Page 28 of Only for Tonight (Only For #1)

twenty-two

Jaxon

I turn into the driveway and press the button for the garage door and watch it open slowly, before driving in and turning off the car and shutting the door.

I take off my sunglasses, tossing them on the passenger seat before I step out of the SUV and reach in to grab the two protein shakes I just picked up after practice.

Opening the door that leads to the house, I hear the sound of her clicking the keyboard in her office.

“Baby,” I call, filling the doorway and seeing her sitting in the chair behind the desk, her eyes going from the computer screen to me, “I’m home.

” I can’t help but smile at her, walking into the room and seeing her laptop on the couch open.

“How come you aren’t working on the couch?

” I motion with my head toward the laptop.

“I was and then I got a call.” She pushes away from the desk and gets up, coming to me. She’s wearing gray-blue sweatpants with a matching top that falls off her shoulder. Her hair is braided on the side, and when she stands in front of me, I bend to kiss her shoulder.

“I got you a protein shake.” I hold it up. “Since you liked the one I got myself yesterday, I thought you would like your own.”

She smirks at me and her eyes still seem a little tired.

“Are you saying you didn’t like sharing it with me?

” Her hand comes out to take one of the cups from me as she takes a sip of it.

“So good, who knew?” I roll my eyes. “Just got off the phone with your father,” she tells me.

“He called to check up on me for the third time today.”

“He wants to make sure you’re okay,” I defend him. I know since she got out of the hospital three days ago, he’s been on my ass about making sure she’s okay, and I have no doubt he’s been on her ass making sure I’m doing what I need to do.

“I know.” She walks back over to the couch and sits down with one leg curled under her, while she puts the protein drink on the table beside the couch and picks up her laptop. “It’s just?—”

“If you want, I’ll tell him to stop.” I sit down next to her and she gasps out.

“I will seriously hurt you if you do that,” she warns as I lean over and kiss her lips. “I’m not kidding, Jaxon, don’t tell him anything.”

“I won’t,” I assure her, grabbing her and putting her to sit in my lap. She squeaks out trying to hold her laptop while I wrap my arms around her waist. “What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for a house,” she states and my eyes go to the screen while my body goes tight. “I found a couple and I’m going to send them to Zoey to see what she thinks about the neighborhood and stuff.”

“You’re looking for a house,” I repeat her words, not sure I actually heard right. She nods her head. “You’re looking for a house.”

“Um, yeah.” She looks up at me confused.

“There are a bunch of things to take into consideration that I never thought about before. Like crime rate in the area. Definitely don’t want to go to a place where people are getting killed often.

” I listen to her and slowly start to count to ten to calm myself down.

“Then you have to take into account the school district, even though we have some time before the baby starts school, you want to be zoned for the right one. But then I was thinking, will our baby go to private school?” she rattles off nervously.

“Then I was like, do I want to live close to parks since it would be nice for the baby and I to take walks together.” She looks at the screen.

“It’s a lot more intense buying a house when you have a kid than when you don’t.

” She snorts. “Old Ariella would be like, two bedrooms—cool—I can use one for my office and second closet. New Ariella is thinking, is there going to be a playroom?”

“Why the fuck are you looking for a house?” I try to remain calm to not upset her and keep her blood pressure down.

The last thing I want is for her to be upset and then she ends up in the hospital again.

I don’t think I can handle what happened the last time again.

Even though I know it was probably something she ate, I still don’t want to trigger anything.

“Well, if I move here,” she starts to say softly, and she puts her laptop down on the coffee table in the middle of the room, before she gets off my lap. She sits beside me now, placing the protein shake next to her laptop before she turns to face me.

“You mean when you move here,” I correct her. “I thought that part was a given.”

“Okay, well, when I move here,” she starts again, and I immediately cut her off.

“You move in here and live with me,” I say as if that wasn’t established before.

“Wait, what?” She tilts her head to the side, looking very confused by this. “You want me to move in here?” She points to the couch and her legs.

“Well, yeah, of course I want you to move in here.” I lean forward to put my protein shake beside hers before I turn to face her.

I put my hand on the back of the couch, mimicking her position.

