I woke up with a stomachache the next morning.

It was our last full day in San Blas and… the idea of it sucked. It really did. I’d always been relieved to go back home after a vacation, missing my bed, missing my stuff, missing my life, but while I missed some parts of it, I didn’t exactly miss the rest of it. Not really. Not enough to calm the ache of knowing this was my last day with Aaron.

I’d turned into one of those girls apparently.

And honestly, I didn’t care. Not even a little bit.

I didn’t need to look at the clock on my phone to know it was right around six in the morning based on the shade of purple coming through my curtain. Aaron and I had stayed up until almost two, going back into the house to watch a movie when people started shooting fireworks off on the beach. Aaron had tensed every time the pew, pew sound from outside became particularly loud, but I didn’t make it known that I noticed. I wasn’t even sure he did, like it was more instinctual than anything. The rest of the group had shown up only about an hour into the movie after watching the fireworks, crashing on the couch to watch Stargate.

When we’d finally gone down the stairs and headed toward our bedrooms, I’d thought about asking Aaron if he wanted to sleep in the room with me, but I’d chickened out and just kissed that mouth like it was the greatest chore I would gladly do every morning for the rest of my life and the next if anyone gave me the choice.

But it was the hand of his that cupped the back of my head as he tipped his mouth deeper into mine that had got me going to my tiptoes. Just as quickly as he’d leaned in, he pulled back, kissing one of my cheeks quickly.

I was a sucker. A real, real sucker.

With my head full of crap, I did my usual shower and shaving and headed upstairs, knowing that was about as far as my morning routine would go. Instead of going out on the deck like I had almost every other morning, I opened the fridge and started pulling out ingredients. I’d just finished sliding the first omelet onto a plate when the stairs squeaked with weight. Sure enough, it was Aaron, freshly showered and looking not as tired as he usually did.

But there was something there in his eyes I hadn’t seen before.

“Morning.”

“Morning, RC,” he replied in that quiet, rough voice, slowly walking toward me. “What are you making?”

“Omelets,” I said. “I already made you one. I figured you’d want two at least, right?”

His gaze flicked to the pan I had in my hand before he nodded. “Need any help?”

“No.” I looked toward the stove again. “It’s my turn this morning.”

I wasn’t going to be sad. Today was going to be a good day. A great one. One that didn’t end with me blubbering into my pillow because tomorrow I’d be flying back home.

No. Today was going to be a good day if I had anything to say about it.

“You mad at the eggs or what?” came Aaron’s amused voice.

I stopped with the whisk in my hand and looked down at the overly whipped concoction in the bowl.

He must have already been standing right by me because his hip checked mine, almost scaring the crap out of me. “Scoot over. I’ll help so you can get done faster and you can sit with me.”

So I could sit with him.

Tears prickled in the backs of my eyes and I stopped freaking blinking so they wouldn’t get any ideas about what they were going to do next. The next few minutes went by quickly, but the most memorable thing about it was avidly avoiding Aaron’s eyes as we moved around each other, making two more omelets in half the time it had taken me to make the first one.

“Who taught you how to cook?” I pretty much croaked out, knowing full well he had to have heard the hitch in my voice.

“My stepmom, ex-stepmom,” he answered. “She’d only make breakfast and dinner. If we were hungry the rest of the time, we were on our own for food. She wasn’t going to be anyone’s maid, she used to say.”

That made me smile. “My mom would say the same thing.”

I could see him try to make eye contact with me, but I couldn’t get myself to meet him halfway. I couldn’t. I knew I’d cry. I just needed… another second. Or five.

“I’ve found a few recipes on my own too, if you can believe that,” he said sarcastically.

I wasn’t in the mood for sarcasm yet, not when it felt like there was this giant chasm in my chest getting bigger by the second. “It’s hard to believe,” I replied weakly.

There was a pause. A silence. And then a sigh seconds before two arms came around me from behind, a mouth speaking against my ear, “There’s nothing to be sad about, okay? This isn’t our last day.”

