by Amy Patrick
“Yes, I have.” I purposely laid on the Southern accent extra-thick and creamy, sidling up to him, stopping just before the fronts of our bodies touched. “Any other questions?”
Aric’s expression softened into a slight smile. I rose on my bare toes and stretched my arms up around his neck, pressing into him and causing the nightshirt I wore to rise high on my thighs.
Aric’s hands automatically went to my waist, but there was still too much tension in his body. My fingers sifted through the hair at the back of his head and rubbed the nape of his neck.
He let out a soft groan, closing his eyes in pleasure before opening them again to focus on me. Caution still edged his voice. “Only one. Are you really ready to move on from Hale?”
Ah, and now we got to what was really going on in his head. “Yes. In fact, I was making sure he understood that tonight when you walked in on us.”
“That’s not what it looked like,” he said in a bruised tone.
I continued stroking the back of his neck. The increased pace of his breathing let me know it was working. “Well, that’s what it was. He’s just having kind of a hard time letting go.”
He dipped his head to drag his lips up the side of my neck. Now my breath was coming more quickly. “Can’t blame him there,” Aric muttered between kisses. “Poor bastard. You’d be impossible to get over. I’d hang on to any shred of hope, too, if I were him.”
“Oh, I don’t think he’s still—”
“I don’t want to talk about him anymore.” Aric continued to work on my neck, making the rest of my body anxious to get in on the action.
“Neither do I.” I shifted so our mouths were aligned and kissed Aric, licking his bottom lip the way I knew he liked it. He immediately responded by deepening the kiss, pulling me so tightly against his body it was hard to breathe.
After a few minutes of concentrated kissing, I withdrew slightly. “So are you staying?”
Without removing the arm that held me close to his body, he reached out and slammed the door closed.
My nerve endings erupted into a joyful chorus, anticipating the pleasure to come. Though we hadn’t done the deed, Aric had turned out to be the owner of some very talented hands. He’d made sure I’d gone to bed happy quite a few times in the past few weeks. I decided that wouldn’t be enough for tonight. To hell with waiting—I wanted to give him pleasure, too. I wanted Aric to be as slavishly addicted to my hands and mouth as I had become to his. I wasn’t going to take no for an answer this time. We’d figure out the future when the time came.
I backed into my small living area, pulling Aric with me. When we got to the couch, I maneuvered us around and pushed him back to sit on it. He smiled up at me and lifted one eyebrow—he looked a little surprised and a lot turned on. Feeling brave and determined, I climbed onto his lap to straddle him.
Aric’s eyes dropped to the front of my thin nightshirt and stayed focused there a few seconds before dropping lower. He used the tip of one finger to slowly lift the bottom hem, revealing my lacy white panties. I had to smile at his harsh intake of breath.
“You like to torture me, don’t you?” he whispered. He brought his gaze to mine again, looking at me with glittering, hooded eyes.
“Yes, and you love it.” I leaned forward and pressed my lips to the side of his forehead, moving down his face to his cheekbones, to his jaw, brushing them with soft kisses.
He made one of his ridiculously sexy growling noises, and his hands gripped my thighs as I continued to kiss his ears, his neck. “I thought my chair was great, but I might like your furniture even better.” His voice was tight with excitement.
He felt so good underneath me, his hands alternately squeezing and sliding over me as we kissed. “Yes,” I panted. “We’ll have to take this couch with us, too.”
And we both froze. Without meaning to, I’d referred to some sort of future for us. As in a sharing-furniture-sort-of-future. The slip was a symptom of the kind of thoughts I couldn’t seem to crowd out of my brain lately. As hard as I tried, it was getting more and more impossible to picture my life without him.
Maybe he hadn’t noticed? I tried to prevent any mention of it by covering Aric’s mouth with mine. I kissed him while starting a slow slide up and down his lap, which had become decidedly crowded.
