Chapter Seventeen
Bridezillas make the best brides.
After standing for so long, watching Tessa say her vows, I know this to be true. She may have been a nightmare for the past few days, but so far, her day has gone off without a hitch.
It’s absolutely perfect. From the figure-hugging white dress that flares into a full skirt at her hips to the powder blue of her bridesmaids’ dresses and the matching bouquets of flowers everywhere. I can’t begin to imagine the work—or the cost—that’s gone into this day.
I’ve been to more weddings than I care to count, but none of them hit me the way Tessa’s has. Perhaps it was the raw honesty in her voice when she promised to give Michael the rest of her life. Perhaps it was the way they looked at each other, so in love, and sealed it all with a kiss.
Or perhaps it was the way Aaron held my hand tightly throughout the ceremony or the way my emotions were running rampant in my body, still raw from our conversation about this very topic a few days ago.
“Dayton!” Tessa shouts my name and waves me over.
“No.” I shake my head. “These are your family shots.”
Several pairs of eyes turn to look at me. Tessa’s, Tyler’s, Carly’s, Brandon’s, Tessa’s parents’, and Aaron’s. Aaron’s are the hardest as he approaches me and takes both my hands in his.
“You are family,” he says softly. “And Tessa wants you in these pictures.”
“I…” I look at her pleading eyes and let him pull me forward. “Okay.”
Everyone smiles as I join them, and Aaron tucks me into his side.
“Whoa. Don’t crease the dress,” I mutter, much to everyone’s amusement.
“Excuse me,” he responds, his own laughter in his voice. “Was it expensive?”
“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t allowed to see the price.” I grin and slip my arm around his waist as the photographer shouts for us all to smile.
I’m passed from here to there and back again over the next fifteen minutes. In and out of photos. In and out of Aaron’s hold. By the time they’re all done, I’m glad to have a chance to sit down for dinner.
“I didn’t see the price either, but it was worth every cent,” Aaron says as he takes a seat next to me. “The dress,” he says at my questioning look.
“Oh!” I smile. “What do you mean you didn’t see the price?”
“I rarely see my accounts. My accountant is aware of all my finances and he watches them carefully. I only see them when something isn’t as it should be.”
“Oh, to be so rich.”
He brings my hand to his mouth and brushes his lips across it. “You know my feelings on this.”
“I do and I acknowledge them, and I refuse to take this discussion further.” I punctuate my last words with a raise of my brows as the entrées are brought out.
As I suspected, the meal is incredible. One of the best I’ve ever had by a million miles. The wine is crisp and fresh, and you don’t need to be familiar with the label to know that they’re expensive bottles. I wonder how much this cost.
“You’d pass out with shock,” Aaron whispers.
Crap. Did I say that out loud?
“You whispered it.”
“Dammit. I need to stop thinking.” I pick up my glass and drink before I say something else.
“I won’t give you an exact figure, but it was comfortably in the six-figure bracket.”
I choke as I swallow my wine. “Six figures?”
“Did you expect anything less?”
“On a wedding?”
“That’s what we’re attending.”
“Oh my God.”
Aaron smiles. “I love how shocked you get at money.”
“Money doesn’t shock me. I have plenty myself, but I don’t understand the frivolity, I guess. Spending just because you can. It baffles me.”
“This, from the woman who almost snapped my bank card two days ago?”
I hold up a finger. “We all have our exceptions, Mr. Stone. That’s mine. Besides, that will all get used.”
“I can guarantee it.” He touches my back and kisses the corner of my mouth. “Now eat.”
“Yes, sir.”
We spend the rest of the dinner in silence before we all step into the gardens for drinks while the tables are cleared away. I engage in casual conversation with Tyler, doing my best to keep him away from yet another of Tessa’s bridesmaids.
“Come dance,” he says, dragging me back into the room.
“Your sister has to have her dance first, and I think Aaron would likely kill you.”
“Tomorrow, maybe, and he’s not here right now. Let me steal one.” He winks, his grin oozing boyish charm instead of sexuality, and I find myself giving in.