I sucked in a breath and didn’t make a single sound before I whispered, “It bothers me how well you know me.”

“Tough shit.”

That had me laughing, even if it did sound watery and almost heartbroken.

“See? Everything is going to be all right. Let’s go eat our breakfast on the deck, yeah?”

And that’s exactly what we did.

* * *

“Do you think you bought enough firewood?”

Aaron snickered as he dropped the last two bundles of wood on the blanket I’d laid out when he first asked me to help him set everything up. “This is all they had,” he explained. “I’m surprised they even had this much left after the Fourth of July yesterday. Pass me four pieces, would you, stalker?”

It was my turn to snicker as I handed him what he asked for. We’d come out to the beach right after dinner, finding the spot we’d found earlier that others before us had used as a fire pit. Large heavy rocks had already been lined up in a large circle. I’d noticed that morning when we’d come out to the beach, with me in the ridiculous, large hat, that there were only about half the amount of people who had been sunbathing and swimming the day before. It’d been another painful reminder that this whole trip was coming to a close.

But I tried not to let it show on my face. I smiled at Aaron every time he’d been watching, and every time he hadn’t. I was going to eat up every moment we had left together and store it all up for when we weren’t. And then, then, I’d think about all the things he had said and all the things he had hinted at and all the things he had promised me. I just wanted to swallow up everything else in the meantime.

“Do you need help?” I asked him as he walked in a circle around the pit, looking at the center of it with a furrow between his brows.

Aaron snickered. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t.”

He walked directly in front of me, grazing his fingers across my cheek before stooping. “I was an Eagle Scout.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he answered.

“It’s hard to get your badge for that, isn’t it?”

One of those brown eyes peeked at me over his shoulder. “Yeah.”

“I always wanted to be a Brownie.”

I could see him pause where he was, his hands loose in front of him as he arranged the wood into a teepee-shape. “You couldn’t?”

“No. No money. My mom didn’t have time to take me to meetings.” I wrung my hands. “She had work and night school. It was tough. Maybe one day when I’m older I can lead my own troop or something. That would be fun.”

“Your mom went to night school?” he asked, his back to me.

“Oh yeah. That’s why we were so tight. She went back to get her degree right after my dad left. She’d dropped out of college when they got married. That’s actually how they met. She was an intern at a firm he worked at. She was young and wanted to have kids. Then after that, she got her master’s; she wanted to be an auditor. She’s kind of amazing. I didn’t think of it too much when I was a kid, all I knew was that she was gone a lot and my aunt and grandpa would watch us all the time during the week. Then Saturdays were for homework and Sundays were our family day. She apologized to us a few times once we were older, but we all told her she didn’t have anything to apologize for. She busted her butt for us.”

“My dad worked all the time too, so I know what you mean, but he just likes working.”

The reminder of his dad’s work made this uneasy feeling fill my stomach. Did I play stupid or did I say something? Watching the lines of his back, I knew my answer the second I questioned it. “Aaron.”

“Yeah?”

“You know I don’t care that your dad is loaded, right?”

Slowly, slowly, he pivoted around in his crouch and stared at me.

I smiled. “I know I look pretty oblivious, but I’m not.”

“Ruby—”

“I just wish you would have told me yourself.”

His mouth opened and it gaped, the skin on his neck turning pink and getting darker as the color rode up his jawline and filled his cheeks. “I was going to. It’s just—”

I held up my hand to stop him. “It’s none of my business. I just wanted you to know that I knew is all, okay?”

I could tell Aaron was uncomfortable. Embarrassed maybe. And honestly, I could have repeated to him a dozen times that it was fine he hadn’t been upfront about his family or who owned the beach house but… why? It had hurt my feelings a little when I’d found out and put the rest of the pieces together. I understood why he’d done it. I did.

But…

He still hadn’t told me, and it made me ache a hair. Just a hair. I couldn’t cure trust issues overnight.

