by Nina Crespo
Aiden’s foot bumped the leg of the couch and he tumbled down with her.
He tightened his hold and took them both down safely on the cushions. He landed awkwardly with his back on a throw pillow with her on top of him.
Delanie’s face was buried in his chest as she clutched the front of his shirt. A familiar light herbal-citrus fragrance wafted from her hair. He couldn’t stop himself from breathing it in. Every one of her curves fit against him like a missing puzzle piece. Suddenly, it was as if he were holding her back at the cabin in Clearmount.
As he stroked the back of her hair, what he’d longed for the opportunity to say came out. “I’m sorry.” Aiden swallowed hard against tightness in his throat. “If I could have taken your place and bore the pain I caused you, I would have. I still would if it could change what happened.”
Delanie didn’t move. She barely breathed.
Panic shot through him. Was she injured? “Delanie, look at me.” He smoothed back her hair, trying to see her face. “Are you all right?”
nine
HE WAS SORRY? Delanie kept her face hidden in Aiden’s chest. First, he had the balls to throw out that he’d cared and wanted her seven years ago, and now, he thought an apology would make up for what he’d done?
The question she’d asked herself over and over again for years slipped out as a whisper. “Why did you do it?”
Silence loomed.
Aiden’s entire body rose and fell with a deep breath. “For a reason I’ve regretted ever since that night.” He paused. “Growing up, in my father’s eyes, King was faster, smarter, better at everything. I always fell short, but I believed that if I closed enough important deals, someday my father would see me as an equal. I thought I was on my way to that with Clearmount. He said it was my project to oversee from acquisition to renovation to the grand opening of Clearmount Retreat.”
The modernization plans for Clearmount that Aiden had shown her back then flashed in. The redwood-and-stone cottages with large picture windows overlooking the trees, lake, mountains, and sky—after Gerard sold Clearmount to the developers, she’d believed the plans were just a lie he’d used to fool her and her father. But had he been telling the truth all along?
Still buried in Aiden’s chest, she could feel his heartbeat against her forehead. Still, she resisted looking up at him. “What changed?”
“The outlet mall developers approached my father, and he sold Clearmount for twice what we paid to purchase it without my knowledge or without consulting me first.”
Money. That’s all Clearmount had meant to his father . . . to Aiden. “So I was right. It was about adding to your bank account.” She pushed up, planning to move away.
Aiden wrapped an arm around her, holding her in place. “It wasn’t about the money for me. It was about pride.” The intensity in his eyes reflected bottomless anguish. “He’d destroyed my plans. Trashed my deal. Something he would have never done to King. I was angry and so desperate for his approval, I said the one thing that I thought would gain it. I told him I should have been the one handling negotiations with the outlet mall developers, instead of him.”
The words that had struck like a dagger into her chest back then still stung. “Did you get what you wanted—his approval?”
“No.” His gaze seemed far away for a moment then bore into hers. “Like I said, I regretted it as soon as I said it. I’m not proud of it. Most of all, I regret it because it made me lose you.”
Mixed emotions filled with anger and sadness for him swirled inside of her. Back then, when his father said jump, Aiden would do anything in his power to keep his father happy—Delanie had witnessed it herself many times. When she’d asked him about it, Aiden had claimed he was just paying his dues as the son of a powerful executive. Still, it wasn’t fair for him to say that he had regrets about losing her now.
“Aiden, you can’t just ask me to forgive you.”
“I know. I don’t have the right.” He winced. “Hold on. My leg is getting stiff. I need to move.”
“I’m getting up.”
“Not yet. Please, just stay and listen to me a minute longer.” He shifted and placed one foot on the ground while the rest of him remained stretched out on the couch.
She could listen to him just as well sitting up. But he felt so comfortable and familiar, she didn’t want to move. Not yet. She gripped his shirt to keep from falling off him. Her breasts pillowed against his hard torso.
The color of Aiden’s eyes became a rich, mossy green. “Seeing you again, it’s brought it all back for me, Delanie.”
