8. Paige
Paige
His shirt remains twisted in my fist while he stands over me, breathing as hard as I am.
“Home,” Aiden says. “If this is where you want tonight to end.”
“Did anything I just did suggest that?”
“It suggested you enjoy kissing me.”
“I climbed onto your lap.”
“I noticed.”
His voice has gone maddeningly calm again. I tighten my grip rather than let him restore whatever responsible distance he thinks we need.
“I invited you inside for a reason.”
“Dinner?”
“You know that isn’t what I mean.”
“Then tell me what you mean.”
“I already did.”
“You told me adults can hook up without making it matter.” His gaze moves over my flushed face and swollen lips. “Words are easy for you, Paige. I’m asking what you actually want.”
His question unravels every scripted answer I practiced before he arrived. In books, wanting is a clean, manageable thing. In my living room, it’s the heat of Aiden’s skin, the raw sound of his breathing, the weight of him I still feel between my legs. Fantasy doesn’t survive contact like this.
“Come here,” I say.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Bossy.”
“Still waiting.”
I release his shirt and reach for his hand. His fingers close around mine automatically, but he lets me decide where they go.
I place his palm on my bare thigh.
“Touch me.”
His gaze lifts to mine. “Where?”
“Here.” I guide his hand higher until his fingertips rest beneath the hem of my shorts. “Then wherever I tell you next.”
A muscle in his jaw clenches, and the calm disappears from his eyes.
Aiden lowers himself over me, one knee settling between mine. His hand stays exactly where I put it while his mouth brushes mine.
“You know how to make me stop.”
“I know.” I slide my fingers into his hair and pull him closer. “I don’t want you to stop.”
He kisses me slowly, denying me the frantic pressure from a minute ago. I chase his mouth when he retreats, and the quiet sound he makes sends satisfaction through me.
Then his hand moves.
His palm glides along my inner thigh, rough against skin that has become painfully sensitive. I part my legs before he asks. The easy compliance should bother me. Instead, it feels like another choice I get to make.
Aiden’s thumb traces the edge of my shorts.
I suck in a breath.
He does it again, watching my face while his fingertips slip beneath the denim. A dizzying heat floods my stomach, and my hips lift from the sofa.
His hand stills.
“What?” I ask.
“You felt that.”
“It would be concerning if I didn’t.”
“That’s not it.”
His thumb slides higher and presses against my clit through the damp cotton.
Pleasure strikes hard enough that a gasp tears from my throat. My entire body tightens beneath him, startled by the intensity of one deliberate touch.
Aiden’s eyes sharpen, and I know he sees the surprise I can’t hide. It’s one thing to read about this or imagine it. It’s another to feel him touch me exactly where I need it and have my body respond like it has been waiting for him.
“You didn’t expect that,” he says.
I grip his wrist before he can mistake surprise for hesitation, holding his hand exactly where I asked him to put it.
“I knew what I wanted,” I tell him. “I didn’t know it would feel like that.”
His thumb drags over the same spot, and my head falls back against the cushion.
“Then tell me what you want now.”
I look into his dark, focused eyes.
“Do it again.”
He does.
This time, his thumb moves in a slow circle, and the pressure is so precise it dissolves the clever response forming in my head. My fingers tighten around his wrist while my hips press into his hand.
“Like that?” he asks.
“You know I like it.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
Of course he does. Aiden pays attention with an intensity that feels like he’s memorizing me, collecting details I haven’t even noticed about myself.
“Yes. I like it.”
“Good girl.”
The words come out low and rough, more approval than command, and a fresh wave of heat pools low in my stomach.
His mouth closes over mine as he strokes me through my underwear. Each pass becomes firmer, and every time I think I understand the rhythm, he changes it just enough to pull a different sound from me.
I slide my hand beneath his shirt. The muscles in his stomach tense under my palm.
“Take this off,” I say.
Aiden sits back and pulls his shirt over his head.
My eyes trace the broad planes of his chest, the dark hair narrowing beneath his belt, and the way he watches me, knowing exactly what I see.
“Finished?” he asks.
“No.”
I run both hands over him, then settle my palm over the thick length straining beneath his jeans. The controlled line of his mouth tightens.
“Getting difficult?”
“Worse.”
“Good.”
He catches the back of my neck and kisses me until the smugness disappears from my face.
His fingers work open the button on my shorts. He pauses with the zipper beneath his hand.
“Keep going,” I whisper.
“Lift your hips for me, sweetheart.”
The endearment is intimate in a way the command isn’t. My body reacts to both.