“Ru—”

Getting up to my feet, I grabbed a log off the stack and walked around to the other side of the pit. “You need another one. I wasn’t an Eagle Scout, but I can tell that’s going to fall over in no time.”

Aaron’s mouth seemed to open before he closed it and pasted a tight smile on his mouth with a nod and a gulp he probably assumed I didn’t noticed, but I had.

“You still haven’t gotten the fire started?” came Max’s voice a moment before he started kicking up sand just a few feet away, stopping at the edge of the pit with his hands on his hips. “Do you need me to do it?”

Aaron huffed a tight laugh at the same time Max shot him a dirty look. “You do it? Right.”

Max rolled his eyes. “Some of us go into manhood knowing how to do things and don’t need to be in the Scouts.”

“Is that why you made me change your tire twice?”

Max blinked. “Fuck you.”

They bickered back and forth for the next hour while Aaron started the fire, after grumbling about kindling. Then Brittany, Des, and Mindy made their way to the beach with plastic grocery bags in their hands just as the sun completely fell behind the horizon and everything darkened. Down the beach, I could see another small bonfire going. I’d snagged a spot on one of the chairs they had brought from the house, rubbing my hands over my calves to warm them up while the fire grew larger. Mindy came over and took the seat beside me, spending almost all her time typing on her phone. As every minute passed, it got harder to accept that this was my last night here without making a big deal about it.

Aaron was in his element with his friends, arguing with Des and Max about everything and anything. I just watched him. At one point, just as they started busting out the bags of marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate bars, we made eye contact. I winked at him.

“I think I’m gonna go sit… over there,” Mindy said abruptly, getting up without hesitation and going over to the other side.

I watched Aaron smile as he got to his feet too and patted her on the shoulder while they passed each other. Then it was my turn to smile as he came to a stop in front of me, both his hands going to cup the top of my head before sliding down until they rested on my shoulders. “What are you doing sitting all the way over here by yourself?”

I shrugged. “Nothing. The chair was lonely over here.”

He frowned as he lowered himself to his knees on the sand, pushing my legs apart on the way. Aaron scooted into the space, his back against the seat, my knees on either side of his shoulders. His hands went to my ankles, circling them. The side of his cheek rested against the inside of my knee. I could feel his breath on it, and that’s what told me he was talking.

Leaning forward, I moved just close enough to hear him. “What did you say?”

He peeked at me out of the corner of his eye as he took my hand away from where I had it resting on my thigh, bringing the palm to sit right over those perfectly built pecs, the muscle taut, his body warm. But it was the feel of his heart beating steadily that relaxed me. “I said, I could sit right here for the rest of my life.”

“Oh? That’s all you said?”

I could see the corner of his mouth perk up into a slow smile. “Yeah.”

I rubbed my hand in a circle over his chest, feeling more of his body on me.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it,” he said into my knee.

“It’s okay.”

He shook his head. “It’s not okay. I’m sorry, Ru. It’s just…”

I moved my hand to smooth over the short hair on his head, and he leaned into me.

“Where I’m from, everybody knows about my family. It’s no secret.”

“I’m sure.”

“No, I want to tell you I just… you live in your family’s shadow for so long, and when you don’t want to be in it anymore, everyone thinks you’re a dumbass.”

“You’re not dumb. Who made you feel like that?” I asked a little defensively.

“Everyone.” His mouth touched the inside of my knee. “That’s why I went into the military. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn’t want to go to college and join the family business like my brother had done, and my dad had before him. It’s what everyone expected. It’s what everyone’s always done. Joined one of the family businesses.”

Were there more? But instead I asked, “But you don’t want to?”

One of Aaron’s hands wrapped around my bare calf. “No. Not really.” There was a pause. “I don’t know anymore, Ru.”

