Thirty-One #2
She doesn’t. Instead, she tilts her head back, exposing the long line of her throat in a gesture of submission that makes heat pool low in my gut.
“I can’t,” she whispers, and I don’t know if she’s saying she can’t tell me to stop or she can’t want this, but I’m not asking for clarification. Her hands are already pulling me back, her lips finding mine again with a hunger that matches my own.
I lift her from the step, and her legs wrap around my waist instinctively. The movement is automatic, muscle memory from a lifetime ago when we were different people. But the heat between us is the same, maybe even more intense, for all the years we’ve spent apart.
“Bedroom,” I growl against her mouth, and she nods, her breath coming in short gasps.
I carry her up the stairs, my hands gripping her thighs, feeling the tremor that runs through her body. Each step feels like an eternity and no time at all. When we reach the landing, she points toward a door at the end of the hall, and I kick it open, not bothering with gentleness.
The room is dark, but I can make out the outline of her bed, the familiar scent of lavender and jasmine that’s uniquely hers filling my senses. I set her down on the edge of the mattress, and she looks up at me with eyes that are dark with desire but still hold a flicker of uncertainty.
I brace my hands on either side of her, caging her in, giving her one last chance to change her mind even though it might kill me if she does. “Last chance, Aspen. Tell me no.”
She reaches up, her fingers threading through my hair, pulling me down until our foreheads touch. “I can’t keep fighting this. Fighting you. Fighting us.” Her voice breaks on the last word. “I’m so tired of being alone.”
The admission cracks something open inside me. This isn’t just about physical need. It’s about the years of loneliness we’ve both endured, the empty spaces in our lives that only the other can fill.
I capture her mouth again, slower this time, savoring the taste of her.
My hands find the hem of her shirt, and I pull back just enough to lift it over her head.
The moonlight filtering through the window illuminates her skin, but I want more.
I want all of her, so I flick on the bedside lamp and I take a moment just to look at her.
She’s changed. Her body is softer in places, evidence of carrying our child. There are faint silver lines on her stomach that I trace with my fingertips. Stretch marks from carrying Kai, which I press reverent kisses to.
I don’t say it out loud, but the evidence is profound. Evidence that she carried my child, nurtured him, and brought him into this world while I was absent.
She wriggles, urging me away, and I can tell she’s uncomfortable with my scrutiny.
“You’re beautiful,” I tell her, brushing her insecurities away. Every change, every mark tells the story of her strength, her sacrifice. “Even more beautiful than I remember.”
She makes a sound that’s half laugh, half sob, reaching for me. “Stop talking.”
I don’t need to be told twice. My own shirt hits the floor, followed by the rest of our clothes in a tangle of limbs and desperate hands. When I finally settle between her thighs, skin against skin, we both freeze.
This is real. This is happening. After a decade apart, we’re here, together, and there’s no going back from this.
She stares at me like she’s memorizing all the changes the same way I did, and her eyes drop to my chest. I know what she’s seeing. The stylized, tribal heart wreathed in aspen leaves with her name at the center.
Her hand reaches out, far too tentative for my liking, as she trails her fingers across the tattoo that sits directly over my left pec, and her eyes fill with tears.
She says nothing but looks at me in askance.
“To keep you close to me always,” I tell her, my voice rough with emotion, before I kiss her again, pouring everything I can’t say into it.
All the years of longing, the regret, the love that never died, no matter how hard I tried to bury it just to stay sane.
“Kaiden,” she breathes, her hands sliding up my back, nails digging in slightly. The bite of pain grounds me, reminds me this isn’t a dream.
She responds with equal fervor, her body arching into mine, and I have to force myself to go slow.
To savor this. Because even though every instinct is screaming at me to take, to claim, to make her mine again in the most primal way possible, I know this moment matters.
This is about more than just satisfying physical needs - it’s about rebuilding what we lost.