“It’s too late.” But even as she said it, longing melted inside of her.
He traced his thumb over the spot where a wedding ring had once sat on her finger.
“Is it too late?”
Move. That’s what she should do, but as he cupped her cheek, a yearning for his touch pushed a soft exhale out of her. She sank against him and his hard length nestled into her belly.
Aiden leaned in to kiss her, and she took a long breath, filled with his wonderful scent. Desire flickered then ignited. How could her body betray her like this? How could she still want him so much after seven years?
No. Just before his lips reached hers, Delanie drew back. It wasn’t that easy. He’d broken her trust. Even if he had regrets, he’d still given in to pleasing his father and hadn’t fought for her or their relationship. What did he want from her now? Absolution? Well, he didn’t know what it was like to have someone use you, tear apart your life, and not be able to repair it. Anger took control of her desire, shaping and molding it into an answer. An apology from Aiden wouldn’t suffice. He needed a taste of what he’d done to her.
Delanie sat up and straddled him. As she unfastened his shirt from the bottom up, he reached for her. She smacked his hands away. “Don’t touch me.”
He stared up at her in confusion, but complied, lifting his hands as if in surrender. “Mind filling me in on what this is?”
“Yes. I do mind.” As she pushed his shirt aside, she kissed and nipped the taut ridges of his muscle. Delanie trailed her tongue through the tight ripples. Damn. He even tasted good. Wildness flared inside of her. She wanted more of him. All of him.
Aiden sucked in a breath but he didn’t stop her. Not even when she moved higher to lick his flat nipples then nip them with her teeth.
“Shit.” Aiden gripped her shoulders.
Delanie shrugged out of his grasp. She leaned down and brought her mouth a fraction from his. “Hands off.”
She stalled his response with the barely there glide of her tongue over his open lips. Each time he went to close the distance, she moved away.
His breathing grew ragged. The corded muscles in his neck grew taut with the strain as he chased her mouth. Still, he didn’t touch her.
Taunting him boosted the thrill. But when he caught her mouth in a kiss, she couldn’t hold back her own soft moan. She explored the warmth of his mouth, dueled with his tongue, and savored him along with the faint, familiar taste of hops and citrus from his favorite beer.
As she continued to kiss him, she slid her palm down his stomach and over the light trail of hair leading to the erection pressing through his jeans. She cupped him through the stiff fabric, rubbing and massaging the fullness that swelled, rock hard, into her hand.
Aiden groaned against her lips. “Let me touch you.”
“If you do, I’ll stop.”
He raised his hands above his head and dug his fingers into the arm of the couch. His biceps bulged. His pecs formed more deeply into his chest.
She drifted her tongue slowly over his and consumed his low rumbles of need.
Long moments later, Delanie sucked his bottom lip, laid her hands on his chest, and eased away. She stared into his heavy-lidded dark eyes. Aiden was trapped by her and his own lust. She should leave him, just like this, wanting her so badly that he could probably taste it.
He raised his hips and nudged her with his length.
&n
bsp; Her shuddering exhale merged with his. The desire to finish what she’d started warred with the part of her that wanted to walk away. Desire won. She moved farther down his legs, unfastened his jeans, and unzipped him.
The bulge of his erection pressed up from underneath his black underwear and rose from in between the open V of his jeans.
Delanie lightly scored over it with her nail and traced its shape.
Aiden’s jawline squared as he squeezed his eyes shut.
In the past, she’d loved his cock. It was the right blend of length and thickness and filled her completely. Could he still satisfy her?
Delanie’s hands took on a mind of their own, grabbing hold of the waistband of his jeans. With his help, she pulled them down, along with his boxer briefs, just past his ass.
His cock jutted up toward his abdomen, as perfect as she’d remembered.
Unable to resist, she circled his length in her hand and gave him one slow pump and then another.
Aiden bowed up as she continued the slow, torturous rhythm. “Delanie . . . fuck! You’re killing me.”
