfway, looking at us over his shoulder. “I’ll give you two a moment. I’m going to get out of this tux and take a shower.”
I smiled and nodded. “Take your time.” Then I gestured toward the guys’ bedroom. “Let’s go chat for a sec, okay?”
“In my room?” His eyebrow arched adorably.
“Yeah, if that’s okay?” Was he jealous? He was acting really weird.
“I guess so.” He helped me down the hallway and ushered me through the doorway. “Do you want to sit in the chair?”
“Can you help me out of this dress first?” I grabbed his arm to get his attention—he seemed to be looking everywhere but at me.
“You want to talk to me while you’re naked?” he clarified.
“I just want to be comfortable. I’ve been wearing this a long time.” I reached behind myself to tug at the zipper, but lost my balance on one foot and fell right onto the bed, laughing at my antics.
I peeked over my head and saw that Aris had cracked a smile. “Um…I don’t know how well I can concentrate on talking to you if you’re naked, but let me help you before you injure yourself even more, okay?”
I laughed. “Please.”
I felt his warm breath on my back as he straddled my hips and slowly yanked the zipper down. There was a pause as if he was considering his next move, and then his warm lips brushed against the skin right beside my spine. Desire rippled through me, and it was like the parts of my body I’d put into hibernation mode after seven minutes in the closet with Noah were suddenly reanimated.
“Aris…can we talk first, please?”
He sighed. “We can try. But I make no promises.”
I lifted myself off the bed while simultaneously trying to take my arms out of the sleeves and pull the dress down. You can imagine how effective that maneuver was. Aris rescued me, pulling me upright so he could gently lower the dress from my body. Then he hung it neatly on a hanger in his closet.
It gave me a moment to acclimate to lounging on his bed in my bra and panties. I had chosen a rather lovely matching set for the evening, crafted from exquisite black lace and satin. The entire back of the panties was stretchy lace, with two round cutouts at the top of my ass. I lay on my side with my cast on top, keeping pressure off it. In this position, my ample breasts nearly spilled out of the satin and lace cups of the bra.
When Aris turned around, the words he was about to speak seemed to get trapped in his throat. “Fuck, Danielle…”
“Yes?” I batted my eyelashes at him coquettishly.
“You are a goddess, my love, pure and simple. I just want to worship your body all night. I can’t even get mad about Noah?—”
“Mad about Noah?” I repeated. “Why would you be?”
“Because you two obviously have something going on.” He crawled onto the bed, posing like a cat in front of me with his head lowered and his ass up in the air.
“And if we do?”
“I just…wasn’t expecting it,” he admitted.
“Not at all? Not even a little bit?”
He looked up at me, his hazel eyes round and clear. “I had hoped for it a while back, but I also enjoyed having you to myself.”
“So you don’t want to share me?” If my voice conveyed a little bit of disappointment, it wasn’t an accident.
Suddenly Aris sat up, crossing his legs like a kindergartner for story time. He folded his hands in his lap. It was like the seduction spell I’d been working with this lingerie was suddenly broken.
I felt exposed now. And a little embarrassed. I sat up and met his gaze. “What? Did I do something wrong?”
“Is this all an act?”
“What?” I crossed my arms over my stomach and stared at him.
“An act?” He looked around the room for a second, appearing to be collecting his thoughts.
“I don’t understand what you mean, Aris.” My voice was soft, almost a whisper. I’d never heard this tone from him before. It was…hard…and accusatory. “Can you explain?”
His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. “I know we just started seeing each other, so I’m still getting to know you. And I know your world has been totally upended.”
I nodded, following his train of thought so far.
“So, I saw how easily you slipped into the role of Noah’s fiancée, and now you’re back here, and you’re all lovey-dovey with him, and you’re still wearing his ring, and…well…I just want to know if all of this is an act.”
Okay, his train had jumped off the tracks.
I just stared at him.
He blew out a breath and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them and took my hand into his. It felt so warm and comforting—I hoped that whatever had just happened, whatever demon had just possessed him for a moment was gone. I wanted this Aris, this insecure, possessive Aris to be over.
I wanted my happy-go-lucky, glass-half-full Aris back.
“I told you when I first met you that I develop feelings for people quickly,” he said. “It’s something I’m working on, but I feel like it’s also just who I am, you know?”
I nodded, biting my lower lip because I didn’t know what was going to come out of his mouth next, and I was scared.
“Danielle, I know it’s crazy, but I’ve spent a lot of time with you already, and I…I just already feel something for you. A connection. I—” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe he was telling me this.
That made two of us.
“I have done everything in my power to take care of you and reassure you, to ensure you know that I’m wild about you. That I want to take care of you. That I care about your feelings and… I…well, I love everything about you,” he continued. “And…” Now he took a huge gulp, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his scruff-covered throat, “and I want to make sure you’re not just pretending to like me because it’s some sort of acting role for you. Like just to see if you can get me to fall in love with you.”
“What?” I gasped. “How could you think that?”
“Because I am,” he said, his voice trembling. “And I…” He shook his head as the emotion took over his voice. “I don’t know what your intentions are with me or with Noah, but I…”
Oh my god, was this really happening?
Everything Cynda told me and made me promise was pulsing in my mind, begging me to tell him the truth. To be as honest with him as he was being with me. He deserved that, didn’t he?
But what was the truth?
Was I just acting a role? Coercing him, grooming him to feel things I never planned to reciprocate?
Was I just trying to have a good time, scratching an itch, and I never promised him anything more?
Or was I starting to feel something for him—and Noah too?
He squeezed my hand in his as he turned pleading eyes to me. “I need to know the truth, Danielle. What you’re feeling. And I know you may not have answers yet because, like I said, your world has been turned upside down. I get it. I’m not trying to get you to choose me, or Noah, or both of us, or none of us.
“I just want to know where your heart is. Where your mind is. Where you think this is going because… because I think we could have a happy future.” He smiled now, like he was envisioning it. “A happy future together, the three of us.”
“You mean like…” I remembered that word Raine and I had laughed about. It seemed like ages ago, but it was really not that long ago at all. “You mean like a…throuple?”
He nodded, still smiling.
“Would you ever consider being in a throuple with me and Noah?”