Persuading Spring: A Sexy New Zealand Romance (The Four Seasons Book 4) (15 page)

They got into bed, and she curled up
against him, her body warm and soft in the silky nightie. Aaron wrapped his
arms around her, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair, peace settling over him
like the starlight that filtered through the crack in the curtains.

Just temporary, he thought. But wonderful
nevertheless.

When Bridget finally awoke, the sun was
streaming through the bedroom window, covering the bed in a blanket of molten
gold. It was early, she thought as her eyelids fluttered open—probably only just
after six, and a perfect spring morning. Outside, she could hear the distinct
sound of a tui calling from the jacaranda tree outside Aaron’s window.

She hadn’t slept well since the day of her
almost-wedding, her sleep filled with dreams of being lost and abandoned, and
she’d woken often to lie and stare at the ceiling, unable to stop thinking
about the mistakes she’d made and the times in her life when she’d been
presented with a choice, and had taken the wrong path.

Last night, though, she’d slept through the
night for the first time. When she had roused, she’d felt Aaron’s warm body
pressed against hers, and he’d patted her hip or stroked her back, and she’d
dozed off again, filled with a contentment she hadn’t had for a long time.

She thought about that, not yet ready to
rise, still sleepy and relaxed in the morning sun. Staying the night with Aaron
had been an indulgence she shouldn’t have given into. Even if old Birdie had
given in to her lust, she would have politely declined his offer to stay,
conscious of a need to keep herself emotionally distant.

But new Bridget didn’t care. She’d always
been organized, done her best to think of all possibilities, and planned to the
last detail, and where had that gotten her? She was done with following her
head and living her life in fear of what other people thought of her. For once
she was going to follow her heart and do what made her happy, and right here,
right now, the thing that made her happy was being with Aaron.

Behind her, she felt him stir, and then his
arms came around her, his body pressing up against hers. She’d ditched her
nightie sometime in the night, and liked the feel of being skin on skin.

“Mmm, morning,” she murmured. He made her feel
safe and wanted, as if while she was in his arms she could conquer the world.
That couldn’t be a bad thing, could it?

“Morning, sexy.” He nuzzled her neck and
cupped her breasts. “Wow, you are delicious to wake up to. You’re all soft, and
you smell heavenly.”

“Yuck, Aaron. Don’t say that. I don’t want
to know how I smell in the morning.”

“Mmm,” he said, ignoring her, “women smell
so gorgeous, so much better than guys.” He slid his hands down over her belly
and thighs, cupped her mound and stroked between her legs, making her inhale
sharply, then brushed back up her body again. Her skin tingled, and she arched
her back, pushing her breasts into his hands as she turned her head to kiss
him.

Was there anything nicer than early morning
kisses, when you were still half asleep and the world wasn’t completely awake?
Aaron kissed her lazily, teasing her lips with his tongue before sliding it
into her mouth, where it engaged in a slow dance with hers. At the same time he
took her nipples between his fingers and thumbs, squeezing and gently tugging
until they hardened.

Lifting a hand to her lips, he slipped a
finger between them and she took it into her mouth and sucked, loving the way
he gave a sexy growl in response and pressed his erection to her bottom. He
then removed his finger from her mouth and transferred the wetness to each
nipple before stimulating them again.

Bridget sighed and closed her eyes,
enjoying the way the early morning was joining in with Aaron’s slow teasing of
her senses, the warm sunlight caressing her skin, bathing her in its golden
glow. His touch was gentle but sure, his hand occasionally leaving her breast
to stroke over her body, and she shivered at the lightness of his touch. It was
as if he wanted to arouse her the way the sun was rising over the horizon,
slowly, languidly, letting things proceed at their natural pace without trying
to force her to a hurried conclusion.

It felt as if they lay there for hours
although it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes, but she’d never felt
like this, as if it didn’t matter how long it took her to come, as if giving
her pleasure was the most important thing to him in the world.

Mal worked on Saturday mornings, and on
Sundays he’d always gotten up early to play soccer with his mates, so early morning
loving had happened rarely, and never like this. She hadn’t realized lovemaking
could be this sweet, this beautiful. It almost made her want to cry. Thank God
she’d met Aaron. She might have lived her whole life with Mal and never known
the wonder of sunrise sex.

“Mmm,” Aaron murmured, slipping a hand
between her thighs. He stroked her, and the way his fingers slid easily into
her folds told her she was wet and swollen. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to
ask you to move.”

Her eyelids fluttered open. “Hmm?”

