“Trust me,” he said. Trust him I did.
At seventeen, I would have followed Aaron Stone to the very depths of hell and back again if I’d had to. I’m not sure if, at twenty-four, that would be much different.
After forcing me to eat my breakfast, he shoved me into the bedroom and practically pulled my damn dress over my head before getting himself dressed. And I have to admit, that’s something I both loathed and enjoyed. Seeing his naked body is always beautiful, but his covering it up? Not so much.
Now we’re walking the streets of Paris. His fingers are linked through mine and he’s barely said a word as he drags me across quaint cobbled streets I know I should recognize. He shakes his head at all my questions. He curls his lips at all my annoyed prods. He rolls his eyes at all my groans that heels can’t take the endless hobbles.
“My feet hurt,” I whine. “You could have warned me. I think my feet are actually breaking.”
“For fuck’s sake, Day.” He stops. “Get on my back.”
I laugh loudly. “Are you kidding me? I’m wearing a dress!”
“Believe me. I’ll make sure no one can see that gorgeous red and black set you thought I didn’t notice you sneaking on this morning.”
“I don’t doubt it.” I put my hands on his shoulders. “Do you know how crazy this is?”
“It’s only as crazy as you make me, woman. Hurry up before I change my mind.”
“Aaron Stone, soon-to-be CEO of Stone Advertising is giving me a piggyback ride through Paris.” I snort and bury my face in his shoulder blade. He slides his hand up my thigh and smacks my ass, and I laugh. “Sorry, sorry. It’s just kind of funny. How many super powerful businessmen do you see doing this?”
“I wouldn’t know. If they don’t, I’d imagine they’d have no idea how to treat their women. God forbid she should have sore feet.”
I slap his chest. “So shoot me. I forgot how many streets here were covered in stones.”
“The only stone you need to worry about is me, sweetheart.” He squeezes my thighs. I grin. “I’m harder to deal with than all of these fuckers put together.”
“Only because you’re demanding and controlling and a pain in my frigging ass.”
“Watch it, woman. I’m controlling, remember?”
“Ooh, what are you gonna do? Tie my wrists to a bed and fuck the breath out of me?”
He shifts his body so I fall to one side. He catches me elegantly, flattening my body against his. “Damn fucking right I am.” His mouth covers mine with a heat I feel everywhere. “I didn’t hear any complaints from you that night.”
“Uh-uh.” I shake my head and put my finger against his lips. “The next time we fuck, I’m in control.”
“Is that right?”
“You have no idea how right it is until you’ve been truly fucked by me.”
“I’ve been fucked a thousand times.”
“Baby, you haven’t been fucked by me. Tonight you can put away your controlling demands because I’m the one taking the reins.”
He pulls my hips against his, and his erection digs into my hip. “Is that right?”
“You bet your ass it is.” I kiss him hard, pushing myself into him. “Now, where are we going?”
His eyes change from dark to bright blue. “You’re a temptress, Dayton Black.”
“Cock tease is what I’m used to hearing, but I’ll take both.” I pull him forward. “Where are you taking me?”
“I’m taking you to the place where I realized I was in love with you.”
My eyebrows shoot into my hairline. “This isn’t the way to the Eiffel Tower.”
He smirks and spins us so he’s leading the way. I watch him as he walks—his strong strides swallowing up the sidewalk, his gaze focused on his destination, and his jaw firmly set.
“That’s where you say, ‘No, Bambi. This is the place I realized for the second time I was in love with you.’”
“Dayton Black.”
“Aaron Stone.”
“Shut up for once in your life. Shut those gorgeous red lips and follow me.”
“I’ve been following you for ages.”
“And thank fucking god we’re here.”
I look to the side. And stop. Everything. I stop breathing and thinking, and my heart stops beating. “Pont de l’Archevêché,” I breathe. The narrow bridge is covered with padlocks, every inch of it having one of the metal locks attached to it.