I didn’t know that this would be when we would be having this conversation, but it’s about time.

Ever since we had the first conversation, when she called us friends, I’ve been waiting and biding my time to bring it up.

I feel like if now isn’t a good time, I don’t know what is.

“But—” she starts to say.

“But what?” I snap and her eyes go big and her eyebrows rise. “What do you need?”

“Jaxon,” she says my name and I don’t know if she is warning me or just saying my name. But I’m so scared of losing her that I’m going to do what I need to do and say.

“No, I’m dead fucking serious right now, Ariella. What do you need?”

“I need you to?—”

Again, I don’t let her say anything. “Tell me what you need, and I’ll get it. I’ll do it.”

“We don’t even know each other,” she rebuts and I roll my eyes.

“We fucking know each other, Ari, we grew up together.”

“That doesn’t even count,” she groans. “You were, like, banging chicks and I was eight.”

“I wasn’t banging chicks when you were eight.” I snort. “Also never say that again.”

“Whatever, we barely know each other,” she goes on, “and?—”

“And what? I know you,” I say softly, “and you know me in ways that no one knows me.” I swallow. “I’ve shared things with you I never planned on sharing with anyone, and with you it just comes so easily. Natural, like it was always supposed to be like this.”

“Well.” She hesitates and she looks down at her hands like she’s embarrassed about what she has to say.

“Why are you so standoffish?”

“Me?” She points to herself, snapping, “I’m not the one who is standoffish, you”—she points to me, her voice rising—“you are the one who is standoffish, ever since I got home from the hospital.”

I move my chest back, shocked at her words. “What?” The urge to jump to my feet is strong. “I was scared to death thinking I was going to lose both of you.”

“You are not going to lose me. But you have to stop treating me like I’m some porcelain doll.” She throws her hands in the air. “You haven’t even tried to sex me up or anything.”

I stare at her dumbfounded, blinking my eyes a couple of times. I open my mouth to say something and then close it again. “You literally were in the hospital hooked on an IV bag to get hydrated,” I remind her.

“That was five days ago.” She holds up her hand and I reach for it and fold down two fingers.

“That was three days ago, trust me, I fucking know how long it’s been,” I growl with frustration in my voice.

“Whatever, you haven’t even—” She trails off and looks down at her legs.

“You haven’t either.” Her head snaps back up to look at me. Now she’s the one with her mouth hanging open. “Not once did you try to grab my junk.”

“I’m not going to make the first move,” she scoffs at me, and I look up at the ceiling and laugh. “Why are you laughing?”

“You literally made the first move on the first day.” I point at her. “You were the one who made the move that night.”

“I did not.” She puts her hand to her chest. “Do you even remember that night?”

“Baby, I remember everything about that night,” I assure her, “every fucking thing.” My voice is low. “It’s the only fucking thing I thought about for six fucking weeks until you came back to me.”

“Obviously, some parts are fuzzy if you think I made the first move.” She turns to grab her protein drink and takes a sip. “Because you were the one who made the move.”

My head goes back and I howl out with laughter before asking her, “How?”

“Can I drive you home?” She rolls her eyes. “You basically just should have said let’s go bang.”

“You said yes,” I remind her softly, and I want to kiss her so fucking bad, but this conversation is too important to get sidetracked. “You knew you were staying in the hotel and you said yes.”

“It was rude to say no!” she hollers at me.

“Whatever.” I put my hand on her leg and rub it up and down.

“Not whatever, Jaxon. You made the first move.”

“Okay.” I shrug. “I made the first move.”

“Oh no.” She shakes her head and moves my hand off of her leg. “Do not okay me, Jaxon Stevenson.” She stands up. “Do not fucking okay me.”

“I’m admitting I made the first move.” I turn to her, open my legs, and reach for her to bring her between them, and hold on to her hips in my hands.

My eyes are at the level of her stomach.

I move the shirt up so I can see her small belly.

Kissing her stomach softly, she runs her hands through my hair.

“I made the first move, baby,” I say softly, looking up at her, “and I’d do it again and again and again. ”

Her hand goes from my hair to my cheek. “You did,” she says softly.

“So now will you move in with me?” I ask her and she smiles a little.