He groaned, but was apparently not going to be put off the subject. He broke contact with my mouth, and his hands stilled my hips. He looked up into my face, studying my eyes in the dim room. “Have you been thinking about us? About what you want?”
“I want what I always want, and you’re so mean, you won’t give it to me,” I teased, determined to distract him with a seductive grin. “Do I have to beg you? I will.”
I tried to move against him again, but his grip held me in place.
“Heidi—that’s not what I mean and you know it. Do you still not want anything more?” His expression stayed neutral, but I’d caught an edge of hurt in his voice on the last question.
Sugar. Did we have to do this? I certainly didn’t want to. And this moment was not my top choice for any kind of conversation, much less a life-altering one. I wanted to finish what we’d started for once, but Aric was forcing the issue instead of being happy with no-strings sex like most guys would be.
“I…” Was I really going to do this? Tell him again that I didn’t want a commitment, taking the chance he might finally get fed up and call things off? Something sharp and sickening twisted in my gut at the thought.
“You…” he prompted, sitting very still, waiting.
“I have been thinking, and I still don’t know how we’ll make it work… long term.”
He let out a breath. “Do you always have to have all the answers up front? Do you never just go with your gut? Because mine is telling me this is something worth keeping.” His voice pleaded with me as his hands kneaded my hips.
“I know. Obviously this is—you are—special. But I did go with my gut, you know, before. With Josh. I just followed my feelings.” I hesitated, my eyes begging him to understand. “I promised myself I would never do that again.”
Aric nodded, his lips tight. “And I promised myself I wouldn’t let you sacrifice what you want most for what you want right now.” He lifted me off his lap and set me to the side on the couch.
As he stood, cool air rushed around me to fill the vacuum left in the absence of his body heat. I shivered crossing my arms over my chest. “What I want most?”
He looked down at me, his beautiful green eyes darker than I’d ever seen them. “The fairy tale. The romantic ending. Giving yourself to the one man you love.” He shook his head and shrugged. “Obviously, it’s not me, so…”
I watched him adjust his clothing and search the kitchen countertop for his keys. I sat silently, fighting the sudden onset of tears, incredulous that he was leaving, just like that. His expression was hard now, not angry, but definitely not happy. Was I really going to let him walk out the door? A spiky mass of panic throbbed in my chest.
“I do,” I whispered.
Aric stopped his search, and his head whipped around to look at me.
“I do…” The word love froze at the end of my tongue, refusing to come out. “…care about you… very much.” I swallowed, stunned at how difficult it was to express my feelings, as real as they were. “And I don’t want it to be over between us.”
Aric came back to me in quick strides and fell onto his knees in front of the couch. His large hands covered the tops of my thighs as he looked into my eyes. “I don’t want to force you into anything. And I haven’t wanted to give you an ultimatum. But I need… something. It’s getting harder and harder for me to be with you, not knowing whether you… what you’re thinking about us. I need to know you think I’m worth committing to.”
“Oh Aric.” I took his face between my palms, reading his defenseless expression. I’d been horrible. He hadn’t told me much about his father, but I knew he’d basically abandoned Aric. And I’d gone and made him f
eel like I was constantly on the verge of doing the same thing.
A tear made it past my control and slipped down my cheek, and Aric’s breath hitched. His hand came to my face, holding it as his thumb smoothed over the tiny drop. “Please tell me that’s not a good-bye tear.”
I shook my head, causing my cheek to rub against his hand, spreading the moisture. “No. I don’t want to say goodbye. I want…” Oh God, I was going to say it. I couldn’t stop myself. “I want to be with you. I want you to be mine. I want to be yours.”
“Heidi,” he whispered. Then he surged forward and kissed me, his hands coming up to hold my head, all the gentleness replaced by something fierce and profound. He kissed me like he would consume me, and I wanted him to.
I scooted forward on the sofa cushion so my legs clamped onto his sides where he kneeled before me on the floor. Now that I’d admitted it, my need for him crashed over me with a violent force. I couldn’t pull him close enough. My fingers scrambled to hold on to him, grabbing his hair, stroking his neck and shoulders, sliding into the neckline of his t-shirt, seeking contact with the delicious heat of his skin.