“Yeah. I need to taste you, but I’m feeling
too lazy, so you’re going to have to do all the work.” He rolled onto his back,
adjusted the pillow behind his head, and let out a happy sigh. “Hop on.”

Her eyes widened and she turned over to
face him. “What?”

“You heard me. I need to lap up some of
that cream, so come and sit on my face.” His gray eyes challenged her to defy
him, purposefully provocative.

“Goodness.” Her heart raced. “I… um…
haven’t had a shower yet.”

“Are you trying to turn me on?”

“Aaron!”

He laughed. “Come on, I mean it. Imagine
I’m a dying man and it’s my last wish.”

“Um…” She hesitated, embarrassed, excited,
and turned on all at the same time. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” His eyelids lowered to half
mast, his look sexy and gentle at the same time. “I’d say I want to pleasure
you with my tongue, but that doesn’t come close to expressing how selfish I am.
I want to taste you. I want to slide my tongue inside you and suck your clit
and feel it swell on my tongue. I want it more than coffee and breakfast, which
is saying something. So please, grant my wish.”

“Okay,” she said shyly.

She lifted up and leaned over him, taking
time to kiss him first, loving the lazy slide of his hands over her warmed,
sensitive skin. He bent his head to her breasts and sucked each nipple in turn,
and eventually she relented and gave him what he wanted.

Lifting a knee across him, feeling his
hands caress her bottom, she lowered onto his mouth.

He gave a long purr of contentment, and
then she felt his tongue slip through her folds.

“Ohhh…” She leaned on the headboard,
widened her knees, and closed her eyes. This was a little slice of heaven, pure
bliss, and she sucked her bottom lip and tipped her face up to the sunlight
that streamed through the high window above the bed.

Aaron licked her leisurely, taking the time
to explore her, his fingers joining his tongue to part her folds and give him
better access. He slid his tongue inside her, lapping, tasting, then licked up
to her clit, which he began to tease with the tip.

She couldn’t stop her hips rotating, giving
little involuntary thrusts, loving the way pleasure spread slowly through her.
His hands skated over her skin, stroking, brushing, down her back and her
thighs, up her ribs, then cupping her breasts, where he took her now-soft
nipples in his fingers and plucked them once again until they were pebble-hard.
She looked down at them, finding the sight of him skillfully teasing them
almost as erotic as the touch itself, and couldn’t stop a low moan escaping her
lips as she closed her eyes again.

Her body was tensing, tightening of its own
accord, and he must have felt it because he slowed his tongue to make long,
sweeping licks right the way beneath her, drawing out her pleasure until she
teetered on the edge of an orgasm, breaths away from ecstasy.

He stopped and blew warm air onto her
sensitive skin, and she shuddered, the ache within her belly so powerful that
she thought she might have come anyway, even without him touching her. But she
didn’t have a chance to find out, because he covered her clit with his mouth
and sucked gently. Bathed in the warm sun, she let the climax sweep over her,
as sweet and sexy and fulfilling as the Tiramisu of the night before.

Aaron’s strong forearm pressed across her
thighs, holding her in place until she’d finished. When the last pulse died
away and she gave a long, happy sigh, he released her, and she lifted off him
just enough so she could shuffle down and straddle his body.

Maneuvering herself until she felt the tip
of his erection part her folds, she rotated her hips until it felt right and
then pushed down, feeling him slide all the way to the top.

Aaron closed his eyes, digging his fingers
into her hips. After a long moment during which he appeared to be holding his
breath and fighting for control, he opened his eyes, gave her a wry look, and
flicked his fingers up for her to get off. “Condom,” he said.

“Oops. Sorry.” She lifted off him. “I got
carried away in the moment.” She remembered his comment about the one in his
wallet being a few years old. “Do you have another one? Please say you have
another one.”

He leaned over and opened the drawer of his
bedside table. “Bought some last night in the shop, thank Christ.” He swiftly
retrieved one, and opened the packet.

“Let me.” Bridget took it from him, then
stroked his erection a few times, enjoying the feel of his hard length in her
hand.

He covered his eyes with his hands and
groaned. “Bridget…”

“All right,” she teased. She rolled it on,
moved up, and let him slide inside her again.

He pushed up, pulled back a little to
lubricate the condom, then pushed all the way in. She sat back and for a moment
just enjoyed the sensation of being filled and stretched. “Oh that feels good.”
She rocked her hips. “It feels fantastic.” Unbelievably, even though she’d only
just come, as she clenched her internal muscles she knew another orgasm wasn’t
far away.

He groaned. “Fucking hell, Bridget, have
pity.”

“What?” she asked innocently, clenching
again. “Do you like that?”

