The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

by Mariana Zapata

  He rolled his lower body and I rolled against him. The feel of him big and hard behind me was seriously the most amazing thing in the world. His mouth latched onto the nape of my neck, kissing, then biting where it met my shoulder. I panted. Aiden rubbed me lightly where I wanted him the most and I choked on the sensation, reaching behind me blindly to sneak my hand between our bodies. I cupped him, or as much of him as I could, and stroked up and down over that thick ridge that seemed to go on forever from the base.

  “Aiden, please,” I whispered when his fingers circled over the too-damp material covering the seam between my thighs.

  He answered by nipping my earlobe before sucking it between his lips.

  “Aiden,” I repeated, gripping him hard in my hand before adjusting my position and slipping between the elastic of his boxer briefs and the hot skin of his lower abs. The short, bristly hairs at his root tickled my palm for a moment before I wrapped my palm and fingers around his base. My palm slid over from the tip of his erection all the way to the firm sack just below his base. I gave his balls a squeeze before doing the motion all over again. All that silky, hot skin brushing over my hand, his slick, damp tip painting a line over my fingers, palm, and inner wrist.

  Without a warning, he yanked the hem of my pants down to my knees, and while I was still reacting to that, the fingers he’d been using to rub over my panties hooked onto one side of the scrap covering me, and he tugged the material over. “Yes?” he asked, brushing a big, blunt finger over my exposed sex.

  “Yes.” What else was there to say? To beg for?

  His hips withdrew from my backside before he returned, the mushroomed tip I’d been rubbing a second before prodded at me from behind.

  Drawing my knees up to my chest as much as I could without doing anything to the pants knotting my legs together, I stayed on my side. He nudged his penis a little more at my opening, prodding with the not-so-small head below his waist before I opened my leg a little… and he surged. In. Inside of me. Hot, long, and so fucking hard I might have choked a little.

  Slowly, he stroked his way inside, channeling his way into me.

  Slowly, I pushed back and sucked in a breath when he bottomed out.

  The swift intake of air Aiden took turned into a growl.

  Each thrust gained momentum, all the way in, all the way out. Flesh parting around hard muscles, clinging and squeezing. His hand snuck up inside the front of my shirt, over my belly button, up and up until his fingertips pinched a nipple between them. His other hand made its way over my head to grab my hand, holding it in front of me against the bed.

  He pumped and pumped his hips, the sound making a slapping noise against my bottom. He hit a spot inside me that was too much, making me squeeze my legs tighter together, only making it that much better.

  I tipped my head back and his lips caught mine, kissing me. Ruthlessly, his tongue dove in against mine, consuming everything I had in me. Aiden rolled his hips and pounded. His kissing was relentless. His fingers going from one breast to another, rolling and pinching the small nubs that wanted him more and more every second.

  “I want to come inside you,” he whispered into my ear.

  That was all it took. I cried out. Coming. Coming.

  Then Aiden groaned, low and sexy, he thrusts faster, more relentless and offbeat. His hips slapped mine, the noise wet and almost sloppy. With one more solid push, he thrust in completely and made this hoarse sound as he came, holding me to him so close and warm. The place where we met was wet as his erection twitched and pulsed inside of me.

  I kissed him, swallowing his groans, enjoying the way he involuntarily moved inside of me. With a gasp, he pulled his mouth away, his hand letting go of mine to latch around my chest, pulling me into his frame, letting me love the feel of him warm and a little sweaty around me. He was panting. Hugging me. That big body wrapped around me, his penis only slightly softening.

  I couldn’t find a single word to say that would be appropriate for what I was feeling right then, much less come up with a sentence that would do the moment justice. Settling my head under his chin, I let out a rattled exhale of exhaustion. Aiden’s hand cupped my breast, his mouth lingering at the space below my ear. I was boneless, painless, ecstatic, and relieved. When his palm squeezed my breast, I tipped my head back and searched for his mouth. Aiden, in that way of his that always knew everything, found my lips. His tongue met mine, tasting, exploring, savoring.

