Page 11 of Married to Number 22
Five
Aiden
It only takesa heartbeat for me to realize this kiss isn’t like the stolen ones from our teenage years, sloppy smooches that we hurried through or sneaked in, hiding in the shadows of the parking lot, waiting for our parents to come pick us up.
This is…
Well, I’m not thinking about being alone—not at fuckingall—that’s for damn sure.
I dive my hand into her hair, tilting her head back, deepening the kiss in a way I never could have imagined all those years before.
Lips parting. Sleek darts of our tongues as they battle for dominance. Moans vibrating up her throat, dancing down mine. It takes all of ten seconds and I’m hard, harder than I’ve ever been before—even as a teenager, sneaking those kisses.
She’s…Luna.
But the Luna I never could have imagined—curvy and beautiful, smelling amazing, like flowers and woman, and tasting like cupcakes.
I need more.
I needher.
Bending, I scoop her up, setting her on the edge of the counter, taking advantage of the height so I don’t have to bend down quite so far to kiss her.
She moans again and her arms wind around my neck, body arching against mine, kissing me back with an abandon that threatens to burn its way through my control.
And the flames intensify when she wraps her legs around me, grinds against the ride of my erection.
“Fuck,” I groan into her mouth, rocking right back against her, wishing I could make the layers of clothes disappear with one thought flashing through my mind.
When that doesn’t work, I reach for the hem of her shirt.
Then my conscience smacks me upside the head.
I manage to snag the frayed edges before they can fully snap and fly free, pausing for long enough to pull back, to study her face again, both of us breathing heavy. “Luns,” I say softly, cupping her jaw. “We don’t have to do this. You can crash in my guest room and if you’re not tired we can watch infomercials on TV until we pass out.”
Yes, my dick is threatening to explode.
But this is a lot—her showing up out of the blue in the middle of the night—and I know she’s still grieving Grams, same as I know that this woman is different too. The same…yet changed.
And because…I wanted her when I was a teenager.
So much that I dreamed of more than kissing—and that I did it for years.
But she was the one to firmly stop us from going there.
Same as she was the one who distanced herself when I left to play juniors.
Doing this now, with all of the pieces of the past and present tangling…well, it doesn’t feel right.
Something passes across her face, something I can’t read because it’s there and gone so quickly. Before I can ask her to explain, her hands land on my shoulders, nails kneading lightly at my flesh, and I get the distinct notion that she’s trying to distract me when she asks, “Haven’t you thought about it?”
I can’t lie to her.
“Yes,” I rasp out. Far too many times and for far too long.
“I used to dream about it,” she murmurs, nails digging in a little harder. “Used to think about those stolen kisses turning into more, used to hope that you’d sneak in through my bedroom window at night, crawl into bed beside me, pull the blankets back, and?—”
My dick goes even harder.
