As promised, Carmen had gone ‘Casper’ the moment their ferry docked at The Jumeirah Dhevanafushi resort.
But her absence hadn’t calmed Aria’s nerves.
Nor did the charming bellman who’d helped carry hers and Yoshi’s bags to their private water villa, perched above the luminous waters of the Indian Ocean.
Her nerves didn’t calm when she drank in the seductive interior of their spacious one-bedroom sanctuary, the panoramic ocean views, or even the enchanting canopy bed, draped with sheer white curtains on all four sides. Her nerves were still in overdrive even as the promises that bed made seemed to cry out into the night.
Those seductive possibilities did nothing to ease her mind or her heart, and she found herself yanking clothes out of the suitcase she’d opened on top of the bed, slamming them down onto the white duvet with a new huff each time. Each article of clothing was brand new, from the many shopping sprees Yoshi had taken her on since he’d gotten big.
Across the room, Yoshi also emptied his suitcase, but with a much gentler hand. Vaulted ceilings cast a soft light, making the suite’s natural colors work their magic, meant to ease stress and calm nerves. But there wasn’t enough mood lighting in the world to ease the animal between them right then.
He watched her across the room as he placed his clothes into the espresso oak dresser in the far corner. Behind him, the private infinity pool connected to their suite glimmered, the platform catching the stars in the sky and illuminating them right back, as if allowing God to see the beauty He so kindly bestowed on the world every night.
Yoshi made it halfway through his suitcase before he broke, dropping a T-shirt he’d just picked up right back in. “Come on, Bo. This is the only vacation we’ll have for God knows how long. After all that bullshit back home, I’d really just like to relax and enjoy the weekend with my girlfriend.”
“Oh…” Aria stopped unpacking—or rather, snatching her clothes out of her suitcase and slamming them down on the bed—stood tall, placed her hands on her hips, and met Yoshi’s eyes. “Oh, you want to relax with your girlfriend? Well, she’s just down the hall, Yosh.” She pointed to the far wall of the room. “Room 505. Answers to the name Carmen?”
Yoshi’s shoulders collapsed. “Can you stop, please? Please? How many different ways can I say it, baby? That girl doesn’t mean shit to me. She’s a professional. It’s business. It’s not like she’s going over the top with it.”
“She has had her hands all over you… All day.”
“Her hand stayed on my shoulder. Literally, on my shoulder, for the entire fourteen-hour flight.”
“I had no idea you were paying such close attention. Would you have preferred her hand somewhere else?”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous. I was paying attention to where her hands were because I could see it was bothering you. I could feel it. I can feel it now, moving across this room and encasing me in hatred. I’m on the verge of death with that look you’re shooting me right now.”
“There was no reason for her to be touching you as much as she was.” She resumed snatching her clothes from her suitcase. “It’s just overkill. Buckling her seatbelt—hand on your shoulder. Looking for a movie on the inflight TV—hand on your shoulder. Walking through the airport—hand on your shoulder. Ordering a drink from the flight attendant—hand on your shoulder. Like the flight attendant gives a shit whether or not her hand is on your shoulder.”
Yoshi let her finish, the smile on his face growing with each word she said.
“I’m about to slap that smirk clear off your face,” Aria whispered.
“You’re jealous,” he said. “It’s cute. Cute as fuck, actually. I’ve never seen you this way.”
Aria planted her feet when he moved closer, arms crossed even when he got close enough to curl his arms around her waist and bury his head in her neck.
“I’m not jealous,” she grumbled into his big shoulder. Against all her will, her eyes fluttered and she took in his woodsy scent.
“You are, and I can’t blame you.” He sighed when she relented, encircling his shoulders with her arms.
He drew her in the rest of the way, exhaling into her hair. Her embrace was limp, halfhearted, but every muscle in his body still relaxed. He cupped her waist from where his arms surrounded her, squeezing. “I’ll be honest. If it were the other way around? Some guy with his paws all over you? I don’t think I could do it. I’d have killed him before we even landed in Dubai.”
