16. Aria
SIXTEEN
ARIA
The mattress dips after Brodie lifts the sheets on his side of the bed. Templeton’s collar jangles as he jumps up after Brodie.
Templeton shakes, his collar making even more commotion. Brodie shushes him.
“Lay down. LAY DOWN,” he whisper screams. Templeton’s little rat body presses against my side and I feel him roll onto his back for belly rubs. I pretend to be unaware and deep in a Sleeping Beauty-esque slumber.
I don’t really know how to act. We’re sharing a bed. After he got in the shower, I slipped my sweatpants off so my legs wouldn’t get too hot. I’m lying in his bed in a t-shirt and underwear. I already decided when he was in the shower I’d pretend to be asleep.
He said he wants to get to know me now. That does not mean he wants me now. It means he needs to know more.
Which means the kiss from the woods was just . . . an isolated event in time?
And now we are platonically sharing a bed because we’re both tired and tomorrow will definitely be a long day.
Ugh, and the Fall Fox Fling dance is tomorrow night.
I highly doubt I’ll be making it there. And why would I even want to?
Just to watch the single women of Foxboro drool over Brodie while they actively hate me?
They hated me in high school, so why not now too?
I am hyper aware of every single move Brodie makes.
Wiggling his toes. A shallow breath. A quiet cough into his fist. Okay, so he’s fidgety.
That’s how he’s always been. A man forever in motion.
I take a deep breath and turn onto my side, away from him.
The covers tug when he turns in the opposite direction too.
Good. We are good at this. Just two people on the same sleeping surface. I focus on making absolutely zero motions.
For fifteen minutes, I lie here, watching the minutes change on his bedside clock. His breaths even out. He’s getting some sleep. Good. He worked hard. He rescued Granny, then was heckled by her for however much time came after that. That can’t be easy.
Everything is good . I mean, other than Granny being in the hospital and her house being charred.
Why is my throat so dry? Is it made of sandpaper? Coarse grit sandpaper at that.
Another three minutes pass, and I decide I have to get a drink of water.
Quiet as a church mouse, I slip out of bed and pad to the kitchen.
I open and close cabinets, trying to make as little noise as possible.
The hinge squeaks when I finally happen upon a cupboard of bowls. They’re cup-like. It’ll do.
I run a bowl under the tap and drink deeply.
I hear Brodie’s mattress shift and creak.
My whole body tenses as his feet hit the floor.
Templeton approaches me and licks my ankle, and the bathroom door shuts.
There’s the distinct sound of boy pee, deep and guttural.
By the time Brodie’s footsteps reach the kitchen, Templeton has wrapped his front paws around my shin.
His little hips start working and yes, the rat dog is humping me.
“Shoo!” I hiss, gently trying to kick him off.
“RATTIE,” Brodie booms as he comes into the room. He pries Templeton off my leg and heads for the hallway. “Sorry. He’s . . .” A door shuts, then Brodie walks back into the kitchen. “A horny old man.”
I chuckle. “I gathered that much.”
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“Thirsty,” I say, lifting the bowl.
Brodie squints at my drinking vessel, crosses the hall, grabs something off his dresser, and returns, putting on a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, the ones he wore in the days after his concussion.
His lips hook upward on one side, his little smirk that has haunted my dreamiest dreams and worst nightmares for over a decade. “I do have cups, Ari. For drinking.”
He leans over me, and his front presses into my back, which forces me into the counter. And I get the faintest whisper of his . . . goods . . . against my ass.
And being the wound-tight, hornier-than-the-damn-dog woman I am, I moan.
Brodie freezes.
“Sorry,” I breathe.
His laugh sounds like the softest “heh heh.” “All good.”
He fills the glass in his hand with water and extends it my way.
“Thanks,” I squeak.
“You’re welcome.”
Brodie’s still facing me, but leans a hip against the counter. He’s close. Closer than he’s been all day, when I haven’t been touching him, that is—which I guess was more than average. He runs his hands through his hair and looks out into the living room, connected to the kitchen.
“Good water,” I say, and Brodie looks confused.
“What?”
“It’s, ah, good water.”
Brodie laughs. “Oh. Ha. Yeah. Western Ohio’s finest.” His eyes look like he’s mortified, ready for me to start ribbing him.
He reaches into the cabinet again to get a glass for himself, pours it from the tap, and takes a sip.
Half the sip spills down his face. He wipes it with the back of his hand.
