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I don’t know, but I have to try.
I’ve watched her all this time. I had her guards follow close behind her, to make sure she was safe. Yes, I still had surveillance on her. I’m not a good guy, and I know I never will be. But maybe I can be good enough… for her.
Maybe we really can just be… wrong together.
I sit her down on the edge of my bed. I pull the heavy drapes darkening the room, and shut out the snowy landscape outside. I start a fire in the fire place.
“Aidan…”
“Shhhh,” I say. “Don’t move.”
I go into her suite of rooms, still exactly as she left them. She didn’t take anything when she left. Except the black card, but that was already in her bag. She had access to my accounts, and I didn’t protest when she used them. It seemed only fair since I wouldn’t agree to divorce. If she was going to be Mrs. Aidan Stryker, even from a distance, she was going to be able to buy herself whatever she needed.
She bought all new things while she was staying with her mother. She helped her mom start up and staff the flower shop that I loaned money for. And still I just stayed in the shadows and watched.
When I reach her closet, I know exactly what I’m looking for. I take the lingerie she wore on our wedding night from the drawer. The gift bag and tissue that it came in is shoved to the back. I’m not sure if Cora did that or if there is a sentimental part of Maddie that kept it even though I hadn’t yet given her any reason to want to be sentimental about anything involving me.
I wrap the lingerie in the tissue paper and place it back in the bag. My note from that night is still inside. I place it on top in the bag and deliver it to Maddie.
Our hands brush as I pass it to her.
“I’ll give you some privacy,” I say.
She nods and I step out into the hallway. When I return several minutes later, she’s wearing the lingerie. I pour myself a drink from the side cart and sit in the chair next to the fire. I indicate that she should turn and let me get a good look at her. She does, and I do.
I put my drink down and cross to her. When I untie the silk bow behind her neck and the lingerie falls down her body, she leans back into me, welcoming my hungry kisses against her throat.
“Get in the bed,” I murmur against her hair.
She does, and then I loosen my tie and remove my cuff links. She watches, her face illuminated by the firelight as I strip off each piece of clothing, until my tattoos are all that’s left on full display. Then she rotates her finger and I laugh and turn all the way around to give her a full good view of everything in the Aidan Package.
It occurs to me that except for the quick coupling in the shower that night, where I know she wasn’t fully “with me” and was just trying to escape the earlier events of the night, we haven’t yet had sex with both of us fully naked. There’s some kind of metaphor in there, and I’m sure I could unpack if if Maddie wasn’t so distractingly beautiful.
When she seems pleased with what she sees, I stalk over to her and climb into the bed. I take my time peeling the rest of the lingerie off her, trailing soft kisses over her body as I pull the white silk back inch-by-inch.
I capture her mouth with my own and she moans against me, her tongue tangling with mine. I carefully stroke every inch of her body, taking extra care and time with her breasts, sucking each nipple into my mouth until the points harden against the cool air of the room and goosebumps pop out over her flesh.
“Aidan… please… I didn’t think I was going to have to beg every time for you to fuck me.”
I chuckle but give my queen what she demands.
I push two fingers inside her silky warmth, and then I bend to lick the most sensitive part of her. She bucks against me, her hips rising, offering herself to me to be devoured. I’m relentless in my pursuit of her pleasure, her madness, her coming undone beneath my tongue, the power of her boneless beneath me, sated and sweet, the wetness from her orgasm as she cries out preparing her body for my own pleasure.
When I finally thrust inside her, she gasps at what is still a very tight fit. But she’s wet and ready for me, and I intend to be far more gentle with her than I was the first time.
“You can take me,” I say with absolute confidence. And I’m sure I mean it in more than one way.
Our eyes lock and I move within her so slowly, holding myself back, letting it all build so she has a chance to regroup and ride this ride with me. I don’t want to go into that mindless animal moment of bliss without her. I want us both to be there, together. Not me chasing her, not her running from me. Not one of us reaching the peak while the other still stands at the bottom of the mountain.
“Harder,” she says, and I don’t need to be told twice.
I drive into her harder while she clings to me, her nails digging into my back. And then we have that magic moment that only happens in books, movies, and fairy tales. We come. Together.
And there’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
Epilogue
Maddie