Chapter Twenty-Four
Aiden’s kiss is hard and demanding. Possessive. He’s backing up his words with his mouth.
He’s not going to give me up. Even if he has to ruin his reputation with the Manatees to keep me.
I fist his T-shirt with both my hands, pouring myself into this kiss. I tell him with my mouth that I’m sorry. I want him. I need him.
I love him.
Aiden’s hands are in my hair. Down my back. A groan escapes his throat, and a sob breaks free from mine.
He breaks the kiss, breathing hard, and rests his forehead to mine. I close my eyes, the tears slipping down my cheeks again.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my voice thick.
Aiden begins to kiss the tears off my cheeks, and it makes me want to cry some more.
“I know you were doing it for me,” he whispers against my skin, his breath warm and caressing against my cheeks.
“I was,” I choke out.
Aiden lifts his head, moving both hands to my tear-stained face. The storm is gone from his eyes now, replaced by a look of tenderness. “I can’t lose you,” he says, moving his fingertips to my chin and tilting my face up. “I can live without hockey. I won’t live without you.”
My breath catches in my throat.
“I know it’s crazy to feel the way I do so soon,” Aiden confesses. “But I have had feelings since our first conversation on Casino Night. They’ve only intensified since then.”
My heart leaps. Aiden is feeling all the same things I am.
“I—I never thought I could care about someone in the way I did about Madison. After we broke up, I vowed I was just going to play hockey. Period. That was my world, and I wouldn’t be hurt.
But then I met you. I knew I shouldn’t have feelings for you.
I should have kept it simple at Casino Night and walked away.
But when I saw you, I felt something in my gut that I have never felt before.
Then I talked to you, and I couldn’t walk away.
My head was screaming at me that this would end in a disaster if it ever happened at all.
You were off-limits. I knew that. But I didn’t care.
And now that I’m here? I’m not going anywhere, no matter what the fallout is. ”
“I would understand if you did want to walk away,” I say quietly. “I saw a preview tonight of how Dad is going to react. The price is going to be high to be with me.”
Aiden drops a kiss on the bridge of my nose. “I don’t care.”
I’ve never had anyone love me like this. No, Aiden hasn’t said it with words, but he’s telling me this with everything else that he does. He’s definitely falling in love with me. But I have to be sure he understands the reality of coming out in the open with me.
“Aiden, are you sure you understand what I’m saying? My dad is going to obliterate you. He will see this as a violation of his trust, and that’s something you value. You can say I’m going to be worth all this, but are you sure you’re thinking this through?”
His expression doesn’t change. “Yeah, I know. I know the price I’m going to pay when everything comes to light. But if I have to choose a career in Miami over being with you? That’s an easy choice. It’s you, Scarlett. Every day I’ll choose you.”
Every day I’ll choose you.
I know now that he’s right. You don’t walk away from these kinds of feelings.
You fight for them.
For so long, I wanted to please my parents. Have them be as proud of me as they are of Ethan and Jamie. I followed all their rules. I was good and dutiful.
Well, I can still be a good person and make decisions that are at odds with them.
And that’s what I’m going to do.
“Scarlett.” Aiden covers my hands with his.
“I wouldn’t break these rules before. You wouldn’t either.
But life has given us something worth risking it all for.
You’re making me want to fight for something other than hockey.
You make me believe I can be loved again,” he says, his voice growing thick.
“But I only want this with you. That’s why I will take this risk. ”
I suck in a breath. Aiden doesn’t even realize he’s already loved.
I search his face, so honest and open with me.
The old me—the me before Aiden—would wait for him to say the words first. To make sure the “appropriate” amount of time had passed before making such a declaration, to keep myself safe, to follow whatever stupid rule I had put inside my head that I needed to follow.
But I’m not that same person I was even a month ago. I’m braver now.
I’m brave enough to tell this man what is in my heart.
“Aiden, I’m already in love with you,” I confess.
He freezes. Shock registers on his handsome face. I hold my breath, waiting to see how he responds to this declaration.
“You … you’re already in love with me?” he asks, disbelief in his voice.
“You’re already loved,” I say, laying my heart bare before him.
I pause for a moment, swallowing before continuing.
