Page 62

AIDEN

“ S o this is where teenage Emory slept?” I flop down on the bed and stare at the glow stars on the ceiling.

Annette and Gloria demanded that we stay the night so we could have “Gloria’s famous french toast” in the morning.

So here we are, at nine p.m., lying in the tiny bed in Emory’s childhood bedroom, which is located in the attic and features a retractable ladder that teenage me would have loved.

Emory joins me, the frame creaking. “Lucky for you the posters of teenage pop stars have been removed.”

“Shame.”

“I know. They gave the room a real je ne sais quoi .”

“You think I’d measure up?” I prop myself up on an elbow so I can watch her face. She’s pink-cheeked and embarrassed as I press my fingers to the wrinkle between her brows.

“Aiden.” She sighs. “You took philosophy, right?”

I nod. “ Summa cum laude , baby.”

She rolls her eyes. “You learned about Platonic ideals, right?”

“Sure. The ultimate form of something. The best version. Wait, are you saying—”

She squeezes her eyes shut in misery.

Warmth fills my chest. “Me?” I choke out the word. “ I’m the best version?”

She pokes me in the side, her eyes shooting fire. “ Were . Past tense.”

“Sure.” I flop back onto the bed, grinning. “Wow. Didn’t know you had it so bad for me, evil queen. Tell me, was it the glasses?”

“I hate you so much,” she whispers.

“Nah.” I can’t stop smiling. “You’re going to have to get a new line, because it sounds like you liked me very much.”

“Past tense,” she mutters again.

My eyes snag on something on the floor, sticking out from under the bed, and I lean over to fish it out. It’s a bottle. Of Prince whiskey.

“What’s this?” I turn over my prize.

“Nothing,” she says quickly. “I hid whiskey under my bed like any teenager. You didn’t do that?”

“Em.” I hold the bottle up. “This is the vintage my dad named after me. The second whiskey he ever made. The Prince.”

“I know,” she whispers. “I kept it under my bed, and I drank it sometimes.”

My smile grows at the embarrassment on her face. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes are pleading with me not to make a thing out of this. “You drank it and thought of me.”

“I did not.” She sets those pretty pink lips in a frown.

“You so did,” I crow.

“Give it back, Aiden.”

I hold it out over the edge of the bed. “Tell me the truth or I’ll drop it on the hardwood floor.”

Her eyes flick to the bottle. She bites her lip. And then she lunges and ends up draped over me while I laugh. She scrambles up and snatches the bottle, hugging it to her chest while she straddles me.

Her hair is loose around her shoulders. Her cheeks are freckled from our days in the sun, and her eyes flash blue fire. She’s never looked better.

“Give me a taste,” I tell her, wagging my brows. “Just a drop.”

“Fine.” She uncorks the bottle and presses her fingers to the top, tilting the amber liquid. A drop splashes out onto the strip of skin where my sweater is riding up and my stomach is exposed. Her eyes snag on the spot, then go half lidded.

“Aiden,” she whispers. The tips of her fingers land on the skin at my waist.

“Yeah?”

“How quiet can you be?”

I choke on air. “Very fucking quiet,” I say.

“Great. Because.” She pushes my sweater and my shirt up with light fingers, and I shudder under her. “I need you.” Her mouth lands on my stomach, sucking, then swirling, and I bite my hand.

I keep my teeth clenched as she trails her tongue and lips over my stomach muscles, and I can’t help my flex.

She tips a few more drops of whiskey onto my chest and licks them up.

“Fuck.” I’m going to come out of my skin like this. With her lips on me, her hair ticking my groin, the top of dress dipping low.

God, her tits are fantastic in that dress.

No bra.

I groan, the sound muffled. I pray for a strap to fall as she flicks her tongue over the muscles of my groin, and then it does.

I make a strangled noise.

“You okay there, golden boy?”

“Fine,” I choke. “Totally fine.”

She rears up, grinning a wicked grin at me, her lips wet, her eyes hazy.

I scramble to pull off my shirt and sweater. Her eyes track my arms and stomach greedily. I fucking like it. I like how she looks at me.

“See something you like?” I settle back against the pillows and tip my hips up so I can slide off my slacks.

