Page 5

Five

Aiden

It only takes a heartbeat for me to realize this kiss isn’t like the stolen ones from our teenage years, sloppy smooches that we hurried through or sneaked in, hiding in the shadows of the parking lot, waiting for our parents to come pick us up.

This is…

Well, I’m not thinking about being alone—not at fucking all —that’s for damn sure.

I dive my hand into her hair, tilting her head back, deepening the kiss in a way I never could have imagined all those years before.

Lips parting. Sleek darts of our tongues as they battle for dominance. Moans vibrating up her throat, dancing down mine. It takes all of ten seconds and I’m hard, harder than I’ve ever been before—even as a teenager, sneaking those kisses.

She’s…Luna.

But the Luna I never could have imagined—curvy and beautiful, smelling amazing, like flowers and woman, and tasting like cupcakes.

I need more.

I need her.

Bending, I scoop her up, setting her on the edge of the counter, taking advantage of the height so I don’t have to bend down quite so far to kiss her.

She moans again and her arms wind around my neck, body arching against mine, kissing me back with an abandon that threatens to burn its way through my control.

And the flames intensify when she wraps her legs around me, grinds against the ride of my erection.

“Fuck,” I groan into her mouth, rocking right back against her, wishing I could make the layers of clothes disappear with one thought flashing through my mind.

When that doesn’t work, I reach for the hem of her shirt.

Then my conscience smacks me upside the head.

I manage to snag the frayed edges before they can fully snap and fly free, pausing for long enough to pull back, to study her face again, both of us breathing heavy.

“Luns,” I say softly, cupping her jaw. “We don’t have to do this.

You can crash in my guest room and if you’re not tired we can watch infomercials on TV until we pass out. ”

Yes, my dick is threatening to explode.

But this is a lot—her showing up out of the blue in the middle of the night—and I know she’s still grieving Grams, same as I know that this woman is different too. The same…yet changed.

And because…I wanted her when I was a teenager.

So much that I dreamed of more than kissing—and that I did it for years.

But she was the one to firmly stop us from going there.

Same as she was the one who distanced herself when I left to play juniors.

Doing this now, with all of the pieces of the past and present tangling…well, it doesn’t feel right.

Something passes across her face, something I can’t read because it’s there and gone so quickly.

Before I can ask her to explain, her hands land on my shoulders, nails kneading lightly at my flesh, and I get the distinct notion that she’s trying to distract me when she asks, “Haven’t you thought about it? ”

I can’t lie to her.

“Yes,” I rasp out. Far too many times and for far too long.

“I used to dream about it,” she murmurs, nails digging in a little harder. “Used to think about those stolen kisses turning into more, used to hope that you’d sneak in through my bedroom window at night, crawl into bed beside me, pull the blankets back, and?—”

My dick goes even harder.

This woman is going to be the death of me.

“Luns—”

“I imagined you touching me,” she whispers, nails digging in a little deeper, the slight bite of pain further eroding my control. “Kissing me just like this. Making me feel good.” Her mouth kicks up. “Though, I think you may have a few more skills at making me feel good now.”

I do.

My mind is fucking spinning with all the ways to help her fall apart on my lips and tongue, my fingers, my cock. Still?—

“You’re grieving, tiny tornado,” I tell her gently. “And you don’t need to bring a contract or kiss me”—or more —“to stay here, to talk about her, to be friends again.”

She jerks.

Then her eyes slam closed.

But not before I see the tears.

“Christ, Luns,” I whisper, tugging her off the counter and up into my arms. She turns her head away, body going stiff.

Her efforts at controlling her emotions come too late.

The first drops of her tears escape the cage of her eyelashes, sliding down her cheeks, dripping off her jaw and plunking onto my shirt.

Then her chest hitches, a sob escaping, so forlorn that my heart squeezes roughly.

“I-I sh-shouldn’t have come here,” she whispers. “Sh-shouldn’t have brought that stupid contract. And I-I shouldn’t st-still be here. You have a life, have a family. You don’t need my bullshit fucking it up a-and—” Her words devolve into sobs.

I carry her over to the couch, settle onto the cushions with her in my lap.

And then I hold her.

Until, long minutes later, her sobs subside and her body relaxes against mine, and she murmurs, voice raspy from her crying, “I’m such a mess.”

“A beautiful mess,” I say softly, wiping at the tear tracks streaked across her cheeks.

She laughs, but it’s watery, and shakes her head. “Only Aiden Black would be this nice when a psycho from his past shows up, waving a contract that only a teenager would agree to, and then hold said psycho while she cries her eyes out.”

I leave the contract thing alone for the moment.

There’s more there.

Things that don’t make sense—it’s more than a preamble to bring us together again, more than an excuse that brought her to my door.

But that’ll hold.

Right now, she’s hurting.

“You miss her,” I murmur, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Grams,” I add, probably unnecessarily.

A shaky breath, her lids sliding closed again, hiding those storm cloud gray eyes from me once more. I hate that, want to demand she open them, that she’ll let me stare into the depths until they give up all her secrets.

But that’s not Luna.

She is— was —complicated, the Shrek equivalent of that onion, those secrets revealed layer by layer by layer .

“I do miss her,” she whispers. “A lot.”

And I hear more there too—pain and grief and a slender thread of anger.

But today I need to alleviate her pain, take some of the weight of that grief away.

“I remember when Grams came to that Winter Open, when you first started competing. Do you?”

She opens her eyes, and I can’t lie that pride ripples through me when I see the amusement in those stormy gray depths. “I remember,” she says, lips turning up. “Mostly because I swore that after she yelled at the judges like that I would never— ever —compete again.”

I chuckle. “She didn’t lose her temper often, but when she did…”

“Kaboom,” Luna finishes.

“Exactly.” I draw her a little closer. “And she was right to yell at them. They totally fucked you over with that low ball of a score.”

“I fell on my axel!”

“One of the other girls fell twice,” I remind her. “And the last one skated off the ice crying halfway through because she realized people were watching her.”

I get her then.

The Luna of old instead of the sad Luna I’m holding who’s full of grief and shadows and pain.

She laughs and it’s not soft. It’s loud and full-bodied and…

Fuck , but how can I still want her now—after all this time, after spending, what?, thirty minutes with her—just as much as I wanted her back then when she forced me to let her go.

But I do.

And it’s not just because she’s beautiful.

It’s because she’s Luna.

“Now,” I say, shoving that thought away to deal with later and setting her beside me on the couch. “I’m going to grab our plates, we’ll to eat our cupcake to celebrate our birthdays, and then we’re going to find somewhere to stream Wheel of Fortune so we can give Grams a proper send-off, okay?”

She’s quiet as I stand up, as I cross into the kitchen and snag the plates.

But as I’m walking back, she whispers, “It’s supposed to be your birthday.”

“What’s that, tiny tornado?” I ask, distracted by the sight of her sitting on my couch…and how right it feels to have her there.

“It’s supposed to be your birthday, so why are you the one who’s giving me a gift?”

“First, it’s our birthday.” I touch her cheek. “And second, who’s to say you’re not giving me one right back?”