Aaron smirks and spins, facing me. His feet are at the end of the bridge, and he steps back, mouthing something at each step. What the hell is he doing?
“Here,” he says and bends down.
I frown at him from the end of the bridge. There’s no way he can find it. There is absolutely no fucking way he knows where it is.
“Here,” he repeats with more conviction, a padlock in his hands. He turns to face me. “It’s here.”
“There are thousands on padlocks on this bridge. You honestly think I believe you know the exact place ours is?”
“Twenty-eight steps in, roughly.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Kind of halfway down because you had a freak-out about it not being even.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Silver and gold. We scratched our initials in with a penknife we found in my suite.”
So much emotion rises in me at that memory. The moment I realized forever would never happen with the guy I loved beyond belief.
I swallow the remembered pain. “If it’s ours, what’s under my initials?”
“A hoof print. Just like Bambi’s.” He glances at it. “Come see if you don’t believe me.”
My legs take me toward him. They shake the whole time, and I hide my trembling hands around my waist. I stop beside him and know he’s right before I bend down. I know that the padlock he holds in his hand is ours, the one we so lovingly carved our initials into. The one I painstakingly carved a deer’s print into so we’d always remember it was ours. So if we ever found it, we would know.
It’s unmistakable. A generic lock like so many others, yet so unique.
I stare at it in disbelief and cover my mouth with my hand. “How do you even know where it is?”
“I counted. As we walked away, I counted the steps to the end of the bridge. Just in case.” He stands and pulls a second from his pocket.
I reach my hand out but hesitate and curve my fingers back. I swallow all the crazy shit pounding and clenching in my chest and take the padlock from his hand.
Our names are on it. Not our initials. Our names. Perfectly inscribed and underlined by the date we first met.
I curl my fingers around the cold metal. It feels as natural as it did the first time we stood on this bridge with a lock exactly the same. I bend down and hook it around the bridge beneath the first one. Aaron kneels next to me and wraps his arm around my body. His hands cover my shaking ones and lock it into place. My lips part the instant it clicks, and he holds up a small gold key.
“I threw the first time,” he says into my ear. “Now it’s your turn.”
I take it and stand, staring at the River Seine, the way it winds around and through the city until I can’t see it bend any longer. I feel his hot breath on my cheek and his hands at my hips and his body at my side.
And I tighten my grip on the tiny key. It digs into my palm but I ignore the sting. I already know I’m going to throw it. And I know what throwing it means. Everyone does. Every damn couple that visits Paris knows what this signifies.
The first time, he threw it, and in my mind, I promised the summer. I promised what I knew I could give. I promised him all I could.
This time, I’m throwing.
This time, I’m the one making the real promise.
This time, I’m promising him that I’ll love him forever.
Regardless of what happens when we touch back down in Seattle, when real life intersects with this magical rendezvous, I’m promising him that he’ll always have my heart.
I’ll never love another the way I love him.
I pull my arm back. With his fingers at my hips, I force my arm forward. He inhales deeply.
The key hits the water with a tiny splash and sinks.
I curl into his hold, offering a forever my heart can guarantee but my body can only hope for.
Moulin Rouge.
The movie every teenage girl watches, wishing she could be Nicole Kidman. The first time I saw it, I know I spent the whole time wishing I were. Wishing I had my own Ewan McGregor acting as Christian.
Except I do. And he’s been plying me with wine all night. By the time we leave the building headed by a bright red windmill, the night air certainly gets to me.
I tilt my head to the side and gaze at him all through the journey back to the hotel. Aaron smirks, scratching at his neck, and I can tell by the tightness of his jaw that he’s fighting the urge to look at me. Like it’s a mammoth, nearly fucking impossible task not to meet my eyes when I’m staring at him as if I want him naked right this very fucking second.
Our journey through the hotel foyer consists of my calculated steps and his hand twitching at my waist. The seconds in the elevator are taken up by the aimless traveling of his fingers up and down my side. They’re filled with sparks of need jolting through my body.
