by Abby Knox
Throwing one leg over his shoulder once again, he somehow gets deeper. He’s taken me literally; he’s not kissing but watching me and he plows deep, pulls out, and slams into me again. The crashing together, the ebb and flow, with our eyes locked on each other, is almost too much. Not for my body—my body is high fiving all the angels right now—but my heart, my soul, my mind. It’s all tuned into the Aidan Channel, and I no longer have a subscription to anything else.
I have to bite down hard on my lip to keep myself from blurting out the truth. I love all of this so much I might have to tell him.
“You’re mine,” he says, his voice gruff as he crashes into me again.
The gasp that leaves me is one of surprise but also happiness. He’s on the same page. Surely he doesn’t mean forever but for now. Yes. I’m his.
He slams again and I bear down, taking it all, my body rejoicing in it. “Tell me who you belong to, sweet girl.”
“You.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
One more fierce thrust and Aidan’s body freezes up. He blurts out a loud curse, and I can see the vein in his forehead. His body pulses into me, and my irrational, primal brain wishes for a second we had no protection.
Because that would be crazy. That’s crazy talk, Ruby.
But wow. I thought it would be awkward to watch a man come, face to face, eyes locked. But there’s so much more going on here. It’s not just our eyes and our sex joined together. A cord of trust is nearly tangible.
It makes no sense to trust someone after such a short time, but I just…do.
Chapter 15
Aidan
* * *
I fucking love this woman. There are no two ways about it.
I love her taste in my mouth, her kiss, her touch, and especially the way she looks wrapped up in my comforter, her mouth open to catch popcorn I’m tossing into her mouth.
We’ve moved from the studio bed to the shower, to the sofa.
Just a couple of hours ago I thought I was going to be spending the snowstorm alone, catching up on my shows and my favorite YouTube channels. But this is way better and keeps getting better.
After she destroyed me with her warmth, her sweet honey, her tight pussy, Ruby let me clean her in the shower—yet another first for her.
The way her eyes closed and lips parted when I massaged her scalp under the water almost made me hard all over again. I would have thought she was “touched out,” but she not only let me but welcomed me to explore all of her. The hot water cascading down over her breasts, her thighs, her eyes. I wish I could photograph all of this.
I was reminded while in the shower that I need to make sure I take that film out and put it in a safe place. I’d wrapped Ruby up in a towel and quickly dried myself, scurrying off to the studio room to remove the spent roll of film and place it on the small work table in there, next to my camera. I can’t seem to find the canister, so I look for a sharpie to mark it with her name.
“Hey, I made popcorn!” Ruby calls from the other room, and my stomach responds with a growl. I’ll find the canister after I sort through all the Christmas shots I have to send off to Brody the next day.
Knowing that she trusts me enough to be the first for all of these things squeezes my heart. I hope I’ve earned that trust. I hope I don’t completely fuck it up.
I find Ruby on the couch, still naked but bundled in the comforter, a bowl of popcorn in her lap, and two glasses of water on the coffee table. The fireplace is still roaring, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better Christmas postcard than this moment.
Chapter 16
Ruby
* * *
I open my mouth wide and try not to laugh as Aidan tosses a piece of popcorn into my mouth.
He misses and it falls into the comforter.
I look down and laugh. “Oops, it got stuck on the backboard.”
He asks what I mean, and I squeeze my boobs together and open up the comforter to show him the piece of popcorn lodged in my cleavage.
Aidan laughs. “I’ll get that for you.”
“Of course, I was saving it for you.”
In what was supposed to be a playful gesture, or so I thought, his eyes stay on mine and he makes a yummy noise while he flicks the popcorn out from between my boobs with his tongue and catches it in his mouth.
I don’t know how my insides could be quivering with lust from this when he’s just made me come twice. He seems to dare me to look away while he’s chewing the popcorn slowly.
“Stop looking at me like that, you’re just going to get me going all over again,” I say.
Without even pulling the comforter open, his hand reaches for my legs and slides up my thighs. “You ready for round three?”
I blush again. After everything that’s happened between us, I don’t know why I’d continue to feel this flush of heat and anticipation. “There’s no way, I think I’m spent.”
Aidan stills his hand on my leg and waits.
I pout. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want you to try.”
He laughs and in the next moment he’s scooted my hips forward and his middle finger is sinking into my heat.
“Aidan!” The movement inside soaks his finger, spikes every nerve in my body, awakens the need I thought was satisfied.
His cock was perfection, but now, it’s something different. It’s hitting something inside in an unexpected way.
“Oh…that,” I say, realizing what he’s trying to do. I’d never been able to find that special inner spot that everyone but me seems to know about. There seems to be disagreement about whether or not it even exists, if your knowledge base is TV and movies. Aidan, it seems, believes that the G-spot is real.
Even if it isn’t, my body likes what he’s doing.
And then, there are two fingers inside, stroking, massaging, searching. I close my eyes and go with it because my body gives me no other choice. I can rehydrate later.
