Keeping You (13 page)

Nash paused at the door to the truck to fix her with his full attention. “I’ve been dreaming about you all week.” He leaned in, pressing a kiss to her forehead before whispering against her skin, “I’ve been dying to touch you. I want to kiss you everywhere.”

“
Everywhere?” Aria repeated in a breathy voice.

“
Everywhere. Multiple times. Think that could be arranged?”

“
Y-yes,” she stuttered, fighting a wave of desire so intense it made her head spin.

She was still dizzy when Nash helped her into the truck and strode quickly around to the driver’s side, clearly as eager as she was to get back to his house, and more importantly—to his bed.

Chapter Ten

Until tonight, Nash had enjoyed being a part of Felicity’s bedtime rituals: listening to the happy sounds from the bathroom as Aria gave Felicity her bath, inhaling the smell of lavender that surrounded the baby as she came crawling into the living room in a fresh sleeper, the warm, heavy feel of a child in his lap as he and Felicity snuggled while Aria read two or three of the baby’s favorite picture books on the couch next to them.

It reminded him of bedtimes around the Geary house when he was a kid, except a thousand times less chaotic.

One baby, instead of three or four under the age of five, meant time to savor each smile, to marvel over each perfect little finger, to appreciate the milestones as they cropped up in the course of day-to-day life.

Felicity was already changing from the baby he’d first met at the BBQ months ago. She would be walking before they knew it, and speaking her mind with a far bigger vocabulary than “mama,” “no,” and “deer” not long after. She was a sweetheart, a kid it was impossible not to lose your heart to.

But tonight, she was also a child he couldn’t wait to see tucked in bed, sleeping tight. Bath time seemed to last a hundred years, and story time dragged on for a full-blown eternity.

An eternity in which it was impossible to concentrate on anything but Aria sitting so close her thigh pressed against his, so near he could smell the perfume mingling with her shampoo, count the freckles on her pale arms, and imagine all the freckles he’d find as soon as he had her out of that sexy green dress and naked on his bed.

He couldn’t wait to have her all to himself, to show her that there was nothing to be afraid of when it came to the two of them. They were meant to be. A part of him had known it when he was just a kid. His adult self had needed a few days to figure it out, but now that he had, he couldn’t bring himself to be cautious or sensible for a second longer.

He wanted Aria in every way a man could want a woman. And he wanted her for the long haul.

This was what falling in love was supposed to feel like. An irresistible force, like a tidal wave that pulls you under, spins you around, and flips your entire world upside down, but you don’t really care, so long as the woman you’re falling for is being swept away with you.

Aria was with him, he could tell by the looks she kept sneaking at him as she read to Felicity, the way she kept losing her place and stuttering as she found it again.

He could see it in the way she closed the door to Felicity’s room with an arm that shook just a little as she released the doorknob.

“
She’s asleep,” she whispered, her eyes widening as she turned and saw him standing in the doorway to his room.

“
Having second thoughts?” he asked, her expressions more familiar to him than he would have imagined they could be after so short a time together.

She shook her head. “No.” She smiled, then shrugged as she dropped her gaze to the carpet. “Maybe a little. It’s been…awhile.”

“
Yeah?” he asked, because it seemed like the right thing to do, not because he had any desire to know the specifics on how long it had been since Aria had slept with someone. He didn’t want to think about Aria with another man. He didn’t want to think about anyone’s lips or hands or any other parts on Aria March, but his own.

Aria’s tongue slipped out to wet her lips. “Over a year, actually.”

Nash’s brows shot up.
Over a year.
That meant she hadn’t slept with anyone since Felicity was born.

No wonder she was nervous. He knew from listening to his sisters talk that a post-baby body was never quite the same as the body that came before. But his sisters all had husbands by their sides, telling them how beautiful they still were, stretch marks and all. He could only imagine what it must have been like for Aria, to have her marriage falling apart while recovering from childbirth, with no one there to tell her how beautiful or amazing she was.