Aaron locks the suite door behind us, and I walk to the fridge. The wine bottle is cold beneath my fingers, and I focus on each drop falling into my glass instead of him watching me.
“Dayton.” My name leaves him, hot and heavy.
I turn, meeting dark blue eyes filled with a need so intense it engulfs my body in red-hot flames. He approaches me and closes his fingers over mine. Just when I expect him to pull the glass away, he doesn’t. He lifts it to my mouth and tilts. His breath is hot against my neck, and his chest smolders against my back as I down the wine before me.
“I’ve always loved Moulin Rouge.” I run my finger around the rim of my empty glass. “Do you think I could do the dances like they do?”
“Oh, Jesus,” he mutters.
I spin from his hold and catch my tongue between my teeth as I cast my eyes around the room. They fall on the coffee table in the middle of the room, and my lips curve into a wicked grin.
I throw a glance over my shoulder and move toward it. A deep chuckle fills the room when I climb up onto it. I pause for a second to catch my balance and smirk at him.
“Well, do you think I can?”
“Dayton, get off the table. You’ll break your damn neck.” He makes a grab for me but misses as I step back.
I waggle my finger in his face. “You don’t get to tell me what to do tonight, remember? I’m in charge. Ooh la la!” I wink saucily and spin.
My body contorts and undulates as I recreate a routine from the show from my tabletop stage. I keep my balance and dance like it’s what I was made to do—like I should have been a fucking stripper instead of a call girl.
Despite his concern for my safety, Aaron makes no move to get me off the table. I expected his arms to loop around my waist and pull me off or that he’d climb up and sling me over his shoulder. He does neither. He does nothing but stand and watch me with his hands resting in front of his body.
I’m laughing as I dance, but I’m more aware of him that anything I’m doing or feeling. I’m more conscious of the way he’s fiddling with the cufflink at his right wrist, the way his lips are curved into a wanting smirk, and the way his eyes shamelessly roam over my body. More than that, more than all three things put together, I’m aware of the gradual darkening of the blue hue of his irises. I’m aware of the building lust and need and raw sexuality that swirl in them, reaching out to me and surrounding me.
And they do. Surround me. Completely and utterly.
My body heats to an unimaginable level, and every part of me begs to be touched by him. Tingles, tugs, wanting trembles… They overtake me again and again, leaving my skin covered in goose bumps and my heart pounding.
Then his eyes meet mine. They finish their visual caress of my body and find mine in a heated collision that makes me stop dead. It takes my breath away—the intensity in his gaze. It makes me brave and shy and wanton all at the same time in a crazy mix of conflicting emotion.
He steps closer and reaches out to me. This time, I let him rest his hands on my waist and lift me from the table. I take a deep breath. He runs his fingers up my arm and across my shoulder, teasing the skin at my neck as they find their way to my jaw.
“Tell me what you want,” he whispers, his voice husky.
“You. Just you.”
“No.” He brings his body flush against mine. “More. Tell me what you want me to do you.” His fingers slide around my body to cup my butt, creeping beneath my dress. He brings it around slowly, drawing a path with his thumb from hip to hip, skimming the top of my underwear. “Do you want me to touch you here?”
I part my lips at the touch of his fingertips sliding beneath the material and curl my fingers into his shirt. “Yes.”
“How? Like this?” He rubs his thumb across my clit, drawing a sharp breath from me. “Or like this?” Two fingers slip inside me effortlessly, stretching me. He curls them at the tips, hitting my sweet spot, and drags them across it like he knows.
“Oh. That.” I release his shirt and sink my fingers into his hair. I’m gripping it so tightly I know I’m pulling it, but he gives me no indication of it. And all I can truly feel are his fingers inside me.
“You sure?” He slides his other hand down my back, undoing my zipper.
