Page 36 of Recipe for Romance

The second conclusion she’d reached was that while Aiden danced around effortlessly in the kitchen, Nicole had two left feet. Every movement was bungled unless she moved with so much intention that the action then took three times as long as it should. She was getting better, but at her current rate of progress, she would be ninety years old by the time she got anywhere near Aiden’s level. What was most surprising about the whole thing was that Nicole wasn’t nearly as upset about it as she thought she would be.

In August, improving her cooking skills was just about the only thing on Nicole’s mind. Sure her crush on Aiden was there, but she wasn’t going to let it distract her from what she wanted. Her inability to do even the simplest tasks in the kitchen devastated her, but three months later, the fact that her progress had stalled didn’t seem as big a deal as she had originally made it out to be. Nicole knew that being a chef had everything to do with pleasing her dad, but somewhere along the way she had bought into the lie she’d told herself that it was what she wanted as well. Now, she wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted, only that she wanted Aiden to be there as she figured it out.

Nicole smiled as she thought more about the man who she was starting to think of as her home. Earlier, Aiden had come back from meeting with a supplier and declared that they both needed a break and that he was making her dinner. Grabbing her hand, he’d dragged her up to his bedroom where he’d drawn her a lovely bath in his garden tub she’d become very familiar with. As she soaked, the light from the candles Aiden had placed around the porcelain edge of the tub joined with the low glimmer of the setting sun through the window. The dim orange glow and the aroma of lavender from the salts he’d added for her had her feeling more pliant and relaxed than she had in a while. Sore muscles were soothed by the warm water as she let her mind wander.

Nicole’s hands slipped over her soapy body as she pictured Aiden in the kitchen, cooking for her, muscles on display and moving as he twisted and turned every which way. Then she imagined the look of intensity he always wore while working being directed at her. Nicole had already experienced the ferocity with which he did everything else carrying over into the bedroom, but lately there had been something else in his eyes when they had sex, something she hoped was love.

As she pictured that look on his face, suddenly her hands became his, sliding down beneath the surface and cupping her mound before he slipped his fingers inside, curling them in the way he knew drove her mad. A gasp was pulled from her lungs when she realized that her imaginings were real and Aiden’s hands were actually twisting inside of her. Her eyes blinked open to see his handsome face hovering just above hers as he sat next to the tub.

Aiden’s heat filled gaze nearly burned her skin as his eyes roamed over her body before they rested on her face. “I came up to tell you that dinner was ready, but suddenly I’m in the mood for something else.”

His fingers curled against the spot inside her normally only reached by her toys, a small squeak of pleasure leaving her as she stared at him. “What about the food?”

Any concern over burned ingredients left her mind as he leaned down and pressed his lips over hers, kissing her deeply as his movements became more intentional, more powerful. Water sloshed about the tub as her body squirmed, her limber muscles tensed once again as her orgasm came rushing upon her. Aiden moved an arm to the back of her head, cradling her away from the hard surface as she came with a cry against his soft lips. He brought her back down slowly before slipping his fingers from her.

Helping her to stand, he wrapped her in a fluffy towel fresh from the dryer before kissing her lightly again. “The food will keep. I made sure of it,” he explained.

Scooping her up in his arms, he smiled softly at her and walked them into the bedroom. Laying her out for him, he slowly peeled off his shirt, revealing his dark chest hair and soft stomach. Aiden was muscled, but not hard, and she loved that about him. He was real, and for now, he was hers. Smiling, she sat up while he discarded the rest of his clothing and peeled away her towel. His breath caught at the sight of her naked body again, something she would never get tired of.

Nicole beckoned him with open arms, only instead of drawing him into an embrace when he got close, she pushed him gently to lay on the bed. Needing to feel him, she ran her hands up and down the length of his body, enjoying the feel of hair and skin under her fingertips. Stopping to grip his thick cock, she pumped it a few times before taking him into her mouth. She’d done it many times to him before, but every time was just as wonderful as the first.

Nicole loved Aiden’s cock, the weight and feel of it as it sat heavy on her tongue, leaking salty drops into her mouth as she sucked him. After giving ample attention to the slit at the top and swirling her tongue around the head, she took him in as far as she could while continuing to drag her hand up and down the base, using her other hand to massage his heavy sac. She could feel his balls tightening up, hear his breathing become more rapid, and taste more precum leaking from him, but just as he was about to spill into her mouth, she backed off.

“Don’t tease,” he groaned. There was no censure in his voice, only desperation. They’d played around a bit with delayed gratification, but she could tell that right now he needed the release more than anything else.

