I

was terrified to go home that evening. I stalled as long as I possibly could, finishing up tasks I knew could wait until the next day: cleaning up the break room, unnecessarily making sure doors were locked and lights were off. I knew everything was in order. I was just afraid to face what was waiting for me.

Everything.

Everything was waiting for me.

The pressure was almost too much to bear.

When I approached my door, my stomach was in knots. The closer I got, the more dread I felt. Waiting for me on the door, though, was a note.

Come to my apartment.

Don’t change your clothes.

~Aiden

I couldn’t stop the shudder that rolled through me, the way his words and their implications affected my body. Knocking on his door took more calming breaths and silent pep talks with myself.

The door opened and Aiden appeared, smiling like he did so often, all the way to his eyes.

Before I even knew it was happening, my mouth was opening and words were tumbling out.

“I’m scared to fall in love with you.”

The smile fell from his face and the crease between his brows scrunched as he became worried.

“What?”

“I’m afraid if I let myself get too close, it won’t work out, and then I’ll be hurt, alone, and in love with you.” I marched through the door and he was kind enough to get out of my way, closing it behind me. I turned to him, continuing with the verbal explosion. “There’s a reason I’ve never been with anyone before. I’m not good at this. I’m going to ruin it somehow. Or you will. I’ve never done this before, clearly, and it’s bound to end badly.”

He stared at me, his pensive expression not changing.

I stood there, breathing hard from the exertion that was spilling one’s emotional guts.

Finally, after what seemed like too long of a time, he crossed his arms over his chest and his expression went from a pensive concentration to an irritated glower.

“You think you’re the only one scared here, Rose?”

“I—”

“You think every morning when you walk away I’m not worried that you’ll realize there’s someone out there better suited for you? That today might be the day you realize you can do better?”

His arms fell to his sides as he took a few very large steps toward me, and my mouth gaped open.

A moment before I couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of me and now I couldn’t find any at all.

I’d never seen Aiden angry before. Irritated, yes, when I tried to pay for things or really when I tried to talk him out of doing anything for me I thought was excessive. But nothing compared to the heat flaming in his eyes in that moment.

“I’m terrified every single day that you’ll end this—whatever it is, because you won’t define it—and I’ll be left behind. It isn’t just you who’s scared, Rose. I stand to lose a lot too.”

“What do you mean, whatever this is?”

“I mean, what are we to each other? I haven’t pressured you about it because I’m afraid you’ll run away. You get so jumpy when things aren’t laid out in black and white. Whenever I bring anything up that requires a little bit of decision making on your part, you evade. And I’m okay with that, for now, but eventually I’m going to need more from you, Rose.”

“Like what?” I asked, my shackles going up. I’d come over here to talk about our situation, not fight with him about our status.

“A commitment, for one. A plan. Maybe you could put me on one of your lists.”

“I’ve never done this before,” I practically yelled. “You’re asking me to do something and I have no idea how!” I turned away from him. “Clearly, I was right.” I covered my face with my hands and dragged in a shaky breath, but before I could finish, Aiden’s hand was on my arm, spinning me around.

“Just so we’re clear, let me get this straight. We’re fighting because we both care too much about each other. You’re afraid I’ll hurt you. I’m afraid you’ll walk away.” His face was inches from mine and he was livid. Even so, I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. The hand wrapped around my bicep was gentle and I wasn’t afraid.

“Why would I walk away?” I yelled, flailing my free hand in the air for dramatic purposes. “I love you!”

“Well, I love you too, so why would I hurt you?” he screamed back.

We stood there, staring at each other, breaths heaving between us.

Then we were kissing.

He lunged at me and I leapt toward him, our mouths colliding in the harshest and truest kiss I’d ever experienced. My arms wound around his neck, his clamping around my waist, holding me up as he walked us to the bedroom.

Once we reached the bedroom, he set me down, his mouth still ravaging mine. My entire body was turning to jelly and I knew soon, if he kept kissing me that way, I wouldn’t be able to stand on my own. His mouth traveled to my neck and I could feel my pulse between my legs, the heat pooling there making it hard to keep still.

“Oh, God,” I whispered at his teeth scraping against the sensitive skin at my neck.

“Turn around,” he rumbled, using his hands to twist me at the waist.

I complied, willing in that moment to do practically anything he asked of me, as long as he kept touching me.

His mouth never left my skin as I turned, and my hands reached behind me, grasping for any part of him to ground myself. When his hands grasped both my wrists and pinned them to my sides, I gasped.