His mouth abandoned mine only long enough for him to strip his shirt off in one swift move, and then he was back, sliding his hands through my hair, touching my face. My fingers roamed over his chest, his hard abdomen, the muscles moving over his ribs. I would never stop being amazed at his body.
I pulled out of the kiss and just looked at him. With his clothes on, it was still obvious Aric was lean and well-built. But only seeing him like this was it possible to appreciate the true power and beauty of him. Thick muscle and sinew rippled under smooth skin. The dusting of blond hair on his chest and forearms glinted in the lamplight as he moved, making him look like some sort of mythical golden god.
I wanted to touch him all over, wanted to feel the delicious weight of his body on top of mine. This time it wasn’t just to satisfy an urge or to get it over with. I wanted him to be part of my life, part of me. “Let’s go to bed,” I whispered.
He stilled, staring at me with an intensity that almost made his eyes glow. “Say it. Tell me again.”
I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help smiling. “You’re mine.”
“And?”
“And I’m yours.”
His expression stayed piercing. “And you’re ready to be with me, only me? And not just for right now?”
I was fully aware of the profound nature of my words as I answered. “Yes. I want you. And I always will.” And God help me, it was true. “Now—I want you inside of me, where you belong.”
Aric must have heard all he needed to hear. His eyelids flared, and he stood, scooping me up and carrying me across the small apartment to my bed, where he made a very convincing case that I’d want and need him not just for now, but for forever.
Chapter Twenty-One
Declaration
“That. Was. Incredible.” Aric dropped a kiss on top of my head, breathing hard and holding me tightly against his side, as if afraid I might bolt from the bed and escape. He needn’t have worried. I had no desire to be anywhere else.
We lay together in the dim lamplight, my head in the crook of his shoulder, my arm wrapped around his waist, one leg tucked between his. My body weighed four hundred pounds as I sank into him and the mattress, wearing the deeply satisfied smile of someone who’s just experienced hands-down the best sex of her life. I’d only thought Josh had known what he was doing. My bad.
After a few minutes, Aric’s breath grew slow and even. I lifted my head to see if he was sleeping. His face was still flushed and severely beautiful.
His eyes opened. He gave me a slightly drunken looking smile. “Finally,” he breathed.
“What? Did I take too long?”
“No.” He laughed, stroking my hair with one hand. “Hardly. It’s that—I’ve been picturing this moment with you since the night we met. This moment and all the ones leading up to it, starting from about, oh, forty minutes ago.”
Aric played gently with my fingers on his chest, while the other hand sifted through my hair. “Thank God you finally came around. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out.”
I lay my head down again, listening to his heart and the rhythm of his breathing as it deepened and stretched out in the quiet room. I’d actually started to doze when I heard his whisper.
“I love you, Heidi.”
I froze. Oh my God. Oh sugar. I forced my muscles to relax again. “You don’t have to say that, you know. You already got lucky,” I whispered back, trying to turn it into a joke.
Aric lifted up onto one elbow and looked down into my eyes. “I know,” he said, still completely serious. He glided a fingertip lightly down my cheek and jaw to my chin. “I’m sorry if you’re not ready to hear it yet, but it would still be true whether I said it or not. And I wanted to say it.”
“Okay,” I whispered, torn between a rush of joy and a scream of panic and the weight of guilt over failing to make a return declaration.
The words were there in my mind. I love you, too. The feeling was there in my heart—I thought. But it was hard to trust my heart. I’d been so quick to say it to Josh. And of course he’d said it to me right away. And the phrase hadn’t protected me. It hadn’t kept us together or made that relationship real. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t say it again until I was absolutely, positively sure it was true and that it was forever.
Aric’s eyes softened as he watched the inner struggle play out on my face. “It’s okay.” He dipped his head and kissed the tip of my nose. “I don’t want you to say it until you’re ready. Let’s get some sleep.”
