by D. N. Hoxa
“You brought him hope.” He laughed silently at himself and shook his head before he stood up and came to sit on the bed, right by my feet. He put one hand above my knee and looked at my teary eyes, smiling. “I never thought I’d see that day.”
It was impossible to explain to him how much this meant to me. How much I loved him for sharing his stories of his father with me. But what was done was done.
“I don’t know what he said to you before that, Star, but if he were alive now, he would take it back.”
A sad smile stretched my lips. “No, he wouldn’t have.”
I wiped a single tear that slipped from my eye with the back of my hand. I really, really didn’t like the person I was when I was like that. So weak and vulnerable and pathetic. But I couldn’t help it.
“I feel feelings, Star. And you know what I felt that day when I couldn’t come with you inside the Cathedral?” he asked, but I didn’t answer. I had no idea how. “Trust. He trusted you.”
“And I let him die.”
He had trusted me, and I had let him die, right in front of my eyes. My God, my life sucked.
“Would you have helped him if you could?” Aaron asked.
“Of course I would have! I would’ve killed that shifter all over again just to save your father, as many times as I needed to,” I said, panicked now on top of everything else. Because Aaron had to know that I really meant it. I would’ve done everything I could have to save Thomas.
“Then you didn’t let him die. He died because it was his time,” Aaron said and dragged himself closer to me.
Something felt terribly wrong. Why wasn’t he thinking that what I said was bullshit? People always did that.
“And I knew that you tried to respect his wish. I admire you for it, really. But you can stop now. I know what my father would’ve thought of you if he were alive today. And you can bet your life on it that he wouldn’t have asked you to stay away from me anymore,” Aaron said, and a small cry escaped my throat.
“I can’t.” Thomas’s face began to come alive in front of my eyes. Even if the shifter had really trusted me in the end, he was still right to have asked me to stay away from Aaron.
“Yes, you can. And you will. Because I need you, Star. I need to be with you. I need you to be mine. Do you understand?”
Aaron raised my legs, came even closer to me and put them both on his lap. He framed my face with his hands, and he was so close, I could smell perfectly the scent of tangerine and summer on him. It was intoxicating.
“I’m sorry, Aaron. I want to, you know I do. But the promise I made to your father is a promise I swore to never break. Because he was right, I’m not someone you want by your side, trust me. I only bring bad news. I’m a murderer.”
My voice broke because it hurt to speak of things so completely stripped of lies.
“So am I,” Aaron said.
“You’re everything I am not! I killed more people than I have years. I was made to kill, Aaron. I’m a soulless machine that was designed to kill.”
He needed to understand that and walk away from me. He had to stop torturing me with his words and his hands and his eyes.
But Aaron laughed.
“You are the most naïve person I have ever met. You weren’t designed to kill, Star. You were designed to protect, and that’s what you do. I can feel you, Star, even when you do things you don’t want to. And trust me when I tell you that no one, absolutely no one can swallow emotions that strong, so strong they could make you lose your mind, and still do what needs to be done, just because it needs to be done.”
I wanted to look away from him, but the blue of his eyes had already hooked me. I was all but hypnotized.
“You don’t realize what you do, Star. You do what no one else can. I would’ve never been strong enough to push my emotions to the side and kill a man because he deserves it. I could never find the will, and I have no idea where you do. And we would’ve never been here if it wasn’t for you. You fall on the floor inside while on the outside, you look like you could take on the whole world!” He leaned closer and closer until his half smile was all I could see. “You are the strongest person I’ve ever known.”
“But I am a murderer,” I said again, more to myself than to him, actually, because I could feel myself starting to believe in his words and that was dangerous.
“You kill because it is necessary.”
He sounded so sure of himself, it was almost like he’d forgotten who I used to be.
“What about the year of my life when I killed because I was told to? Because the Council said so, and I did it without question. What about that? That’s one year of taking innocent lives, Aaron. A year I can never undo.”
I held onto his hands that still framed my face because I was afraid I was going to fall to the side.
“True, you can never undo it, but you can make up for it. You have. You don’t realize what you’ve done, Star. You don’t realize that you have given our people the will to fight back.”
The excitement in his eyes almost tempted me to believe in him.
“I only do what I am good at doing. I fight. But that’s it.”
“That’s not it and you know it. I know it, too. Everyone knows it. They are just too scared to admit it, still.”
I smiled sadly. I wished what he said was true. “But it doesn’t matter, does it?”
“It matters to me,” he said and then he let go of my face only to grab me and sit me completely on his lap. And how could I resist when I couldn’t move from shock? “It matters to me, baby.”
I wanted nothing more than to hide in his arms and enjoy his sweet smell of tangerine and the safeness his body brought. But that would mean being selfish and letting myself break a promise and take Aaron down whatever road of hell I was headed. So in the end, it really didn’t matter, no matter what he said. Because why would it?
“Why?” I whispered to myself.
“Because it’s you.” His voice caressed my ear. “Because I want you, Star.”
“Please, Aaron…” I sounded defeated. That was exactly how I felt.
