Persuading Spring: A Sexy New Zealand Romance (The Four Seasons Book 4) (13 page)

He stared at her for a moment, then mumbled
something and took his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. Opening it,
he fumbled around and then withdrew a foil packet with a relieved sigh.

“Thank God,” she said with a heartfelt
exhalation.

“It’s over two years old. Do these things
have a use-by date?”

She started to laugh. “If it disintegrates
when you get it out of the packet, we’ll know we’re in trouble.”

He grinned and tossed it onto the counter,
then cupped her face and brushed his lips against hers. “Come to the bedroom
with me.”

She let him kiss her, then gave a little
shake of her head as she returned to unbuttoning his jeans. “Here.”

His eyebrows rose, excitement flashing in
his eyes. “You’re sure?”

“I can’t wait, Aaron. I need you now.” She
felt feverish with desire, desperate to have him inside her. He let her
unbutton his fly, hesitating, then joined in and pushed down his boxers to
release his erection.

Bridget inhaled, eyes widening. “Holy
shit.”

He looked down at himself. “Sorry, is it
not what you expected?”

“Yes, of course, but you’re…” Her face
burned. She’d never had anything to compare Mal to, so she wasn’t sure if Mal
was small or Aaron was big, but when she closed her fingers around him and gave
him a slow, experimental stroke, she was shocked to find her fingers didn’t
meet. “Wow.”

He kissed her. “You really know how to say
the right thing, sweetheart.”

She reached for the condom and tore off the
foil wrapper. “Can I?’

He nodded, and she rolled it on carefully,
enjoying the way he blew out a breath as she stroked down. When she’d done, she
glanced behind her at the counter. There wasn’t a lot of room amongst the pans,
mugs, and jars, but at least it was clean, and she couldn’t wait any longer.

As if reading her mind, he placed both
hands under her bottom and lifted her easily onto the counter, then wrapped her
legs around his waist. Pulling the panties part of the teddy to one side, he
guided the tip of his erection to her opening, then paused and looked into her
eyes.

“Wait,” she said. “Stop.”

He blinked a few times, swallowed hard,
then nodded. “Okay.”

She caught him by the waistband of his
jeans so he couldn’t pull away. “Only kidding, Aaron. Sorry. My perverted sense
of humor.”

He stared at her, and then a glint appeared
in his eye. “I see.”

She touched her lips to his. Her heart
raced and the sensitive flesh between her legs throbbed. Tucking her fingers
into his belt loops, she tugged. He didn’t move, and worry flickered through
her. She’d thought he had a good sense of humor, but she didn’t know him well.
Maybe she’d pushed him too far.

Keeping his gaze fixed on hers, he placed
his hands on her hips and gave her a sharp pull toward him. She gasped, and he
took the opportunity to plunder her mouth with his tongue as, at the same time,
he pushed his hips forward and slid into her, punishing her jest with torturous
sensual delight.

A long, low moan escaped her at the feel of
him sliding through her swollen folds. Shit, he was big, stretching her in an
erotic way she’d never experienced before. He paused, his breath mingling with
hers, maybe letting her adjust and get used to him. He pulled back an inch or
two, then pushed forward again, this time all the way inside.

Bridget gasped and arched her back, shocked
at how he filled her. Her elbow knocked a saucepan and behind her a bottle of
something fell over with a crash, but it all faded into the background. The
only thing in the world was Aaron, his warm hands on her breasts, his mouth on
her skin, hard inside her, teasing her toward satisfaction as he began to
thrust.

Now he’d obviously realized she wasn’t
going to ask him to stop, he let himself go, and she fell back onto her elbows
as he began to give long, rhythmic movements of his hips. A jar of pasta shapes
tipped over and penne tubes and farfalle bow ties spilled onto the tiled floor,
while mugs and plates clattered and clanked against the wall, but Aaron didn’t
stop, and she dropped her head back, closed her eyes, and focused on the
amazing sensations.

He tugged down the lace strap of the bodice
of the teddy, exposing a breast, and leaned over her to fasten his mouth on it
and suck. Oh… what a heavenly feeling… his tongue rasping against the soft
skin, the heat and wetness only adding to its sensitivity. She exclaimed with
each thrust, “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” as an exquisite shock ran from her
nipple straight to her clit.

He tugged down the other strap and swapped
to that nipple, and she slumped onto her back, flat out beneath him, her legs
wrapped high around his waist. He sucked—just hard enough to make her squeal—and
she clenched her fingers in his hair, cursing and pleading at the same time.

