“Aaron, please,” I started to cry out, getting caught off guard when he sat up, his hands frantic on my hips as he shoved my shorts and underwear down my thighs, helping me maneuver them off in this tangle that only wasn’t awkward because we were both so desperate. So damn desperate.
In the blink of an eye, he was on his back again and I was straddling his hips that time. Aaron watched me as he licked his palm and wrapped it around the broad, hard flesh that was lined up right along my lips. His fingers brushed the sensitive skin on the crease as he rubbed his palm up and down his length twice before pressing himself to where I was warm and wet and so needy it might have been pathetic if I’d cared. The smooth cap of his head brushed against my clit as he slicked his palm up and down, licking it once more before doing the motion all over again.
Then he lined himself up with where I’d played enough in the past to know was my entrance, and with flexing hips and his hands on my waist, he pushed upward at the same time I sat on the shaft standing there upright waiting for me. One inch at a time, I held my breath as he stretched me and kept on stretching me, going where only one other person had gone before, but somehow, I couldn’t remember anything about that one and only time.
And then, with a slight sting that was nothing to write home about, and just enough discomfort to make me not want to move for a little while, my bottom hit his thighs and we both gasped. Neither one of us moved, breathed, did anything but just… exist.
“You okay?” he asked roughly after a moment, sounding almost entirely like a different person.
I nodded, flexing my inner muscles like that would help them get used to the new friend they’d made who wasn’t anywhere near being small or skinny. And Aaron groaned, ragged, long, his abs heaving as he blinked like he was in pain. “Are you okay?” I asked him with a hiss of something that wasn’t pain when he seemed to flex the big muscle buried inside of me in response.
Aaron smiled, swallowing, gulping, his breathing off.
I prodded at his shoulder, earning a moan from deep in his throat as he moved inside me. “Hey, if you croak on me right now, I’ll never recover.”
A pained smile grew across his mouth, and he pretty much groaned, “I’m not okay. I’m never going to be okay.”
I laughed and that only made him moan more.
Aaron tipped his head back, arching his upper body. “Ruby,” he whispered, “move, just move a little, and I’ll tell you anything you ever wanted to know. I’ll do whatever you want me to do, I swear to God… I might die if you don’t,” he wheezed out.
Well.
When he put it like that…
I swallowed the knot in my throat as I lifted my hips just an inch and dropped back down. Okay, all right. Then I did it again, up and down, taking a little more each time, it feeling so much better, so much better after every movement. I had no idea if I was doing it right, but I tried to do what I’d seen in movies before. It wasn’t like it was rocket science. Moving my hands to his chest, I started taking it all, every inch of his length until it felt like he’d almost come out, that big cap the only thing still inside of me, and I dropped back down with a hiss.
It was Aaron’s hands on my waist, kneading, that made me start grinding against the base of him when I’d sit back deeply enough that I was on his lap. And then, then, it was amazing. Beyond amazing. With each grind of my clit against his pubic bone, the need to orgasm became more pronounced. Achier. And from the way Aaron was breathing, he was close too.
I froze, hovering over him, but he pushed me back down and made me circle my hips as I was impaled on him, over and over again, and I came. I came with a cry, with a swallow, with a groan that had me falling forward, my chest against his, the side of my face doing the same.
And then Aaron groaned, grunted, his body stiffened, every muscle tensing as he jerked out of me suddenly, hot, sticky warmth covering my upper thighs as he clutched me to him.
I pulled back after a moment and looked down at him, breathing so heavily I wasn’t sure I’d ever stop, and I said the words he had to know were in my heart. The only time I’d ever said them out loud and to one person… and maybe that was the proof I didn’t need right there. Loving Aaron wasn’t something I could just keep to myself, it burst out, stretching every seam in my soul and body. When you loved someone, you told them. There was no other option.
And I told him my greatest truth, like it was something I was proud of and would tell anyone… because I could and would. “Maybe this is the wrong time, but I don’t care. I love you, stalker.”
With the side of my face to the warm, damp skin of his chest, he whispered the words right back to me as another hand landed on the small of my back. “I love you too, Ruby Cube. You know that.”
Chapter 24
I was sad.
Sadder than sad.
I was so damn sad it made my mouth taste like ash. It made my heart ache.
I’d never really experienced grief before, but this sure as heck felt pretty close to it. So far, I’d been lucky enough to never have anyone close to me die, but this… I could understand how some people never recovered from it if this was a fraction of what it felt like to lose someone.
Neither one of us had said much the last hour and a half since we’d left the beach house en route to the airport. He’d brought me breakfast at the crack of dawn again, but instead, this time, we’d woken up in his bed together. We’d showered together, with him washing my back and kissing my shoulders and hugging me while we were wet and slippery. I’d sat at the kitchen island while he’d cooked, and then we’d headed to the deck together to eat the waffles and side of berries he’d made.
We both knew what today was. What going to the airport meant. It meant this vacation was over. Our time together had come to an end.
It meant that Aaron would have to drive back to Shreveport, say goodbye to his loved ones, and then drive all the way to Kentucky to get back to his base.
It meant I’d go from spending all day with him to… not.
Every single thought that ricocheted around in my head since reality had really settled in had been focused on the fact that I had no idea when the next time I would see him or be near him would be.
And honestly, I’d been fighting back tears the entire time. This didn’t seem fair. It didn’t seem fair at all that now that I had him, I had to let him go. I had to go back home. For the first time in forever, there wasn’t so much comfort in it.
“Did you check in to your flight already?” came Aaron’s low, distant voice from behind the steering wheel. We’d left later than we should have, but I hadn’t really cared or worried too much about how close we were cutting it.
I swallowed hard, fighting back the sadness that seemed capable of crushing my lungs. “No,” I muttered as we passed a sign pointing us toward the airport.
It wasn’t my imagination that Aaron slowed his truck down. “Ruby…”
I didn’t want to look at him. I couldn’t. “I wish I could stay here with you longer,” I said, keeping my gaze focused on the blurry scenery outside the window. “And I feel really bad I’m not as excited as I should be to go see my dad because I’m sad to leave you.”
“Ru,” he whispered, gulping so loud I could hear him.
I wasn’t going to look over. Nope.
“Hey,” he said, steering the truck to a cluster of lined up cars that told me our time was about to run out. “I don’t want to drop you off either, you know that, don’t you?”
I shook my head, still looking outside. Where was a rainstorm when I needed one? I couldn’t even hiccup without him hearing it.
“Ruby,” he repeated, and I pinched my lips together as he pulled into the drop-off lane, trying so hard not to cry. I knew I failed when at least five tears just jumped right out of my eyes.
“Ruby Cube,” he said. “Would you look at me?”
I shook my head again, two more tears jumping to their deaths of shame.
“Hey.”
I swallowed and slowly turned my head to look at him, totally conscious that there were tears in my eyes, and I had no hopes of hiding them, and knowing full well that the second I looked at him, I was going to cry.