Between the Lines

Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

CHARLOTTE

His lips are firm and solid against mine, and my eyes close on instinct. There’s an initial taste of wine, and then it’s just him and me, and my thoughts short-circuit.

He kisses me slowly, like he’s savoring me. Like he’s thought about doing this for a long, long time. With each brush of his lips, warmth spreads through every cell of my body.

That’s the problem with Aiden’s kisses. They’re never enough. They always make me want more—more of him. My hand slides back, and my fingers thread into his hair. I grip on instinct, and he groans against my mouth.

“Chaos,” he mutters, one of his hands finding my waist. The contact shoots another bout of electricity through me. “Tell me this is a bad idea again.”

“The worst,” I breathe. He’s leaning over me, his arm bracing against the couch cushion. There’s so much of him.

His tongue coaxes my lips to open, and then he’s there, too, running it right along my lower lip.

It is a bad idea. We’re already horizontal. It’s too easy to run my hand over his shoulders. To spread my knees just a little more to make him fit better.

His lips move along my jawline down to my neck. Shivers rack me. It’s always been one of my more sensitive spots. His hot breath, the stubble of his beard…

He chuckles against my skin. “This spot, huh?”

“Mm-hmm. Yes.” Despite the couch beneath me, it feels as if I’m floating.

Aiden’s hand glides along the outline of my body. Brushes the curve of my breast, my waist, down to the arch of my knee. He pulls my leg up and notches it at his hip.

Oh.

He’s now settled more firmly against me, and I widen my other leg on instinct. A delicious weight, one that’s warm and heavy, covering me from head to toe.

Lips trace my collarbone. “Damn you, Aiden,” I whisper. My fingers tighten in his hair. Damn him for being so intoxicating, damn him for being who he is.

The tip of his tongue traces the swell of my breasts at the edge of my camisole. Goosebumps explode all over my skin. “Damn me indeed,” he mutters. Returning to my lips, he ghosts his with featherlight strokes over mine. Once. Twice. Three times.

His left hand rests by my hip. Stroking there, so close to where a fire has started to burn. I lift my hips to meet his stoic ones, sturdy right above mine.

“Tell me what you want,” he murmurs. “Talk to me, Chaos.”

I shift my hips up again. He’s hard. I feel it through the fabric of his pants. What I want is him . And I want him more than I’d let myself imagine in the weeks prior. More than I should.

But that’s not what I say. “I don’t want to start thinking again. I want to… I want…” My hips rise again, and his hand is so close. I know how good he is with it. How good he made me feel in Utah.

“To come?” He presses his lips to mine. He kisses me for a few head-spinning moments. “Tell me, sweetheart. Do you want to come?”

“Yes. I want you to touch me,” I whisper. The words feel decadent, spoken into his hair.

He kisses down my neck again. “I can do that.” His mouth lingers on my chest while he pushes down the straps of my camisole and bra. There’s already a sliver of skin between the waistline of my sweats and the hem of my camisole, and he plays with it expertly. Strokes back and forth as he kisses the swell of my breast.

My breaths are coming too fast. Dimly, I hear people laughing somewhere. The TV. The wine. Aiden.

He pushes up onto his knees, and I reach for him instantly. He notices, and his lips curve again. The skin on his cheekbones is flushed, and his hair is a mess. “I’ll be right back,” he says and pulls on the waistband of my sweats. “Lift up for me.”

I do what he says. He’s kneeling between my legs, and he tugs my gray sweatpants down my thighs. They only get as far as my thighs before he groans.

“Fuck.” His hand glides to my hip, fingering the light blue lace. “You wear these little thongs everyday?”

“Yes.”

“Even to work? In my office?”

“They don’t leave panty lines,” I whisper.

His gaze is locked on my body, between my legs. He curses again and pulls my sweats completely off, tossing them somewhere behind us. And then he lowers himself back down, his lips finding mine.

“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have gotten any work done,” he says darkly. He lifts himself on his elbow and reaches his other hand to cup between my legs.

He strokes the length of me through the lace, up and down. So gentle is the friction in contrast to what I need, that I push up and against his hand.

It’s hard to breathe. I try to anyway. “I’ve got you, Chaos,” he murmurs.

He pulls my thong to the side. “Fuck,” he mutters, his fingers stroking my sensitive skin. Over and over, the pads of his fingers just a bit scratchy, but so gentle it makes me want to scream . “I’ve been dreaming of this.”

I grip his shoulders tight. “You have?”

“Of your pussy? Your quick breaths in my ear? Yes. All the time. You’ve been distracting as hell.” His thumb finds my swollen clit. He pushes down on it, and the air catches in my lungs at the shockwave of sensation.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “That’s the reaction I’ve been craving.”

His fingers start to circle, and it doesn’t take long for my breathing to turn into panting. That would be embarrassing if I could think straight.

I feel like someone else. Both inside my body and firmly outside of it. Lying here on my back, in Aiden’s house. My legs bent and splayed, and his large hand moving between them.