“Take off your shirt,” he said, his voice a low growl. He released my wrists and I immediately started unbuttoning my blouse, eager to be rid of the barrier between us. As I unbuttoned, his mouth moved to the shell of my ear, breathing hard then nipping, causing my whole body to convulse.

Once all the buttons were undone and I slid it down my arms, his hands immediately came to my breast.

Normally Aiden was more gentle than not, but that night he was something else entirely.

I cried out when his thumb and finger found my nipple through my bra, pinching hard then rubbing. The sharpness of the pain coupled with the pleasure of his hands touching me left me stunned.

“Take it off,” he growled again, and I didn’t hesitate. No sooner had my bra landed with a soft swish on the hardwood floor were his hands back and covering my naked breasts, palming and squeezing, while his mouth devoured me.

“Please,” I whimpered, asking for something, but I wasn’t sure what I needed. I just wanted more of whatever he was going to give me. I’d take anything at that point.

“Please what? What do you need?”

“Just you,” I managed as his tongue and teeth tortured me.

His hand slid up my chest, over the column of my throat, and grasped my chin, pulling my ear directly to his mouth.

“You have me, Rose.”

If words alone could cause a climax, those were the ones. I shuddered at them, my whole body reacting to them being rasped into my ear, coming from Aiden.

“On the bed, on your knees,” he instructed, catching me by surprise as he took his hands away from me.

I scrambled onto the bed, kneeling, then gathered the courage to look over my shoulder at Aiden.

His eyes were roaming down my body. He reached behind his neck and pulled the T-shirt he was wearing over his head, tossing it on the floor. When his eyes swept back up my body his gaze found mine. He locked eyes with me and pulled open the button fly on his jeans, then pushed them down his thighs, underwear and all.

He was hard already, his cock bobbing free. Stepping toward me, he fisted it and I nearly moaned.

“Take your hair down.”

Instantly my hands went to the tie in my hair, undoing the tight ponytail.

“Face forward,” he instructed.

I turned my head away from him, shivering at the sensation of my hair whisping over my sensitized flesh. Aiden came up behind me and I listened as his footsteps got closer and the heat of his body warmed my naked back.

I almost yelped when he pulled off one of my stilettos, my feet the last place I expected him to start. The other came off too and I heard them clatter one by one on the floor. Trembling, I waited for whatever was going to come next, absolutely aware of the fact that being out of control left me reeling.

His lips met my back between my shoulder blades, his hands on my waist, just above my skirt. He placed light, gentle kisses down my spine, his hands moving down my sides at the same slow pace. I expected him to stop when he reached the top of my skirt. I thought he’d unzip it and take it off.

That wasn’t what happened.

I heard him kneel to the floor, his hands sliding all the way down my legs, until his fingertip slipped inside the hem of my skirt. Slowly, he slid my skirt up and over my thighs, his thumbs making a hot trail up the backs of my legs.

“Hands on the mattress, sweetheart.”

I fell forward at his words, his hands pushing my skirt up over my ass, panting with arousal.

In all the time we’d spent together since we met, the sex had always been amazing, but it had never been like this before. Aiden hadn’t ever been commanding. He’d made requests, but this was different.

“All day I’ve been thinking about this ass, Rose.” His hands caressed the cheeks of my ass, grabbing and squeezing, each motion making my breath come faster and heavier. The heat of his breath fanned against the back of my thigh, right where my leg met my ass. His tongue hit my skin and I moaned, my body arching back toward him without my consent.

With my skirt pushed up so far it sat around my waist like a belt, his fingers smoothed up over my ass until he found the top of my thong, and he peeled it down over my backside. Slowly he removed my panties and my eyes screwed closed, fingers digging into the sheets. If he didn’t touch me soon, I would likely die. There was no way to suffer through this much arousal without some sort of relief and live to tell about it.

“Aiden,” I gasped out. “Please.”

“I love it when you beg,” he said, a little bit of laughter to his voice.

I did not think it was funny.

But I couldn’t have laughed anyway because as soon as my panties were gone, his mouth came to my opening. His tongue slid through my wetness, delving right into me from behind.

“Oh, God,” I cried out, the contact, which was exactly what I’d asked for, taking me by surprise. The jolt of arousal his mouth caused shot up my core and through my entire body.

This was not my first experience with oral sex. Not even my first experience with Aiden in that department.

But it was the first time in the history of my entire sexual cannon where I’d ever been that exposed to a man.