A nice set of blue balls would hurt him even more. She’d take pleasure in watching him hobble away in pain from wherever he’d come from to finish himself off while she locked the door behind him.
Or . . . she could take her own pleasure in the glorious erection that she’d helped create.
Aiden had always been damn good in bed. She glided her thumb through the moisture on his tip and her mouth dried out. Why not indulge in pleasure and then boot him the hell out?
She crawled off of him and stood.
Aiden’s chest deflated with a long breath and he let go of the couch. Sexual frustration and resoluteness showed in his gaze. “Nice one. You’ve tortured the hell out of me and now you’re kicking me out.”
“No, you don’t understand anything about me.” Delanie shimmied out of her yoga pants and underwear and tossed them aside.
His gaze shifted to her sex, then back to her face. Lust consumed his expression. “If this is a cock tease, tell me now because I’m done playing games.”
“So am I.” She took off her shirt and sports bra and dropped them both on the floor. “If you can shut up for five minutes, my plan is to ride you.”
Aiden’s gaze slowly moved over her from head to toe. His cock twitched. “Five minutes isn’t nearly enough time to cover that ride.”
“Keep talking and it won’t happen. Period.” Delanie upended her tote on the coffee table. “Unless you want your man pride caught in a zipper, I suggest you finish getting undressed.”
Aiden sat up. He unlaced his boots while she searched through makeup, tissues, pens, her hotel key card, and the other clutter in her purse.
He stood and stripped off his jeans. “What are you looking for—handcuffs? That would be a shame.” Aiden moved closer to Delanie and his erection came into her peripheral vision. “You always liked what I did with my hands and mouth. And you were damn good with yours too.”
Lust curled through Delanie. A vision sprang up of her lying on top of him with his mouth working magic between her thighs while her lips glided down the satiny skin of his hard erection. Her sex pulsed and desire coiled tightly inside of her.
Delanie erased all the wicked, decadent, knee-weakening things she knew he could do with his mouth and focused on rifling through the purse junk. She uncovered one of the piña-colada-flavored condoms her client in Vegas had put in her bag and held it out to him. “I don’t need your mouth. Straight sex, nothing else. After we’re done, you leave. That’s the deal.”
Aiden stared at her for one long, unnerving moment. He plucked the yellow condom from her fingers, then ripped it open and rolled it on.
She couldn’t take her eyes away.
Aiden caught her staring. He made a show of stroking his length. “Do I get to touch you now, Delanie?”
The low rumble of his voice made her sex ache to feel his mouth on her clit.
Tired of waiting, Delanie flattened her hand on his chest and pushed him down to sit on the couch. Without hesitation, she climbed on his lap, grasped his shoulder with one hand, and guided him into her with the other.
Pleasure speared inside of her. She closed her eyes, blocking out his face, and savored more of it with the roll of her hips. This was just a mutually satisfying sexual transaction. Nothing more.
Aiden groaned. “You’re so damn tight.”
He grasped her waist and thrust upward in sync to her movements. As he cupped her ass, she didn’t give a damn that he was touching her. Each squeeze of her inner muscles around him immersed her in the exquisite fullness. She set her own pace, taking charge of her pleasure.
Aiden’s fingers dug into her hips as he gripped her. Nerve endings sparked as he went deeper . . . harder.
Time dissolved into erotic heat and decadent sensation. As Delanie swayed forward, he swept his lips down her throat. She arched back, and more of his feverish kisses trailed to her breast.
Each and every swirl and flick of his tongue was delivered with the intention of making her arch back even more and press closer to him. Aiden drew her nipple into his mouth as he tweaked her other breast. The hard, greedy pulses of her sex fed her moans. “Yes . . . yes.”
With breast play alone, he had the ability to make her come, and he knew it. But this was her orgasm, she was in control. Not him. Delanie reached between them and strummed her clit. As she rocked over him, frenzied, erotic sensation unfurled. It built up in waves, each one more powerful than the next until it swept from her toes into her belly and breasts. It spilled out and into her cries of pleasure.
