The Proposal (23 page)

Her shaky hand worked hard to turn the doorknob.
Aidan’s soft snores met her as she stepped inside the darkened bedroom. Since
he hated sleeping in the dark, the nightlight next to the bed lit her way
across the floor. She eased down on the bed beside him. Lying on his back, the
sheet was bunched around his waist while one arm was thrown lazily over his
head.

As she gazed down at him, she wondered how she had
ever thought she could want anyone else. Mortification caused her to shudder
when she thought of how she had kissed Pesh when all along she had only wanted
it to be
Aidan’s
lips and
Aidan’s
hands on her. Just like Aidan
had fought his feelings for her by taking home a stranger, she had tried to do
the same thing with Pesh. And like him, nothing she could have ever done with
Pesh would have driven away her true feelings for Aidan.

In the end, there would only be two loves in her
life—Travis and Aidan. She rubbed the back of her hand along his cheek. It
brought a smile to her lips because she realized how he was keeping a close
shave because he knew she liked it.

When he didn’t wake at her touch, she leaned over
and kissed his lips. She pulled away and stared into his sleeping face. “I love
you, Aidan Fitzgerald. I always have, and I always will. I’m sorry for hurting
you,” she whispered.

He grimaced in his sleep, his hands fisting the
sheet. “Em…Em please…I…I love you.”

Emma’s heart jolted and then restarted. Her hand
flew to her chest and rubbed where the slow, aching burn filled her. He was
calling out to her. Somehow, somewhere in his subconscious he really did want
her, and he had said the words she had longed to hear. At that moment, she
wanted nothing more than to make love to him and truly cement their feelings
for each other.

With another kiss, Aidan still slept soundly. Biting
her lip, Emma knew the one way she was going to have to wake him up to ensure
he would be ready and willing. Leaning over she began kissing a moist trail
down his bare chest. When she reached the waistband of his underwear, he still
hadn’t stirred. Easing it down, she took his cock in her hand. Working her
fingers over him, his length began to swell. Aidan shifted in the bed, but his
breathing didn’t change.

When she slid him into her mouth, his hips bucked.
Then a low groan rumbled through his chest. “Emma,” he murmured, and she
paused. Her heart stilled when she realized he was still asleep and calling out
for her.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Aidan tried shaking himself out of his dream. Once
again, his nights were filled with Emma. His days were consumed by the growing
ache of his feelings and now he was even tormented in his dreams. Tonight was
physically painful as he could actually feel her lips on him, moving him in and
out of her warm mouth.

He groaned. “Emma,” he murmured. God, he wanted her.
He wanted to wrap his arms around her and bury himself deep inside. He wanted
to hear her cry out his name again like she had before. “Emma, I need you.”

“I’m here, baby, and I want nothing more than to
make love to you.”

His eyes flew open. He realized he wasn’t alone in
the bed. This was no dream Emma. She was real and was straddling him while she
worked her lips and tongue over his erection. “No, wait,” he croaked. When she
licked and then sucked one of his balls into her mouth, he threw his head back
against the pillow. Fuck, it had been so long. His hips moved involuntarily,
bucking his length farther into her mouth.

No, no, no. He couldn’t do this. Their relationship
started on sex, and he wasn’t about to let it restart that way. It was about
love this time—pure and beautiful love. He pushed himself into a sitting
position. “No, Emma, don’t,” he said.

Her eyes glanced from his cock up to his eyes in surprise.
He shook his head. “I don’t want you to do this.”

She pulled away so violently he winced as her teeth
scraped along his length. He tried to grab her shoulders, but she stumbled off
him so fast that he couldn’t. She ran into the bathroom and slammed the door.

He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. Why did he
seem to have a gift for completely and totally fucking things up every single
time he was around her? He threw back the sheet and hurried over to the
bathroom. He could hear her crying. When he reached for the doorknob, he found
it locked. “Em, I’m sorry. You misunderstood me, I swear.”