“Fine. Okay. But I’m not being held responsible for this.”
“I’ll take the blame.”
We stand by the side and watch as Michael takes Tessa in his arms. A smile teases my lips as they move elegantly across the floor, never taking their eyes from the other. Their parents join them on the floor, followed by the wedding party and their dates, and Tyler grabs my hand.
The grip is broken, and Aaron presses himself against the back of me. “Nice try, Ty. Better luck next time.”
He sweeps me away onto the dance floor and envelopes me in his arms. I wrap mine around his neck and look up at him, unable to hide the smile on my lips.
“What? No one is dancing with you tonight except me,” he murmurs, lowering his face to mine.
“I’d be offended if you let them.”
We slowly move around the floor, in perfect sync, our bodies swaying together with ease. Like we’ve always danced together.
“Do you remember the first time we danced together?” Aaron asks quietly, his fingers twitching against my back.
“Do you think I’d forget?”
His mom’s birthday is in the middle of the summer, and his dad threw her a party. Aaron insisted I go along with my parents, and I protested at dancing. I wasn’t a dancer. I never have been, but he made me do it anyway.
“I never wanted that song to end,” he admits. “I could have danced with you all night.”
“You did.” I smile. “I think you would have tried again the next day if I hadn’t have jumped on you to make you stop.”
He laughs. “Yes. I suppose you’re right.” He kisses me softly as the song ends, and I feel his cell vibrate in his pocket between us.
“Aaron!”
He slides it out and glances at the screen. “I have to take this. I’ll be right back.”
He kisses me quickly and disappears out of the large doors behind us. I watch him, shaking my head. Unbelievable. Can he not leave work at home for one night?
“Looks like I get my dance after all.” Tyler appears in front of me.
“Let’s not anger him. How about a drink instead?”
He motions for me to lead the way, and we both take a seat at the bar. I sigh. Fucking phone.
“Have you thought about what I said?”
“About the pictures?”
Tyler nods. “No pressure. I’m just wondering since you leave again in a couple of days.”
“I don’t know. Do you come to Seattle much?”
“I will be now that Aaron lives there. I split my time between here and there.”
“Can we come back to this? There’s still a lot to…work through…before I make any decisions.”
He studies me for a second. “He still doesn’t know?”
I shake my head. “I’m going to figure it out when I get home. Somehow. And no,” I snap when he opens his mouth. “Don’t even go there, Tyler Stone. Don’t you dare.”
He holds up his hands. “Okay. Okay. I’m just throwing it out there though, Day. If.”
“No. This is my problem, and I’m going to deal with it. Now let’s talk about something else.”
“Let’s talk about why Aaron is walking toward you with a face like thunder.”
I spin and stare into angry blue eyes. “Uh-oh. Tyler, what did I do this time?”
“We’re leaving,” Aaron snaps, grabbing my arm. “Tyler, are you back tonight?”
“Nope. Not now, anyway.”
“Excellent. Dayton.” He pulls me from the chair and after him, dropping his hand to mine so it doesn’t look like he’s fucking manhandling me.
Oh fuck. What if he’s found out somehow? What if he knows about Naomi?
I’m too afraid to ask as he deposits me in the car and gets in after me. He orders the driver, whose name I’ve never learned, to take us back to Tyler’s. Then he turns his back on me. I take a deep breath and wring my fingers in my lap. Jesus.
I can feel his annoyance and frustration like it’s my own. It’s an awful feeling, one I want to scrape off my skin and shake away. One that clings to me.
“Inside.” One word. Short. Sharp. Controlled.
I follow him, knowing that a smart answer won’t help me from whatever has him so annoyed.
He opens a cupboard in the front room, pours two fingers of whisky, and drinks them in one. The glass slams against the side and his fingers curl around the side of the bar so tightly that I can see his knuckles whitening.
“Care to explain why three payments to Monique were declined?”
Every bit of tension oozes out of my body. He doesn’t know.