When his two fingers pause their in-and-out movement and curl forward, the sudden realization of “Oh yes, it’s real,” is immediately superseded by “Oh fuck, I’m going to come so hard.”
My eyes fly open and my arms reach for him. The comforter falls open and there I am, naked on the sofa in front of a crackling fire, a man in his pajama pants with two fingers inside of me, right next to a window. I feel like such a brazen hussy, and I like it.
The tiny bundle of nerves lights me up so fast I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m incandescent.
“That’s my girl.” His voice pushes me over the edge and the climax rattles every bone in my body. Waves, tidal waves are nothing compared to this. I could be dashed against the rocks and I wouldn’t care because I’m coming so hard I feel like I’ve left my body.
I never thought I’d be a screamer, but I scream his name.
And because he’s a relentless, wicked man, I can feel his thumb strumming my clit—again!—and the cascading orgasms threaten to send me tumbling to the floor.
I can’t even register what noises and words are spilling out of my mouth. None of it matters because he’s got me. Aidan’s got me in his arms, and his lips capture my rasping mouth.
The time that passes while he holds me, both of us wrapped in the comforter, exchange our shared warmth, could be five minutes or it could be a year. Frankly, I don’t care if the snow lasts for ten years because I never want this little bubble of ours to burst.
Needless to say, I let him shoot me with my clothes on as well. Even my work clothes.
We’ve spent the last 24 hours drinking hot chocolate, eating chicken soup, sharing our life stories, and watching Supernatural—punctuated with so many bouts of sexual adventures it would put the ancient Greek gods to shame—until the snowstorm abates to a steady snowfall the day before Christmas Eve, light enough for me to get to work.
Getting back behind the wheel isn’t even that dreadful, because Aidan comes along, walking me to my garage through drifts of snow, and riding along as
I plow the city streets out from under the fluffy white blankets.
I don’t have a clue why he finds all this interesting, but he shoots and keeps on shooting me and everyone else in the town all day long. He’s captured people shoveling the sideways in front of their business, helping neighbors, kids sledding down the middle of safer, dead-end streets. The entire town looks like a Christmas vacation postcard. At the end of it, he drops off his film at the mailbox store and pays for overnight shipping to his assistant in LA.
We park the snowplow in front of his house because, in my haze of whatever-this-is between us, I no longer care what anyone thinks of me temporarily shacking up with our resident photographer.
I’m an adult, doing adult things that are nobody’s business.
Aidan and I make plans to go back out and look at the Christmas lights later that night, shoot the nativity scene at the Catholic church and the big menorah in front of the temple.
In the meantime, we’re both starving and about to eat some carry out soup from the diner in front of a movie.
Somewhere in the middle of The Last Holiday, Aidan starts to play with my hair and kisses my temple.
“Ruby,” he whispers.
“Yeah,” I say, shoving popcorn into my mouth and not turning away because I love this part in the movie.
“I’m gonna come back, you know.”
Sensing that we’re about to have an important conversation, I pause the movie.
“Come back here?” I ask for clarification as if I need some.
“This is more than a fling for me, Ruby. I want this every day. I need this every day.”
I prod. “You need this?” I say, gesturing to the popcorn at the movie and the blanket.
“All of that, but I don’t want any of it if you aren’t in the picture.”
I’m confused. “I haven’t been sure where this was going, but I don’t want you to feel obligated to do a long-term relationship, Aidan.”
“I’ll tell you where it’s going,” he says. “I love you.”
“You—“
Without missing a beat, he emphasizes it. “I said I love you and after I’m finished with this project I’m coming back here.”
“Aidan, what about your studio? Everything is in LA”
He lifts one shoulder. “Eh, I have enough fuck-you money I can set up a studio here and also run the one in LA long-distance. I don’t want you and I to be long-distance.”
I don’t want to be long-distance either, I finally admit to myself. I want this to keep going. I want him close to me. I’ve been so spoiled in the last day and a half and I don’t think I could go back to being on my own after that.
“OK,” I breathe. “I’m in.”
Chapter 17
Aidan
* * *
I want to share everything with this woman, starting with showing her my darkroom.
The makeshift space set up in the windowless second bathroom at the back of the house is perfect, if a little bit wonky because of the toilet and sink. But the counter makes a perfect space for the trays I need, and the small cabinet is just enough to hold all the developing chemicals.
“But you’ve already sent all the Christmas photos to LA. What else do you have to develop?”
“Take a guess,” I say with a teasing smile, closing the door behind us and switching off the lights.
“Oh. Wow,” she breathes. “Guess I’m going to see what I look like naked in pictures. Welp. All right. Let’s do this.”
Moments later, I have my hand on top of hers, showing her how to move the photo paper through the liquid.
“It’s so weird that you have to get the paper wet to make this work. I’ve seen this in old TV shows and stuff but it’s just not something I ever hear about people doing anymore, I’m kind of excited. Wait, isn’t that…?”
