Текст книги "The Spanish love deception"

Автор книги: Elena Armas

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

“And I deserved it.” Aaron turned me around delicately, flushing our chests together very slowly. He looked down at me. “I meant what I said. When you brought that welcome gift to my office, something tore inside of me. You … distracted me. You stole my focus, Lina. Like nothing I had ever experienced before. So, I panicked. I refused to let that happen. When Jeff suggested I work closely with you, I convinced him that it would be a bad idea. I convinced myself of that too.

“But then I got to know you.” Aaron looked down at me intently, something weighing behind his eyes, pushing me—pushing us—closer and closer to an emotion that took more and more room in my chest with every second I spent looking into his eyes. “I watched you work, laugh, be this bright and kind woman that you are. And the crack that had opened that first day widened. It only kept growing. Making me realize how much of a fool I had been. By the time I knew I didn’t want to push you away anymore, that I couldn’t do it, it was too late. So, I took whatever you had for me even if that was hatred, antagonism, your obvious dislike, anything if that gave me a few minutes with you every day. If that put me on your mind, even for a little while.”

“Aaron …” I trailed off, everything inside of my chest, my head, my memory stirring into a loud and raging thunderstorm. “All this time.”

“I know.”

I watched his jaw twitch, his features hardening impossibly.

“You let me antagonize you. All this time, you sat there and let me do that.” My voice shook with emotion. With the loss of a time that we could have had. But it also shook with the lie that hid in my own words.

Had I really hated him at all? It didn’t seem possible at this point. Hadn’t I done the same and convinced myself of that because he had hurt me?

“Why?” The question left my lips in a whisper, for him but also for myself.

“Because it was all you were willing to give me. And I’d rather have you hating me than not have you at all.”

My body trembled; it shuddered under the weight of his words. With the truth underneath the ones rising to my lips.

Love. It had to be love—the uproar causing havoc in my chest. Realization grew in me as quickly as lightning hit the ground.

“I didn’t hate you,” I breathed. “As much as I wanted to, I don’t think I ever did. I was just … hurt. Perhaps because I had always wanted you to like me, and you made me believe you didn’t.”

Something flashed across Aaron’s face. The space between our mouths crackling with electricity and an emotion I had never, ever felt before.

“I want your heart, Catalina.” Both of his hands rose to my shoulders, trailing up my neck and cupping my face. “I want it for myself, just how I have given you mine.”

It’s yours, you beautiful and blind man, I wanted to tell him. Take it. I don’t want it anymore, I wanted to scream at him and anyone that would listen.

But I didn’t. I didn’t think one could be petrified by pure, sheer joy. It never seemed a possibility. Yet there I was, standing in front of him, just as he laid his heart in my hands, and all I could do was stare at him with a thousand unsaid words waiting on the tip of my tongue.

So, I showed him. My hands reached for his face, just as he had been doing, and I brought him to my lips. I told him with a kiss that I was his. Gave myself to him with those lips that didn’t seem capable of articulating any words.

Aaron lifted me off the floor and took me in his arms with a tenderness, a reverence that left me breathless, just how I imagined him doing with my heart. My legs went around his hips as his lips parted mine, his tongue taking, governing mine.

With long strides, he crossed the open space in his loft, carrying me in his arms as neither of us came out to breathe. He placed me on the countertop of the kitchen. The cool granite caressing the part of the backs of my thighs that weren’t covered by my shorts.

Aaron’s mouth dragged down my neck, his teeth scraping my skin, finally catching on the neckline of my tank top and pulling it down until revealing my bra. He grunted, and I felt the noise reverberate against my skin.

Hands on my hips shoved me against him with roughness, leaving me right on the edge of the counter. God, he was unleashed. My man was ravenous as he pulled at my top, briskly tugging it down to my waist, and then popped open my shorts, almost bursting the zipper. He didn’t care, didn’t seem to realize he had come undone.

I did that. I cracked him open at the seams.

