Topaz leaves and Ace comes to my side, eyes flicking between mine. His shoulders rise and fall as he pulls in heavy breaths, and everything about him is hot and angry and bitter and yet . . . apologetic.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says.
“Don’t apologize.”
“You okay?” Ace moves closer, cupping my face. His palm is hot on my skin. “I hadn’t seen him in over a year, not since everything happened. I wasn’t expecting to run into him tonight.”
“Who knew you had a temper like that?” I smirk and reach for him, tucking my hands under his arms as he comes closer. It feels good to touch him again. To smile. “It was actually kind of hot. You feel better? You get a chance to say all the things you wanted to say to him?”
“I did.” One side of his mouth curls, and he leans down, his lips smashing mine.
There’s something lighter about him now. I feel it in his touch, the way he breathes, the tenderness in his kiss. I can’t imagine being betrayed like that by a man you loved as if he were your real brother. No wonder he’s been so distraught and tortured and bitter and angry. I can’t blame him at all.
Lifting my hand to his smooth jaw, I pull away and meet his penetrating gaze.
“We have a lot to talk about,” I say.
He exhales, nodding. “We do.”
“But for now, why don’t you come inside and see everyone,” I suggest. “You can even meet my mom . . .”
“I’d love that.”
Thirty-Five
Ace
* * *
“You know, my girls never played sports,” Julie Kincaid says, legs crossed and leaning into me. She hasn’t left my side since Aidy introduced us, and I get the impression that she’s slightly enamored with me, though it could be the booze talking. She’s had her champagne topped off about three or four times in the past hour. “They just weren’t interested. But me? I played softball. I was on a women’s semi-pro team in the eighties. First base was my position, but I could hit a homerun like no one’s business.”
Julie has bushy blonde hair that grazes the tops of her shoulders, and she wears a sparkly clip on one side. Her lips are stained in a bright pink shade, her smile stretches from ear to ear, and her laugh can be heard clear across the room.
Julie puts Aidy’s effervescence to shame.
“You’re very handsome, Ace.” Julie reaches for my bicep, giving it a squeeze. “You should be on the cover of Sports Illustrated or something.”
“I was,” I say humbly. “A few different times.”
“No kidding?” Her voice reaches a high pitch I never knew existed. “Well good for you! I’d love to see them sometime. You have them framed?”
I shake my head. “They’re probably in boxes at my mother’s house.”
“You know, Aidy did some modeling as a child once. She was on the cover of Children’s Crochet Magazine,” Julie says. “She had the most adorable little gap-toothed smile. That’s where Enzo gets it from. And she had a smattering of freckles just across the bridge of her nose. Those went away as she got older, but Lord almighty was she ever a cute kid.”
“Mom.” Aidy clears her throat, returning to my side with two fresh flutes of champagne and hands one to me. “Is she talking your ear off, Ace?”
“She’s good,” I say, taking a drink.
A cursory glance around the room shows several people gathering their bags and jackets and moving toward the bride and groom to say goodnight. Julie glances at the silver charmed watch on her left wrist and declares she should probably catch cousin Veronica before she leaves.
The second Julie’s gone, Aidy takes a seat on my lap and hooks her arm around the back of my neck. She’s grinning, eyes only for me.
“What?” I chuff.
“I just can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe you came here tonight,” she says. “That takes major . . .”
“This past week, without you, wasn’t easy.” I exhale, placing my hand on the side of her thigh and moving it upward.
“Agreed.”
“Come home with me,” I say. “I just want to lie in bed with you, and I promise I’ll do most of the talking this time. You can ask me anything, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
Aidy’s full lips arch, her sapphire eyes glowing. “That sounds wonderful, Ace, but I’m watching Enzo all week. I’ve got to take him home tonight.”
Fuck me.
“But you can come with, if you want?” She shrugs, brows lifting. The entire time we’ve been seeing each other, I’ve yet to stay at her place out of respect for Wren and Enzo. “He’ll probably pass out in the cab on the way home anyway.”
We both glance down to the head of the table where Enzo sits, like a child zombie, eyes half-open and head nodding. Every couple seconds he catches himself and wakes up, only to quickly rinse and repeat.
“You sure?” I ask.
Aidy bites her bottom lip. “Yeah. Stay with me tonight.”
My fingers graze across the swell of Aidy’s full breasts, and I lower my lips to her budded nipples. She exhales, her body melting in my arms. Her legs straddle my hips as we lie in the middle of her soft bed, her naked body painted in stripes of moonlight and shadow. Even in the dark, I see the flutter of her eyes and the sweet, slow smile that claims her lips between kisses.
Our fingers interlace and the wetness of her sex glides across my swollen cock, teasing and tempting. But tonight we’re taking things slow. We’re going to enjoy this. We’re going to make it last because, well, we’re going to make this last: this budding love of ours.
Aidy leans forward, pressing her breasts against my bare chest, and she kisses down my neck as my fingers tangle in her soft blonde waves. Her hips rock against my cock. One wrong move and I’ll be buried deep inside her. My hardness twitches in anticipation, and my hands rest on the exaggerated curve above her hips.
“God, I’ve missed this,” she purrs, dragging her nails along my scalp. “I still think you’re crazy for showing up at Wren’s reception, but I’m glad you did.”
She moans into my mouth, grinding harder, a sign that she’s not willing to wait much longer. And fuck it. Neither am I.
She rises to her knees as I reach below, gripping the base of my cock and dragging its swollen head along her slick seam. Lowering herself onto me, her body accepts me one endless inch at a time, until she’s fully impaled and wearing a delirious grin.
“You feel so good inside me,” she whispers, her head tilting back and eyes rolling shut as she rocks and grinds and circles.
My hands grip her hips, guiding and controlling her reckless rhythm, my right thumb circling her clit.
I could lie here all night, my cock buried in her sweet pussy, watching the way her tits bounce as she rides me, the way her face winces when she gets close, listening to the soft sighs escaping her bee-stung lips.
A curtain of blonde hair covers her face when she leans forward, and she brushes it from her eyes, breathless as she lowers herself to kiss me. She climbs off me, rolling to my side.