“Then don’t,” I told him as easily as he always told me I could do everything and anything. “Or do. This is going to sound really cliché, but it’s the truth: you can do whatever you want. Anything. You’ll figure it out. Just because you didn’t want to go to college years ago doesn’t mean you can’t in the future. You can stay in the military if you want. You can do anything. As long as you’re happy, you can never be a failure. You don’t have to make a ton of money to be successful, you know. Look at me, I’d rather be poor and stressed out than have a steady job that I hate.” I hesitated. “Maybe I’m not the best example. All I’m saying is, do whatever you want to do. That’s what you’re always preaching to me, isn’t it?”

He made a chuffing sound against my leg as he stroked it from the calf down to the ankle and back up. Aaron didn’t say anything for a while, his gaze stayed forward on the fire.

With the hand not on his chest, I touched his soft blond hair and leaned in closer to his ear. “I don’t know what to do with my life either, you know. But someone I know told me not to give up on my dreams. You know I’ll help you figure it out in any way I can, just like I know you’ll help me any way you can. Ruron, remember?”

That had him tilting his face to the side, peering at me over his shoulder thoughtfully. Before I could react, before I could even think, he pressed his mouth against mine. Lip to lip, just a press, then a peck on the corner before he smiled softly and nodded almost hesitantly like he believed what I said but was still a little unsure.

And that was okay. Because I wasn’t going to quit telling him what he needed to hear. Not ever.

Neither one of us talked much as we ate smores roasted over the fire, and hours later, once the fire had finally died down enough for us to smother it completely, we trudged back to the house. My head had been full of all kinds of things I wanted to think about and all kinds of things I didn’t want to think about.

But there was one thing I couldn’t stop thinking about.

And that one particular thought stuck with me as we went back to the house and I detoured to shower because I smelled like smoke. With that same thought still in my head as I got dressed, I told myself that I only got to live this life once. Just once.

And somewhere deep down inside of me, I was the brave twenty-one-year-old who had done something I couldn’t ever imagine redoing. Except this time, it was with someone that every part of me was convinced loved me back. Loved me back and wouldn’t be afraid to hide it, if there was anything to hide.

But there wasn’t.

There wasn’t, but if there had been, Aaron would never make me his dirty secret.

Never.

So when I saw the sliver of light coming in from beneath the doorway of his room, the door slightly cracked, I shook off the tingling coming from my fingertips and told myself that I was a different person than I’d been even just a few days ago.

I pushed the door open a little more, nerves buzzing along my skin trying to convince me that I was scared. I ignored them as much as I could.

If I was going to be brave for anyone, it should be Aaron.

“Yoohoo?” I tried to ask, but it came out like a whisper.

He was kneeling in front of the bed, his suitcase wide open as he rummaged through it, but the moment I spoke, he stopped what he was doing and glanced over, smiling easily. “You okay?”

“Yes,” I said, pushing the door open wider. “Can I come in?”

“You don’t have to ask, Rubes,” he said in a chiding tone. “Like I’d ever tell you I don’t want to see you.”

How did he do this to me? How? Swallowing the knot in my throat, I finally opened the door wide and stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind me. Aaron’s eyes stayed on my face the entire time, obviously aware that I’d just gotten out of the shower from how wet my hair was, up in a knot at the top of my head. I smiled at him as I walked over to his bed, sitting on the edge of the corner closest to him.

“Good shower?” he asked, getting to his feet with a clean shirt and boxers in hand.

I nodded, trying my best to ignore the butterflies in my stomach going crazy at what the hell I was going to say.

Something must have been apparent on my face because Aaron made a goofy expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I croaked out.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing is wrong.”

His eyebrow still didn’t go anywhere.

“Aaron.”

“Ruby.”

“Aaron, for real.”

“Ruby, for real.”

I groaned and fell back on his bed with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling like it would give me magical steel balls I’d been missing my entire life. The mattress dipped and I didn’t need to see Aaron’s face to know he was right beside me… moving closer to my hip from the way the bed moved and from the heat hitting my skin.

His hand landed on the hand I had resting on my stomach, and he made a little sound. “Tell me what’s up.”

Did I want to look him in the eye as I said what I wanted to say? No. Not really.

Should I?

That answer to that was an unfortunate yes.

