Page 22 of Battling Aries

“Why are you doing this?” The question slips past my lips on no more than a breath. I immediately wish I could take it back when his arms tighten around me.

“Doing what? Apologizing? Holding you? Refusing to let you go?”

“All of those.”

I needed the answer to all of those. I’d spent a lot of time thinking this past week, and he’s been the center of it all.

“I’m holding you because I want to,” he explains. He starts walking, guiding me backward as he continues. “I’m refusing to let you go because I don’t want to. I want you right where you are. And I’m apologizing . . .” My legs hit the edge of his bed, and my body goes back, Aries following, coming over top of me. “I’m apologizing because you deserve it and so much more.”

My breath hitches, and tears burn in my eyes. It’s all I can do to fight them back. I will not cry. I won’t. I’ve done enough of that lately, and I refuse to be subject to them any longer.

I try to twist away, to not look at Aries, but with the way he’s caging me in, I have nowhere else to look except at him. His beautiful dark eyes gleam with tormented emotions, and I don’t know what to think about it. When it comes to him, I don’t know what to think, period. I’ve missed him. I’ve hated him. I’ve loved him for so long I don’t think I could feel any other way. Could I? I traded my own life for his, and he doesn’t even know it.

So, how could he think I deserve an apology?

“I don’t understand you.”

“You don’t have to understand me.”Aries shifts, his lower half grinds into me, and I find it hard to keep from moaning. There was no way to bite back my moan at how good it feels with him being right where he is. My breath catches as he dips forward, his nose brushes against mine. “The only thing you need to understand right now is that there is no running away from me anymore. No rushing away. No lying. No hiding.”

“You can’t be serious right now,” I scoff, not wanting to be having this discussion, or laying here with him over me like this. I mean, who does he think he is? Shaking the thought away, I shove against his chest. “Get off me, Aries.”

Instead of getting off me, Aries drops down farther. Not enough to squish me, but enough that he has my full attention. Granted, he already had that, but this way, there’s no way for him to be denied.

My breath catches, and I struggle to just find it in me to take yet another one and then another. What makes it even harder is all I can smell is the scent of his cologne, and it’s driving my libido into overdrive.

It’s like my body is screaming for him. Just the very thought of feeling him inside me has my body growing excited. He was the one who took my virginity. To teach me the pleasures that I could feel at his touch. Never have I felt anything else even close to the pleasure I ever found in his arms. Even his kiss.

I’d do just about anything to have him kiss me one more time.

Okay. Wait a minute. I don’t know about that one. Yes, his kisses could be intoxicating back then. I’m almost afraid of what they’d be like now.

“You been through hell for a long ass time because of me, Scamp. None of it you should have been done. What you should’ve done is gotten word to me and told me what was going on,” Aries murmurs, his lips brushing over mine.

“Aries, you need to stop this,” I utter. A shiver goes down my spine as our lips continue to brush with each word that leaves my mouth. “I can’t do this.”

“You can and will,” he growls and slants his head, lips pressing firmly to mine.

My lips open on their own accord, allowing him the access he needs to be able to slide his tongue right in. The kiss is mind-consuming. I have no control over my actions when I wrap my arms around his neck, holding on to him as the kiss deepens and becomes overwhelmingly heated. The way my body archesupward into his, and he grinds himself into me . . . yeah, it’s a beautiful feeling. The best.

Just as quickly, Aries rips his mouth away, groaning and breathing harshly. “Fuck, Scamp, I’ve gotta say I’ve missed the way you kiss me.”

“Aries.” His name is no more than a breath on my lips.

“As much as I want to keep going with what we were just doing. We’ve got other things to take care of right now.”

“We do?”

I swear this man is out to confuse me more than he already is.

“Yeah, we do.” He grins and shifts off me, rolling me to face him at the same time. “We’ve got things to get sorted between you and me.”

“There’s nothing to get sorted between the two of us,” I tell him, getting a good idea of where he’s going with this.

“My tongue in your mouth says otherwise.” He smirks, glides his fingers over my side and up until he’s cupping the side of my face, his thumb stroking my cheek.

I can’t stop myself from closing my eyes and savoring the moment. There have been plenty of times when I’ve done nothing else but dream of him doing just this. Laying with me. Touching me. Making me feel safe in a way I haven’t felt in a very long time.

Aries kisses me again, and I find myself longing for him to deepen the kiss. Needing him to kiss me deeper. Hold me closer. Like nothing else matters, but this very instant.

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