It’s dark in the kitchen, but I know his cheeks are flushed. “Geez. Smooth, Campbell.”
My heart’s in my throat. He could have spat the whole glass out on me and I still wouldn’t move away from him right now. My eyes flick over every part of his face. “It’s fine,” I say.
He licks his lips and nods to my glass. “I’ll let you finish it.”
I press closer to him, just the tiniest bit, pushing my chest forward. “And then?”
Brodie’s Adam’s apple jumps and his breath is shaky, but his eyes don’t leave my face. “And then I want to do what I should have been doing every second since you came back into my life.”
“And that is?” I gulp the rest of the glass, completely un-ladylike, and slam it back down on the counter.
Brodie doesn’t seem to care about my sloppy water drinking. He lifts his hand, trembling as he seems to struggle with how to touch me.
On a ragged inhale, he brushes my hair behind my ear and his thumb traces my jaw, tipping me up to him. “I need to show you how you’re still my favorite.”
Were I a weaker beast, I’d swoon and let my wobble-knee feeling take me under. Instead, my eyes fix on his lips before I close the space between us.
Because Brodie’s still my favorite too.
Electricity sparks.
Brodie pulls my hips flush with his, his lips stroking mine with a desperate sincerity.
I open to him, and unlike when we were teens, our tongues are significantly more coordinated.
He groans into my mouth and god, I need this forever.
His touch. His kiss. Every little affirmation of his pleasure spurring on my own.
My nipples tighten and my lower belly, everything under my shirt, begs to be touched.
He must sense it, because one hand moves to my mid-back while the other seeks purchase on my upper thigh. I whimper, rocking my hips against him.
“Fuck, Aria,” he moans. He snakes his hand under the leg band of my underwear, cupping and squeezing my ass.
“More,” I demand. “Everything.”
His hand hits bone under the flesh of my ass and a thrill jumps in my stomach. He’s grabbing, hard, and I’m finding I really like it. “Everything for my favorite,” he agrees against my lips.
His fingers explore more under my panties, one passing over where wetness pools at an almost-shameful rate. He stops his motions there, widening his eyes at me. “Ari.”
My cheeks go hot and he shakes his head, his gaze not leaving mine. “You’re perfect.”
I reach between us to grip the bottom of my shirt and tug it upward, letting it fall away to the kitchen floor.
His hungry eyes drink in my naked torso as I reveal myself.
I’m a different person than I was the last time we touched each other, a grown woman.
Even back then, I can’t remember a time when he saw me undressed.
So much of what we did as teens involved hands under clothes, but never stripping in the woods.
I lift the hem of his shirt. With a grin, he raises his arms and we chuckle as I take his shirt off.
I lock lips with him again and dip my fingers into the waistband of his shorts, tracing them to his back.
Then with one push, I shove them to the floor, his cock springing free.
I run an appreciative hand over him, and he pulls away just enough to show me his smirk.
I bite my lip and he growls . Frustrated. Eager. Starved.
Brodie pants and tugs me to him for more kisses, breaking away to trail them down my neck. He works my underwear down and hoists me up under my thighs to prop me on the kitchen counter.
He stands back, drowsy gaze combing over me. “Look at you. Perfect for me.”
He lifts a finger, tracing it down my side, along the curve of my breast to lightly circle my nipple. Then, his palm coasts down my side and clutches my hip bone. “You feel so good in my hands, Aria.”
Then, he makes a meal of me.
Brodie nips and licks my breast, and I tip my head back against the cabinet to revel in the sensation. His hand scrapes up my thigh before skating between them, rubbing his fingers over my wet lips. I roll my hips as his fingers dip down my slit and back up again. “That’s my girl.”
“I’m yours?” I try to say it with attitude, but I’m too worked up. My chest heaves with my next words, every syllable a challenge. “Your girl?”
He steps closer between my legs and grabs a fistful of my ass with his other hand. “I want you to be. I’m definitely yours.”
“Yeah?” I breathe, and he has the gall to chuckle.
“Every day since you fell on me has been a ploy to get you back into my life.”
I grasp both sides of his face in my hands and wrap my legs around his hips.
I need him, want this, have to have every part of the man standing in front of me.
I reach between us and take him in my hand, pumping up and down his shaft.
“Is this what you wanted all those times in the woods? Me to jerk you off?”
“I wanted a lot more than that.” I pull his face to mine, letting our kissing roam wild, burning. “But I would have taken a handskie.”