Sliding my elbows up over the comforter I’d just realized had been neatly made at some point, I propped myself up and let out the deep breath I hadn’t noticed I’d been holding. I’d brushed my teeth and rinsed out my mouth while I’d been in the bathroom, so there was that at least. Those brown eyes were on me and intent, and his mouth twisted just enough for that dimple of his to pop.

Now or never, Ruby. It was game time.

Swallowing the grapefruit in my throat, I pretty much whispered, “Can I sleep with you tonight?”

Brown eyes blinked.

Now or never, I repeated to myself. The world was for the strong.

So I kept going. “And by sleep, I mean later-later, if you know what I mean.”

He knew what I meant. He always knew what I meant.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I rushed out, feeling my imaginary tiny, balls rolling away and hiding.

Pink and red crept up from the collar of Aaron’s T-shirt, going up, up, up as he sat there on his heels, looking at me like he couldn’t believe what I’d just said. I couldn’t either. Slipping my hand out of his grasp, I raised both my fists to my eyes and let out a moan. “We can just pretend I didn’t say that too. That’s an option. That’s probably our best option. You know what? Let’s do that. Deal?”

His chuckle wasn’t immediate. It took a few seconds for it to rumble out of him, all content like a big cat. At the same time, the mattress sank and shook even more. His body heat reached me from my toes to my hair. My hands were moved away from my face gently, and when I felt the bed dip right beside my head, I opened one eye to find Aaron leaning over me, his dimple all out, basically ready to demolish my life.

And he was smiling even though his neck was pink and he looked like he was torn between several different emotions I couldn’t exactly pinpoint.

It was my turn to blink. “What are you smiling at?”

He laughed. Loud. “Someone’s in a mood.”

I closed my eyes and groaned. “So, how about that bonfire?”

Aaron laughed again, the entire length of his body stretched beside mine, and I found myself peeking at him again. The hand he was holding to prop himself up moved, shifting over to cup my cheek as he kept on grinning, those brown eyes bouncing from one of mine to the next. “Ruby girl, we’re not pretending that didn’t happen.”

“What?”

“That. What you said.”

Keeping my face neutral, I let my eyes completely open and shrugged under his stare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His chuckling made me smile even though I didn’t want to. “You fried my brain there for a sec,” he explained calmly, smiling down at me like I was the most entertaining thing in the world. Or the dumbest. “You can’t say that to me and expect me to be able to think afterward.”

“I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that,” I tried backpedaling with an apology. “We don’t have to—”

Aaron kissed me. Not a peck. He went in there. His mouth molding to mine, his tongue lapping at my upper lip for all of a second before I let him in. And just like that, we were making out with him hovering over me. He kissed me and kissed me, going deeper with each movement of his tongue. From one side to the next, kissing and kissing me.

The truth of the matter was: I had no idea what I was doing. What I was supposed to do. I’d kissed other guys before, but it had never been with us lying down. Most notably though, it had never been with Aaron. With someone I was crazy about. Someone I couldn’t stop thinking about. Someone who made me feel alive and special and like I could take on anything.

He knew I was pretty inexperienced. I knew he wasn’t. But I wanted him to remember this. Whatever happened.

Hopefully exactly what I’d wanted to happen.

Because that’s what I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about. I’d waited my entire life to have sex once. And now… well, now I didn’t want to wait around. That one time hadn’t been awesome or legendary. It had hurt and been awkward, and it had been rushed.

And it hadn’t meant a single freaking thing.

And Hunter hadn’t kissed me anywhere near the way Aaron was. Like he was taking my life force every time his mouth scraped mine, like he couldn’t stop kissing me. Like he couldn’t get enough.

It was with that thought that I wrapped my arms around him. One hand went to the back of his head and the other went to the small of his back, slipping beneath the hem of his shirt to touch all that smooth, warm skin. He was everything. Everything.