She stepped out of his arms, albeit with a bit of fight when he hesitated to release her, and grabbed a few pairs of shoes from her suitcase before crossing the room.
“Yeah, well, it’s not you, Yosh. You don’t have to deal with this, at all. You just float around, being a pop star, getting worshipped and fawned over while I’m treated like the ugly stepsister pulling up the rear.”
He titled his head at her from across the room. “You’re really mad?”
Aria threw her shoes down, and the force made them fly in opposite directions. “Yes, I’m really mad, Yosh. I’m…” She motioned to her heart with both hands, but couldn’t finish.
“I told you I loved you today.”
Her eyes softened. “Yeah, so? I told you I loved you too.”
They held each other’s eyes, silence falling and staying for a while.
Yoshi broke it first. “When I kissed you for the first time, that night in Miami? I’ve never been so terrified in my life. I knew the moment I did that I was either going to lose my best friend, or things were going to change in a way that I could only ever see in my dreams. I was nearly… incinerated by the fear, Aria. I don’t think you have any idea. But you kissed me back. You leaned in when I leaned in. The transition from my best friend to my girl was so smooth I swear to God I sometimes wonder if I dreamt it.”
Aria crossed her arms, swallowing thickly as her eyes fell. She didn’t look up, but felt his voice moving closer.
“Now,” he whispered, his voice inches away, “all I can think about is the next time I’m kissing you. Holding you. The thought of making love with you turns my soul inside out. You held me down every step of this crazy journey. All the way to the Maldives. You are my girl. I love you. I want you. I dreamt about you every night in that fucking house in Brooklyn. That album that just went platinum is infused with you on every track. Every record it breaks is from a heart that yearns for you. I wrote that album for you. Not Carmen.” He cringed. “Who the fuck is Carmen. Carmen who?”
Aria lifted her eyes to his, and then rolled them. She felt the moisture in them moving as she did, smirking from the corner of her lips.
“After The Marissa Ball Show? After seeing that video?” He paused, licking his lips and looking out of the floor-to-ceiling windows of their villa, taking a moment.
Aria sobered, her voice lowering. “Yosh….”
“That video—” he pointed towards the windows “—brought so many things back. Things I’d give anything to forget. That perpetual unease, always in the pit of my stomach, even when I was three years old. That feeling that if I could just sing better, dance better, be better… then maybe, just maybe, he’d look at me and see a kid worth keeping.” He crossed his hands over his stomach. “But even then, I knew what I felt. I knew he would leave. I felt his retreat. But you—” he motioned to her “—I’ve never felt that from you. Ever. It was the only thing that got me through that video without breaking down on camera. Knowing you would never make me feel that withdrawal. You’ve never made me feel that. Until right now.” He pointed down at the carpeted floor with one hand still over his heaving stomach. “I feel it, right now, from the one person I never believed I’d feel that from. Aria, please. Please, don’t…” He couldn’t finish.
“Yoshi, I’m not going anywhere. You know that. We’re going to argue sometimes, but just because we argue doesn’t mean I go anywhere, you dumbass.” She smiled gently. “I’m keeping you. I’m keeping you forever.”
Yoshi stepped forwar
d and cupped her cheek in one hand, stroking it with his thumb. “Please don’t let this ruin our one weekend. Because I’ve been dying to show you just how much I love you, in the best way I know how. Because words will never be enough. Let me prove to you, tonight, how little anyone else means to me. Will ever mean to me. Let me prove how deep my love for you really runs.” He cupped her chin under his fingers, his voice lowering. “Let me give you the parts of me she’ll never have. The parts that can only exist for my Bo. My day one.”
Aria slowly lifted her eyes to his, twisting a shoe she’d had every intention of launching at his head a few moments ago around her hands.
“I. Love. You,” he mouthed silently, raising his eyebrows high, tightening his hold on her chin.
“I love you,” she mouthed back.
He took her lips in a soft kiss.
Like it always did, it brought her straight to her toes. The sandal fell from her hand and clattered to the floor at her feet.