Her head banged against crockery and her
hair tangled with the lead of the kettle, but she didn’t care because her body
had taken the final step to become all nerve endings and sensations, and
nothing else existed except the agonizing, blissful, erotic slide of him inside
her.

He ground against her clit each time he
rocked his hips, and rather embarrassingly it was less than a minute before she
felt the approach of her climax, muscles tightening deep within her.

“Oh my God,” she said, panting, unable to
stop her thighs falling open as she abandoned herself completely, “holy shit, I
can’t… I’m going to…”

“Yes,” he said and thrust harder, and that
was it, the orgasm exploded inside her. She cried out, saying his name,
cursing, begging him not to stop, not that he was showing any signs of doing
so. He thrust and thrust, and surely the whole counter was going to give way,
because the cups rattled and the bottles clanked against each other.

But then he stopped and shuddered, and she
dug her nails into rock-hard muscle as his body tightened and jerked and
spilled inside her. They locked together for what seemed an eternity, and she
knew that even if an earthquake had struck or a tidal wave had washed over the
house, they couldn’t have moved.

“Holy shit.” She flopped back onto the
counter, limp and spent, conscious that she lay in a mass of spilled pasta and
rolling jars. “Oh my God, Aaron, I think we’ve ruined your kitchen.”

He slumped on top of her, his forehead on
her shoulder, and started laughing, and she joined in, the two of them hot,
sweaty, and blissfully sated.

Eventually he lifted up, withdrew from her
with a groan, and disposed of the condom. Bridget raised herself onto her
elbows, wondering how she was going to compose herself and get down from the
counter in a ladylike manner, but she needn’t have worried. He came back,
gathered her up in his arms, and carried her through the house to his bedroom.

She had a brief glimpse of a smallish room
with white walls bearing odd photographs of what looked like colorful clouds,
and then he lowered her onto her back on the mattress and stretched out on top
of her.

They exchanged a long, dreamy, languid kiss
that warmed her all the way through to her toes.

“Mmm,” she said when he eventually lifted
his head. “That was nice.”

“That was fucking fantastic,” he corrected.
“I didn’t hurt you?”

“Of course not.”

“I got carried away.”

“Did you hear me complaining?”

“I’m not sure. There were a few swear words
in there.” Her face warmed, and he chuckled and kissed her again. “You are
sublime.”

“Mmm. You too.” She looped her arms around
his neck. “I can’t believe you haven’t done that for years. You’re pretty good
at it.”

“Well, thank you.”

“I mean it.” She kissed him. “I know you
were worried because you thought I might regret it afterward, but I don’t.”

“I’m glad.” He shifted off her to the side
and pulled her toward him, and she curled up with her head on his shoulder. He
stroked down her back. “I’d hate you to regret it, because that was the best
thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Me too,” she said. It was the truth. When
had she last felt this content, this happy?

Mal hadn’t been bad in bed. But it was only
as she grew older that she realized a satisfying sex life and a good
relationship relied on more than just compatibility in the bedroom. Sex with
Mal had always carried with it the burden of worry about how long he would
stay, because inevitably he’d want to be off out with his mates. She didn’t
think he’d ever been unfaithful to her, but she’d never felt that he wanted to
be with her all the time the way she had with him.

When had she become so weak, so dependent
on another person? While at university, she’d seen other girls fawning over
guys and compromising what they wanted out of life to get them, and she’d promised
herself she’d never do that. She’d told herself that she would always wear what
she wanted, eat what she wanted, and see whomever she liked, and she would
never let a man tell her what to do.

Then she’d started dating Mal, and
gradually, over the years, she’d changed herself to fit him. She’d worn her
jeans tighter than she liked because he’d commented that he found girls sexy in
them. She’d tried to stop eating the food she enjoyed because he liked girls on
the slimmer side, although that was a battle she’d never quite won. And she’d
even seen less of her friends when she was with him, because he didn’t like
them—he thought Callie was scatty, Rowan dull, and Neve opinionated, and he’d
never bothered to get to know them better. He’d liked Hitch well enough, but
then everyone liked Hitch. But he’d thought Gene was stoic and superior, and
he’d disliked Rhett. He’d never been able to say why, but she suspected it was
because of Rhett’s good looks and natural charm.

She’d told him he should make an effort to
get to know her friends, but it was only now that she realized he’d never
tried, had never compromised on anything, in fact. He’d always expected her to
follow him and do things his way, and she had, because she’d been afraid of
losing him, afraid of being alone. Their relationship had been like a silver
statue that had held the promise of beauty, but over time it had gradually
grown more and more tarnished, until in the end it was difficult to see any of
the original shine.

“Penny for them,” Aaron said, tracing his
fingers down her spine.