At his words, she cried harder. Aidan banged his
fist so hard into the wood his hand screamed in agony. “Dammit, Emma, would you
please open the door and let me explain?”

“How could I possibly misunderstand you? You said
you didn’t want to sleep with me!” she screeched in between the sobs that drove
spikes into Aidan’s heart.

Growling with frustration, Aidan kicked the door.
“Em, has there ever been a time in our relationship when I didn’t want you?
You’ve always kept me at half-mast just being in the same room.”

Her crying grew louder, and he could hear her
fumbling under the counter for what he assumed was more toilet paper. He was
correct when he heard her blow her nose loudly.

Raking his hands through his disheveled bed hair, he
shook his head maniacally. He knew he had to do something and do it fast. He
was losing her to Pesh, and in her fragile physical and mental condition, this
was enough to drive her over the edge. He sighed. “So are you really going to
make me do it this way—in my boxers with a hard-on from your delicious mouth
while you’re crying in the bathroom?”

“Please…just leave me alone.”

“No, I will NOT leave you alone. I want to be with
you, Em. I want to be with you every fucking moment of every fucking day!” As
his heart began beating rapidly, he took in a few ragged breaths. This was it.
Now or never.

“And you know why? Because I love you! Did you hear
that? I
love
you, Emma Harrison! I love you with everything in me. If I
was honest with myself, I’ve probably loved you since that first night at
O’Malley’s. I just couldn’t say it until now.”

Silence echoed back at him. “Trust me. It’s not that
I didn’t want you to keep sucking me off. It’s that I didn’t want us to do
anything else sexual until I told you how I felt about you. Even though the
doctors say we can, I don’t want to fuck you or have sex with you. I want to
make
love
to you, Em.” He stared at the closed door. Why wasn’t she
saying anything? Why hadn’t she thrown the door open and rushed into his arms?
Wasn’t he saying what she wanted to hear?

Aidan didn’t know what else to do, so he just kept
speaking from his heart. “Everything has been so crazy with Pop and you and
that damned Alpesh trying to steal you away and making me crazy with jealousy.
I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t tell you I loved you that day on the dock. Even
before you told me, I knew how I felt, and it scared the shit out of me. I felt
more for you in that instant than I did for Amy in the four years we were
together.”

When she still didn’t say anything, his throat
burned as tears flooded his eyes.  Dammit, he never wanted to cry in front of
her. He rested his forehead against the door. “Please, Em. I love you so much
it hurts. I ache for you in my soul. Please…I can’t live without you. I want to
be with you every minute of every day. I want to marry you and make a life with
you. I want to raise Noah and be a family together. Please…please say you want
to be with me forever.”

When the door flew open, Aidan had to brace his arms
against the frame not to fall forward. Emma stood before him, wide-eyed, open
mouthed, and with mascara blackened tears streaming down her cheeks. She took a
tentative step toward him. “Say it again,” she finally whispered.

A sob choked off in his throat. “I love you.”

“Oh, Aidan,” Emma replied. She cupped his face in
her hands, brushing away the tears that had fallen down his cheeks with her
thumbs. She brought her lips to his and gave him a tender kiss. When she pulled
away, her expression was a mixture of happiness and regret. “I’m so sorry for
tonight and for hurting you with Pesh. Deep down, I never, ever stopped loving
you, and you were right when you said our feelings had grown in the last two
weeks. It was just…I was angry and bitter and broken hearted over what you did.
But even though I wanted to hate you, I never could. And once again you were
right because I thought I could make my feelings for you go away by trying to
start something up with Pesh, but I couldn’t.” She gripped the sides of his
face in her hands. “I swear to you that my heart will always belong to you.”

He shook his head with disgust. “You never should
have had to wait, Em. Part of me wanted you and Pesh to end up together. I knew
he could give you everything I should have without question, and his love
wouldn’t be tainted by cheating.”

