“They’re planning to be here around noon. And we’re meeting Caryn at the house around one o’clock.” She plucked another card from her stack and set it off to the side.
“Maybe you should stick with the pink. It might grow on you.” Aaron selected a fat cherry tomato from the plate. “Who knows, after a few months of looking at it, you might even want to paint your bedroom a nice shade of bubble gum pink.”
“Don’t see that happening. I also don’t feel like looking at this stuff anymore today.” She set the cards down on top of the catalog and closed her laptop. Before he could do anything with the cards he held, she plucked them from his hand and set them aside too.
He’d spent the entire day sitting at his computer working. He’d be more than happy to hang around and do nothing for the rest of the evening. But if Juliette wanted to go out, he’d go. “You name it, and I’ll do anything you want except fo
r indoor surfing. There’s no way I’m up for that tonight.”
The previous weekend they’d taken Tiegan up to North Conway and spent the day at Adventure Park. He’d enjoyed the skydiving portion of the day. The jury was still out on the surfing part. He considered himself an athletic guy who picked up new things quickly. On Saturday, he’d spent far more time in the water than on his surfboard. Maybe he would have done better if his instructor had paid more attention to him than Juliette. It had pissed him off at the time, but he couldn’t blame the guy for staring at her the whole time. Hell, he’d even had a difficult time keeping his eyes on the water and his brain off removing the plain one-piece bathing suit she wore. Naturally, by the time they left, Tiegan looked as though she’d been surfing for years and couldn’t wait to go back.
“Next time we go, I’ll be your instructor. You’ll be surfing as well as Tiegan by the time we leave.”
Not a chance. Forget about staring at her while in the water, he’d be too busy trying to keep his hands off her to pay attention to anything she said. Even now, with her sitting there dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, he found it difficult to keep his hands off her.
“I’m where I want to be tonight.” Earlier in the week, her nails had been painted a peachy color. The fingernails going across his arm now were light pink with bright white tips. She didn’t pause when she reached his shoulder. “Well, more or less.” The pads of her fingers lightly brushed across only the side of his neck, yet somehow he felt it everywhere.
More or less? What did she mean by that? Did she want to go back to his house? He certainly didn’t at the moment. Tiegan had three of her closest friends from school over for the night. Unless he waited until two in the morning to go home, he’d find them awake in the living room watching television and eating every snack in the house.
Her lips replaced her fingertips. At first, they followed the same path, but when they reached his ear instead of making a return path toward the collar of his T-shirt, they moved along his jaw. By the time they reached his mouth, he almost didn’t remember he wanted to ask her about her response. She teased his lips with a combination of short and long kisses before finally tracing her tongue across the seam of his lips and encouraging him to open for her.
If Juliette wanted control, he’d give it to her. He found he enjoyed letting her set the tone and pace from time to time. Closing his eyes, he lost himself in the taste of her and hoped he survived the kiss.
With his senses otherwise occupied, he didn’t register that she’d moved until she straddled his lap. His body tightened, and whatever part of his brain still functioning turned itself off. Once the initial surprise of her position dimmed, he ran his hands up her thighs and to her waist. The tops of his fingers brushed against the skin just above the waistband of her jeans before she pulled away, ending their kiss.
Rather than speak, she held his gaze and moved against him. Groaning, Aaron tightened his hold on her waist, because he wouldn’t survive if she kept moving against him like that. In return, Juliette smiled. Evidently, she enjoyed torturing men.
Her hands slipped off his shoulders and in the general direction of his hands. He assumed she intended to pull them away, or at least try, not that he’d let her succeed. Her hands never touched his. Instead, she grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt and pulled it over her head.
And he momentarily stopped breathing. As if it had a mind of its own, his hand covered her breast before dipping his finger underneath the dark blue lace and reclaiming her mouth.
Rather preoccupied, he barely registered she’d unclipped her bra until the material disappeared.
“I think this needs to go,” she whispered against his lips while pinching his T-shirt between her fingers.
If she wanted his T-shirt gone, he’d happily oblige. Grabbing the collar of his shirt, he yanked it over his head. “If we’re giving each other our opinions, I’ve got one,” he said, slowly moving his index finger down her stomach toward her navel. He paused before going any farther, giving her a chance to tell him to stop or move away. She didn’t do either.
“I’m listening.”
Aaron reached down and grabbed the button of her jeans. “These need to go too.”
Without saying anything, she moved off his lap, undid the row of buttons, and slipped the jeans down her hips. “Is there anything else you think needs to go?”
Staring at the ceiling, Aaron understood for the first time why some people referred to it as making love rather than having sex. He didn’t have the most extensive dating history, but he’d had sex. Yet he couldn’t lump his experience tonight with those from his past. It’d been more than the simple act of giving each other pleasure. Although they’d accomplished that. If she’d given him any more pleasure, his heart might have given out.
Then again, since so many other aspects of their relationship differed from his past ones, maybe he should have known sex with Juliette would be different too.
The memory of him telling Robby to get his head examined two years ago popped up. Considering that he had a beautiful woman naked next to him and using his chest as a pillow, Robby didn’t belong in his thoughts. Still, the conversation they’d had after Robby announced he’d asked Madeline, a woman he’d known less than a month, to marry him continued. Robby insisted he loved her and knew she was the one.
Aaron, along with most of their other friends, assumed Robby and Madeline would get divorced within the year. People didn’t fall in love at first sight or in a matter of days. Relationships that involved more than physical attraction took months. Even when time was involved, some never went past being physical. Despite everyone’s doubts, the couple was not only still married, but they had a three-month-old daughter.
Propping herself up on an elbow, Juliette looked at him while the hand that seconds ago had rested on his chest touched his cheek. “I thought you’d fallen asleep.”
Even after weeks of being around her, she occasionally took his breath away. And now was one of those moments. Unable to stop himself, he ran his fingers through her hair before tucking some behind her ear. “Nope. Just thinking.”
Wrong choice of words. In Aaron’s experience, when you uttered those words to a woman, they started asking questions.
On cue, her eyebrows rose a fraction, and she asked, “About?”