The same kind of urgency hummed under my skin, under my fingertips, as I pulled at his T-shirt. In a swift motion, it lay on the floor. The warm, sizzling skin of his bare chest came against mine, his hips nestling between my legs, as those strong arms fused me against him, merged me with him.

I whimpered, the rest of my sanity leaving me with the sound.

Wanting the rest of his clothes gone, I tugged at his jeans. Desperately. Just as I arched my back, looking for the friction I ached—no, died—for, Aaron pushed his hardness into me, pleasure shooting through my body, even with the barrier of our pants and underwear.

I felt him hot and thick as he rocked against my center, and that alone made my eyelids flutter, my toes curl, and my world explode. He moved again, creating more friction between us, and I saw myself coming if he did that one more time.

“Again,” I told him, begged him.

Aaron’s hands palmed my ass, thrusting me against him. Then pushing into me harder, ripping a chain of moans out of me. Hustling me closer to the edge.

“God, I haven’t even touched you, baby,” he rasped into my mouth. Then, he took my lower lip between his teeth as he kept moving against me. “Haven’t even been inside you yet.”

His hands took control of my useless body, mercilessly rocking me against him, and my head fell back, a prayer on my lips.

“Come,” he grunted into my ear, our hips moving against each other’s. Fucking each other with our jeans still on. “Come, so I can fuck you better.”

That—that—toppled me over. No, it bulldozed into me. My mind left my body, leaving me behind as I burst into pure, boundless sensation. Not even Aaron’s name left my lips even if I wanted to scream it until my voice grew raw. I was spent, rendered empty. Weightless.

His arms went around my back, and in a heartbeat, I was standing on wobbly legs. My back came against his front, immediately feeling him hot and throbbing with need. The sensation—the knowledge of having the power to do that to him—bringing me back to life.

In another heartbeat, he brought my shorts and underwear down my legs, helping me step out and shoving them aside.

I felt the warmth of his chest on my back, and then his fingers closed around my wrists. “Hands on the counter,” he demanded, guiding my palms to the surface. Then, he widened my stance with his knee, right as he brushed openmouthed kisses down my spine. His hands grabbed on to my hips, one of them trailing down my bare backside. “I should take you to my bed.” He kneaded my ass, and then his palm traveled to my thigh. “I should lay you there and fuck you deep and slow.”

Whimpering, I pushed into his hips. He grunted and then reared back. I heard him unzip his pants. Then, I felt his hard length against my ass. He moved up and down, and I could tell he had just pulled himself out of his jeans, hadn’t even bothered to push them down or take them off.

Madness. It drove me fucking crazy.

“You know the times I have jerked off to the thought of you on your hands? On your elbows?” He passed his shaft along my ass, making me moan in need. “Or bent over my knee after getting all mouthy with me?”

Another moan, this one soaked with agony. Just like I was at the image of bringing his words to life.

“Oh,” he whispered. Then, his voice lowered. “Sounds like you’d love that as much as me.”

One of the drawers opened and closed, and then a foil was ripped open. “This time, I’m prepared. Have a whole box right there. It has been there for months.”

“Aaron,” I begged him. I wanted him now, or I would combust into a cloud of dust. “I need you.” I looked over my shoulder, eyes ablaze. And saw a feral expression on his face. “Now.” It was my turn to grunt.

The back of his hand delicately caressed my jaw, and then his palm fell on my back. He pushed me onto the counter. “Grab on to the edge,” he growled. “I’m going to take you fast and hard, baby.”

With a deep thrust, he was seated inside of me. I whimpered, feeling wonderfully, heavenly full, and before I could ask for more, for all that he had promised, Aaron pushed out and thrust in again. We both moaned.

One of his hands came around me and landed on the counter, the other one fisting my hair. I’d dissolve. If I didn’t come soon, I’d disappear under his weight, under the rippling pleasure pooling down my belly.

“More,” I managed to say.

And the rhythm of his thrusts increased, pushing me into the granite surface, his grunts falling into my neck.

