But before she could unravel, he sealed his mouth over hers and kissed her. Distracting her with his tongue, he slid in to the hilt in one, smooth motion, effectively shifting her focus to the sensation of the absolute fullness, the absolute rightness of Aiden being inside her. It was nothing like she’d ever imagined. Nothing like she’d ever dreamed.
He’d been right about one thing. This wasn’t “just sex” at all.
Aiden froze above her, his breathing high and tight. “Okay?” he asked, nodding his encouragement. She wondered if he could speak more than that one word, because she didn’t know if she could speak any.
Sadie nodded instead. She was more than okay. The slight pain had faded, replaced with so much pleasure she wouldn’t ask him to stop if the tree house caught fire. Not right away, anyway.
He backed out slowly and, just as slowly, slid back in while Sadie made noises she hoped sounded like approval. She didn’t know how Aiden had been so sure, but she was beginning to think he was right. She was a screamer.
She dug her heels into the backs of his solid thighs, urging him forward at every thrust. Gauging her reactions, he kept his eyes on hers, his hands on the side of her face as he pumped into her, quicker and quicker. She lifted her hips to accommodate all of him, knowing on some basic level that no one else could have felt this good, this right. Knowing she’d waited for the right moment, the right man. This man.
Aiden’s handsome face contorted, his eyebrows pulled together, teeth bared as he tried to hold out. She couldn’t wait any longer. The friction, the smell of his sweat, seeing the pleasure she’d given him evident on his face…It was all so hot. It was too much.
He thrust again, hitting a spot deep inside her, and Sadie came undone, clasping on to Aiden with her arms and her inner muscles as she let out a sound she was pretty sure, by anyone’s standards, was a scream.
His chest hair brushed her nipples and the sensations continued to ripple through her. His breathing grew shallow, labored, as he thrust into her once more, twice more, then shouted his own completion in her ear before falling silent and sucking in one harsh breath after the other.
Aiden braced himself on one elbow to keep from crushing her and dropped his forehead onto his arm. She clasped his bicep, feeling the quake in his muscles.
I did that.
What a completely heady, amazing idea…that with only her body, she’d brought this Adonis to a shuddering halt.
Aiden laid there, head down, for a few breaths, while Sadie stroked his short hair, his shoulders, and ran her fingers over the ridge of the scar on his back.
The scar. The tangible reminder that Aiden wasn’t bulletproof. And a reminder to Sadie of just how precious he was, how very much she cared for him.
With everything I have. But she couldn’t let him become everything, she reminded herself. Everything was too much.
Aiden’s lips pursed against her shoulder and he kissed his way up to her neck, unaware of the direction of her thoughts. He pulled out of her and Sadie felt more empty than she had in her entire life. Even when his lips closed over hers. Even when his fingertips stroked her hair.
Some part of her told her she was past the point of no return.
She met his sea green eyes only to find them brimming with emotion. “I love you, Sadie.” He kissed her again, breathed her in. “I love you so much,” he whispered.
She’d heard him proclaim it once already. It meant so much more now. Now it meant everything. And that’s what scared her down to her toenails.
Everything was too much to trust to any one person.
Chapter 15
Aiden and Sadie had sneaked back into his father’s house in the middle of the night like a couple of teenagers to sleep in Aiden’s bed.
He knew his father had picked up a Sunday shift, so after he heard his car rumble out of the garage early this morning, Aiden slid down Sadie’s body and pressed one kiss to her inner thigh, then another, before feasting on her in the morning sunlight, her shouts of ecstasy wrapping around him like a warm blanket.
He’d felt her go rigid beneath him last night when he told her he loved her. He vowed not to say it again, not to crowd her. But dammit, part of him stung that they’d experienced something so incredible and still she resisted admitting what he knew she must feel. How could she not?
He’d felt the effing earth move after he’d rocked into her one final time. She was perfect. She was all he’d ever need. But. He’d play it cool. Convince her one orgasm at a time if he had to.
A challenge he was up for.
They picked up her car at the conference center and he followed her home and into her apartment, even though she hadn’t technically invited him in.