Emma brought her finger to his lips to quiet him.
“Stop beating yourself up. You made a mistake, and now it’s forgiven.”

Aidan sucked in a breath. “Really?”

“Oh yes.” She gave him a lingering kiss before
pulling away. “And I should have never gone out with Pesh tonight or had him
over. Not only was it disrespectful and hurtful to you, it was stupid of me to
try to tempt fate. Besides, he could never give me what you have. You made my
dreams come true by giving me Noah. The fact that I fell in love with you
exceeded anything I could have ever imagined. And now that I know you love me
back—” A sob cut off her voice.

Aidan tenderly swept the tears from her cheeks. He
couldn’t bear seeing her cry, especially since everything was finally right
between them. “I’m serious about marrying you, Em. But I want to propose to you
the right way—not half-naked and sporting wood. I want to ask Earl for his
permission, and I want to get down on one knee and put a ring on your finger.
You deserve that, and I want you to have it.”

Her green eyes widened. “Really?”

He bobbed his head. “I swear.”

“Oh God, you make me so, so happy!” she cried,
throwing her arms around his neck. Rocking her back and forth, he squeezed her
tight. “I love you, I love you, I love,” she murmured into his ear.

“I love you, too,” he replied.

She squirmed against him, and when he eased up on
his embrace, she stared up at him with a combative mixture of both love and
lust in her eyes. “Make love me to Aidan,” she pleaded.

“Is that what you want? Because there’s nothing else
in the world I would rather do.”

Grinding her pelvis against his, she said, “I want
you more than anything in the world.”

Aidan’s hand went to the zipper on her back. He slid
it down agonizingly slow. Emma wiggled, trying to hurry out of the dress. “Why
are you taking so long?”

He chuckled. “I didn’t realize you wanted to be
naked so much.”

Her green eyes blazed up at him. “I want to be as
close to you as I can. I need to feel your skin on mine. Then I’ll know this is
all real…we’ll be full circle to where we started from.”

With a groan, Aidan jerked the straps of her dress
off, letting it puddle to the floor. He unhooked her bra and whisked it away.
As his hungry gaze took in her breasts, he licked his lips in anticipation. “Is
it just me or—”

She rolled her eyes. “Way to ruin a moment.”

Aidan chuckled. “Sorry, but I couldn’t help noticing
that they’re…bigger.”

“Yes, and they’ll probably grow even more. Don’t you
remember I told you they would?”

“It must’ve slipped my mind.” With a smirk, he said,
“Trust me, I’m not complaining.”

She grinned. “I didn’t think you would.”

He kissed along her cheek and nibbled her neck as
his hands cupped and kneaded her ample breasts. His lips came back to hers as
he caressed her flesh until her heaving breaths came harsh against his lips. He
broke their kiss to suckle one of her nipples. She tugged the strands of his
hair as he swirled his tongue over the sensitive bud. When he grazed it with
his teeth, she cried out, arching into his mouth.

Once he had worked one nipple into a hardened peak,
he kissed his way over to the other. All the while, Emma began to grind herself
against his erection. “I want you now, Aidan. Please,” she panted.

“It’s been too long, hasn’t it?” he murmured against
her breast.

“Oh, yes,” she cried, thrusting her hips against his
hand as it dipped below her waist.

His thumbs slid inside the waistband of her panties
and then pulled them down her thighs. When they dangled at her knees, she
kicked them off. Her fingers then went to his boxer shorts to slide them off
his hips.

Standing naked together, they gazed into each
other’s eyes. “I think we can skip most of the foreplay, don’t you?”

“Mmm, hmm,” Emma murmured sliding her hands up
Aidan’s bare chest.

He eased himself down on the side of the bed. Taking
Emma’s hand, he tugged her to him. She kept her eyes locked on his as she rose
up to straddle him. When the warmth between her legs covered his cock, he
moaned. “Wrap your legs around me tight, Babe.”