Fingers gripped my hip. “I can give you more.”

That hand lifted off my skin and fell back with a tight slap on my bare ass. A moan like no other moan to ever leave my lips emerged from my mouth.

“I can give you my all.” Another soft smack. Pushing me down, down, down.

“Yes,” I whimpered.

True to his word, he gave me everything. He thrust his cock into me uncontrollably, the sound of his hips against my ass encompassing our pants.

“Come with me.” His front fell on top of my back, deliciously caging me. Burying me with him. His fingers now rubbing my clit, accompanying his thrusts. “I want to feel you coming on my cock as I go off.”

One more frantic, desperate thrust. That was all it took for both of us to detonate into bliss. Groans equally powerful left both our mouths, our names blessing each other’s lips with them.

Aaron’s hands came around my middle, holding on to me more than holding me to him. Then, he brought us upward, slipping out of me. I turned around in his arms and leaned my chin on his chest, and he brushed a kiss on my forehead. Another one on my lips. Then another one on my nose.

“You feel and taste like you are mine.”

I looked up, right into his eyes. “I am.”

Just two words, two simple words that were used so often in casual conversation that they shouldn’t have held much meaning. But they did. Those two ordinary words uttered in that precise moment mattered. I knew because Aaron’s face lit up with them. Breaking into the most beautiful smile to date. Burning down the last of my defenses. And as I stared into the blue of his eyes, I watched those walls of mine collapse as if I hadn’t spent all this time building them up.

“I am,” I repeated, crushing the last of the remnants of the wreckage with my hands.

Aaron kissed me again, sealing those two words with his lips. Adding a few more of his own. “I’m going to prove to you that you are.”

This time around, instead of having the tacos to go, we devoured them right on the spot. Post-sex hunger did these things to you.

“Seriously,” I said, inserting a finger in my mouth and savoring the sauce sticking to it. “I’m just saying that if vampires are going to make a comeback, the least they can do is sparkle.” Finding Aaron’s gaze on my mouth, I let my hand hover in the air and felt the light blush covering my cheeks. “Are you listening, Blackford?”

His eyes bounced up and then down again. “Yes, vampires. Sparkles.”

I frowned. “Something in my mouth?” God knew that with my record, I had probably been talking with a chunk of fish or cilantro hanging off my mouth.

Aaron dipped his head, his mouth landing on the corner of my lips. Then, I felt his tongue peek out and wipe that spot clean.

“Not anymore.”

My panties might have just dropped to the floor, but at least my lips were clean—and tingly—as a whistle.

“Thanks,” I muttered. Willing my blood to start circulating normally again. I wiped the rest of the sticky sauce off my hands with a napkin. “I still can’t believe you’d be a vampire over a werewolf, by the way.”

Something else I couldn’t believe either? Aaron had had that conversation with me without batting an eyelash. Not only that, but he had seemed to know a fair bit about paranormal creatures. And I had questions.

Aaron retrieved the paper from my grip and threw it in a trash can that stood next to the food truck. “They are immortal,” he said as if there were no other point to be made.

“But you are so … werewolfish.”

True to my accusations, those blue eyes glinted with a hungry edge. “Am I?”

“Yes. First off, you are big and hot and—”

“Oh, I’m already loving this.” One of his arms curled around me, tugging me to his side. “Please continue.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter.” I grabbed his hand, lifting it in the air in front of us. “See? These are like paws. And when I say hot, I mean, temperature-wise, like …” I trailed off. Only thinking about phallic-shaped hot stuff. Dios, had all the sex killed off that many of my brain cells? “Your skin feels hot to the touch, yeah. Like a … a heated, weighted blanket.” I turned, watching him frown. “I say it as a compliment. I mean it in a I’d love to get under you and snuggle right now way.”

That frown disappeared. “I can live with that.” His head dipped, and he placed a kiss on top of my hair. “What else?”

“You are loyal.”

He hummed in agreement.