The lights are still on. They gild his black hair, and I grip the strands even tighter. It feels like it’s the only connection I have to reality. The silky roughness of his hair and the need coursing through me at every revolution of his thumb.

“You’re so sweet.” He bends to kiss my collarbone again. My chest. His mouth tugs at the neckline of my camisole, pulling it further down the slight rise of my breasts. “Sweet and fierce, and both sides turn me the fuck on.”

His hand never stops touching me. He’s lavishing my clit with steady pressure, like he just knows that’s what I need, and my back arches into his touch.

“The way you walked into that movie premiere.” His mouth is moving south, across my stomach. He feathers over the bare skin below the edge of my tank top. “The way you give as good as you get.”

He continues a downward path.

A sliver of panic races through me. It’s a memory that doesn’t belong here, but that’s chased me for years. I grip his hair so hard it must hurt. “No. Aiden, I don’t… Please don’t.”

He looks up from my hip. His eyes are the darkest I’ve ever seen them, intensely green.

“You don’t want me going down on you?” he asks.

The words are embarrassing. But I nod. “Yeah. I don’t… enjoy it.”

He kisses my stomach again—once, twice. Starts moving back up. “Don’t worry,” he murmurs. “I won’t.”

He stretches out beside me and braces himself with his free arm. Kisses me in languid, deep strokes. My stiff muscles relax again under his lips and the steady, delicious pressure of his hand.

“Can I do… this?” His fingers move down the length of my folds, stroking around my entrance.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“And this?” He pushes his index finger in, up to the first knuckle.

A breath escapes me at the teasing tension. “Yes. Please .”

He chuckles and shifts his thumb to my clit. “That’s good. You’re so good for me, Charlotte.”

He withdraws his finger and then pushes it back inside, thrusting slowly and at the same tempo as his thumb circling my clit. It’s delicious and electric, and I can’t recall the last time just being touched felt this good. Knowing it’s Aiden, that he’s seeing how I respond, and that he’s right here with me…

“I’m going to come,” I whisper. “If you keep going.”

His lips dip down to my neck. That spot he had discovered, and another shiver runs through my body. My feet turn flat on the couch, my hips rise to meet his hand.

“That’s it, Chaos.” He shifts his weight and smooths his free palm over my hair. “I want you to come.”

I arch my back again, and this time, he seems to know what I want. His mouth descends on my nipple through the fabric of my camisole, and I feel the faint scrape of his teeth.

Aiden adds another finger to the one already inside me. The stretch is a pleasant burn, and then there’s only the best kind of fullness. He curves the fingers up, caressing that elusive spot within.

“That’s right.” His voice is deep, and right next to my ear. Indecent. Decadent. His thumb keeps pushing down on my clit. “Let go, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

I couldn’t hold on even if I tried. My eyes drift close, and my chest rises and falls too fast. The pleasure spreading from his touch is almost painful. Almost, but not quite. I reach down to grip his forearm with both of my hands. It doesn’t stop his movements.

“Oh my God.” The orgasm barrels through me. My back arches off the couch, and my thighs close around his hand.

Aiden holds me through it, rolling onto his side to avoid crushing me. “You’re so good,” he mutters, his fingers still thrusting inside me. “That’s it. You’re so pretty, so sweet…”

I turn my face into his shoulder. “Aiden,” I whisper. I feel wrung-out and pleasantly loose.

He kisses my forehead. Between my legs, his fingers continue to gently stroke along my folds. “Good girl.”

I close my eyes and breathe him in. Cologne and soap and just the faintest hint of him —warm skin and man. The world slowly filters back in. The lights and the soft upholstery of the sofa beneath me.

The rigid length pressed against my hip.

I pull my head back, lips just inches from his. “You’re hard,” I whisper. I reach between our bodies and trace the formidable weight in his pants.

He closes his eyes. “Impossible not to be.”

I stroke him awkwardly through the fabric. The idea of having this inside me again, of him back on top of me… His breath speeds up.

I press a light kiss on his jaw. “Let’s take care of that. I’m all warmed up.”

He pats my clit one final time and then pulls my thong back into place.

“No,” he mutters and lifts my hand off his crotch.

I dig my teeth into my bottom lip. The rejection shouldn’t sting, but it does, and I shift onto my elbow. Look away from his gaze.

Aiden won’t let me. He wraps his arm around my waist. “Not because I don’t ache to, Chaos. But this is enough for one night. For our first night doing this again. You’ve been drinking.”

I meet his stare and see the decision there. “I’m not drunk.”

“You’re influenced.” He traces a thumb over my lower lip. “And so am I.”

“This is because of what I… because I stopped…”

He shakes his head once, but the confirmation is in his eyes. “Not only that.”

“But it made you think that I…?”

“That we don’t need to rush things? Yes.” He kisses me. His lips are still strong, still warm, but it’s a kiss goodbye.

And it’s a promise.

“I always want you,” he says in a low voice. “Might be damn inconvenient, but it’s true. There will be other nights.”