I’ve been so busy focusing on her hand—and enjoying having her close, smelling her hair, feeling settled by the sound of her voice—that I haven’t been paying attention to the image on the paper.
“Isn’t that the mayor lighting the tree?”
One time, when I was about 12, I went on a carnival ride in which I had to stand back against the wall while the room spun like a washing machine, faster and faster until the floor dropped. I remember how my stomach felt when that happened. Shock. Denial, Like I might throw up. Vowing that this was the biggest mistake of my life.
That’s about a tenth of what I’m feeling right at this moment when I see the image of not my beautiful Ruby in the photograph, but indeed, as she says, the mayor.
My mouth goes dry as I murmur, in a semi-state of denial, “But I already sent all the Christmas canisters…”
Ruby’s body goes stiff. “What is it?”
I only have one word. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…”
“Aidan, what’s going on? I thought you said you sent…”
“Fuuuuck.”
She gasps, and that’s the moment she realizes what’s happened.
“No. No, no, no, no, tell me you didn’t send my nudes to California.”
I bolt out of the darkroom and into the studio. I scramble around, but it’s useless. All the film has been dropped off to be overnighted to California, All except the roll from the Christmas parade. But including Ruby’s nude shots.
I dial Brody but he doesn’t pick up. “Brody, I just overnighted some film. Do not process it, OK? Don’t even open it.”
I try to keep my voice calm.
“Oh my fucking fuck,” is all I can say when I hang up, bending over at the waist and grasping my hands together behind my neck because this is the stupid bodily reaction I have to outright panic.
No. Pull yourself together, man. It’s not that bad. Brody won’t develop that film. Will he?
I stand up and see my sweet Ruby backed against the wall, her face pale and bloodless as the snow outside, her hand on her throat.
“Tell me this isn’t happening,” she says.
I shake my head. “It’s not happening if I have anything to do with it.” I text Brody and then call him again. Still no answer. I leave another message.
“Fuck,” I say, gritting through my teeth, impotently ransacking my camera bag, tearing apart the studio and the darkroom, and then my bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room.
“Maybe…” she swallows and says weakly. “Maybe it fell out in my truck?”
That’s it. That must be where it is.
The two of us tear outside without bothering to put on our coats and rifle through everything in the cab of her snowplow. No use.
Back in the kitchen, I’m almost totally defeated.
“I marked them. I fucking marked them. I know I did.”
“Aidan, are my nudes on the way to LA right now?”
I look at her and wish she would get angry. Instead, she looks scared, like a lost kitten. I’ve done this to her, and I’ll never forgive myself.
“Most likely, yes. I am so, so, sorry, Ruby. I’m going to try to get Brody on the phone but I have a really bad feeling about this.”
She sucks in a breath. “Why? Why do you have a bad feeling?!” What’s going to happen to the film once it gets there, Aidan?”
She’s angry now. A lot angrier than she was on the day she caught me shoveling snow into my driveway to try to get her attention.
“I have a feeling Brody is going to do something stupid.”
I pull my phone out of my bag and look up the next available flights.
“Can’t you just tell your assistant not to touch the film or, I don’t know…I would hate for someone to be fired over this but… You’re his boss, aren’t you?”
I rub my face in frustration. “It’s not just that. I have a feeling I’m going to have to go home and handle this myself.”
My travel app is buffering too long, and my heart is pounding too hard in my chest, so I call Brody again.
My stomach unclenches, but only a little, when Brody finally answers. “Dude, are your panties on fire
or what?”
Through gritted teeth, I reply, “Listen to me. You need to take the day off tomorrow, or we’re going to have to have a serious conversation about your future with the company.”
A pause sends a chill down my spine. Brody never spends too much time thinking before he speaks. “Really? Ok then.”
Something in his tone makes me not believe him.
“I’m serious Brody. The same applies to the overnight package that’s coming. Don’t even sign for it. Do you hear me?”
Another pause. He’s thinking about what all this urgency could mean. “Brody…”
“All right, All right, boss. Calm your knickers. Everything is under control.”
Click.
“This is not good. I think I might have made it worse. I gotta fix this,” I say, going back to my travel apps to look for something, anything, to get me back home.
“I’m coming with you,” Ruby says.
“No, I want you as far away from this as possible,” I say, switching between my travel apps. “God, what is going on?”
She blows out a breath. “There are no flights, Aidan. The snow is still falling in the middle part of the state and all the way to Detroit.”
I continue to swipe and swipe through my apps, and nothing comes up. “Come on!” I say, knowing full well she’s right, but calling the airline anyway.
I want to punch something, I’m so angry at myself.
This has never happened before. But then I’ve never had to worry this hard about this breathtakingly terrible kind of mistake before.
Finally, I book a flight through Chicago, so I’ll have to drive my rental car there and just hope enough roads are cleared already to safely drive a hundred miles to the south.
When I stalk to my room, she follows, her voice soft as I toss clothes into my travel bag.
“Are you coming back?”