“Also private. You keep to yourself. And even if people think that you are cold and unfriendly, it’s just that you have a stoic approach to most things. You watch everything so that you can anticipate every single thing that comes your way, which, honestly, it’s really impressive but very annoying too.” I peeked at him over my shoulder, finding him looking at me strangely. “What?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head, getting rid of whatever it had been that was making him look all dazed. I watched him compose himself. “You are forgetting something.”

My eyebrows rose. “And what’s that?”

“I bite,” he said before grazing his teeth over my shoulder. Then, he nibbled on the sensitive skin where my shoulder met my neck.

Giggling like a madwoman, I let my body burrow into his embrace. But just as I was doing so, someone caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it was someone from work. One of the guys on Gerald’s team, if that glimpse of blond hair and slender shoulders was enough to tell him apart.

Apprehension sank deep in my belly, killing my fit of carefree giggles.

Aaron didn’t seem to notice the shift in me, and if he did, he didn’t say anything.

“Let’s go home. I have a weighted-blanket reputation to uphold.”

True to his word, Aaron had curled his body around mine in that gigantic and dreamy sofa that was planted in the middle of his loft. It had probably been the mixture of exhaustion, jet lag, and warmth coming off his body, but as much as I had tried to fight it, I had passed out under two minutes flat after returning to his apartment.

Looking down, I caught a glimpse of a big and hefty hand trailing up my stomach. We were lying on our sides, and judging by the silence around us, the TV was no longer on. Aaron had probably turned it off as soon as I drifted off.

Long fingers splayed along my front, reaching the underside of my breasts. Shifting under the sensation traveling down my body, I burrowed myself further into him.

A grunt fell in my neck. “It’s dark outside.”

My gaze traveled to the massive windows that faced the waterfront, as if I had needed confirmation that night had fallen. “We fell asleep,” I said, returning my eyes to those five fingers on my stomach, my toes already curling with anticipation. “I thought you wanted us to fight jet lag together, mister.”

“I did, for a while.” Aaron chuckled, and I felt the sound in my back. My lips bent up as my mind pictured his beautiful face smiling. “But you are so fucking soft, curled up against me.” His hand trailed up and then down, and then I was pulled against him. “I couldn’t help myself. You made me lose perspective.”

I turned in his embrace, rolling so I could face him. His hand fell on my lower back, the change of positions making my mouth almost come into contact with his neck. I looked up into his eyes.

“Excuse you. Are you putting this on me?”

“Never.” He tugged me closer again, our fronts flush together.

My eyes fluttered closed, and a content sigh left my lips. “Would you take me to bed, Aaron Blackford?”

He never uttered his answer. Instead, he peeled himself off the sofa with me in his arms. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I giggled at the sudden enthusiasm. With long and quick strides, he carried me across his apartment, passing the marble kitchen island and then making his way down the wide and uncluttered hallway and straight into the master bedroom. His bedroom. A shot of something sultry curled its way along my body. I was about to sleep next to Aaron—in his bed, wrapped in his soft and lush linens, my head on the plush pillows where his head had rested many times.

And just when I was ready to be dropped in that king-size mattress that looked like a dream, I was carried into the en suite bathroom instead.

My eyes took in our reflection in the mirror, not expecting how much I would love what I saw. Me, hands clasped behind his neck. Me, in his arms. Me, cheeks flushed and a dazed expression on my face because it was him holding me. Me, happy.

Aaron attempted to place me on the black-and-white tiled floor.

“Nuh-uh.” I shook my head, holding on to his neck a little closer and keeping my legs around his waist. “I like it up here.”

“Yeah?” His voice was coated with humor but also with something thick and glossy.

I tightened my grip on him.

“That much?”

“Yep,” I admitted into his neck. “I think you can carry me everywhere from now on. Walking on my own is not going to cut it anymore.”

His palms rearranged me around him, shifting me to his side. He dropped a kiss on my temple. “And I think I could get used to that very quickly.” He reached for my toiletry bag, opened it, and extracted my toothbrush. Handing it over to me with a small smile, he then repeated the process with his own toothbrush. “Teeth first, then bed.”