Her eyes are on the bulge in my briefs. I palm myself through them, and she licks her lips.

“Off,” she whispers. “All of it. Off.”

I pull the black fabric down and we both watch as I go fully hard for her. Her nails dig into my thighs, then she looses a shuddering breath and drips more whiskey on me. One drop on the tip of my cock, then another sliding down. She dives to catch it, licking a line of heat to the tip.

My vision goes white. I tip my head to the side so I can muffle my groans with a pillow. More whiskey, then her mouth. Cool and then hot. I tense and then melt into the bed.

She hums with pleasure as she takes me deep. I hit the back of her throat and my body goes taut. I tangle my hands in her hair, not to force her, just to admire her.

“Like that, pretty girl,” I whisper. “I like it like that.”

She scrapes her teeth on the underside of my cock and streaks of lightning dance over my skin. “Fuck, Em.”

She looks up at me through her lashes and I see the smirk in her eyes before she sucks me deep.

I groan again. “Not gonna last like this,” I pant. “Em, wait.”

She lets me go with a pop.

“I can’t believe I’m about to ask this.” I run a hand through my hair. “Do you have any lipstick?”

She grins. “Yes. Why?”

“Can you—” I gesture to her mouth.

“Been thinking about my mouth, golden boy?” She reaches into the purse she dropped onto the floor and pulls out a tube.

“Day and night,” I murmur huskily as she slicks it on. “Day and fucking night.”

“Be a good boy and say please.”

The words fire through me. “Please,” I whisper.

When she slides me between those bloodred lips, I force myself not to finish immediately. I’ve never been so hard before. “Like that, gorgeous.”

Her eyes water as she takes me deep, and fuck .

I finish embarrassingly quickly, my mind blanking as I come. She feels like fucking heaven, and I bite my wrist so hard I swear I’m going to draw blood. When she’s done, she lifts her head, and fuck if that lipstick isn’t smeared around her mouth. There are streaks on my dick.

I use my thumb to clean the edges of her lips and she leans into my hand.

“Pretty girl,” I tell her. “Thank you for that.”

She climbs over me and drapes her arms around my neck. “I thought about you like this a hundred times,” she whispers. “But I think you already knew that.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t like hearing it,” I tell her.

“How long is that refractory period again?”

I laugh against her neck. “Couple of minutes. I’ll eat you out while I wait.”

“Get moving, golden boy. I need you.”

We shower, but we’re too keyed-up to sleep, so Emory puts on a movie. She lets me hold her, her head on my shoulder, my arm around hers.

Pride and Prejudice scrolls across the screen.

“Of course,” I say.

“Don’t make fun.” She sighs and snuggles deeper against me. “You’re going to like it. But if you ever watch the 1995 version and think it’s better, I will divorce you.”

You’re divorcing me anyway , I don’t say. I don’t want to think about the end of this. I’m going to enjoy what I have, for once in my life, and I’m going to do my best to make her as happy as I can before this ends.

It’s a good movie. A fantastic movie, actually. Her reactions make it even better. Booing Lydia when she goes for the military guy, then rolling her eyes at Mr. Collins and muttering men under her breath.

And then burying her face in my chest and making inarticulate sounds when Mr. Darcy hands Elizabeth into the carriage.

“Explain,” I say.

“The hand flex,” she exclaims. “He’s so affected by her. God.” She flops back onto the pillows.

But the best part is the rain scene. My stomach plummets.

“How could she?” I whisper.

“I know,” Emory whispers back.

When the love confession comes, she’s in my arms again, her palm pressed to her mouth, her hair in my nose. I’m stroking her neck, and I almost miss it.

“Pause it,” I say hoarsely. “Go back.” She does it. I sit up straighter. “He stuttered.”

“I know.” She gives me a half smile. “It’s the very best part.”

“The what?” My heart is thrashing in my chest.

Her smile grows as the credits roll. “It’s the very best part. Of course it is. It shows how strongly he feels about her. The emotion in his voice.” She shimmies her shoulders. “I love it.”

“You love the stutter.” I keep the words short and take a deep breath after.

She nods.