I drop my purse on the sofa and pull off my heels. “I told her to cancel them.”
“She hasn’t had a dollar off of me.”
“That’s the idea of me telling her to cancel them.”
Aaron turns, questions now filling his eyes where his annoyance just was. “Why? Why would you do that?”
“Because I needed to be with you without that.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me, Day? This whole time I’ve thought you’ve been here because you’ve been forced to be. And you haven’t. You’ve been here because, what? You’ve wanted to be?”
I nod slowly and meet his eyes. “I needed to be with you without the obligation that comes with the money to figure out how I feel. I needed to know I could decide what I want without knowing it was there and forcing me to decide. I needed to do this as Dayton the person, not Dayton the call girl.”
“And? Have you decided?”
I cross the room to him and undo his tie. I leave it on the bar next to us and untuck his shirt, sliding my hands beneath it and around to his back as I lay my face against his chest.
He lets out a heavy breath and holds me to him. “You’re not answering my question.”
“I’m going to call Monique when we get back to Seattle.”
“And?” He cups my face and pulls me back from him when I don’t answer. “And fucking what, Dayton?”
“And I’m going to tell her I’m done. I’m leaving. I quit.”
His lips crash into mine with a ferocity I never believed possible. They stoke a fire deep in the pit of my belly with each hard and forceful movement across mine.
“Does this mean you forgive me?”
I nod against him. “I do.”
“I don’t know how you do, but I’m… God.” He kisses me again. “I’m the luckiest bastard.”
“I know,” I mumble.
He buries his face into my hair and takes a deep breath. “You’re incredible, you know that? I am so very, very lucky to have you.” He presses his lips to my collarbone, and the words tumble from my lips before I can stop them.
“Why won’t you say it?”
“Say what?”
I swallow and step back from him, closing my eyes. “Why won’t you tell me you love me?”
“I have. So many times.”
“No. No, you haven’t.” I turn back to him. “You’ve said you’ve never stopped loving me. You’ve said your heart belongs to me. You’ve said you’ve never loved anyone else, but you’ve never actually said it. You’ve never looked me in the eyes and told me you love me.”
“You know I do, Dayton. And if you don’t, I want to know why.”
“I do. I know it, but I need to hear it. I just stood here and told you that I’m giving up my life to be with you and you still haven’t said it.”
Silence lingers between us, growing steadily heavier until Aaron finally speaks.
“That’s what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it? That’s what you wanted in my office—when you said you wanted me to strip myself bare and tell you how I feel.”
I nod and close my eyes. “It’s stupid, so stupid, but it’s like hearing those words will make me realize that I’ve made the right choice in choosing you over my life. I don’t care if that makes me weak or pathetic. I wish you would say them, but not because I’m standing here asking you to. I want you tell me because you want to. Because they’re—”
“True,” he finishes. “They are. I haven’t said them because you are this crazy independent woman who fights me at every turn. I can’t do anything without you pushing back at me, and your independence is one of the best things about you. You don’t hang on to my arm and beg me for things. You don’t look at me like I can buy you the world. You look at me like I’m a pain in your ass half of the time, and that’s why I haven’t told you. You balk every time I talk of something more serious than a night together.”
His palms are warm as they close over my cheeks and tilt my face up to his. I open my eyes and stare into his.
“But I do, Dayton. Don’t ever doubt for a second that I love you. I love you when you wake up in the morning, your hair is a mess and your eyes all misty from sleep. I love you when you’re spilling soda on your shirt and brushing crumbs from your lap. I love you when you’re glancing at me, thinking I don’t notice, and I love you when you’re asleep and you’re whispering my name.” He rests his forehead against mine. “I love you every second of my life, and that love is so strong that it encompasses everything else I feel.”
I hiccup as he folds his arms around me. His heart is pounding inside his chest, thumping against my chest, and I know mine is doing the same. They’re beating the same, right down to the same rhythm. Like they were always meant to. Like there’s no other rhythm they could possibly beat to except for the one reserved just for us.