He gritted his teeth and covered his face,
and she laughed, caught his hands in hers, and pinned them above his head. “You
feel divine,” she whispered, starting to rock her hips with purpose. He looked
amazing with his bulging biceps and powerful shoulders—he was a fine figure of
a man, and she couldn’t believe she was this lucky to have him in her bed.

“Ohhh… You too.” He blinked super slowly,
his gaze as it slipped down her as hot as the sun on her skin. He admired the
movement of her breasts as she thrust, then looked down to watch himself
sliding in and out of her.

“I love the way you look at me,” she
whispered. “Like I’m beautiful.”

“You are beautiful. You look like the
statue of a Greek goddess in a sunlit garden. Your skin is so pale, and it’s
got this rosy glow in the sun…” He wrested his hands free of hers and cupped
her breasts. “I love the way these move. They’re fucking marvelous.” He plucked
at the soft tips and groaned when they tightened. “Jesus, that turns me on.”

“Turns you on?” She was almost panting now,
and she dropped a hand between them so she could circle a finger over her clit.
Aaron watched her, his lips curving up, clearly enjoying the show, so she gave
herself over to the feelings rising inside her. Her folds were swollen and
slippery, her clit tender to the touch.

“I’m going to come again,” she whispered,
feeling the approach of another orgasm, and Aaron’s eyes lit with pleasure.

“Yes,” he said approvingly, so she gave in
to it, gasping with each beautiful, powerful pulse.

Even before the last one had claimed her,
she felt his arms circle her waist and he reared up, flipping her onto her
back. Her body still pulsing around him, she gasped and raised her arms above
her head as he began to thrust with intent, driving harder and deeper into her
soft flesh with each push of his hips.

“Oh my God, Aaron…” She clung hold of him,
her world spinning, watching with warm delight as his climax took him. His body
turned to rock above her, every muscle tightening, and then he cried out and
shuddered, swelling and pulsing inside her. An after-orgasm rippled through
her, almost as pleasurable as the first one, and by the time he gasped and
collapsed on top of her, she couldn’t do anything but lie there limply,
exhausted and sated.

Aaron cooked them bacon and eggs, and they
sat at his kitchen table and ate, talking about what they were going to do
during the day, occasionally exchanging a smile as an image sprang into their
minds of what they’d done that morning.

He’d wondered whether he’d regret his
impulsiveness in asking Bridget to spend the night with him, but so far it had
been one of the best decisions he’d made in his life. Occasionally her gaze
drifted out of the window as she obviously thought about Wellington and what
she was going to return to there, but when her gaze came back to him, it was
always full of smiles.

She had a playful sense of humor that he
adored. With Nita’s first language being Spanish, she’d often missed innuendo
or quips he’d made, and it was a delight to be with someone who laughed readily
at nearly everything he said, and who returned his jokes with a ready wit of
her own.

It was Joe’s turn to hold the Saturday
morning clinic, so Aaron had the weekend to himself, unless any emergencies
came along. Usually, he would have taken the dogs and gone out on the boat, but
he was more than happy to sacrifice his fishing time to show Bridget some of
the local scenery.

After taking Tycho and Kepler for a long
walk on the beach, he settled them in their kennels in the garden, locked up
the house, and then they left in the car. First he drove them back to the Opua
ferry and crossed to the mainland, and then he took her up to Waitangi, where
the Treaty had been signed back in 1842.

They wandered around the exhibits, then
visited the Waitangi
marae
or meeting house to admire the carvings of ancient
Maori gods.

“You’re supposed to think about your
ancestors here,” Aaron murmured as they padded across the wooden floor. “My
grandparents were from England. They came over looking for adventure. I sometimes
wonder what it must be like, to just up and leave your place of birth and
travel somewhere new.” It didn’t always work, of course—it hadn’t for Nita,
anyway. In spite of having Mateo, he supposed she must have regretted coming to
New Zealand on holiday. The thought made him sad.

They wandered outside, into the bright
spring sunshine, put their shoes back on, and headed across the large lawn to
where the view of the Bay of Islands lay spread out before them, the Pacific
sparkling in the sun.

“What about you?” Aaron asked, holding out
a hand as they walked down to the beach where the English had first landed over
one-hundred-and-fifty years ago. “Where did your family originate from?”

She slid her hand into his. “I don’t know.
England as well, I think, although I seem to remember Hitch saying one of our
grandparents was Irish. It’s not something you think about when you’re young,
and by the time I was interested in my heritage, my parents had both died.”

“Do you mind talking about them?”