Aiden’s thrusts became faster, deeper, harder. Wrapped up in her climax, she relished every stroke and held on for more. His muscles bunched and released under her palms. His sweat slickened her fingers. Another orgasm rocketed through her, tearing out a keening cry.
His shudders moved through her as he found his own release. Aiden’s erratic thrusts bounced her breasts and dragged her sensitive nipples over his chest. Erotic sensations spiraled through her core, prolonging her pleasure.
As they slowly came down from the peak, aftershocks spasmed through both of them. Their short, ragged breaths filled the silence.
Delanie laid her head on his shoulder. Her pounding heart slowed but a feverish heat lingered, along with strange jitters in her stomach. Sex was better than she’d remembered with Aiden. And still addictive. But this is where it ended. No seconds or thirds no matter how tempting. Like she’d told him earlier, he had to go.
She unwrapped her limbs from around him. As she moved to sit up, vertigo made her sway back against him.
Aiden grabbed her by the waist to keep her steady. “Give it a minute.” He dropped his head on the back of the couch. “I don’t think I can move either. All my blood is still below my waist.”
“I’m fine.” But Delanie’s afterglow suddenly morphed into a wash of uncomfortable cold prickles. Her heart galloped as the jitters in her stomach swirled into a nauseating storm. “Oh no.”
Aiden’s head jerked up. “What?”
Delanie clamped her hand over her mouth, shot off his lap, and ran.
ten
“DELANIE? WHAT THE hell . . .” Aiden pushed up from the couch and started to go after her.
The used wet condom slapped his thigh.
Aiden held it in place and snagged a few tissues from the items she’d dumped from her purse. He disposed of the condom in one tissue and hastily cleaned himself up with a few others. Then he tossed the tissues in a nearby trash can and pulled on his boxer briefs.
He started to jog right, toward the spare bathroom near the conference room. No. She hadn’t gone that way. Aiden ran left to the end of the hall and into the master bedroom.
On the far wall, two white nightstands with silver lamps flanked a bed neatly made with a tangerine-and-white comforter. Multiple pillows rested against the white padded headboard.
To his right, the sounds of Delanie getting si
ck came from behind the closed bathroom door.
He grabbed the knob. “Delanie?” She’d locked it. He rapped on the door.
“Go away.” The retching sounds continued.
His own stomach knotted with concern. “Let me in. I’ve seen you naked. I can deal with you being sick.”
“Not helping.”
Hell. That didn’t come out right. “What I meant to say is after what we just did, it’s crazy for you to hide from me. Let me help you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
He held the knob tighter, ready to bust down the door if it appeared she was getting worse.
Delanie flushed the toilet.
He could hear her washing out her mouth and brushing her teeth. Relief drained through him. Did she need a doctor? The hotel had an agreement with a concierge physician for house calls.
Rustling sounds came from the other side of the door then ceased, but Delanie didn’t emerge.
He knocked. “Are you coming out?”
“I think I should sit here a minute.”
“Then I’m coming in.”
“This is my room. You can’t barge in here like you own the place.”
Technically, he did, at least part of it. But now wasn’t the time to draw attention to it. “It’s not about barging in, I want to help you. I can’t just stand out here and do nothing.”
“Not everything is about you.” She moaned. “If I move, I’ll probably just end up right back here so I might as well stay put. Alone.”
That wouldn’t happen. He wasn’t leaving her. “Do you have any idea what’s causing this?”
“Having sex with you, maybe?”
He winced. That was low, but there had to be some other reason. What else could cause her to be sick. Pregnancy? No. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and more important, Delanie wasn’t the weekend-fuck-pass, cheat-on-your-husband—or cheat-on-your-husband-while-pregnant—type. He hadn’t seen her in seven years, but he knew that was one part of her that would never change.
Aiden rested his forehead on the door. “Seriously. Have you been feeling sick lately? Could it be the flu or a virus?”