“It scares me how in love with you I am, Dayton. I think I love you even beyond love itself. You’re my obsession, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you. You have to know that.”
I nod again, fisting his shirt.
“There,” he whispers, walking back with me. “I’ve told you. Now let me show you.”
Aaron sweeps me into his arms and carries me upstairs, unzipping the back of my dress before setting me on the edge of the bed. His fingers are soft against mine as he slides the sleeves over my shoulders, exposing the turquoise bra he loved so much.
He ghosts his fingertips over the curve of my breast. “So I get to take it off after all.”
I smile at him, and he dips his head. His kiss is slow and languid, an exploration of my mouth that’s filled with revelry and adoration. It reverberates throughout my whole body, a sweeping caress that touches every part of me.
“This isn’t fair,” I whisper when he kisses my jaw, tugging at his shirt.
He smiles against me and straightens. His fingers work the buttons and he shrugs it off, leaving it to drop to the floor behind him.
My fingers, like they have a mind of their own, sweep over the taut muscles of his stomach. They trace each shadowed indent of skin, finally following the shape of the ‘v’ muscle and resting on his hips. I lean forward and kiss the patch of skin above his pants, his skin is scorching hot beneath my lips.
Aaron leans me back on the bed and slides my dress down my legs. His mouth travels down my body and over my breasts, leaving a blazing trail of seduction as he goes. His hand slips beneath me and unclips the bra, which is gone a second later.
This is different. This time, as he explores my body, there’s no rush, no hurry, no desperation. There are no whispered words of naughty promises that send my body into overdrive. There’s only his breath coating my skin in murmurs against me I can’t decipher.
And when his mouth reaches the apex of my thighs, the removal of my panties is slow, and the journey back up my legs is accompanied by a thousand peppered kisses. It’s joined by a crazy anticipation of what’s coming, of a silent beg from me for the show he’s promised.
His tongue’s strokes are as slow and easy as his kisses were earlier. His hands are wrapped around my legs, keeping them open, and he sucks lightly on my clit. He slides his tongue between my folds and inside me and over that tender bundle of nerves until I come apart beneath him in a way that’s crazily intense.
His pants hit the floor with a clunk of his belt, and he leans over me, his lips covering mine. “You taste good on you,” he whispers.
I smile. “Like your own personal heaven and hell all in one, right?”
“Exactly like that, beautiful woman. Exactly like that.”
Aaron pushes himself inside me slowly, so slowly that I feel the stretching of all my muscles as every inch of him finds its home. Each stroke is deeper than the last, long and sweet, deliciously erotic. His heavy breath in my ear is seductive, and I don’t remember ever feeling this way.
Like right now, in this moment, it’s just me and him and the love that’s finally out in the open.
Like everything is perfect.
“Aaron.” His name is a desperate plea from my lips as I feel the orgasm inside, coiling and sculpting deep in my belly, sending red-hot shoots of pleasure out.
“Easy, baby.” He kisses my neck, lingering on my pulse point.
“Please… I need…”
He pushes right into me, hitting the right spot, and pulls back out. He does this again, still slowly, still gently, still with a remarkable amount of restraint. I push my hips into him when I feel his cock swelling inside me, and as soon as he presses his thumb against my clit, I feel the first red-hot spurt of his come inside me and let myself go.
It hits me so intensely, so incredibly strong, that tears spill from my eyes. When it’s all over and Aaron’s tucking us into bed, they’re still falling, leaving wet patches on the pillow.
He pulls me into his chest and wipes the tears away with his thumb. “Sex and crying is a habit with you.”
I choke a laugh, covering my mouth with my hand, and nudge him. “Shut up. I just…”
“Just what?”
“Love you,” I whisper, tilting my face back to look at him. His lips curve on each side, a light sparking in his eyes. “I love you. That’s all.”
“That’s all, she says. Like it’s so simple.”
“It is, remember? You told me it’s simple.”
“So I did.” He presses a gentle kiss to my tender lips. “I love you, too, Bambi. I love you so much.”