“Jesus, I love your lips,” he whispered, suddenly pulling his mouth away with a gasp. His face was only an inch or two above my own, his chest brushing mine with every breath. Those brown eyes bounced all over my face for a moment before he lowered his mouth again, peppering closed-mouth kisses along my jaw, one, two, three, then down the column of my neck, stopping on the second kiss, giving it a hard suck that had me tipping my head back for more, more, more. Aaron groaned into my skin, his body shifting around until the elbow beside my head moved and a hand slipped under the hem of my shirt, that big palm covering most of the skin on my stomach.

Aaron moved that beautiful mouth across my throat, his lips lingering over the middle of it, alternating between kisses and that suction that had me holding back a whimper each time. The fingers on my stomach moved slowly in a circle, teasing and touching, never going too high up.

All I could do was tilt my head up to catch Aaron’s mouth in another kiss.

I’m not sure exactly who started taking whose clothes off first, whether it was me who pulled his T-shirt over his head or if he did it to my tank top beforehand. All I knew was that in a matter of seconds, we were both in some stage of sitting shirtless. Aaron’s eyes grazed over my chest, his breathing so much harsher than I would have expected.

“I came ready,” I croaked out, gesturing toward my bra-less chest, trying to lighten the mood.

It was like he didn’t hear me, he was staring at me so intently.

I swallowed as his hand reached toward me, cupping my breast in his palm, basically swallowing it entirely in the dark gold of his skin color, making me look almost pale despite the hours I’d spent under the sun this past week. His hand was warm and his movement gentle, but his fingers were the total opposite when his thumb and index finger went to pinch a nipple that had gotten hard the moment he’d started kissing me.

“You’re so damn beautiful, Ru,” Aaron whispered, palming the slight weight of my entire breast again, his eyes going back and forth between my chest and face. “I can’t think when I’m looking at you like this.” He smiled, our eyes meeting again, and he leaned forward to kiss me. “Lie back for me,” he said, pulling away just an inch.

I was a little scared. Just a little. More nervous than anything, honestly, mostly because I was sitting there, practically naked, just saying hello look at me. This beautiful, perfect man, who had more than likely dated handfuls of beautiful women before me, looking at me and only me. No pressure.

But I did what he said. I rolled down flat on my back, watching him as he turned onto his stomach, his palm sliding from where it had been cupping my breast, fingers splayed, going toward the middle of my stomach and stopping directly over the center of my belly. Aaron was watching me, and he hadn’t stopped watching me, his eyelids going heavy, his breathing getting louder. And he moved, his head hovering directly over my chest, and in one heartbeat to the next, his mouth descended.

He kissed the side of my nipple. Then he kissed the other side. Above it. Below it. His tongue drew a circle around the hard nub, and then, finally, he sucked it into his mouth.

I was arching my back like crazy. Sucking in a breath, a hiss, something, making a noise I didn’t think was possible for a human being to create. I felt him exhale in small puffs against the dampness of what he’d left on my breast. And he did the exact same thing with its sister, that hand of his moving up and down on my stomach, from the space between my breasts, down, down to the hem of the sleep shorts I had on.

“Ruby, Ruby, Ruby,” he whispered, sucking at the nub again, soft and hard, using the tip of his tongue to flick it while it was inside his mouth, and then stopping.

I was squirming like crazy, wanting more, wanting everything I’d seen in movies and in porn before. I shivered, I shook. “Please,” I whispered. “Please.”

But instead, Aaron drew back. He watched me. And he slowly rolled onto his back beside me, his hands going to his hips, and as I sat up, I watched him shove his swim trunks down. I watched a line of light brown hairs emerge and watched as more trimmed hairs appeared, then a fat, cylinder-shaped base, and slowly, inch by pale pink inch, the length of his dick surfaced until it bounced upward, pointing straight into the air. He was long, thickest at the base, and with a deep red head that seemed to have a little white tear at the tip. Those slabs of his abs seemed to heave with a rapid breath I would never have expected from him as he kicked his trunks across the room to lay there naked.