“You never asked me,” I say hoarsely, at a loss. “Why didn’t you ask?” I’m worried this is some gotcha, and she’ll tell me that it wasn’t that noticeable or talk over me the way Marguerite did.

Her eyes soften. “Why would I ask?”

I spear a hand through my hair. “Because I sound like a f-fucking idiot. I spent a lot of time getting rid of it, but ironically, talk-talking about it makes it worse.” Slow.

Slow. God, this is fucking terrible. Why am I telling her this?

This is the part of me she won’t like, the part that leads to all the other parts that don’t measure up.

“Who said you were an idiot?” Her voice drops dangerously.

“It was imp-implied. The Heir doesn’t stutter.”

“Fuck them,” she says fiercely before she climbs into my lap. There’s a swift ache that follows her words, but it fades as she presses her face into my neck and our heartbeats find each other.

“I want to feel it,” she says. She leans back, her eyes on my face. I freeze.

“I’m not a zoo animal, Emory,” I say stiffly. “I’ve done enough speech therapy to last a lifetime. Go find your amusement elsewhere.”

She smiles at me, and my heart lurches. I should not have opened up to her. This was a mistake. I’ve given Emory the tools to carve out my heart.

“I meant,” she says as she places a hand on my chest, “that I want to feel it the way you do.” She slides it to my jaw as I tip my head away from her.

The breath leaves my chest as she presses her lips to mine. Her tongue flicks against my bottom lip, but I don’t kiss her back. I can’t.

“Open for me, Aiden. Let me in.”

I’m terrified to let her in like this. Because what will she find when she gets to the bottom of me?

I suspect it might be nothing.

A man who has lived in the shadow of expectations for so long that he doesn’t know what he wants.

The thoughts evaporate as she threads her fingers through my hair and kisses me again. The sensation is so heady that my lips part against my will. My hands land on her waist, and I groan as our tongues touch.

“What does it feel like?” Her words are more breath than sound.

Horrible. Like my body is rebelling. Like I’m supposed to pull a rabbit from a hat, but instead, I pull a balloon.

“Like weakness,” I tell her.

“And Princes can’t be weak,” she whispers. “Show me.”

With my eyes shut, I slowly press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, the way it always does when I try to force a word.

It feels stuck with superglue. It will unstick at the moment I need it least. Her tongue curls against mine, then slides over the roof of my mouth.

I so desperately want to tangle my tongue with hers, but just like when I stutter, I can’t make my body obey.

Shame blazes through me, erasing the lust.

“Aiden.” She pulls back. My lids crack to see her blue eyes so close and so earnest. “What else?”

“My jaw.” It tightens an unbearable amount in an effort to force the words out. “It’s why people think I’m an asshole. The muscles of my jaw are tense a lot of the time.”

She skims her fingers over the abused muscles as they flex and tense under her hands. Her fingers reach my temples, where she presses lightly and then tunnels her fingers into my hair.

“Fuck.” The word drags from my throat. It’s not the word I meant to say, but my body isn’t helpful like that.

She feathers kisses on my jaw, lingering and warm. She massages the muscles there before trailing her fingers down my neck, like she’s memorizing me.

Her gentleness cracks something open inside me. I don’t know where the fissure leads, but I’ve never felt like this before.

Opening up to her feels like I’m breaking myself in half, but it also feels like healing.

Finally, finally, she pulls away. I feel like I just survived an encounter with a jaguar. When I open my eyes, she’s smiling at me.

“What’s that for?”

Her smile curls secretly. “You’re the best man I know. I like kissing you.”

I swallow, not sure what to say.

Her smile fades as she watches me. “But I think I need to apologize.”

She presses her head against my chest.

“I’m sorry, Aiden. For ever implying that you were cold or reserved.” She makes a soft noise in her throat. “As if that’s a bad thing. Please don’t hide the stutter with me.” Her fingers trace my lips. I nip at the pads of her fingers. “I like you the way you are.”

I still. I’m not sure anyone has ever said that to me.

“I like you the way you are too,” I say huskily.

I’m falling for you.

I want to keep you.

It will break me when you leave.

I bury my face in her neck to keep the words from coming out. For now, they’re just for me. They beat at the cage of my chest, trying to break free.

I can’t say them. I can’t make this worse. But god, I want to.