With a nod, we did exactly that. We brushed our teeth as we looked at each other in the mirror, all the while with me hanging off his side like a clingy and needy spider monkey. Not that I cared. I’d do this every single night to come. Once we were done, he carried me to bed.

“Aaron,” I whispered after he tucked me under his light comforter. We were facing each other, my hands were below my cheek, and only our feet were touching. “I’m glad you came with me to Spain.” I heard him release a shaky breath as my own words seeped in, although they didn’t really do justice to how I actually felt. “Not because our plan worked. I’m actually happy that you were there with me. I’m … more than happy. I don’t think I told you, so I wanted to let you know.”

His hand cupped my cheek, his thumb brushing my jaw and lips.

“Are you glad too, Aaron?” I asked him as I covered his palm with mine.

“I don’t think I can put into words just how much.” He brought my hand to his mouth and skimmed his lips over the back of it. “And it’s not only because I somehow managed to get you exactly where you are.”

“Right into your bed?” I inched closer, my thighs now brushing his.

He tugged at my hand some more, encouraging me to move even closer. “Yes. But right here with me too. Exactly where I have always wanted you.”

I hummed, sparks of happiness flaring up in my chest. “They loved you, you know?” I moved my head into the space between the underside of his jaw and his collarbone. “I mean, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but it’s kind of hard not to.”

I placed a kiss on his skin, wondering how I had not realized this myself a long time ago. How … loyal and caring and soft he was beneath all that frowning and scowling. Although maybe I had. Maybe that would explain why I had been so hurt over him brushing me aside. Over him not wanting anything to do with me. Over him not letting me in. I shook my head. It didn’t matter. Not now.

“My mom has never talked so highly about someone. Isabel told me she wouldn’t shut up about you. Aaron speaks Spanish so well. Aaron is so tall and handsome. Aaron has the bluest eyes I have ever seen. Have you seen Aaron smiling at our Lina like that? He came all the way from America to meet us. And she wasn’t the only one. I was scared Abuela would try to steal you away from me, I swear. She was so … enamored; it kind of got a little awkward at some point.” I laughed lightly at the memory. “Do you think I’ll have to fight my own grandmother over you?”

Expecting him to chuckle, I was shocked when a deep sigh left him instead.

I looked up at him, not able to discern much in the dark. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“There’s nothing wrong, baby.” His voice was coated with a kind of emotion I didn’t quite understand.

I tugged at the fabric of his shirt, encouraging him to tell me.

He sighed again. “It’s just that … I’ve never had that. Not ever. Your family is so …”

“Messy? Loud? Kind of overstepping all the time?”

“They are but in the best kind of way.” He paused, his hand coming to the back of my head. Long fingers brushed my hair down. “The closest I’ve ever come to that was when it was the three of us, and somehow, I forgot what it was like.”

My chest hurt at hearing that, and I came even closer to him, wishing I could take all that pain away from him. Wishing I could breathe a little warmth into him.

“Your family loves you, and that’s a kind of bond you can’t force. It’s a kind of love one doesn’t find anywhere else. It can be overwhelming, but that’s only because it’s always honest. And being part of that, even if only for a few days, meant … the world. More than you could ever know.” His lips fell on my hair with a fierceness that hadn’t been there before. “I wasn’t pretending, Catalina. Not for a minute. It was all real for me. That’s why it meant so much.”

“Aaron,” I breathed, not really knowing what to say. How to explain the uprising inside of me.

“So, it’s me, the one who’s glad. The one who’s fucking relieved you took me and not someone else with you. I’m the one who’s thankful.”

I swallowed, trying my best to push back the unfiltered joy threatening to flood my system and rob me of my next breath. “You don’t ever have to thank me for something like that, Aaron. You never have to.”

His chin fell on top of my head, and I felt his exhale on my hair. “I do, baby. I do.”