“I understand if you don’t have the same feelings right now.
And I hope I’m not making you feel pressured by saying this or awkward or anything like that.
But I want you to know that’s why I came here tonight.
I was going to walk away from us because I love you, and I want what’s best for you.
I thought that was being an alternate captain for the Manatees.
But now I know what’s best for you is being with me.
Even if you aren’t in love with me yet.”
Aiden’s Adam’s apple bobs, his eyes rapidly searching mine. I draw my lower lip between my teeth anxiously.
“Say it again,” he says roughly, his voice thick with unshed emotion.
“What?”
“Tell me again that you love me.”
He loves me back.
I can feel fresh tears forming in my eyes as this wonderful truth washes over me. “I love you.”
Aiden’s eyes become rimmed with red. He blinks a few times, swallows, and then stares at me with such a look of love in his eyes, it takes my breath away.
“I have never had anyone love me like this,” he manages to get out. His hands move to my face, holding it firmly. “And I have never loved anyone as much as I love you. I love you so damn much, Scarlett. I love you.”
Then Aiden’s mouth presses to mine in a furious, heated, claiming kiss, leaving no doubt of his feelings for me.
I feel his hands drop from my face, rapidly skimming over my rib cage, to the bottom of my shirt.
I release my grip on his T-shirt, a feeling of love and warmth pouring through me.
I move my hands up to his neck, stroking him, feeling his pulse flicker wildly beneath my fingertips.
I need to be closer with him. I need his skin on mine.
I need to feel him everywhere.
Aiden groans, and I swallow the sound. It belongs to me. His sound, his kiss, his taste, his body, his heart—they’re mine.
I slide my hands up underneath his shirt, spreading my fingers wide over his cut muscles, wanting to feel as much as I can.
His mouth breaks free from mine, and then Aiden picks me up and reclaims my mouth with his as I wrap around him, his hands under my butt and my hands around his neck.
He carries me back to his bedroom, and as soon as he sets me down, we’re stripping each other out of our clothing.
Aiden rips his shirt off, casting it to the floor, then helps me with mine.
His fingertips slide around to the back of my black lace bra, unhooking it.
As soon as it falls away, his mouth is on my collarbone, sucking my skin.
I run my hands down his muscular back, my head falling backward as his mouth and teeth claim my neck as his.
I shiver from the sensation, from every brush of his tongue, every kiss, every nick of his teeth.
I close my eyes and revel in the heat of his skin, his body hard and taut against mine, his mouth urgent and greedy.
His hands skim over my breasts and I arch against him, my nails digging into his back.
Aiden moans into the valley between them, and my hands move to his hair, gripping it as I feel the warmth of his breath caress my skin.
“You’re so beautiful. So soft,” he murmurs between kisses. “And you’re mine. This is mine.”
“Yes,” I manage to say.
Aiden lifts his head as his hands move to the waistband of my jeans, his fingertips undoing the button, digging down to the lacy waistband of my panties, dipping just below it and skimming oh-so-lightly back and forth.
I whimper now, beginning to throb with need. “Aiden, please,” I beg.
“Is this mine?” he demands.
I LOVE IT WHEN HE TALKS LIKE THIS.
“Yes,” I manage to get out.
“Good.”
His fingertips skim lower, and I shudder against him. I reach for his belt buckle, burning a trail of kisses all over his chest as I undo it.
Before long, we’re out of our jeans and underwear, and we tumble back onto his bed, our bodies hot against each other.
Aiden pins me to the mattress, his mouth urgent and seeking, his hips pressed against mine.
The room is dark except for the city lights that stream in through his blinds, illuminating this beautiful man who has just told me he loves me.
Aiden pushes himself up, bracing himself with one hand on either side of me, and stares down at me, pausing to catch his breath, his gaze intense and penetrating.
“I love you,” he finally says. “I loved you before, but you made me love you even more tonight.”
I reach up and stroke his face, carefully moving my fingers over his sensual lips, now swollen by kissing. To his jaw. Up to the scar over his left eyebrow.
Mine, I think again. Mine, mine, mine.
As our lips meet again, our tongues tangling in another delicious kiss, I know one thing.
Aiden is mine.
And I am his.