Right then, Nash vowed to make her feel beautiful, to make her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

It should be easy enough. In his eyes, she was.

He crossed to her, taking her hand. She sighed as she tilted her head back to look him in the eye.

“
Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked.

“
I think this is the best idea,” he said, backing toward the bedroom door, drawing Aria along with him.

“
I’m…on the pill, and STD free, though I do have an allergy to latex so if we’re going to use condoms we’d have to use the natural kind” she said, chest rising and falling faster. “But as long as you’re clean, we don’t have to worry.”

“
I’m clean, and I’m not worried.” He lifted her hand, brushing his lips across the soft skin there. “All I’m worried about is getting you out of this dress as quickly as possible.”

She swallowed hard, but didn’t utter a word of protest as he led her into his bedroom and shut the door. She remained uncharacteristically quiet as he pulled her toward the bed and stopped at the foot of it, not emitting so much as an audible breath as he reached around to her back, found her dress zipper, and slowly drew it down.

Even when the dress fell to a puddle at her feet—revealing a black strapless bra and black silk panties that made Nash moan softly in appreciation—she remained absolutely silent.

He looked down, meeting her searching eyes. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”

Aria bit her lip for a moment before slowly shaking her head from side to side, unshed tears shimmering in her eyes.

“
Why?” he asked, those tears hitting him like a punch in the gut. What had happened to destroy the confidence of a woman who had every reason to feel proud of the way she looked?

Aria lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know. My ex… cheated. A lot.” She looked down at the floor, blinking fast, her shame clear in her voice. “I figured there must be something wrong. With me. You know? That maybe I…wasn’t enough in some way.”

Nash gritted his teeth, loathing for the asshole Aria had married rising inside of him. He’d hated the guy before for the way he’d treated Felicity, but now…

“
Fuck that loser,” Nash said with a heat that made Aria glance up quickly, surprise in her eyes.

“
You said I deserved better than Rachael,” he added in softer voice. “And you sure as hell deserved better than what you got from your ex. You are a gorgeous, sexy, kind, loving woman, and if he wasn’t satisfied with all that, he was the one with a problem.”

“
That’s sweet,” she said, but he could hear the doubt in her voice.

He took both her hands in his. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I mean it,” he added when she shot him a dubious look. “From the first moment I saw you in the woods at camp, wearing that crazy dress, I was a goner.”

“
I liked that dress,” Aria said, a smile teasing at her lips.

“
That dress looked like a rainbow threw up on it,” Nash said, grinning when he succeeded in making her laugh. “But you were still beautiful.”

Aria bit her lip again. “Thank you.”

“
You don’t have to thank me,” Nash said, drawing her close, letting his hands skim up and down her bare sides in a way that he hoped was comforting. “You drive me crazy. I feel like I’m going to lose my mind from wanting you every time we’re five feet from each other.”

Aria looked up at him through her lashes. “Yeah?”

“
Sometimes ten feet,” Nash said, heart beating faster as Aria’s arms came up to wrap lightly around his neck. “Sometimes just
thinking
about being close to you is enough. I’ve had a hard-on so often this week I should probably be ashamed of myself.”

Aria’s lips curved as she shifted closer, bringing her hips into light contact with the latest hard-on in his “hot for Aria March” collection. Nash groaned softly, fighting the urge to push her back onto the bed that second and show her exactly how she affected him.

But he didn’t want to rush her, didn’t want to start anything she wasn’t sure she wanted him to finish.

And so he waited, and watched, determined to let her make the next move.

This time, when she looked up at him there was more heat than nervousness in her gaze.

“
That is pretty convincing.” She shifted her hips again, making Nash grow impossibly harder.

Nash let his hands slide lower, until the perfect-handfuls of her ass were cupped in his palms. “I’m not a liar, Aria. You can trust me,” he said, voice rough.