There I was, in the middle of a lit room, my ass up in the air. And Aiden’s face right there. It was filthy, the way I was positioned, the way he was eating me. There was nothing tidy or sweet about this encounter.

But it was the fucking sexiest thing ever.

“I love how you taste,” he said into me, making me moan. His chin was hitting my clit at the most delicious angle, and his tongue was circling my opening. It was intense and overwhelming.

“More,” I moaned. “Please.”

His mouth left me and I gasped, the loss profound. My body was on overdrive, like pedaling a bike when the chain had come off.

Before I could think about anything, I was suddenly full. So full and so quickly, a strangled sob came from me.

“Oh my God,” I cried.

“Too much?” he asked, once he was rooted deep inside me, his pelvis flush against my ass.

“No,” I managed. “I just need a second.” It wasn’t pain I was experiencing. It was the most gorgeously full sensation, and every nerve was on the fritz, firing left and right. I knew if he moved too much or too fast, I’d come and the ride would be over. I wanted that feeling to last forever.

As if he could read my mind, he pulled out slowly, igniting a bigger flame. Like gasoline on a campfire, I roared to life, groaning and gasping.

In all the exploits we’d had together in the past weeks, this was a new position. And I clearly understood why he’d never taken me this way before. It was rough and dirty. Intimate, but not terribly personal. This was about a need to connect physically, not emotionally. We were already connected in that way. Of that I was sure. This was about domination. It was about staking a claim. He was speaking to me in that moment, but he wasn’t using words.

“Up,” he grunted, and I managed to obey, using my core to raise my body back to a kneeling position, my back coming up to touch his front. He was still deep inside me, but the movement of my hips caused a delicious friction against my inner walls, making me gasp once more.

One of his arms clamped around my chest, his hand palming my breast, while the other hand went south, heading straight for my sex. It took him no time at all to find my clit and start making slow, wet, beautifully torturous circles with his index finger. All the while, his breath feathering over my ear. There were too many sensations, too many feelings flowing through me all at once and I wasn’t sure I could handle the outcome.

“Nothing matters but what’s between us, Rose.” Everywhere he touched me was on fire, and the flames were growing hotter by the second. “There is no one but you and me. Nothing big enough to come between us.” I wanted to agree, to let him know that I was on the same page, but there were no words to speak, no way to say anything. “But we have nothing without trust. You have to trust me.”

Later, sometime in the future, I’d realize something about trust, about how it wasn’t him I necessarily needed to put my trust in, but myself.

Before I could fully register what was happening, Aiden pulled my arms behind my back, bending them at the elbow, and folding my fingers around my forearms. Then, with one gentle hand, he pressed on my back between my shoulder blades, lowering my head to the mattress. Once my cheek was pressed against the sheets, he used his hand to pull my hair from my face, carefully pulling it to one side and caressing my cheek.

“Do you want this, Rose?”

I wasn’t exactly sure what he was referring to, but the answer was yes. The sex, the connection, the relationship, him. I wanted it all.

“Yes,” I whimpered.

“I’m going to trust that you’ll tell me if you need me to stop, if it becomes too much.”

I prayed I’d be able to stop him before he ruined me.

“All right,” I rasped.

His hand clasped around my arms, pinning them to my back, and then I was lost again. Lost to sensation as he reared back and then drove into me without another word.

From that moment on we were only unintelligible sounds. Grunting and moaning, gasping and panting, all coupled with the harsh sound of his skin slapping against mine with every thrust. It was entirely primal, nothing particularly romantic about it, but it was what we both needed. To get the ugly out of the way. To be raw and real, uninhibited, flawed.

The climb to orgasm was unlike any I’d experienced before. Teetering on the edge of oblivion for what seemed like forever, if my climax was something I could hold onto, I would have reached out for it, grasped a hold, captured it. But it was just out of my reach. The only thing that took me over the edge was Aiden, and the sound he made as he came, roaring as he poured into me.

I came with him, the wave of relief rushing through me, and I collapsed as much as I could on the bed. After a few moments, he released my arms, running his hands up to my shoulders, rubbing them with strong fingers.

He pulled out and I wanted to cry, I felt the loss so much. I’d never felt emptier. I must have shuddered or gasped because he immediately fell to the bed next to me and took me in his arms, kissing my forehead and touching me wherever he could to bring me closer.

“Are you okay?” he asked after a few minutes of enjoying his embrace.

I nodded, still not ready to speak.

“I love you,” he said against my hair.

I looked back up at him into those dark eyes and beard I just knew hid a strong jaw, with cheekbones that would kill if he let everyone see them. And I replied with the only thing I could think of.

