Page 16 of The Next Of Us
His hands curved around my hips.“I’ve abandoned you for months.It would be unfair of me to expect you to welcome me when you don’t even have all the facts.”
My own hands curled together tightly in my lap, my fingers icy.“Have you been unfaithful?”I asked stridently, fear widening my eyes.It was so terribly unfair that just as my body was beginning to betray me, he was growing more handsome than ever.“In any way?”
Mouth tight, he shook his head.“No, not in any way.”
Truth shone in his eyes; their hazel depths clear.He’d never lied to me, never.
My heart swelled, the weight of my loneliness squeezing tight as I reached for his face.
“I’ve missed you so much.”My voice broke.“And I want you to touch me.”
Slumping back, he dropped his hands to my ankles and rested his forehead on my knees.
His hair, shot through with silver, only made him more intriguing.I gave my itchy fingers free rein to tunnel through those soft strands, warmed by the blaze from the fire.I barely noticed the changes brought by age, seeing him the same way I always had.Only in photographs did I truly see him as he was now without the filter of our past.
He sighed, his back rising and falling with his deep exhale as his hands slowly crept up the backs of my legs.
My skin came alive under those hands that knew my body better than I did.
Finding the knots at the base of his neck, my fingers kneaded and soothed while his palms found their way to the outside of my thighs.
Awareness tightened my womb.
My hands flexed, the pads of my fingers reading the thick muscles of the shoulders I had leaned on for all my adult life.
The wood stove crackled and hissed, whispering of a hundred sweet memories and the echo of our laughter.Soothing my wounded heart.Loosening the tension in my body.Licking heat along the trail blazed by his hands.
Pushing closer, he kissed a path over my jean covered thigh until he reached the cradle of my groin.Digging his fingers into my hips, he nuzzled his face against me and breathed me in.
“I’ve missed you,” he muttered gutturally.“I’ve missed this.”
My thighs trembled with the desire to open wide and accept him inside.
My voice quavered with uncertainty.“Can we go to our room?”
With his customary grace, he rolled up onto the balls of his feet and pulled me up with him.
To my utter shock, tears pooled in his eyes.
“Aaron,” I murmured, pained, reaching to cup his face in my hands.
He shook his head as the first tear fell and dipped his face toward mine.“I’m so sorry for freezing you out.”
Until that moment, I didn’t realize how badly I needed to hear those words.
My foot found the first step to our way back.
My backed bowed as I pressed against him, the sob that had taken up residence in my throat, finally free.“I’ve missed you,” I gulped, holding him tighter.“I’ve missed you so much.”
Hands splayed wide across my back, he tucked his face into my neck.“I’m sorry, Dini.I’m so damn sorry.”
“Did I do something—”
He cut me off, squeezing the breath from my lungs.“You did nothing wrong.”
I pressed on, my arms creeping up around his neck.“You’ll tell me what’s going on with you?”
He nodded.“I’ll tell you everything.Just not tonight.”