“No. I like it. I don’t usually get a
chance—it makes Hitch sad, so we don’t tend to talk about them much.”

“Tell me about them then. What was your
dad’s name?”

“Martin. He died when I was ten, from an
accident at work. He was a builder, and he fell from some scaffolding. He was
in a coma for about a month, and in the end they took him off life support.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. It broke my mother’s heart. I can
remember going in to say goodbye and being frightened. It didn’t look like my
dad lying there. He’d lost a lot of weight, and he was deathly white. He had
all these tubes coming out of him. Mum wanted me to kiss him goodbye, and I
didn’t want to. She got quite upset about that.”

Aaron didn’t want to bring back too many
bad memories for her. “What was he like when he was alive? Do you have many
nice memories?”

“Oh yes. He was a lot like Hitch—a big guy,
down to earth, practical. Good with his hands. He used to play rugby with us in
the garden. He was the one who bought Hitch his first camera and encouraged him
to take photos of the animals and insects in the forest he took us to
occasionally. He liked that I could play the piano and used to get me to play
to him in the evenings.”

“You play the piano? Are you any good?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I was. I haven’t
played since my mother died, so I’m hugely out of practice.”

Aaron steered her down the hill toward the
waka
or Maori canoe displayed in a shed at the bottom. “Tell me about her.”

“Her name was Catherine—Cathy. Before Dad
died, she was very bright and bubbly, always cheerful.”

“Like you.” He smiled.

Her eyebrows rose. “I suppose. Never
thought of it before. Anyway, she was a very good cook and loved to bake cakes
and muffins. Every time I smell baking—cakes or bread—it takes me back to my
childhood. But when Dad died, she changed completely. It broke her, and I’m
sure that’s why she developed cancer.”

“Breast?”

“Yeah. I’m convinced that physical health
is closely linked to mental health. She just didn’t want to go on living
without him, and she had no fight in her when she became ill.”

“What happened when she died? Where did you
live?”

“With Hitch. He nursed her when she got
sick and looked after her until she died. He was eighteen then, and he applied
to become my guardian. He was an absolute rock. He worked while I was at school
and then looked after me in the evenings when he should have been at university
or out with his mates living it up. He saved every penny he could so he could
send us both to university when I turned eighteen. He was like a father to me,
so it’s not surprising he’s a bit over-protective.”

Aaron thought of Hitch’s demanding
questions on the phone, and his obvious worry about his sister. At the time
he’d thought it touching—now it filled him with a deep respect for the guy.

“Do you still live in the family home?” he
asked.

“No. Hitch sold that so we had some money
in the bank. I’ve rented a smallish apartment since I left university. I have
to move out when I get back—I was going to move in with Mal, but I guess I’ll
have to find another place now.”

“You can’t move in with Hitch?”

“He lives with Rowan. I know they’d offer
me a room if I needed it, but I wouldn’t want to play gooseberry.” She pulled a
face.

Aaron smiled, stepped down from the grass
onto the beach and held out a hand to steady her as she followed him.

“This is beautiful,” she said, shading her
eyes as she looked out to sea. “I can see why you love it here.”

“It’s wonderful. I miss it when I’m in
Wellington. I don’t miss the city when I’m here though.” He laughed. “I’m
hungry, I don’t know about you. I thought we’d go to a vineyard I know outside
Russell—what do you think?”

“Sounds great.”

So they returned to the car, and he drove
them back to the ferry, crossed to the peninsula, then drove up a steep hill
and over a mile or so of gravel road to a high spit of land that overlooked the
bay. The vineyard stretched down the hill almost to the sea, rows and rows of
tiny grapes that wouldn’t be picked until February or March. At the top was a
small collection of brick buildings that looked vaguely Mediterranean, with
terracotta tiles on the floor and cream walls, the round tables and chairs
spilling out onto a patio that overlooked the vineyard.

Aaron ordered a couple of platters—one of
seafood, one of breads and cheeses—and two glasses of the vineyard’s own
Sauvignon, and they took a table outside, a blue umbrella shading them from the
bright sun.

“Tell me about your family,” Bridget said
as she sipped her wine. “I don’t know anything about them. Are they both
alive?”

“Oh yes, very much so. Dad—William—is a vet
too, retired now, but sometimes he helps out at the surgery, and Joe
occasionally calls him in when I’m in Wellington. He’s a solid bloke—although
he’s from England, he’s very much a Kiwi now, practical, dependable. He came
over here when travelling with a mate when he was twenty, met my mum, fell in
love, and married her.”