“
I do,” she whispered, uncertainty flashing in her eyes again. “I think that’s what scares me the most.”

“
Don’t let it. You don’t have to be afraid. I’m not going to let you down,” he said, fingers digging lightly into the firm curves of her bottom, unable to resist the urge to pull her closer. “I don’t want—”

“
I don’t want to talk anymore,” she said, fingers threading through his hair as she pulled him down for a kiss, a kiss that made it clear she wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her.

Her mouth opened, her tongue mating with his as she pulled him back onto the bed, until Nash was stretched on top of her, marveling at how perfect it felt to have Aria warm and nearly naked beneath him. And then she spread her legs, wrapping them around his waist, tightening her grip until his cock pressed against the core of her, and his pulse began to race faster than it did at the end of his morning run.

“
God, I want you,” he mumbled against her mouth.

“
It’s time for this to come off,” Aria said, breathing heavily as she fumbled with his dress shirt buttons. “I want to feel you.”

Nash drew back and hurried to help her, his own hands shaking as he disposed of his dress shirt and undershirt as quickly as possible. He went for his belt buckle next, but found Aria sitting up, her hands already pulling the belt through the loop and flicking open his top button.

She looked up, meeting his eyes as she drew the zipper down. His erection immediately sprung through the opening, straining the thin cotton of his boxer briefs. For a moment, he thought she was going to leave his boxers in place as she pulled his pants down the top part of his legs, but then Aria hooked her fingers over the top of his waistband and tugged both pants and briefs down below his ass, freeing his aching length.

She sighed, her mouth so close to his cock he could feel her breath hot on his skin.

“
You don’t know how many times I imagined what this part of you would look like when we were kids,” she said, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to the swollen head of his cock, making Nash’s other head feel like it was going to explode. “It’s even prettier than I thought it would be.”

“
Pretty isn’t the word I would use,” Nash said, forcing the words out through a tight jaw as he watched Aria’s tongue flick out to tease around the end of him, tasting the drop of fluid that had collected at his tip.

“
Well, you’ll just have to trust me when I say it’s beautiful,” Aria said, desire thick in her voice. “And I can’t wait to feel it inside me.”

She moved in again, but Nash pulled away before her lips could connect with his cock, rolling onto his side and shedding the last of his clothes. If she got her mouth on him again, he might not last. And he wanted to last, last until he was balls deep in Aria March, feeling her body clench around him as she came, crying out his name.

“
Now this needs to come off,” he said, reaching around to open the clasps on her strapless bra with an expert flick of his fingers.

Her eyes opened wider as her bra fell into her lap. “Pretty handy with that.”

“
I’m even handier with these,” he said, pushing her back onto the bed, claiming her mouth for another deep kiss as his hand slid up to cup her breast, playing lightly with one nipple and then the other, until Aria’s breath came faster and her hips arched, pressing against where he was so hard he feared he might damage something if he didn’t find relief soon.

But not yet, not until he’d kept his promise.

“
Be right back,” he whispered against Aria’s lips before kissing his way down her throat, relishing the soft, needy sounds she made as her fingers fisted in his hair, drawing him closer to her flushed skin.

He paused above her breast, letting his breath warm her nipple for a moment before flicking his tongue across the tightened tip, making her cry out.

She moaned as he began to lick and suckle and bite, torturing first one nipple and then the other until she squirmed beneath him, breath coming in swift and shallow gasps.

“
You were the first boy who ever kissed me like this,” she said, raking her fingernails across his shoulders. “Did you know that?”

“
And I’m going to be the last,” Nash said, his voice so deep he barely recognized it, his body strung so tight with wanting that he felt seconds away from snapping in two.

With shaking hands he gripped the waist of Aria’s panties, drawing them down her legs with one swift pull and tossing them off the bed.

Aria’s breath rushed out. “Nash, I—”

“
Spread your legs,” he said, already moving further down her body. “I haven’t kissed you everywhere yet.”