Chapter 25 #2
Rainwater coursed from his curls. The look he gave her scorched a hole right through the screen.
Aubrey pressed a hand to her breastbone, trying to ease the flurry underneath. “Oh my god. How’d you get here so fast? Did
you get off early?”
“No. Same time as usual. I ran.”
She gaped. “You got here in fifteen minutes? On foot?”
A wry smile claimed his mouth—the one he reserved only for her. “Turns out I’m really fucking fast when I want to be.”
The thrum of her pulse swelled to join the storm.
Nick pushed his hair out of his eyes. “And look. You asked for rain. You got your wish.”
“Not quite yet,” she breathed.
That earned her a grin. He opened the screen and stepped inside, all smoldering eyes and wet dark curls and glistening skin.
Her heart cracked down the middle and sighed a single word. Mine.
Nick reached for her, molding his hands to the curves of her waist and backing her up until her heels hit the wall. Chilled rainwater dripped from him, soaking into her top, cooling her heat-drenched skin.
“So.” His face hovered close. “We’re doing this in your living room?”
“That was the idea.” She pushed the words through a rapidly narrowing airway.
“Mmm. So, we’ve got rain. Did you build a fire, too?”
“No. I don’t know how. Do you?”
He smirked. “Like any good Boy Scout.”
“You’re not a Boy Scout.”
“Nah. I get the sense that’s not what you’re looking for right now, anyway.”
Her pulse shortened. “Well, I delivered on the weather. The fire’s your job.”
“Among other things,” he rasped, and kissed her.
Aubrey lost time after that. Her world shrank to him, to the way he brought every aching, needy part of her to life. She existed
in the liminal space between the places he touched and the places he had yet to discover. Nothing else mattered.
They progressed down the hall one foot at a time. Her hands roved over him, her fingertips coming awake against the abrasive
wetness of his shirt. She threaded her fingers through his hair and kissed him until she forgot what it felt like not to.
In the living room, Nick pinned her to one piece of furniture after another as they consumed each other’s mouths. Somehow,
his shirt ended up on the floor, then his pants. Had she done that? She hoped so. She held him at arm’s length and drank in
the acres of unblemished skin, the delicate press of bone against flesh, the twin lines that narrowed into the waistband of
his boxers.
Dear god, he stole her breath. Her sanity. Especially when he had that look, open and naked and ravenous.
They finally made it to the fireplace. Nick broke away long enough to get a blaze going, though Aubrey couldn’t say how he did it.
Time spun by in a delirious whirl. She bore the weight of herself like never before.
There was so very much of her inside her own skin, so much everything, so much love and longing she could hardly contain it all.
When the flames gained a foothold, Nick laid her on the furs with heartbreaking tenderness. He kissed his way down her body,
alternating featherlight touches with hungry ones. He paused at her belly button, his thumbs hooked beneath the hem of her
tank top, a question in his eyes.
She gazed down her cheeks and nodded. “Take it off. Take it all off.”
His lashes swept low as he bent to his task. He arced his tongue along every curve and peeled her clothes off. He chased each
unveiling with trailed kisses and the skitter of heated breath.
Aubrey trembled. He stripped her bare and acquainted himself with every inch of her. It felt incredible, and also exquisitely,
painfully vulnerable, in a way that made her understand she would never be the kind of person to do this with someone she’d
just met.
Tremors gripped her in earnest as Nick climbed back up and met her nose to nose. He worked his boxers down and off and settled
between her thighs. One hand cupped her jaw, reassuring her with the steady press of his fingers.
“You’re shaking,” he said.
Aubrey hauled in a breath. She’d meant to reciprocate—to touch him everywhere, to explore him with her mouth, to lay him on his back and do everything she could to please him. Not the other way around.
Yet the significance of what was happening pinioned her to the blankets, made her legs ease wider and curl around his hips.
Her nerves rattled more than she’d realized they could, but something deeper moved beneath, some elemental need to give herself up.
To yield. To submit to him in every way possible.
“I’m nervous,” she said. “But I want you.”
“Me, too.”
“Which one?”
“Both,” he said.
She took his measure. He didn’t look nervous, with his open gaze, the firelight twinning in his eyes. She had no idea how much time had passed, but either it
had grown dark outside or the storm had taken the light, because shadows swirled around them. That, and the heat of the fire,
added to the burn where his skin met hers. She swore someone had doused her in gasoline and tossed a lit match.