He pecked her lips at first, tasted her bottom lip before following it up with the top. A moan left him after each peck, then her, until they were gasping into the first sweep of their tongues, encircling each other in a desperate hold and tilting their heads for more.
Yoshi took the kiss, dipping his hand into her hair, and deepened it with a groan, biting her bottom lip gently before releasing it with a soft plop, his eyes hooded.
Their gazes searched one another’s, slow dancing, before Yoshi bent down and swept her off her feet.
Aria squealed, her legs flying high in the air before landing safely in the strong cocoon of his arms. His bicep flexed against her thigh as their lips met again, and he carried her across the room.
She found herself drowning in his kisses, engulfed in his scent, curling one leg over the other in his arms in an attempt to get closer. When one of his hands left her to yank her suitcase off the bed, she tightened her arms around his neck, holding herself up without breaking their kiss.
Yoshi laid her down and she wiggled against the bed, noting it was just as soft as it looked. He ran his hands up her jeans, from her ankles, to her calves, to her thighs, lighting fire to every part of her he touched before he was popping open the button and releasing the zipper. Aria’s heaving belly button came into view as he yanked them down her legs.
“Oh, my God,” he gasped, drinking in the red thong that awaited him, digging his fingers into her plush thighs, leaning down and placing his lips on her stomach.
Aria let her eyes slowly shut, savoring the warm feel of his lips and tongue on her skin. Every inch of her yearned for that love, those lips, and those callused fingers. She knew there was no way for him to be everywhere at once, for his lips and hands to cover every inch of skin that screamed for him, but she still found herself writhing for just that, a cry climbing up her throat and escaping as a moan at the torturous fact that it could never happen. Still, she clawed her hands through his hair, curling her fingers into it just as he looked up and his heated hazel eyes met hers.
The desire she saw in his hooded orbs made her stop breathing, and before she knew it her shirt was yanked over her head, her panties were down her legs, and her red bra clasp was snapped open with determined fingers, faster than even she could get it undone. And she was naked before him. He stood tall, running the beds of his fingers down her body as he did, until he was cupping her knees.
When he spread them apart, she waited for the embarrassment. The shyness.
It didn’t come.
Gazing up at him, she finished the job for him, opening her legs as wide as they would go, her toes curling into the duvet. Licking her lips, chest heaving, she reached up and took the patch off her eye, lifting her head from the bed long enough to remove it.
Then, there it was—the wave of shyness. Still, she barreled past it, looking up and meeting his gaze. Holding it. Letting him see everything she had inside her to give, even the parts she fought tooth and nail to hide from the rest of the world. When she saw his gaze move to her blue eye, she remembered the night he’d jumped in and defended her against the man who gave it to her. Her body hummed and surged with warmth and she spread her legs even more, wanting him to see just what the memory of him protecting her did to her heart and body.
“Jesus, Aria…” He shook his head and released her knees, his eyes running up and down her body as he ripped his tank top over his head and his trembling fingers undid his jeans. Naked in moments, he let his arms hang at his sides, allowing her to see him as fully as he had.
Aria’s eyes traveled his body, the long lines, the curves—deep with his strength—and the hardness that tented his boxers. She didn’t even realize she was reaching for him until he climbed onto the bed and into her arms, moving between her splayed thighs with the grace of a wild cat. His strong arms cradled on either side of her, still drinking in her eyes—both of them, one after the other—as if he couldn’t decide which one he loved more.
Aria gasped under his weight as he gave her all of it, spreading her legs to the hilt. Their lips met, wide and without fear, tongues sweeping with their most honest intent, so ripe with need that Yoshi’s hand was between their sealed bodies, releasing himself from his boxers without breaking the embrace.
Their gasps warmed each other’s lips as he parted his own legs gently, letting the backs of her splayed thighs rest on top of his as he opened his eyes.
He buried his fingers in her thick hair.
She cupped his jaw. “When did you know?”
He frowned softly, his chest still heaving with evidence of his desire, hardness pushing against her pelvis, inches away from respite, peace, and pure bliss.