  As the minutes dragged on, Aiden hardened. I felt that thick muscle inside of me lengthen, and continue getting longer, driving me instinctively back toward his hips, driving him deeper. Filling, so damn filling. But it was more than that elemental need for an orgasm that turned me on. It was Aiden’s body, his warmth, his mouth, the way every part of him was big and how perfectly in control of himself he was.

  I loved Aiden. I more than loved him, and that made all the difference.

  When he pulled out of me at the same time he ripped his mouth away, this noise that sounded like a whine came out of me for only a split second as his hand trailed down the front of my thigh. “Come here,” he said in that rocky rough voice that was lower and huskier than normal. He ran his hot palm up my hamstring before palming one of butt cheeks. “I want you on top of me,” he whispered. “I need you,” he used the same words he’d used on me so many months ago.

  I didn’t need to be told twice. Getting to my knees, I went to his side, a little nervous, a little shy despite what we’d just done. Aiden was sprawled on his back, his boxer briefs were caught on his massive thighs just below the pink sac I’d been fondling minutes ago. Nestled into the base of rich brown pubic hairs, his swollen penis bobbed shiny and wet with his come and mine down to the root, the shaft mauve-colored against the trail of dark hair starting at his belly button.

  “You are the sexiest man I’ve ever seen,” I blurted out, shaking my head as I took his lower body in again.

  The small smile that crossed his face sent a shiver down my spine. He reached forward and brushed the pads of his index and middle fingers along my two lower lips. “You have no idea what you do to me, Van. No. Idea.” He repeated the motion. “Do you want to know how many times I’ve jerked off to you in this bed? In the shower? Every day I wanted a little more from you and a little more, and it hasn’t been enough.”

  Good grief.

  The only thing I knew for sure I wanted in that moment was his shirt off. He must have been thinking something along the same lines because his fingers went to my shirt. Before I knew it, it had been thrown to the floor, my underwear tugged off and flying in the same direction. As Aiden pulled his shirt over his head, I pulled his boxers down those muscular legs taking my time to touch those impressive muscles, my thumbs streaking up the inside of his thighs on the way back up.

  Without a word, with those eyes burning a path all over my breasts and face, Aiden sat up reaching for my hips. His lips caught my nipple in the process. I was on my hands and knees straddling him a moment later, dragging the seam between my legs over the straining erection at the center of that endless body.

  And then I was reaching back, aligning that broad tip against me, fully aware of how wet I was from him coming in me and loving the idea he didn’t care. His moan got lost in mine as I sank onto him slowly, his mouth hovering over the nipple he’d been sucking on. Aiden’s hands guided me to move over him. His lips urged me on, catching one breast and then the other, moving to the space between them with peppered kisses.

  When I rocked back, sheathing him in me completely, Aiden laid flat on his back. His chin went high, the tendons along his neck straining. I swallowed up the sight of him naked, those wide shoulders against the pale gray of his covers, his sculpted pectorals rising and falling with his choppy breathing. My two favorite things to take in were the ridged muscles of his six-pack flexing on and off, and seeing my thighs along his hips and sides.

  I couldn’t stop myself from leaning forward, planting one hand on the mattress beside his he
ad, the other going to the center of his chest, his skin was hot, his muscles hard. One of his hands went up to cup the back of my head, bringing my face down for him to catch me in an open mouth kiss. We were in that position, still linked with our lips when he started drilling his hips up. We were still making out when I came, my inner muscles rippling, lost in my orgasm, when his penis twitched and he let out a hoarse groan, coming again.

  I pretty much collapsed on him at that point, breathing harder than after I’d finished the marathon, more euphoric than ever in my life. Our bodies being aligned was overwhelming. His heart beating under my chin was more than I ever could have imagined.