I trail kisses down her throat, feeling her pulse flutter against my lips. Her hands roam over my back, tracing old scars and new ones, mapping the changes in my body the way I’m mapping hers. When I reach her breast, she gasps, her fingers tightening in my hair.
“God, I’ve missed you,” I murmur against her skin, and I feel her shudder beneath me.
“Show me,” she whispers. “Show me how much.”
I don’t need further encouragement. My lips circle one tightly budded nipple while my hand slides between her thighs, finding her already wet and ready.
She’s so responsive, her body remembering mine even after all these years. I stroke her slowly, deliberately, watching her face as pleasure builds. Her eyes flutter closed, lips parting on a moan she tries to muffle.
“Don’t,” I tell her, my voice rough. “I want to hear you.”
Her eyes snap open, meeting mine, and there’s something vulnerable in her gaze that makes my chest tighten. “Kai...”
“Is asleep on the other side of the house,” I remind her, though I understand her concern. “And even if he wasn’t, we’re allowed this, Aspen. We’re allowed to be together.”
I increase the pressure, circling the sensitive bundle of nerves at her apex, and she bites her lip hard enough that I worry she’ll draw blood, so I capture her mouth with mine, swallowing her gasps as I work a finger inside her tight sheath.
Her thighs tremble around my hand. I feel her body tensing, coiling tighter with each deliberate stroke.
She’s close already, and fuck if that doesn’t make me feel like a king.
Ten years apart, and I can still read her body like a book, know exactly what she needs, where to touch, how much pressure to apply.
I add another finger, curling them inside her, and her back arches off the bed with a strangled cry. Her nails rake down my back hard enough to leave marks, and the sharp bite of pain only fuels my need.
“That’s it,” I murmur against her throat. “Let go for me, la mia bell'angioletta.”
She shatters with my name on her lips, her body clenching around my fingers as waves of pleasure crash through her. I work her through it, gentling my touch as she comes down, pressing soft kisses to her flushed skin.
When her breathing finally steadies, she opens those storm-hued eyes and looks at me with an expression that steals the air from my lungs. It’s not just desire anymore. There’s something deeper there, something that looks dangerously close to the love we used to share.
I can’t wait any longer. The years without her have been worse than any torture I’ve ever endured.
I settle between her thighs, the heat of her body drawing me in like a moth to flame.
My hands shake - actually fucking shake - as I grip her hips, and I realize I’m nervous.
Me. A man who’s stared down death more times than I can count, who’s made grown men weep with fear, and I’m trembling like a teenager about to lose his virginity.
But this is Aspen. My wife. The mother of my child. The woman I’ve loved since I was barely more than a boy myself. This matters in a way nothing else ever has.
“Kaiden,” she whispers, reaching up to cup my face. Her thumb brushes over my cheekbone, and the tenderness of the gesture nearly undoes me. “I need you.”
The words break whatever remaining control I have.
I surge forward, pressing into her, feeling her body stretch to accommodate me.
She’s so fucking tight, and the sensation is almost overwhelming.
I have to pause, gritting my teeth, forcing myself not to just take what I want, or worse, become a two-pump chump, which is a distinct possibility.
My normally legendary control is hanging by a thread at the feel of her wrapped around me after so long.
“Move,” she breathes, her legs wrapping around my waist, heels digging into my lower back. “Please, Kaiden…”
I pull back and thrust, not making her ask again, and Aspen makes a sound that’s half gasp, half moan as a strangled sound is yanked from my own throat.
“Don’t stop,” she pants. Believe me, I have no intention of stopping. Ever. Now I’ve made her mine again, there’s no going back.
I set a rhythm that has us both gasping, each thrust driving deeper, harder.
“Look at me,” I demand, needing to see her eyes when I make her shatter.
Obediently, her gaze locks with mine, and what I see there nearly destroys me. Not just pleasure and desire, though there’s plenty of that. But there’s also something deeper. Something that looks like trust, like hope…
Like maybe she’s finally letting herself believe we can have this.