Granting mercy on him, Nicole crawled up above Aiden, placing a kiss at the tiny dimple on his chin. It was barely there, but it was just one of the many small things she’d noticed about him that she loved. “I’ll go easy on you this time if you promise to go hard on me the next,” she smirked.

An animalistic growl rumbled in his chest before he rolled them. With their positions switched, he blocked out nearly all other light from the room, but that didn’t matter as long as she could still see him. “Why wait until next time?”

His voice was filled with mischief as he reached over the side of the bed and grabbed the box where she kept all her toys. Nicole had been sleeping in the room since that first night together and had moved most of her stuff there as well. While they hadn’t had occasion to use them yet, it looked like Aiden was hoping to change that. He peered into the box and rummaged around, humming quietly as he considered different items.

“So many choices,” he mused. Finally, he lifted a cloth bag from the box and unsheathed the glass dildo she’d bought ages ago.

Smiling wickedly, Aiden placed a kiss on her lips before moving south, dragging the glass against her body as he moved lower. It felt cold against her heated skin, and when he pushed it inside of her, she shivered both from the temperature and the sensation. A moan worthy of a porn star slipped from her mouth as he continued to work her with the toy, the ridges on the glass scraping against her insides in the most pleasurable way. She’d already had one orgasm, so the next came upon her quickly. Shattering, Nicole whimpered as her walls gripped the sides of the glass, the pressure causing her to tremble in the bed. Aiden pushed her through it, driving the dildo in quickly before dragging it back slowly only to vary up the speeds again until she was coming once more.

Nicole’s high sex drive was something she’d confessed to him early in their sexual relationship. Instead of seeming put out by it, as all of her other partners had been, Aiden seemed to take it as a challenge, to see just how much he could wear her out before he even tried to get something for himself. When Aiden slipped his mouth over her clit and started to suck, she came so hard that her lungs forgot to work, her mouth opened on a silent scream, and her mind shuttered before going offline completely. She was nothing but sensation now, bright points of light in the room that would eventually come back together to form a person but that were currently just vibrating dots of pure pleasure.

When Nicole eventually did compose herself once again, Aiden was poised above her, his eyes fixed on her face as if he was trying to memorize it, just as she was his. His hand smoothed back her damp hair and he smiled softly. “You good?”

Nicole smiled. “I’m great,” she rasped. Her throat was a little dry from all the rapid breathing and crying out, but she didn’t care. Pulling him down for another kiss, she licked his bottom lip and smiled against it. “More please.”

Aiden chuckled but it morphed into a moan as she kissed him harder. He slid the glass out of her center, but the emptiness Nicole felt lasted only seconds before he moved into her instead, warmth filling her all the way up to her chest. Her own sounds of bliss joined with his creating a sweet song as he made love to her. Aiden was relentless as he drove into her repeatedly, each snap of his hips pushing her up the bed with enough force that she had to place a hand on the headboard to stop from smashing her head into it.

Nicole met him thrust for thrust, holding him tightly as their bodies pushed them toward the precipice. She was normally very talkative, but in bed with Aiden, all she wanted to do was feel. He was the opposite, babbling everything from how good she felt to how he wanted to do this every day for the rest of his life. Maybe it was the sex talking, but somehow Nicole believed him. Probably because she wanted that too.

“God, I can’t believe you’re real.” He looked at her like she was an otherworldly creature coming to save him from some dark fate, and that’s when she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was in love with him. How could she not love someone who looked at her like that? He was amazing, and that he saw the same thing in her had tears pricking at the back of her eyes. “Fuck. I’m close.”

Nicole blinked away the emotions she was feeling and squeezed him harder. “Me too,” she confessed. Feelings could wait another minute while she gave him what he needed, just as he always did for her.

Reaching between them, Aiden rubbed at her clit as he took her mouth again, grunting his release just before she found hers. Slowing his movements, he rolled off of her but dragged her along so that she rested against his chest. Nicole lay there, listening to his heartbeat, slow and steady, as she wondered if now was the time to tell him how she felt.

Before she could, he leaned down and brushed his lips against her forehead. “Thank you,” he breathed out.

She smiled, the hair on his chest tickling her cheek. “You’re welcome.” The gratitude coming from him didn’t seem quite so out of character now, and while Aiden wasn’t exactly the same person she’d met a few months ago, neither was Nicole. They’d grown in different ways but they’d managed to do it together.

Not wanting to wait any longer to tell him how she felt, Nicole turned to him. “Aiden?” His eyes were closed, dark lashes casting shadows against his cheeks as he slept. He was beautiful, wonderful, and she loved him, but like the food downstairs, her declaration of love would just have to keep.

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