She cleared her throat. “Just daydreaming.”

“You tensed up. Thinking about Mal?”

Shame flickered through her. Here she was
lying in bed with a guy after having had fantastic sex, and she was thinking
about her ex.

“It’s okay.” He kissed her hair. “I would
think that’s quite normal.”

She lifted up and propped her head on a
hand. She’d thought it would upset him to know she was thinking about another
man, but he seemed amazingly placid and difficult to offend.

“Are you thinking about Nita?” she asked,
wondering if he was also lying there thinking of his ex-wife.

“No,” he said. “Yes. Kind of. Not comparing
or anything like that—at least, not in a way that would find you wanting.
Feeling sad, I suppose, that this feels so good, and that maybe it used to be
this way with her, but that it hasn’t been like that for… Jesus. I don’t know.
Years and years. In fact, maybe never.”

He sighed and tucked an arm under his head.
“I was thinking about how I’m impulsive and a romantic in the way I view women
and relationships. I think when I met her that I was in love with the idea of
her, does that make sense?”

“It makes perfect sense,” she said,
thinking that explained how she’d felt about Mal exactly. “Maybe it’s easy to
fall in love with the picture we have in our head of how we’d like a mate to
be, and we try to make our partner fit that mold. I tried to fit Mal’s but
clearly I didn’t do a very good job, and now I think about it, he never really
made an effort to fit mine.”

“Mmm.” Aaron traced his fingers up her arm
and over her shoulder, then down her back, absently, as if his fingers were
exploring her independently of his brain. “I suppose it’s a matter of luck
whether a person actually matches up to that ideal image. Do you think it happens?”

“Yes, I do. My friend Callie married a
close protection officer—a bodyguard—and they’ve just had their first baby.
They seem really happy. My other friend, Rowan, is engaged to my brother, and
I’ve never seen him so…” She twirled a finger in the air. “Another friend,
Neve, is dating a guy she went out with years ago—it was like they were two
binary suns who parted for a while but they were always going to come back into
each other’s gravity.”

“I like that analogy.”

She smiled. “Of course you would, if you
like astronomy.” She gestured at the large pictures on the walls. “I’m guessing
these are astronomy related?”

“They’re taken from the Hubble telescope.”
He pointed to one. “That’s the Eagle Nebula. The pillars are made of cold
hydrogen gas and dust, and they’re like a womb for new stars.” He pointed to
another. “That’s the Small Magellanic Cloud filled with baby stars. I love the
colors of the clouds.”

“Where did you get the photos from?”

“The Hubble website. You can just print off
the photos and get them blown up by a photo lab as there aren’t any copyright
restrictions.”

She admired them, smiling as she thought of
his descriptions. “No wonder you’re a vet. I bet you go weak at the knees for a
puppy or kitten.”

“I do.”

“You must have been wonderful when Mateo
was born. I bet you were a real hands-on dad.”

“I did my best.” He looked past her at the
stars that were popping out in the night sky. “It was a magical time, but even
then things were going wrong between us. Those memories are scarred. Nita was diagnosed
with postnatal depression, but although she undoubtedly suffered, I’m not sure
that’s what it was. I think having Mat just intensified the unhappiness that
was already within her.”

“I can’t understand how she could be
unhappy with you.” Bridget didn’t mean to be glib—she was genuinely puzzled.

He kissed her forehead. “What a lovely
thing to say. I’m far from perfect. I don’t know whether I just didn’t fit her
image of the perfect partner, or whether it went deeper than that. Leaving
Spain was a huge mistake for her. I suppose it was like removing a beautiful
plant from its soil and placing it in a vase. She’s desperate to go back there,
and that urge has forced her to be cruel and heartless to get what she wants.
She didn’t used to be like that.”

“It must be very hard for you.”

“Yeah, well…” He sighed. “I hate getting
the courts involved. It’s my natural instinct—like a dog I suppose who’s up
against a bigger foe—to roll over and show my stomach, but I just can’t. It’s
the only time I’ve ever stood up to her, which must be the thing that’s
infuriating her the most. I want to make a clean break so we can both go on and
lead separate lives, but of course it’s impossible when you have a child. I try
to think what’s best for Mat, without putting my words in his mouth, but it’s
not easy. He tells me he doesn’t want to go to Spain, but how do I know he’s
not saying what I want to hear? I’ve spoken a lot to the Lawyer for Child, and
she believes him, as do his grandparents—my parents, and that’s the main reason
I’m not giving in and just letting her take him away. That and the fact that
he’s the only thing keeping me going.” His gaze came back to meet hers, and he
smiled. “And you now.” He kissed her.