He turned off the lamp and lay down again, pulling me close until my face rested over his heart. In a few minutes his breathing deepened and evened out. I slid my hand across the warm skin of his abdomen and wrapped my arm around him, embracing him with my body the way I’d been too afraid to do with my words.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Have a Nice Dinner
The week passed in a happy blur of work and sex and sending out resumes and reels in a genuine attempt at finding a new job, albeit in medium-sized markets not very far away. In spite of all my stated intentions to charge onward and upward, I still wondered if I could really do it.
What if I moved to a big city a plane ride away and viewers didn’t like me, what if I couldn’t fit in and make friends, what if I didn’t actually have what it took? I wanted to be ready, but was I? It seemed better to bite off something I could definitely chew, even if it didn’t taste all that good, than to sink my teeth into something truly yummy and then choke.
I worked dayside Friday, shooting and reporting a story for the noon show, then grabbing a quick sound bite for another story before heading back to the station. I got back to the newsroom with just enough time to check messages on my desk phone before the afternoon news meeting.
The first was from a viewer who sounded no younger than eighty, wanting to know where I got my hair done so she could get my exact cut and color. Another was from a contact of mine at the Neshoba County courthouse about an upcoming court case that might make an interesting story. The next message caused me to sit down in my chair and play it back twice before my brain could actually register what I’d heard.
“Hello, Heidi. This is Ken Zorich from WKRN. I was impressed with your work, and I’d really like to talk to you about coming in to audition for our noon anchor opening. If you’d give me a call back, I’d appreciate it. My number is…”
WKRN? Was that one of the stations I’d sent my reel and resume to this week? Could they have looked at it so fast?
Before I could even check my job hunt spreadsheet for the station call letters or do an internet search for WKRN, Janet poked her head out of her office. “Okay gang—it’s two-twenty-five. Time for the two-o’clock meeting.”
During the meeting, the reporters and producers discussed the day’s news coverage options. There were always many more events going on than we could possib
ly cover, and this was where we talked it out and people could champion a story they felt particularly strongly about. Janet guided the discussion and ultimately made the call on what did and didn’t get our limited resources.
“Heidi, you and Aric will be shooting for each other today—I know that’s working pretty well for you on the weekends—and you’ve both got stories in Oxford. You’ll cover the Mississippi Writers Symposium. John Grisham’s speaking at five. And there’s a kickoff event for the basketball season Aric needs to pick up—a free-throw competition for students where they try to sink three-pointers to upgrade their seats for the season. Should be fun. Since you’ll both be right there on campus, we’re going to make both of them live shots. Tony’s already on his way there with the live truck to set up for the six.”
There was a little further discussion of logistics, but the meeting was mercifully shorter than usual, which thrilled me. I wanted to check out Ken Zorich and his station.
“Heidi—could you stay a minute?” Janet motioned for me to move to the chair closest to her desk as the others filed out of her office. “Ce Ce—would you shut the door? Thanks.”
Oh, a closed-door conversation with Janet. That was different.
“Heidi, I want to share some news with you, and then I have a question for you,” she said.
Now my nerves were starting to vibrate. What could Janet want to share with me that she didn’t want the others to know about? “Okay…”
“I’m going to be stepping down from my position next month. I saw my doctor last week for a follow up, and they’ve found a recurrence of the breast cancer.”
My heart dropped into my lap. “Oh no. Are you okay?”
She gave me a tight smile. “I feel fine right now. And I’m going to fight it as hard as I can, just like last time, and I’m sure I’ll beat it. But I’m twelve years older this go-round. And my kids will both be graduating high school in the next couple of years, so I’m re-evaluating my priorities. I’d like to spend as much time with them as possible right now. Dan thinks it’s a good idea, too. I’ve been doing news for twenty-six years, so I think that’s a pretty nice career, a pretty good place to stop.”