“What?” he smiled, running the tip of his nose against hers.
“I knew I loved you when you stood up for me that night.” She swallowed. “That night my eye went bad.”
“Your eye isn’t bad. It’s beautiful. Both of them are beautiful.”
As if recalling that night, his gaze jumped to her blue eye, running his thumb under it gingerly, catching the tear that escaped.
“When did you know?” she asked again.
Stealing another kiss with his eyes wide open, holding hers, Yoshi reached between their bodies and claimed his hardness, pressing it into her slick opening. He didn’t enter her, brushing his lips against hers until the ticklish sensation became unbearable. His eyes fluttered as her pussy opened for him, taking the head in slowly, nearly debilitating his ability to think one thought.
“When you came with me,” he said, coming down from his knees, giving her every pound of his weight, allowing himself to sink all the way inside. “When you kept me, instead of the Keys.”
Aria’s head fell back as he filled her to the hilt, her lips parting at the shock, nails digging into his back at the pleasure, and a groan splitting her lips at the pure, unadulterated joy.
“That’s when I knew,” Yoshi whispered before pulling out, ever so slowly, and driving back in without relent. His mouth spread wide and his fingers clawed at the sheets on either side of her head. Their foreheads met as he pulled out again, and he whimpered softly. “God, you’re so tight,” he gasped, looking between their bodies, almost in disbelief. When his eyes shot back up to hers, they widened. “Are you…?”
She pressed her finger to his lips, shushing him. “Just kiss me, okay?”
Yoshi searched her eyes, an amazed smile parting his lips before his mouth zeroed in on her in the same moment as his hips, slamming into her desperately, as if trying to climb inside her every orifice and stay for life.
He fucked her slow, soft, pulling the sheets and duvet from their corners when their lovemaking grew fierce. They soaked every inch of the bed in their sweat, each pulling at the sheets a little harder as they rolled and shifted, until all that remained was their thriving bodies and the bare mattress, dangerously close to sliding off the edge of the box spring as their orgasms sent them into overdrive, pushing them to the limits of control, making them blind with need.
“I love you.”
The whispered words were the last thing Aria remembered as her body thrived with her release—though she couldn’t recall who’d said them—before she fell into a blissful sleep.
--
Aria tried to fight her smile, but it trembled on her lips. She tried to keep her eyeballs still, but they darted under her lids. She tried to keep her breathing slow, but it hitched every time his fingers brushed that spot.
That sensitive valley between her waist and the curve of her hip.
Until last night, she’d been the only person alive who’d known that dip was there.
Now he knew it too.
If her carnal reaction to Yoshi’s touch alerted him that she was only pretending to be asleep, he didn’t show it.
So she lay there for what felt like ages, enjoying the soft touch of his fingers as he trailed them all over her naked body. The sound of his breath deepened whenever he brushed a few of his favorite spots—the dark circles of her nipples, the deep curve of her waist, and the triangle of trimmed hair between her thighs.
She let his fingers drink her in until she was no longer pretending to sleep, feeling herself falling into a deep vat of unconsciousness.
“Will you marry me?”
Her eyes flew open before she could even think to stop them, the words catching her just a moment before she found the sweet release of sleep. Her stunned gaze locked with his. Leaning one arm on the pillow next to her, as naked as she was, his eyes shone with the soft smile on his face, which only grew the moment hers flew open.
So he had known she was awake. And here she thought she’d been doing a phenomenal job pretending.
Her heart relocated to her throat, pounding so ferociously she was sure he could feel it under his fingers, which were circling her areola gently.
Head still cradled on her pillow, she searched his eyes. “What?” she gasped.
“I lied,” he said. “When I told you that I knew I loved you the night we left The White Keys. I knew I loved you way before that.” He breathed deep. “When we were ten, and we had the house all to ourselves? And you used the last scrap of ingredients Miss May had in the kitchen to make a pot of fried rice….”
Encore (Stereo Hearts Book 2) Page 14