He trailed a finger down her side, then placed a gentle kiss against her throat. “Just tell me what you want.”
You. The word joined itself to each beat of her heart.
He shifted his hips. He was so close. He was right there. Just another inch, and—
“You’re even more beautiful than I imagined,” he said. “And if this is as far as we go, it’s still more than enough for me.”
His night-sky gaze held her in thrall. Aubrey focused on that wide-open expanse, the one she called home.
The world tipped. She fell, upward and inward, into warm, welcoming depths. She wanted to stay there forever. “Do it.”
He searched her eyes. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” she whimpered. “Please.”
“All right.” He reached down.
She braced.
“I love you,” he said, and pushed.
Reality condensed to crystalline perfection. He sank into her along with his words, and in exactly the same way—slow and deep
and binding.
It didn’t hurt. That surprised her. Every TV show she’d ever seen had promised pain, but when Nick joined himself to her, her body sang out a high, clear note. She melted, melding with fire and rain and darkness.
Some of that transformation must have shown in her expression, because Nick went still. His fingertips found her face again.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” She inched her legs wider.
“Does it hurt?”
“No. It feels like . . . God, I don’t know what it feels like, but you should definitely keep going.”
He did, hesitant at first, then surer, with his lashes touching his cheeks and the guttural syllables of her name in his mouth.
Time washed over her in waves. She had never felt so full, so absolute. And yet her soul seemed to be billowing out from her body, a luscious unstitching of herself she had no desire to fight.
Television did get one part right, though. She didn’t orgasm. But Nick did, and she found she liked it better that way, because
something deeper than pleasure claimed her in the moment when his breath shortened and the tendons in his neck raveled tight.
A mangled curse slid off his tongue as he buried his face in her shoulder.
Her fingers pressed indents into his back as he went rigid against her. A dizzy whirl of pride claimed her. God, look at what
they’d done together. Look at what their bodies had created.
She bottled up the moment, storing it on a high shelf in her mind.
Nick gave one last shudder and went slack, surprisingly heavy once he became dead weight. “Holy shit,” he murmured. “Holy
shit, that was . . . I don’t even know.”
She ran her nails lightly along his back, up and down.
He lifted his head. Shots of color dusted his cheeks. “Sorry. I couldn’t hold back. I’m an asshole.”
She sighed, small and contented. “No. That was . . . perfect. That was exactly what I wanted.”
“You didn’t come.”
“But you did. And I wanted that more. I wanted to be the reason for you feeling that way.”
When she tugged at him, he pressed a kiss to her lips, hard and sincere. “Do you want me to keep going? With my fingers? My
tongue? Whatever you want, just tell me.”
She hugged him, enamored with the feeling of having him tucked inside her, still. What magic. Like a pact. “No. This was what
I wanted. Exactly this.”
He sighed. “You’re too fucking perfect, you know that?”
“We’re perfect. Together.”
They lay like that a long time. Once they’d cleaned up and tugged their underwear back on, Nick stretched on his side and
nestled her backside against his front, propping himself on an elbow to suckle at her neck.
Aubrey pillowed her head on one arm and stared into the dwindling flames. A moan slipped free every time he hit a sensitive
spot.
“This whole setup was evil-genius-level clever,” he murmured.
“Evil genius? How?”
“You just went and got me hopelessly addicted to you, right before leaving for a week. I won’t be able to think of anything
else the whole time you’re gone.”
She smirked and rolled onto her back. “You were hopelessly addicted to me already.”
He scoffed. “That’s . . . Well, that’s true, actually.”
She lay there and drank him in. “Thank you. For this. It was . . . everything.”
He dropped his eyes. “I really am sorry. Next time will be better for you.”
“Hey. Don’t say that. I love you. Turns out I also love having sex with you. I couldn’t have asked for a more incredible first time than that.”
Maybe some measure of her sincerity filtered past his embarrassment, because when she touched his cheek, he tilted his face
into her hand and kissed her palm. “I didn’t know this amount of happiness existed. I really didn’t. But next time’ll still
be better. I’ll make sure of it.”
“In that case, I might actually pass out.”
He laughed. “God, I’m going to miss you. It’ll be like someone’s carved a hole into me while you’re gone.”
“Me, too.”
His smile wavered, tilting toward sad. “But I wanted to say . . . I think your dad has a point, Aubs. You should take this week to think. Make sure you really want to defer. It’s a big decision. I wouldn’t blame you if you changed your
mind.”