“I know,” he growls, jiggling his middle finger against my clit, right through the damp wool. “Come on, sweetheart, give me one.”
Oh God. Oh God.
I’m the one who said she didn’t want a plan, right?
I’m getting my wish.
My teeth clamp down on my bottom lip and I stare up at the spinning ceiling of the town car, reaching through the opening of my jacket to play with my nipples, imitating Aiden’s movements from before, my lower body moving more and more restlessly, dragging my bottom side to side on his arousal. Sensation gathers, familiar but different for all the intensity. For the fact that Aiden is the one bringing this down on me. And then he presses two fingers tight, tight, tight to that bundle of nerves and I let out a strangled sound, pleasure coursing down my middle with the power of white water rapid, pulling up roots and annihilating me.
“Christ, that’s beautiful. You’re so fucking beautiful.” His voice doesn’t sound natural, doesn’t sound like classic Aiden, but the Tennessee in his voice makes him familiar, welcome, regardless. Maybe even mine? At least for tonight? I don’t know, but I find myself wrapping my arms around his neck and clinging my way through the climax, hiccupping into the minty sinew of his throat. Letting him kick open the door of the car, exit onto the sidewalk and carry me into the vestibule of my building. “Your bag is in my hand, Stella. Take out the key.”
What is a key?
What is a hand?
I don’t know these words right away, but thankfully my vocabulary comes rushing back and I fumble to do what he asks, letting us into the building with shaky hands. I’m still floating on a river of bliss, but when we pass a sign that says, “Hey apartment ten. Please stop pissing in the hallways,” it hits me that I’m bringing this man, this wealthy honey entrepreneur turned department store owner, into my tiny, messy rent-controlled apartment full of second-hand furniture and unreliable Wi-Fi. “Um…oh.” I tap his shoulder when we reach the door of my apartment and he slowly sets me down, keeping a big hand settled in my hip. His mouth lands on the side of my neck, raking upward toward my ear and I whimper, crushing my keys in my fist. “I-I don’t know about this.”
His hands leave my body immediately, settling on either side of me on the doorframe. “Okay. Damn. That’s okay.”
“This apartment…it belongs to my uncle. Most of the furniture belongs to him. It’s not what you’re used to, I’m sure. I can’t even remember if I made the bed and our neighbor never stops smoking weed, so my bathroom smells like a dispensary—”
“Stella.” He exhales in a rush, head tipping forward. “I thought you were going to tell me it doesn’t feel right because I’m your boss.”
“No. No, I’m just…” I jerk a thumb over my shoulder toward the apartment. “I guess I’m a little self-conscious.”
Aiden nods, a corner of his mouth ticking up on the way to kiss my forehead. “Well, don’t be,” he says, right up against my temple. “Aunt Edna didn’t even have indoor plumbing until I was in seventh grade. Had to walk across the yard in the middle of the night to use the john. If your weed bathroom is indoors, this might as well be the Four Seasons.”
My self-consciousness drains out through my fingertips and toes, leaving me boneless between him and the door.
Three things hit me at once.
One. He’s not just saying those words. He means them. Aiden Cook will find a way to find the apartment behind this door wonderful, because that’s what he does. He sees the good. The bright side. And somehow I sense our economic differences will only be an issue if I allow them to be. If I dwell on them.
There’s no way he’ll let me.
Two. I am now turned on by Aunt Edna stories. God save my wretched soul.
Three. I might be falling in love with this man. Real, authentic, no escaping it love.
Saying those words out loud seems like a far-off dream, way in the future. Maybe one that will never come to fruition. But for tonight, I can show him exactly what I’m feeling.
That’s safe. That’s what I have for now.
Wrapping a hand around Aiden’s tie, I slowly back into the apartment, pulling him with me.
10
Aiden
Touching Stella, kissing her, feels good in an indescribable way.
Feels like where I belong. Grounded and needed and accepted.
I’ve got her pressed up against the wall of her entryway. She’s unknotting my tie and I’m pushing the jacket off her shoulders, learning the shape of her tits through the material of her sweater dress. The way she arches her back for the downward stroke of my palms, the mewling sound she makes when I pinch her nipples, tells me she has sensitive breasts. Licking and sucking the peaks will help make her wet for me. Based on the frenzied way we’re kissing, she’s going to need that crucial slickness sooner rather than later.
God.
Goddamn. She wraps a leg around my hip and I dip, surge up between her thighs, pinning her to the wall and grinding into the heat of her pussy, making both of us groan. And I don’t think we’re going to make it any further than this wall, right beside the door. We’ve barely managed to twist the deadbolt on the door to her apartment—no, her uncle’s apartment—and I could come already from the feeling of her pliant curves molding to my muscle, the way her eyes implore me. Now, now, now. They don’t have to say it out loud for me to know what she wants. I want it, too. I need her.
“Aiden,” she whimpers, her fingers beautifully clumsy on the buttons of my shirt. She pops them open all the way to my waist and pushes the sides of the garment wide, her breath releasing like the steam of a tea kettle. “No. No, you’re…there’s muscles under here. I’m getting Clark Kent transforming into Superman vibes and I’m not mad about it.” We smile against each other’s mouths and that shared moment makes me think of china patterns and Vermont and the nine million other things I want to do with this girl.
Including fuck her so well her pussy clenches every time I walk into the room.
But you’re not only doing this because you want her. Need her.
You’re here to prove a point. Prove you’re not too nice.
I have an ulterior motive—and that’s not right, is it?
That unwelcome thought has me avoiding eye contact with Stella, dipping my head down to taste her incredible neck. Drag my tongue up the side of that smooth column and become drugged by her scent. Rich, girl musk and crisp night air and a hint of peach. If she tastes even remotely this good between her thighs, I’ll never come up for air, I swear to God.
But even as I’m reaching up beneath her dress to peel the tights and panties down to her knees, I’m looking at the apartment out of the corner of my eye. And it’s definitely not hers. It’s temporary. There is nothing artistic or feminine about it. Stella has only just landed.
In fact, it seems as though her belongings are gathered neatly in one corner of the tiny living room, as if she’s afraid to take up space. A hairbrush, phone charger, a bottle of lotion. My pounding heart wrenches sideways at the sight of them crowded together in one spot. I want to address it. Want to talk about everything under the sun with her. But that’s not why I came here, is it? More importantly, that’s not why she brought me here. I came to scratch our itch for each other and hopefully create a permanent one. The kind that needs to be appeased over and over again.