I’m left feeling empty when he pulls his fingers from me to slide my dress down my body. The emptiness leaves as his eyes trace me from head to toe, only to be replaced with an all-consuming need that roars through me.
“So fucking beautiful,” he murmurs at my neck, dropping kisses across my collarbone.
I drop my head as he travels downward, tracing along the curve of my breast and down my stomach. His hot breath covers my aching pussy, and I know where he’s going even before he hooks his fingers in the waistband of my panties and slides them down my legs.
I tremble beneath his touch with nothing to hold on to in order to steady myself, and my knees buckle as he kisses up my thigh.
“Or is this what you want?” He kisses just above my clit. “My mouth… My tongue… Here. Licking your pussy and teasing your clit until you come so hard you see black? Is this what you want?”
His hand cups me, his finger rubbing over me. I groan and reach down to his head.
“Tell me what you want, Dayton.”
“Get up,” I demand, tugging at his hair. “Up.”
He stands slowly, dragging his mouth up my body as he does. His breathing picks up speed as I deftly undo each button on his shirt and ease it over his shoulders. It silently falls to the floor behind him, and I press my mouth to his chest. Over his heart. It pounds beneath my touch, and I settle my hands at his waist as I let my tongue travel across his body.
It’s a full adventure from his pecs to his waistband, and I take advantage of every dip and rise of his muscles as my tongue explores him. I unbuckle his belt and undo his pants without taking my lips from his body. He tenses beneath my touch as I pull them down, his boxers included, and free his raging erection.
“Fuck,” Aaron mutters at the first touch of my lips at the base of his cock. I wrap my fingers around him and take him into my mouth, my tongue flicking against him.
I work him, my only objective his pleasure, needing to feel his release inside me. My pussy or my mouth. I don’t care. I run my tongue along the side of his shaft, reveling in the way he works his fingers into my hair and groans my name, and lick the drop of pre-cum from the end of his cock.
“Dayton,” he rasps again when I brush my fingers across his sac. His balls tighten in my grip as I squeeze lightly, and he groans deep in his throat, pulling his hips back and lifting me.
“Kiss me.”
His tongue plunges into my mouth and he kisses me feverishly. His hands run across my body desperately, and when they stop at the top of my thighs, I feel his fight not to touch me. Not to take control of this.
I pull away and walk backward. He follows me to the bedroom and drops his eyes when I unclip my bra. I slide it down my arms, freeing my breasts, and my nipples pucker beneath his gaze.
The bed is soft as I lie back on it, and Aaron stands at the end of the bed, just watching me. Waiting. His chest heaving with the force of being controlled.
The familiar feeling rushes through my veins, mixed with desire and heat.
I want to push him.
I want to see how far he’ll go until he breaks and takes back control of my body.
With my eyes on his, I trail a finger down my breastbone. His chest heaves and he swallows as I run it beneath the curve of my breasts, teasing but not really touching. His gaze follows my finger as I trace small, lazy circles across my stomach.
Slowly, I take it lower.
His breathing gets even heavier and his cock twitches. He wraps his hand around it and my body reacts immediately. I feel the wetness pooling between my legs, and my lungs constrict at the sight of him standing before me. Powerful. Sexual. Almost primal.
I stop my finger just above the mound that dips to my pussy and wait for him to say something. He tightens his grip on himself, and eyes so dark they’re almost black take mine captive.
“Do it,” he growls. “But when you come, your hand will be replaced by my mouth.”
I don’t dispute it or argue as my hand dips lower. My lips part as my finger finds my swollen clit, and it almost feels alien to touch it myself. It’s been so long since I had to do this that I almost want to pull away and demand that he skip the waiting and just get his mouth down there right the fuck now.
The tension keeps me going. Aaron strokes himself slowly as I rub circles around my clit, sliding my fingers down and dipping them inside myself.
“Fuck, Dayton. If you had any idea how you look right now…”
The rawness of his voice makes my eyelids flutter shut. “Tell me. Tell me what you see right now, standing in front of me while I touch myself for you.”