“How romantic.” She leaned on the table,
her chin in her hands. “What’s she like?”

“Her name’s Clara. She’s a lawyer. My
sister, Fran, has recently had her third baby, and my mum’s in her element, and
helps out there a lot. She misses Mateo.” He looked away, out at the boats
heading into the open waters. Whenever Mateo came up to stay, Aaron’s mother
always had to fight against tears when it was time for her grandson to return.

“Strange how you also married someone who
came here on holiday,” Bridget remarked.

“Yeah. I’ve sometimes wondered whether
that’s one reason why I proposed, because my parents are very happy in their
marriage, and I thought if I did the same thing, it was obviously going to
work.”

“I know what you mean. My parents met at
eighteen and my father was the only guy my mother ever dated. I’ve wondered
whether that’s why I stayed with Mal for so long—because I would have felt I’d
failed if we broke up.”

She leaned back as the waiter brought over
their platters. “Ooh, lovely.”

Aaron had to agree—the food had been
beautifully presented, and his mouth watered at the sight of the plump prawns,
the blue cheese, and the thick chunks of bread.

“That can’t have been the only reason why
you stayed with him,” he said, smoothing a spoonful of hummus onto the bread
and placing a big chunk of the cheese on top of it before taking a bite. “I
know it must make it easier to think it was all a mistake—I’ve been there, done
that. It’s less hurtful somehow to think you were blind and it was all terrible
than to think about how you loved someone maybe more than they loved you.”

She slowly took the shell off a prawn. “Is
that how you feel? Did you love Nita more than she loved you?”

He sighed and stuck a fork into a scallop,
dipping it into a small dish of sauce. “I don’t know. We had a very… intense
relationship, I suppose you could call it, for a few years. I was ecstatic that
I’d found the girl of my dreams. I thought it would be like that forever. But
it was like a piece of land jutting out into the ocean that was slowly eroded
by the waves. After those early years, especially after Mat was born,
everything fell to pieces.”

“If she’d been happy living here, though,
you think you’d still be together?”

He thought about it as he sipped his wine.
“Maybe. Once I would have said yes. Now I think that’s more wishful thinking.
At root, we are quite different people, with vastly different interests. We
have little in common, other than our son. That’s not necessarily a problem in
a relationship, but I know the view I had of us in the early days was more in
my head than a reality. Does that make sense?”

She nodded, cutting off a slice of Brie
cheese and placing it on a piece of bread. “What’s this?” she asked, pointing
to a dish of a bright purple dip.

“Beetroot, I’m guessing. It’s nice.”

“Cool.” She smeared a spoonful onto the
cheese and took a bite. “Mmm. Anyway, yes, that does make sense. I feel the
same way about Mal. Like you, we were quite intense in the early years. He was
my first. I thought I’d found Mr. Right, and I was prepared to work hard to
keep him. Mum had once told me that marriage takes hard work—even a good
marriage like hers—and that it was important to compromise sometimes, and to work
through arguments. So that’s what I did. Except it was always me who
compromised, and usually me who gave in when we argued. I just assumed that’s
what happened. Now, I know better.”

“At least you can say you gave it a good
go.”

“I guess, but to be honest I feel like a
fool. All those times we broke up and then got back together again. That’s not
normal—except it became normal for us. Eventually breaking up didn’t mean
anything—it was just what we did, a form of punishment I suppose, forcing the
other person to creep around and beg for forgiveness. It wasn’t healthy, and I
now I understand why Hitch and my friends got so exasperated with me. I thought
I was doing a good thing, trying to make it work. But things don’t always work
out, do they?”

She raised her blue eyes to his, and Aaron
felt a strange twist deep inside him. Both of them had been badly hurt, and
they still bore their battle scars. Was their joint experience the only thing
they had in common? They’d never get the chance to find out—in days she’d be
gone, and even if he met up with her occasionally in Wellington, they’d never
be able to develop a proper relationship.

He should really take her back to her bed
and breakfast now, thank her for a lovely time, and let her go on her way. Any
more time spent together had the potential to be detrimental, because it would
make it harder to part, and he didn’t want to make it more difficult than it
had to be.

He’d compared her to a Greek goddess that
morning, and he found himself thinking it again—she looked like a piece of
Spring herself, Persephone, maybe, made real on earth. For a brief moment, he
imagined himself back in ancient times, looking for a mate—he would have picked
Bridget, because she appealed to a man’s basic urges to make love and procreate.
She was blonde and beautiful, with a womanly figure and a smile that promised
many interesting hours in the bedroom. He knew she’d have beautiful children
and she’d make a great mother.