“Stop rejecting me. Just stop, Star. You don’t know what you’re doing to me.” I could hear the pain in his voice, I could feel it in the way he held me, so tenderly yet so possessively. Suddenly, I remembered what I heard him say in the hallway to Audrey. He wasn’t talking about her. He had been talking about me…
“You can’t, Aaron. Please stop this. You don’t know what I’m really like.”
Every word hurt my heart because I didn’t want to say them. I wanted him to still want me even if it was best that he didn’t. I was selfish like that.
But Aaron didn’t let go of me. “Did you know that when you smile, when you really smile, your eyes look like they are wet because they sparkle so much? And did you know that when you’re angry, which is most of the time, you bite the side of your lip and you look from one side to another so fast, that it really is admirable that your eyes are still working? Did you know that when you fight, you move like there is a pattern that no one else sees but you?”
He squeezed me tightly against his chest.
“And did you know that every time you look at me, my heart skips a beat?”
I stopped breathing completely.
“I know you, baby. I know everything about you, every little line on your face, every little movement you make. And you scratch your thighs uncontrollably when you’re nervous, by the way.” He leaned in and kissed my shoulder. “You make me laugh. You make me want to break you, but you make me want to go against the whole world to protect you, too. You make me want to be better, and I know that must sound like some cheesy pickup line, but I swear to you, that’s how I feel,” Aaron said while his fingers slowly moved in circles on my back.
I had completely forgotten how to breathe, and I kept wondering if it was just a stupid dream. It could be. That would be the best explanation because what Aaron was saying…people just didn’t say that to murderers. A
nd I was probably losing my mind because I completely believed every word he said.
“Look at me, baby,” Aaron said, nudging the side of my head with his. And I did look at him and thought that I must’ve done something very right in my last life to have deserved him.
Oh, wait, I’m soulless. I didn’t have a past life. Right.
“I love you, Star,” he whispered, and his ocean eyes smiled.
My heart had already burst out of my chest, or so it felt. I couldn’t believe my ears, or my eyes.
“You love me?” I asked, panicked that I might’ve misheard him.
“I’ve loved you ever since you threatened to break every bone in my body and leave me in a wheelchair for the rest of my life,” he said with a beautiful grin. “I love you and I am tired of hiding it from myself and from you. You are my first thought the second I open my eyes in the morning and my last thought every night before I sleep, and—”
“I love you,” I whispered back. Only when I heard myself speak did I realize that I indeed had believed every word he said. And Aaron smiled a big bright smile that stole my heart all over again and lightened the darkness in the room, which I no longer belonged to.
Then, he kissed me, and like every other time, this one felt like the perfect first. His scent of tangerine and summer filled my every sense, and I became complete in his arms. I kissed him back like I was dying, and he was my only cure. He lay me down on my bed and put his body above mine without ever breaking the kiss. His hands moved on my body, light as a ghost, as if he was afraid he’d break me if he pushed too hard. Every cell of me was dancing to the happy tune that Aaron’s love was producing inside my head. I danced like there was absolutely nothing wrong with the world. All I saw was green grass and flowers, and bright blue skies above me. And that’s no exaggeration.
Aaron pushed his hands under my shirt, and I felt so hot that I wanted it off me that second. And I wanted his clothes off him, too. The difference was that this time, nothing was going to stop me. I apologized to Thomas with all my heart, but maybe Aaron was right. Maybe he wouldn’t have hated me anymore if he were alive. And maybe he would have understood. Aaron loved me. My Aaron loved me and I hoped there was no fool in the world who would ever think of getting between us.
I pulled his shirt off him and the second he stopped kissing me to take it off, I felt like I was going to dissolve into air. I pulled him to me again the same second, and his hands traveled down my face, to my neck and my collarbone, and stopped on my breasts. We cried out in pleasure together. I was exploding with the fireworks that were going crazy on my entire body.
He trailed my neck with his lips and continued down to my breasts. My back arched all on its own when he took my nipple in his mouth and played it with his tongue and his teeth. Aaron ran his hands down my stomach and to my panties and continued to my thighs. He pushed my legs open and fell in between them. I could feel his hard erection against my center, but there was too much fabric and it needed to come off, now.
He caressed my thighs as he pushed them open and fell on top of me completely. We were one.
“Say yes, baby,” Aaron said, his voice husky and thick with desire.
“Yes,” I barely whispered. “Yes, Aaron.” A million times yes.
“You’re mine. Only mine,” he demanded and that somehow raised the intensity of the pleasure in my body. I never knew just how badly I wanted him to claim me until that second.
“I’m yours,” I said, and when he stopped kissing me, I looked up at his beautiful face, his ocean eyes and all the desire that made his heart and mine beat fast.
“Say it again,” he said and grabbed my bottom lip between his teeth. God, what he did to me…
“I’m yours. Only yours.” I said it with all my heart and mind and body. He whispered my name over and over, and he begged me to say it again so I did. I would as many times as he needed me to. “I’m yours, baby. I’m yours now and forever.”
When our lips reunited again, there was no more holding back. My nails dug into his back just to make sure that he wasn’t going anywhere, and his hands traveled down my body again, until he reached my panties.