  His arms wrapped around my back, keeping my breasts against his slightly sweaty chest. Aiden hummed above my head, “I love you.”

  And I hummed right back, my entire soul swelling. “I know.” Because I did. “I love you, too.”

  “I know,” he said in return. The closeness between our bodies more apparent than ever in that moment.

  “You really want me to go to Colorado with you?”

  “What have I told you about stupid questions?” he asked. “Yes, I want you to.”

  I smiled. “Sheesh. I just wanted to make sure. I want to go. I want to be where you are.” Before I thought twice about it, I told him what I would realize later was the most significant absolute truth in my life. “Home is where you are. I would go anywhere for you if you wanted me to be there.”

  One of Aiden’s palms slid down the length of my spine, ending at the small of my back. He seemed to talk into my hair. “I don’t know anything about relationships, Van, but I know I love you. I know I’ve waited my entire life to love you, and I’ll do whatever I have to, to make this work.”

  Maybe that was the thing about love I never understood before Aiden. Like football and art, like anything that anyone in the world has ever wanted, love was a dream. And just like a dream, there were no assurances behind it. It didn’t grow on its own. It didn’t blossom without food to feed it.

  It was the greatest in its subtleties.

  It was the strongest in its selflessness.

  And it could be forever with someone who wasn’t afraid to never give up on the possibilities it presents.

  Epilogue

  “IT’S OVER. THE SAN DIEGO GUARDS HAVE MADE THE COMEBACK OF A LIFETIME. THEY’RE GOING TO THE SUPER—”

  I smiled, and bounced the two butts on each of my thighs as the television anchors went over the game that had finished an hour ago. Most of the game hadn’t gone the way anyone in the box wanted it to. Hell, I thought at least 70 percent of the audience hadn’t wanted things to go the way they had.

  Because the Guards had been losing by fifteen up until the last quarter. The disappointment in the team’s family box had been tangible. Heavy and sedated, I thought we were all some degree of numb up through the beginning of the fourth quarter.

  We all wanted them to win, but for me, I probably wanted it at a little more than everyone else in the room besides the worried mothers.

  This was Aiden’s last season, and I’d known how badly he wanted to win. How much he wanted to go to the biggest game of them all. For once.

  He was arguably the best defensive end in the league and had been his entire career. He’d won player of the year three more times since we’d gotten married, been to every All Star Bowl, and won achievements on television award shows… But he still hadn’t gotten a ring. The Ring. He had made it to the playoffs but the teams he was on had never made it to the championship before the big game until now.

  And in this last season, the team had been doing so well, everyone had assumed this would finally be it. Then, it had all started to go terribly wrong, and the dream began to slip away. One of the linebackers had dislocated his shoulder. A cornerback had limped off the field after a play. The team’s defense had been in shambles. But in some sort of miracle, the Guards’ offense staged the comeback of the century, the defense got it together, and they won.

  Seeing it with my own eyes didn’t help make it more believable.

  They had won. They’d fucking won. I felt like I’d won. As if I’d be the one going to the big game in two weeks.

  “You want me to take one of them?” one of the wide receiver’s girlfriends asked from her spot in the seat next to me as we hung out in the room that had been assigned for team members’ families.

  I gave her an appreciative smile and shook my head. “I got it, thanks. I’m sure they’ll be out in a minute.”

  The younger woman nodded, wringing her hands as she smiled wide. “Yeah. I can’t wait.” She bit her lip and looked around, her knees bobbing under the table. The energy coming off of her was infectious.

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Yeah, yeah.” She smiled. An early-twenties brunette, I knew she hadn’t been with her boyfriend for long. Last season, there had been a different woman who showed up to the family room for number eighty. “I want to scream. I can’t believe they did it.” Her voice had started to rise in volume before her eyes strayed to the two little monsters on my knees. “Matt said Aiden was planning on retiring after this season.”

  There it went.