“Isn’t it too fast?” She thinks of her words and laughs. “I mean it’s a lot too fast, but, like, shouldn’t we?—”

“Shouldn’t we what?” I ask her.

“I don’t know, shouldn’t we date?” She shakes her head. “It’s so dumb to say that since I literally have half of you inside of me.”

“Baby, we’re practically living together already, and I don’t care what you say, how you spin it in your head.

It’s a relationship. We get up together and go through the day with each other and at night we go to bed with each other.

” She puts her hand on my shoulder as I move my hands to her ass and squeeze it.

“We are in a relationship.” It makes her laugh.

“That’s what I want, you to smile and laugh. ”

“Well, we really are good in bed,” she states the obvious and I nod, agreeing with her.

“We fucking are.” I snort. “Fuck, are we ever.” I lean back into the couch and pull her with me. She puts her knees beside my hips as she sits on me. “No fucking complaints there.”

“Well, that’s good to know.” She puts her hands on my chest.

“I’ve never, ever lived with someone before,” I admit to her, “never really wanted to.”

“Same,” she says softly. “Well, what if we don’t get along?” She avoids looking at me.

“What if we do?” I counter her, watching her eyes on her fingers.

“What if I annoy you?” She smirks and then looks up. “What if you annoy me? That’s more likely to happen than me annoying you.”

“Then you communicate with me why I’m annoying you and we work on it.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?” I laugh. “Why are you making it harder than it has to be?”

“I don’t know, it’s just too fucking easy.”

“Ariella,” I say her name, “nothing about you is easy.”

“I slept with you the first night,” she reminds me and I nod.

“Yeah, you did.” I wink at her. “That was a good fucking night. What do you want?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what do you want from a relationship?”

“I want to laugh,” she starts.

“We laugh all the time. Next.”

“I want him to respect me.”

“I’m not even going to say anything because if you don’t think I respect you, then this conversation is over.”

“Okay, fine, you show me respect.”

“Next.”

“Honesty,” she adds. “You were not honest.”

“When?” I huff out. “When the fuck wasn’t I honest?”

“When I said we’re friends.”

“You literally walked away from me and barfed your brains out, so was I supposed to be like, ‘by the way, we’re more than friends’?”

“Touché.” She grins. “Shared values,” she says and I laugh. “Fine,” she finally gives in, almost unwillingly. “You have everything I want in a relationship, but what about you?”

“What about me?”

“What do you want?”

“I want a woman who’s smoking hot,” I begin as I move my hands to her ass again.

“Check.” She rolls her eyes at me. “I want a woman who cares about my family and is okay with me being so close to them. Check again.” She smiles.

“I want a woman who is with me because she likes me and not because of what I do or what that I can get them on a red carpet. Check again.” I move one hand to make a check mark in the air.

“I want a woman who is going to call me out on my bullshit and not be scared to talk to me about things. That’s a half check, you need to work on that. ”

“Am I not communicating with you right now?”

“Only because I forced the conversation. You don’t just want to be friends with me, just like I don’t want to be friends with you.

Also, if I have to hear you tell one more person that we’re just friends I’m going to lose my fucking mind.

” I watch her look down. “Admit it.” I move my hand from her ass to her chin and lift it up so she’s looking at me.

The pressure in my chest tightens. “Admit it,” I urge softly.

“Tell me I’m not the only one feeling something here. ”

“It’s too fast,” she repeats softly. “We’ve been together for what? A week, two…tops.”

“According to who?” I ask her and don’t wait for her to answer.

“My father went out one night, took one look at Evelyn, and the rest is history. One fucking night and he knew. We didn’t know that one night would change our lives, but would you go back and redo it?

” I wait, holding my breath as she stares at me.

Her eyes stare into mine as she whispers, “No.” I close my eyes with a sigh of relief. “I wouldn’t change it.”

“So we have the next six months to get to know each other and give this our best fucking shot.” She inhales deeply. “Will you take that shot with me?”

She moves her head to the side, back and forth, and looks up at the ceiling like she’s thinking about it. “Fine,” she huffs out, trying not to give me a full-blown smile, “we’ll give it a shot.”