We were both impatient for them to be off, but when he tore them right off me, I cried out in pleasure so intense my eyes must’ve rolled in their sockets. His fingers slipped down to my center, and I breathed to their rhythm until I could no longer hold myself. I rocked against his fingers until the feeling of ecstasy left me hyperventilating. Best fucking orgasm I ever had, and he still wasn’t even inside me.
Still, I wanted more. I wanted so much more—all of him.
“Oh, baby, what I’ll do to you…” Aaron whispered as he trailed kisses everywhere on my face and enjoyed the aftermath and the shivers that were still washing over my body. My hands felt like jelly still, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I reached for his belt and couldn’t make my fingers move fast enough.
But then Aaron pushed one finger inside of me, and I forgot what I was doing. I took his mouth with blind hunger, bit his lips like I’d wanted to so many times, and devoured his moans of pleasure.
“You’re so wet for me, Star. So wet,” Aaron whispered, and I realized, his voice alone, as he talked like that to me, could undo me completely. I never knew I’d see the day when talking during sex would be something I would crave. “Tell me,” he demanded. “Tell me how badly you want me right now.”
“I want you more than I want to breathe. I want you so deep inside of me that your name is all I’ll be able to say. Please, Aaron, now.”
Chills ran up and down his spine, and I felt each one of them. His fingers were still inside me, and there was no way in hell I could concentrate enough to unbutton his pants, but thankfully, he heard the desperation in my voice.
When he stood up from the bed, the whole world shattered. I felt so half and weak without his skin on mine, but Aaron took off his jeans and underwear so fast, I barely saw it, and then he was on his knees right between my legs again.
He looked like a god to my eyes, the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. I sat up because I needed to see him better, take all of him in. He took my face in his hands and looked down at me like I was his universe, like nothing else existed for him but me, like I was the most beautiful and sexiest woman he had ever seen. Only he could make me feel like that with just one look.
My hands traveled along his torso, and my fingers memorized every line of his muscles, until I finally made it to his hard erection. Aaron’s head fell back and he let out a sexy moan while his whole body shivered. His erection was so warm, it felt like it was the sun wrapped up in silky smooth skin. I wanted him inside me so badly, and he did, too.
Aaron gently pushed me back on my bed and took a second to look at my naked body, waiting for him, completely ready. I wrapped my legs around his hips as my body screamed in need for him. He held himself on his elbows and kept his eyes on mine while he very slowly, at first, moved forward into the middle of my legs. The second the tip of him touched my center, pleasure spilled on me like hot lava. My back arched and my head moved back, but he didn’t let me.
“Look at me, baby. Keep your beautiful eyes on me. I want you to see what you do to me,” Aaron whispered. I obeyed eagerly and never looked away from his ocean eyes. I watched him as he moved very slowly toward my center. Almost there…
One swing and he was inside of me. I cried in pleasure, and he did, too, but despite the instinct to push our heads back, we kept our eyes on each other. He was so perfect, it hurt to see him, to know that he was mine, there, inside me, warm and throbbing, ready to truly make me his.
“I love you,” I whispered because the moment wasn’t complete without those words. And Aaron’s smile, so pure and wide, blinded me to the rest of the world.
Then he started to slowly move out of me, and I watched him come back inside, hypnotized. We moved in perfect harmony, like we were made for each other, our bodies were designed to be with each other, like it was written, meant to be, wh
atever. We cried out in pleasure together, and we came together, over and over again. It was perfect, more so than I’d ever imagined it to be, and it lasted all night long.
17
The morning I’d dreaded the night before found me with a smile on my face. I didn’t realize why for a couple of seconds, not until I opened my eyes. Giant butterflies invaded my stomach. Aaron’s ocean blue eyes bore into mine, and I was already soaring. His bright smile mirrored mine. I had no idea how late it was, but damn if I cared. I’d never been happier in my entire life.
“Hey, beautiful,” Aaron said, his voice still husky with sleep. My body moved on its own accord and dragged itself closer to him. His lips met mine, and the kiss ignited every cell of my body again, as if the night before hadn’t been enough. God, was I ever going to be able to keep up with this?
“How long have you been up?” I mumbled and hid my face under his chin. I inhaled deeply. Yup, he smelled a million times better than I imagined he would when I fantasized about waking up next to him.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said against my hair, kissing it and caressing my naked back with his fingertips.
A blush spread on my face when I remembered what those fingers had done to my body just hours ago.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” Fifteen minutes of sleep were a waste when they could have been spent with him.
“Are you kidding? Never thought I'd see the day when you would stand still without speaking for longer than a minute,” Aaron said, and I slapped his hard, completely naked chest. Chuckling, he wrapped his arms around me to try and stop me from hitting him again. I loved that sound of him. He sounded happy, as happy as I felt.
“I’ll show you…” I said, and I pushed myself harder against his smooth, hard chest, as if I was struggling to free myself from his hands. He resisted and so we struggled for a while, laughing and stealing kisses every few seconds, but then somehow, I landed on top of him.
The smiles left our faces as Aaron’s eyes darkened with a desire, no doubt mirroring my own. I was already aching in between my thighs, and I was internally drooling, too, because he looked at me like he was hungry.