I didn’t know what I’d done in another lifetime to deserve the body lying beside mine, but all I knew was that whatever it was, I would have done it a thousand times over for just one single chance to see Aaron like this again. Those slim hips, the ridges of muscles along his obliques that seemed to point straight at the big penis that was tipping toward his belly button, and that face…

“I feel like it’s my birthday,” I whispered to him, unable to quit smiling. Aaron flushed deeper but smiled back. “Can I…?”

“Whatever you want,” he said, swallowing hard, watching me straighten and sit up, slowly scooting over.

I reached for his stomach first, moving my hand across from one rib to the other. I moved my hand down the center of it, passing over the hollow of his belly button, going over the trail of blond-brown hairs leading down, side by side with thin veins, toward the thicker patch at the root of his penis. I had just grazed his pubic hair, and Aaron had just arched his hips upward with a rough breath, when I started moving my hand back up, toward his pecs, watching his face to make sure I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

With my hand flat on him, I rubbed up over one pec, feeling the flat hair on his chest tickle my palm. I even rubbed my thumb around the pink of his nipple before moving over and circling his other pectoral, the muscle firm and warm. And then I swept my palm down one more time, trailing my fingertips over the slabs of his abs, watching in a trance as he held his breath while I did it.

“Why are you so handsome?” I asked him, joining my other hand so I could feel all over his stomach with both like I’d never get this chance again.

Aaron let out a breath that could have passed for a laugh if it didn’t sound so pained. “You can thank my parents another time,” he basically groaned, arching his back and into my touch.

I smiled. How could I not? Lowering myself to my side, it was my turn to stretch against him, stretching against this beautiful naked man who felt like he was mine. That seemed like he was mine. Like he belonged to me. Raising my eyes to his face, I lowered my mouth to brush my lips against the slab of ribs closest to me, listening to him hiss. He was smooth there, and so warm, all I wanted to do was wrap myself around him and soak him in.

But I didn’t do that. I moved my lips to his belly button and gave the skin right above it a kiss.

“Ruby,” he hissed. “Come here.”

“I am here,” I said, kissing a spot below his belly button.

He groaned. “No, here,” he said, his hands coming up to pat directly over the center of his abs.

Nervous, so freaking nervous, I swung a leg over his waist so I straddled his stomach, straightening my back so I kneeled over him, unsure of what he was asking for but knowing it wouldn’t be nothing. He was smiling softly at me from where he lay, a flush covering his chest and neck. The feel of his hands landing on the outside of my thighs made me jump a little. But he watched me as he dragged his hands upward under the legs of my shorts until his fingertips seemed to graze the lower half of my bottom cheeks.

And then, one hand disappeared for all of a moment and the next thing I knew, there was pressure over my slit, right at the top, dragging down the length of it. Aaron watched me with those brown, brown eyes as he moved what had to be the pad of his thumb up and down the seam of my lips over my underwear, pausing right at the top with a gentle circle that had me sucking in a breath.

He smiled.

And he did it again.

And again, and again…

“More,” I pleaded, more than likely sounding crazy.

And he gave me more, his touch gentle, light, circling and drawing a line straight down the center of me before going back up again for seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, tenths and twentieths, until I could feel how wet my underwear was, I could feel how achy the middle part of my body had gotten. There was no way Aaron could have missed it, especially when his other hand slipped inside the leg of my shorts and tugged my underwear to the side a moment before the hand that had been driving me crazy, did the same thing again except this time over bare skin.

Then he slipped a finger inside of me and I lost it. In and out, one finger and then eventually two fingers, crooking and then sliding, forcing me to drop down to hold myself up on my hands and knees over him. His mouth found one of my nipples and gave it a nip that had me shuddering. It was the first time anyone other than me or my vibrator had been anywhere near the center of my body. Not even the other idiot, the original idiot, had gone there.

I only knew I was panting because I could hear myself as I moved my hips around his fingers for more. And just as I started to tighten, to feel an orgasm starting right at the juncture of my thighs, he stopped.

He freaking stopped.

“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.”