Mine started before hers, and I fought to stay with her until the end, even as my chest heaved, my back arched helplessly when heat curled through my veins.
I smothered the sounds coming from my mouth into the curve of her sweat-shiny neck, and when she snapped her thighs against my hips, back curving, my name on her lips, we toppled over the edge together.
I slumped over her. The strength of a hundred men couldn’t haven’t moved me for how lethargic I felt.
She kissed me softly, running her hands over my back and up into my hair. I rolled to my side, keeping her anchored against me, our legs intertwined as we luxuriated in the taste of each other, the sweet sipping of her mouth against mine.
“I knew you’d wreck me.” She sighed happily. I kissed along her jaw, which she tipped so I could reach more of her skin.
“Did you?”
Isabel’s fingers traced the features on my face as she nodded. “The day I met you, I think I knew.”
The lithe line of her back was damp with sweat, and I touched as much of her as I could manage with long sweeps of my palm. “You’ve always been smarter than me about this.”
She laughed. “Not smarter,” she corrected. “More aware, maybe.”
I pushed some of her mussed hair out of her face. “If I’d had any idea, I probably never would’ve walked in the door.”
Just like I hoped she would, Isabel smiled at my honesty. “I know.”
Even though we were fully enmeshed, as many body parts wound together as humanly possible, I curled myself around her and breathed her in. It was cheesy and poetic, the types of thoughts I was never prone to, but Isabel smelled like the peace that I’d been seeking, that I thought she wasn’t capable of bringing. Ironic, given that she blew my life up, resetting it into something that would only work with her presence inside of it.
“I’m glad you did, though,” she whispered. “This is where I’m meant to be.”
I closed my eyes and held her against me. It was easy to imagine that every step of my life had led to this moment. Not just the moment, but to her.
“Me too,” I told her.
Eventually, we pulled the blankets up over us, whispering to each other as the night wore on. I decided, after sweet, gentle touches for the entire time, we were done being in bed.
“You owe me a bath,” I told her.
Her smile was wide and happy. “Do I?”
I nuzzled into her neck and decided she smelled best right there. “Yeah. Do you have any idea of how hard it was knowing you were in there?”
Her hand slid down between my legs, and I breathed out a pained laugh. “Tell me.”
Pecking a hard kiss against her lips, I extracted her hand and got out of bed. “I’ll tell you in there.”
Once we were under the water, the deep soaker tub filled with a lather of clean-smelling bubbles, Isabel turned and faced me, folding her long legs around my back so she was situated in my lap. I smoothed her wet hair off her face.
“This is what I pictured,” I told her.
She swept some bubbles off my shoulder. “Yeah?”
My hand moved under the water, and she gave me a mock-glare when I merely traced circles just to the side of her chest. “Maybe I pictured something a little more X-rated.”
“I think I was too frustrated with you to picture anything dirty,” she said.
I swallowed, choosing my words carefully. Before I spoke, I pressed my palm against the skin over her heart, nothing sexual in the touch, despite the warm weight of her that I was now intimately familiar with. “I’m so sorry I kept pulling away. I didn’t know how”—I paused with a slight shake of my head—“how to make peace with you. With what you made me feel,” I amended.
Isabel wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me, and we sat like that for a quiet minute, the water lapping gently at our skin.
“Moving on isn’t easy,” she said, pressing a soft kiss to my shoulder, then setting her chin there.
“It’s not.”
She pulled back, and her face was so open, so sweet, I had to kiss her again. But when I pulled away, intent on deepening it, she laid a gentle finger on my mouth.
“I think you and I held onto the things that hurt us because it seemed … easier, somehow.” She gave me a soft smile. “Yours was your grief, the thing you lost. And mine was”—she screwed up her lips—“sort of the same. I lost something too, but gained something really great in return. But I know I kept a tight rein on the things I could control so that I’d never feel that way again.”
I nodded. “No one can hurt you again if you don’t let them in.” My heart pinched at the understanding I saw in her midnight eyes. For so long and for so many reasons, I’d written her off as wrong, but she was exactly right.
“You have the power to hurt me, Aiden Hennessy,” she admitted. Isabel slid a hand over my cheek. “And I’m trusting you not to.”
My arms curled around her back, and I sighed contentedly at the strength in our embrace.
When she finally pulled away, her eyes looked a little red, but I knew better than to comment on it.
“You know what you owe me?” she said.
“Hmm?”
She leaned in, whispering some of the X-rated things I’d imagined when she’d been in my own tub, and by the time we left the bathroom, wrapped in plush towels and skin wrinkled, I’d delivered every single one.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Isabel
“I don’t believe you.”
I set my chin on his chest the next morning before the sun had risen in the sky and grinned happily. “It’s true.”
“You’ve never tried sushi?”
With a shake of my head, I let my fingers walk up his abdomen. “Nothing could sound worse to me than slimy uncooked fish.”
“That is a crime,” he muttered, snatching up my fingers to kiss the tips.
“Your turn.”
He sighed. “I’ve never baked a cake.”
“I’ve never baked one well,” I said. “Add it to the list.”
Aiden’s hand swept over my lower back. “What else do we have?”
We’d spent the last hour trying to figure out firsts we could experience together, Aiden’s attempt at trying to wrap his mind around the fact that I’d never slept with anyone before him. In his mind, he owed me a few of those, and the idea of it made me so warm and melty inside that I was not arguing. I’d just experienced the most perfect night of my entire life, even if I would limp out of this hotel, wearing my bridesmaid dress from the night before.
“Never ran a marathon,” I started. “Never successfully baked a cake. We’ve never worn roller skates. And we’ve never slept out under the stars.”
His face took on a thoughtful expression. “I probably shouldn’t admit this one.”
“Tell me.”
Aiden’s fingers slid through my hair, and I closed my eyes at the feel of it, soaking in the affection like a dried-out sponge. It felt so good that I almost missed what he said.
“I’ve never bought flowers for someone.”
My eyes popped open. “Really?”