I meant it. Every single moment. Every single one. I’d face them all again knowing this was waiting for me. Knowinghewas…
Thereliefof Aiden’s mouth crushing against mine, the feeling of his hands on me, the pressure of his body. Him. After all this time. Aftersolong waiting, but I would have waited lifetimes more.
He touches me as if he knows how much I need it, knowspreciselyhow much I need his hands dragging down my chest, how much I need his fingertips digging into my hips as the desperate edge of teeth turns a hesitant, searching kiss into a hard, hungry suck of my bottom lip.
“Cy.” He says my name on a moan that makes me want to start begging. His breathing already heightened even before I start trying to take his air, kissing him back just as hungrily, drinking him down as if I’m drowning when this is actually the first moment I’m beginning to think I see land. “Fuck, we shouldn’t…”
“We should,” I argue, my own hands skimming up over his broad shoulders then back down his body, loving how strong he feels, how solid, even if it takes nothing more than the brush of my fingers above his waistband to make his stomach muscles tense. “Wereallyshould.”
“You’re still hurt.” Despite his words, he makes a low sound of disapproval in his throat as soon as I move my hands away from the button of his slacks, although he seems to forgive me when I cup the back of his head, burying my fingers in his hair and tugging on the wavy strands so I can press a kiss to the racing pulse beneath his jaw.
“You need rest,” he protests again, half-heartedly, and going willingly when my other hand kneads into his lower back to pull him even closer to me. I’m careful not to let him see my wince at the slight twinge of pain in my shoulder at the movement, knowing he will care far more about it than I do. “You…you could’ve died.”
“But as we’ve discussed, I did not,” I remind him, smiling victoriously when he practically lunges to kiss me as soon as I angle his head to take his mouth again. “I’m very much alive,” I murmur to him between kisses, between answering groans as I grind my hips into him and feel him as hard as I am. “And so, it would seem, are you.”
His fingers flex around my hips, his body moving to match my rhythm so perfectly that I actually start to worry I could come just from this, just from the friction and this small taste of him, but I don’t want to. I don’t want it to be over that quickly. I don’t want just ataste.
“Aiden.” I will beg. If he needs me to, I will. Even if he doesn’t, I will. “Please.”
“Fuck.” His forehead presses against mine, rolling back and forth as if he’s shaking his head, but his hold on me only tightens. “You’ll tell me if I hurt you.”
It’s not a question, but I answer it like one.
“You won’t. You don’t want to hurt me,” I reassure him, smiling again as I draw back to study his face, to clearly see that while there are plenty of things he does want at this moment, that isn’t one of them. “At least, not anymore.”
Aiden huffs out a laugh, the sound somehow better than when he moaned my name. “Never really wanted to hurt you,” he murmurs, his right hand finally leaving my hip to cup my face in a way that feels reverent, his thumb brushing across my cheekbone, across my mouth. “I wanted to…”
“You wanted to…?” I repeat back to him, meeting his gaze as I part my lips and let him press his thumb inside, taking him as deep as I can so he has no trouble imagining how well I will take anything else he’s willing to give me. No trouble imagining howgoodit will be.
“I wanted…” he starts again, making it sound like another broken plea before his eyes close on another moan. “Fuck.”
“Could’ve done that a while ago,” I reply, placing a far too gentle kiss on the tip of his thumb given how rough I’d like him to be.
I want to feel it. To feel him. So I’ll never have to question if it’s real. “Told you I—”
“Wasn’t just that,” Aiden says, his eyes still shut, his whole body still wound so impossibly tight that he’s practically trembling. “I wanted to understand why you were so hellbent on making me crazy.”
“And?” I ask, not doing much better given how my hand is shaking a bit as I clasp his and guide it back down, pausing when we pass over my chest. “What conclusion did you come to?”
“That I don’t really care as long as you don’t stop.” Aiden’s eyes open, and everything goes still. My breath stalling in my lungs as I see how the amber-flecked brown is nearly swallowed up by the black in his pupils, and I would probably think my heart hadstopped, too, if both of us couldn’t feel it racing.
“I won’t stop. I promise…please,” I ask him, leaning in to kiss him again and hoping this time he’s ready to let it consume us. Hoping that my voice sounds steadier to him than it does to me, that he won’t interpret my weakness as physical rather than spiritual and send me back to bed without him. “Please, wolf, let me make you crazy.”
He exhales on another soft laugh, but rather than kiss me back, the hand he has on my chest switches from holding me to pushing me more firmly against the door. “Good as that sounds, Cy,” he murmurs, a breath away from my mouth as his other hand moves from my hip to my waistband. “Think it’s my turn.”
At the statement, two of his fingers slip beneath the band before he gives a firm tug, the clatter of the button falling to the floor accompanied by the distinct sound of ripping fabric. Not that I fully register either, not when I’m too busy taking in the sight of Aiden dropping to his knees in front of me.
“What?” he asks as I lean against the door for support, his thumbs hooking inside the torn slacks so he can drag them down. “Nothing clever to say?”
I open my mouth, but no words materialize as I watch him push the clothes to the floor in one smooth authoritative motion, as I watch him take in the sight of my cock with his tongue resting along his bottom lip and his palms skating appreciatively back up my thighs.
“Aiden.” I’m begging again, my hands braced against his broad shoulders and my thoughts unable to focus on anything beyond the fact that I need him. I need him to—
His eyes find mine, staying there as he raises a hand to his mouth and spits into his palm, and despite my ongoing silence, I must manage to say plenty because he gives me a satisfied smirk before he says, “Shirt.”
Shirt…I recognize the word but not its meaning. Aiden shakeshis head, smiling when he lifts the bottom of my shirt over my stomach and nuzzles his face into my bared abdomen, the whiskers of his beard scratching the sensitive skin in a way that feels so unbelievablyperfect.
“Cy,” he says in a low tone, right before a sharp warning bite of his teeth. “Shirt. Off.”