“I love you too.”

I hoped, after saying those words to him, it would be enough.

An hour later, after a quiet shower where Aiden tenderly washed every part of me and a simple dinner delivered from the closest deli, we were seated on the small couch in his living room, our legs extended toward one another.

He had a beer and had offered me a glass of my favorite wine.

He’d been affectionate and attentive since he’d fucked me in the bedroom, and I couldn’t deny liking the dichotomy there.

He took a pull from his beer, then nestled it between his thighs—because he didn’t have end tables—and then picked up my foot and started massaging it.

“You ready to talk?” he asked, his thumb digging into my arch, which felt amazing. Sometimes I’d pay to get pedicures I didn’t even need just to have someone rub my feet. Stilettoes were a bitch. Despite the wonderful things happening to my foot, there was still a lump of dread in my gut.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“About what happened today.”

I imagine if any other man had said that to any other woman, his tone would have been short and irritated, but Aiden was nothing but patient and understanding. Almost as though he expected me to dodge the heavy conversation, but had me pegged at every turn. He expected me to run, but he’d already blocked off all the exits. So, really, there was no choice but to talk to him.

“Okay,” I agreed, taking a sip of my wine.

“What happened in your office spooked you.” It was a statement, not a question, and he was right, so I nodded. “Why?”

It took me a moment or two to formulate an answer, but he waited patiently.

“I have spent my whole life sticking to things I’m good at, things I can excel at, things that are inherent to me. And this,” I said, motioning between us with my free hand, “this does not come naturally to me at all.”

He didn’t respond, just tilted his head to the side a little, waiting for me to continue.

“Being with you is wonderful, but it’s also terrifying. And this afternoon, when you came to my office and I realized how much of my whole happiness was wrapped up in seeing you, when it dawned on me how important and vital you’ve become to me, well, I don’t know. I think it’s natural to consider how the loss of something so important would impact you.”

“Why would you think about loss? What makes you think I’m going anywhere?” His fingers moved slowly over the top of my foot, too gently to tickle, but the sensation sent goosebumps up my arms.

“How many people’s first relationships last forever, Aiden?” I asked with a sardonic tone.

“How many people have this connection with their first? Or are adults who know what they want in life and are already established when they get into their first serious relationship?”

He made good points, but I was still feeling sorry for myself, so I shrugged in response.

“Your inexperience isn’t a hindrance, Rose. And the only thing working against us right now is your lack of confidence in yourself and this relationship.”

Fuck, he’s right.

“And logically that makes sense. I see your point and I agree. But emotionally I can’t help thinking about what will happen when I inevitably fuck this up. And the worst part isn’t necessarily that it will hurt me, which it will, irrevocably, but the idea of hurting you.” Without warning, my voice cracked and my throat pinched. I shook my head, trying to will away the tears. “I don’t want to do that,” I managed, my voice high and strained.

Aiden leaned over and put his beer on the floor, then sat forward, crawling toward me. He took my wine glass and put it down alongside his, then took my face in his hands as he straddled my lap. We must have looked ridiculous, this giant man fumbling around on the tiny couch, but all I could do was look into his eyes.

“You need to let that fear go, sweetheart. It does nothing but tarnish what’s really going on here. If you spend all your time worrying about what could happen or the what-ifs, you can’t see what’s right in front of you.”

He was right in front of me. His beautiful face with the soft smile that, turned up on just one side, became wickedly sexy. I didn’t want to miss out on him, or us, because I was worried about how it would end.

“I’m going to screw up,” I admitted.

“Me, too, at some point.”

“I’m going to freak out.”

“Who? You? No way,” he said with a wink, making me smile.

“I’m going to be unsure and insecure and a million other unattractive things while I figure out how to handle being this in love with someone and not push you away.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he said before leaning down and kissing me lightly. “But I’m bigger than you. Try as you might, you won’t be able to push me anywhere.”

I laughed, but it was a sad, pathetic laugh.

“Seriously, I’m not going anywhere and I won’t let you push me anywhere I don’t want to go.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

He kissed me again, only that time it was long and sweet, and my heart fluttered when he hummed before pulling away.

“We sleeping here or at your place tonight?”

“I don’t care.”

I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck.

“My bed’s bigger,” he said with a grin.

“Then take me to bed.”

I yelped when he grabbed me around the waist and hoisted me over his shoulder. Laughing as he carried me to the bedroom, I cried out, “Don’t forget my wine!”