  “Yep.” It was a bittersweet thing. For one, I was relieved. I’d read too many articles about the long-term effects football had on players’ brains and bodies over the last few years, and I knew Aiden had been more than relatively lucky in his career. He’d never really had any injuries that weren’t minor since that incident with his Achilles tendon so many years ago, and that was better than most other people had it. On the other hand, no one knew how much he loved playing better than I did. Football had been everything he worked hard for, and he was hanging up his cleats and jersey, and retiring at thirty-five years old.

  A huge chapter of his life was closing, and I was just slightly worried about how the transition would go in the months to come. Over the years, we’d found a balance in our relationship that worked, that thrived more and more every day despite his schedule and my workaholic tendencies, but… well, he was quitting football. His great love.

  “Oh! Look! They’re coming,” the girl said, already pushing back and getting to her feet.

  All of the guys who began trickling inside the family room had ecstatic expressions on their faces.

  On the other side of the room, I spotted Trevor standing there with arms across his chest, talking on his phone. He must have sensed me glaring at him because his eyes moved across the crowd of people to land on me. I gave him the middle finger behind Sammy’s back and he simply stared, shaking his head in disbelief but not doing anything else.

  Asshole.

  Just because he was a ruthless bastard who made sure Aiden got what he wanted, didn’t mean I had to like him. At this point, after so many years, I think my hatred for him was more for fun than anything, but he was still a shark without a heart.

  A shark who had gotten Zac a really good deal with a new expansion team in Oklahoma a year after he’d gotten cut from the Three Hundreds. They hadn’t gone very far this year, but Zac was playing better than ever, a starter for the third year in his career. He was actually my quarterback on fantasy football and had been since he’d been signed on. He was still single, still dumb. Still one of my closest friends, and already referring to himself as Uncle Zac any and every time he came by to the see the boys.

  Some days I couldn’t wrap my head around how much I loved the two greatest things I would ever have a part in creating. There wasn’t a single thing I wouldn’t do for them, and that knowledge was only slightly painful once in a blue moon when it made me think about my own mom and her failings. Nothing between us had really improved, and I was well aware that was my fault. There was too much I was unwilling to let go of, but at least at this point in my life, I couldn’t regret the decisions I’d made. I was happy, happier than happy, and I wouldn’t feel bad about it.

  I sat on the chair and waited, watching as the players filtered in and headed straight
for their families. People cheered and hugged, overjoyed. It didn’t take long for Aiden to lurch his way over, his face with that same blank, careful expression on it as he looked around the room. The big guy was finally going to the big game and he wasn’t even smiling. Why did that not surprise me?

  Then he spotted us in the back corner.

  Sammy saw him at the same time. His hands thrust forward. “Mommy! Look! Daddy!”

  And the smile that came over the love of my life’s face made me grin like an idiot. The honesty, openness and genuine joy in Aiden’s expression still reached this part of me that hadn’t existed before him.

  It was my smile. Our smile. The one he saved up for moments when it was only our little team together. And it didn’t hold a trace of anything football related in it, as he gazed from me to the two small ones at my sides, wearing matching jerseys in sizes much larger than someone their ages should wear. Little chubby asses. I’d honestly been relieved to have to go through C-sections to give birth to them. Those big heads just like their dad’s would have done some serious, serious damage.

  I could remember Diana holding Sammy after he’d been born, shaking her head. “This head would have ripped your ass wide open, Vanny.”

  When I’d started having contractions while pregnant with Gray, a little over a year later, that had been the mental picture I’d gone into the hospital with. It was just what I didn’t need to worry about. Fortunately, everything had worked out fine.

  The big guy looking at us as he crossed the room in the wake of a tremendous win confirmed that. Aiden didn’t hesitate to drop to his knees in front of us, his gaze going from Sammy to me and then to Gray. He always did that, like he couldn’t choose what to focus on. Some days he looked at me longer, some days it was Sammy, other days it was the tiny guy. Every day was Leo, the last member of our group who was waiting patiently at home.