I lift, and Aiden draws the zipper down before pulling my shorts and underwear along my legs. Cool air touches my bare pussy, followed by the heat of his palm sliding up the inside of my thigh.
My pulse kicks when Aiden looks between my legs with open, hungry approval.
“Beautiful,” he says.
The praise warms my face. Any impulse to close my thighs disappears, and I open wider.
He looks up, meeting my eyes.
“That’s my girl.”
“You’re getting possessive.”
“You’re soaking my hand.”
“You sound pleased about that.”
“I’m fucking thrilled.”
I laugh, and his fingers slide through my slick folds.
The laugh catches, becoming a moan.
He spreads my wetness over my clit, circling it with one thick finger. Every nerve feels exposed, and pleasure builds with a speed that makes my legs tremble.
“Slower,” I say.
He slows immediately. His rhythm shifts to match the silent press of my hips, an answer to a question I didn't have to ask. He just knows.
“Better?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me if that changes.”
His finger slips lower and presses inside me. My pussy tightens around him.
“Paige.”
I hear the question in my name. “Keep going.”
He pushes deeper, watching every reaction. The stretch is easy, but the curl of his finger against a spot I have never managed to reach pulls a startled cry from my throat.
“That’s a first,” he says.
All the books I’ve read feel like a foreign language compared to what my own body is saying.
“Do it again.”
His brief, approving smile is unmistakable.
He does it again, then adds a second finger when I open for him. I moan at the stretch and move against his hand, following pleasure instead of trying to look composed beneath him.
“There you go,” he says, his voice low. “Fuck my fingers the way you need to.”
The filthy instruction steals what little composure I have left.
I do exactly what he says.
My hand locks around his forearm while I ride his fingers. He keeps the pace I set, his eyes fixed on the place where they disappear inside me and then on my face.
“Look at you,” he murmurs. “So fucking wet for me.”
“Aiden.”
“You wanted me to touch you.”
“I wanted you to stop talking and make me come.”
His thumb presses against my clit.
“Then show me exactly how you need it.”
I rock harder against his hand.
The pressure gathers low and tight. I am close enough to feel it, but each time I reach for the edge, it slips back.
“I can’t,” I gasp.
“You can.”
“That is deeply unhelpful.”
Approval warms his eyes. “What do you need?”
“More pressure. A little faster.”
He gives me both, but pleasure holds one infuriating breath from release. A groan escapes me, and I press my hips harder into the cushions.
Aiden withdraws his hand.
My eyes fly open. “Why did you stop?”
“Because I can’t get the right angle.” He rises and holds out his clean hand. “Bedroom. Now.”
I look at him. “Getting demanding?”
“I’m getting you off.”
I take his hand and lead him down the short hall.
Aiden’s gaze lands on the book facedown on my nightstand.
I follow his gaze to the book on my nightstand. Heat rises in my face.
“Don’t,” I say, the word barely a whisper.
He looks back at me, his expression softening. “It’s just us here.”
I slide the book into the drawer without looking at it.
He pulls my shirt over my head, and his gaze moves down my body.
“Lie back and spread your legs for me.”
There’s no teasing in his voice now.
I climb onto the mattress, but I catch his arm as he kneels.
“What do you need?” he asks.
“Start slow.”
“Anything else?”
“Don’t stop every ten seconds to ask how I’m feeling.”
“Then I’ll trust you to tell me.”
“I will.”
He kisses the inside of my knee, then the sensitive skin above it. His mouth moves higher while his hands hold my thighs open with firm, steady pressure.
The first stroke of his tongue through my pussy makes my entire body jerk.
Aiden lifts his head. “Too much?”
“No.” I fist one hand in the quilt. “Again.”
He lowers his mouth.
The second lick is slower. His tongue drags from my entrance to my clit, spreading my wetness before circling the swollen bundle of nerves with maddening care.
The warmth of his breath and the scrape of his beard against my inner thigh make me fight the urge to squirm away from pleasure I asked for.
“Aiden.”
He makes a low sound against my pussy that vibrates through my body.
One of his hands slides beneath me and holds me exactly where he wants me. I know he will loosen his grip the instant I ask.
I have no intention of asking.
I slide my fingers into his hair and guide him back to the pressure that made my stomach tighten.
“There,” I gasp. “Stay there.”
He stays.
His tongue works the same tight circle over my clit while two fingers press inside me again. The pleasure that kept retreating on the sofa surges back with every curl of his hand.
“That’s it,” he says against me. “Let me feel this pussy come against my mouth.”
“Oh, fuck.”