“You look like perfection. You’re sexy in the rawest way, and it drives me fucking crazy. I can see how wet you are, can see it on your fingers each time you slide them back out of your gorgeous cunt. And knowing I did that makes me the smuggest son of a bitch in this city.”
I fight the buck of my hips and the pressure from the quickly building orgasm. “And you?” I ask hoarsely.
“Hard, baby. I’m rock solid and it’s all because of you. All for you.” The bed creaks and dips as he moves forward. His breath crawls over my leg, igniting a new flare inside me, and I cry out softly when he grabs my free hand. He wraps my fingers around his cock. “Feel that?” he questions, rocking his hips and pushing himself through my grip. “That’s you. No one else gets me this crazy.”
I squeeze him lightly as the first wave of orgasm thrashes through my body, and as quickly as he filled my hand, he leaves it empty. He pulls my hand away and covers me with his mouth, his tongue stretching inside me as I come into his mouth.
It’s intense and unrelenting, wave after wave assaulting me.
I need him. I need him to fill me the way he always does.
“I’m going to fuck you now,” he says, wrapping his lips around my nipple. “The way I want. As hard as I want and for as long as I want. And it’s going to be hard and it’s going to be fucking fast.”
He gets off me and I open my eyes.
“On your front,” he whispers. “Hands and knees.”
My lips part as I do it. He moves behind me and slaps my ass lightly.
“Now crawl up the bed.”
I crawl.
“Wrap those hands around the top of the headboard.”
I wrap my hands around the headboard.
His hand connects with my ass again, sharper this time, and I flinch away from the sting. Never mind that I feel it all the way through my pussy.
He raises himself until the head of his cock is just inside me. I flex my hips to take him deeper, and he leans over me, pulling back.
“I’m trying to control myself, Dayton, but I meant it when I said it would be hard and fast. I won’t be nice, not after watching you give yourself an orgasm that should have come from me.”
“You told me to”—all the breath leaves my body at his hard entry—“do it.”
“I was making a point.” He holds himself inside me and turns my face to the side. He takes my mouth harshly, his teeth tugging on my lower lip. “I let you touch yourself simply so I could remind you there’s nothing you can do to yourself that I can’t do ten times better. I can make you come harder and more intensely than you could ever make yourself.” To prove his point, he pulls out and rams back into me. I cry out. “Think about that next time you decide to tease me and take away something that is my right.”
“Making me come is your right?”
“You belong to me, Dayton. It’s my right to do whatever I wish with you. That includes being the only person who will ever make you come. Starting now.”
He picks up a speedy pace, pounding into me harshly and relentlessly from behind. Every thrust inside pushes the breath from my body. I drop my head forward, pushing back against him, taking him deeper until he hits the end of me. He grabs my hips, controlling my movements. Slamming me onto him with each thrust forward.
It’s sudden and it’s explosive and it’s mind-numblingly intense. I shatter. I surrender to the intense rush of blood and adrenaline and spiking pleasure. It consumes me. Owns me. Possesses me to my very core. I tremble. I shake. I fall and spiral into the consuming flood.
This is rough and real. As a second hits before I can center myself again, I know this is what needed to happen. This is the past and the present and the future all colliding in a crazy, fucked-up moment of ownership and pleasure.
I break.
I release my hold on the headboard and drop forward as Aaron shouts his own release in a magical cry of my name. He collapses onto me, our skin slick together, and wraps his arms around my body. His chest is heaving as hard as mine. I can feel his heartbeat pounding through his ribs to my back, and it’s perfectly in sync with my own.
My heart is beating so hard it could break through the bones keeping it safe. It’s so full of everything—of desire, of passion, of love. All for the man holding on to me like I might run if he doesn’t.
And when he eases out of me, kisses me softly, and drags me to the shower, the questions spin in my mind.
How do I walk away?
How do I stay?