My thighs tense around his shoulders. He holds me open and keeps licking, his fingers moving inside me with exactly the pressure I begged for.
His tongue slows long enough for him to drag it through me again. The sound he makes is rough and hungry.
“Fuck, you taste good.”
The blunt approval sends heat across my skin.
“How good?” I manage.
He looks up at me with his mouth still wet.
“Good enough that I’m already thinking about the next time I get you naked.” His fingers curl inside me. “Good enough that I want you coming on my tongue until this pussy is too sensitive to take any more.”
My hips jerk against his grip.
“Then stop making me wait.”
His mouth returns to my clit.
Every stroke of his tongue is firmer now, his fingers matching the desperate rhythm of my hips. He watches me lose control, never looking away when my thighs begin to shake.
“Give it to me, sweetheart.”
The orgasm hits hard. My back arches from the mattress, and his name leaves me in a broken cry as my pussy clenches around his fingers. Aiden keeps his mouth on my clit and his hand steady, drawing out every shudder until the pleasure becomes too much and I tug his hair to pull him up.
He eases away at once.
I lie there trembling while he presses a kiss to my inner thigh. When he looks up, his mouth is wet and his expression is deeply satisfied.
“Don’t say it,” I say.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I’m thinking several things.”
He rises over me and kisses my stomach, then the space between my breasts. By the time his mouth reaches mine, my breathing has slowed enough to kiss him back. I taste myself on his lips, and the intimacy of it sends another weak pulse through my oversensitive body.
His hand cups my cheek. The tenderness after everything he just did strips away the last excuse to perform for him.
“Was that really new?” he asks.
“Some of it.”
“Which part?”
I look at the man waiting for an answer instead of supplying one for me.
“Most of it.” I trace my thumb along his jaw. “I’ve had two partners before. Neither of them paid attention like this.”
Aiden stills after my confession.
The silence lasts long enough for embarrassment to creep in. He brushes his mouth over mine and stops it from settling.
“Two men had access to this gorgeous body and wasted it.”
I laugh, even though my face is still warm. “That’s your thoughtful response?”
“No. The thoughtful response has more profanity.”
He kisses my forehead, then eases off the bed. “Bathroom?”
“Across the hall.”
Aiden returns with a warm washcloth and a glass of water. He sits beside me and cleans me with the same attention he gave every touch that came before it, gentle now that my body is oversensitive.
“You’re dangerously good at this,” I say.
“I pay attention.”
“I noticed.”
His eyes lift to mine. “Any soreness?”
“Only enough to remember why.”
Satisfaction darkens his expression, but he finishes taking care of me without turning the tenderness into another seduction. Then he sets the cloth aside and stretches out beside me. The sight of him so relaxed in my bed is a different kind of intimacy.
I roll onto my side. “You’re holding impressively still for a man who is still wearing painfully tight jeans.”
“I am exercising restraint.”
“Is that what the vein in your forehead means?”
His mouth twitches. “You don’t owe me an orgasm because I gave you one.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
I trace one finger over his chest. “I can hear you thinking from here.”
“I need to be clear about something.”
His voice loses its teasing edge, and a familiar caution makes me go still.
“I can call this casual if that’s what you need tonight,” he says. “But I won’t pretend I’m indifferent, and I won’t share you while we’re doing this.”
My finger stops. The possessiveness in his voice sends a fresh pulse through my tender body, but the decision still belongs to both of us.
“You don’t get to make that rule alone.”
“I know. I’m telling you what I want.”
“And what if I disagree?”
“I leave disappointed, and I keep my hands to myself.”
He states the boundary, then leaves the choice with me.
“Are you seeing anyone else?” I ask.
“No.”
“Do you want to?”
“No.” His hand settles at my waist. “Do you?”
“After what you just did? I would have to be deeply committed to poor judgment.”
“Paige.”
“No. There is no one else, and I don’t want anyone else.”
His thumb strokes once across my skin. “Good.”
“Exclusive casual sex.” I test the words. “That already sounds complicated.”
“Simple ended the second you corrected me for calling you lady.”
“You deserved that.”
“I did.” He draws me closer. “Next Friday?”
“That sounded suspiciously like an assumption.”
“Will you have dinner with me next Friday?”
I make him wait, just for a breath, just long enough to feel the word form as my own choice. Then I slide my hand behind his neck.
“Yes.”
Aiden kisses me slowly, with one hand warm against my bare back and the promise of another Friday already between us. My body is still recovering from his mouth, and I already want it again.
Seven days feels unreasonable.