I wrapped my legs around his waist, holding on for dear life. I turned my head from his kiss, needing to pull in oxygen. He moved to my neck again, licking, sucking and biting at my exposed flesh. I called his name over and over. I’d admitted to being with someone else, and he was doing his damned best to erase that memory. I would’ve told him he needn’t have worried about that. Would’ve confessed that I’d only had sex with another man, but this…what was between Aaron and I could only be experienced with him. I would’ve said all of that, but I was coming again, on a silent scream. My lips parted, back arched, pussy continuing to be beaten into submission by the only man to ever bring this out of me. I was coming.
I came to just enough to glance up at Aaron as he peered down at me, neck still straining as he poured himself into me.
“We’re making another baby today.”
His words barely registered due to everything around me fading to black as I passed out.
****
I came to a few hours later, my arrogant, mean ass husband laying on his side, head propped up by his hand, staring at me. My treacherous body began to warm up at the picture he made, lying in our bed, naked from the waist up. My mouth watered with the urge to lick and kiss his chest, his scars. It was my favorite way of turning him on.
“Stop.”
I rose my gaze to meet his.
“We’ll get back to that soon but you need to eat.”
I narrowed my eyes, finally remembering my anger. I checked to see if my hands were bound. They weren’t. I raised my hand up, ready to smack the hell out of Aaron, but it was caught in his stronger hand. I found myself flipped over onto my back, arm raised above my head, him over me.
“We’ve played this game before.” His voice was full of warning. “You already know how it ends.”
I breathed heavily, chest heaving up and down.
“With you calling my name, your pussy walls milking my cock for all I’m worth. We’ll get to that, but first you need to eat,” he growled, moving from over me back to his side of the bed.
“I’m not hungry,” I spat out but in the ensuing silence my stomach betrayed me, growling loudly. I didn’t say anything and avoided his eye contact. “I don’t know what possessed you to think you could keep me in bed all day like I was some kind of prisoner but I’m not!” I rose out of the bed, coming to stand beside it, staring down at Aaron. I had to hold on to the edge of the nightstand when my legs wobbled. “I’m going to shower and pick up the kids from Michelle and Carter and take them to the zoo like I promised!” I hissed. Before he could retort, I grabbed my robe off the floor, using it to cover my nude body, and made a beeline for the bathroom.
Once inside I ripped off my robe and stepped into the shower, hoping it would help cool me off. But that was a total failure. The warm water streaming down my already sensitized flesh caused goosebumps to cover my arms. I glanced up toward the bathroom entrance and standing there, legs crossed, chest bared in his usual plaid pajama bottoms was the man who left me feeling like an exposed nerve. Our eyes caught and the memory of him coming into the shower just to hold me as I cried over my father, a few weeks prior, assaulted me. My knees began to tremble when he strolled to the shower door, slowly sliding it open.
I gave little protest, as he lowered his pajama bottoms, his semi-hard cock springing out, and he kicked them aside to enter the shower with me.
“I won’t take you in here. Shower sex has never been my favorite.” His voice was so low and deep. “I just needed to be near you.”
Everything in me squeezed tightly. My heart blossomed at the vulnerability in his voice at his admission.
“Why?” I whispered, not looking up at him.
“Because I love you.”
I slumped back against the shower wall, needing something to hold my body upright. That was the first time I ever heard him utter those three words. I just knew I was imagining it, but he said it again.
“I love you.”
And again.
“I love you.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead, then the tip of my nose, and then my lips before moving backwards, granting me space. He stared down at me.
In another time and another place I would’ve said those three words back to him. But not then. I couldn’t. Not after last time.
“You don’t have to say it.” He lifted the loofah that rested next to my favorite body wash and used it to wash me from head to toe. I did the same for him with his own washcloth. By the time we got out of the shower the entire bathroom was steamed up. He dried my body before ordering me to hold out my arms for him to place my robe on.
Once back in the bedroom the smell of food permeated, tearing another round of growling from my stomach. At the center of our bed, stood a Rosewood tea tray, holding a box of pizza and seltzer water. I grinned as I climbed onto the bed. Surprising me, instead of going to his side of the bed, Aaron climbed in behind me, pressing our bodies together. He pressed his semi-hard cock against the curve of my ass. I gasped.
“Later,” he growled in my ear, before reaching over me to hand me a paper plate. He placed a slice of plain pizza—my favorite—on top. I smiled when I saw the other half of the pizza covered in green peppers and mushrooms. Both his and Kyle’s favorite.
We ate in silence for a little while but something kept nagging at me. It kept my anger in place, though I wanted to let it go.
“What is it?” he questioned.
“What’s what?” I replied, narrowing my gaze at him.
“Something’s on your mind.”
I tutted, shaking my head. “I hate it when you do that.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Watching me to read my thoughts. You always di–” I paused, not wanting to dredge up the past.
“What I always did,” he finished for me. “I watch everything that belongs to me.”
My stomach knotted.
“In business and in my personal life. I keep an eye on what’s mine.” His hand moved to my waist. “Since that first night at Buona Sera, you’ve been mine.”
I shuddered when his hand moved to the sash of my robe, loosening the bow that held it closed.
I stopped his hand with my own. “I wasn’t yours. You had someone else. And now, six years later you question me about who else I’ve been with in that time.” I sat up, tossing my plate onto the tray and staring at him in his narrowed eyes. “I don’t get to ask you about the women you’ve been with but I was supposed to what? Have waited for you while I raised our children alone?” I went to push his hand away but he held firm.
“She’s not a factor.”
I snorted and gave a humorless laugh. “She sure as hell was back then.” I cut my eyes at him, seeking to move away from his hold, but he tightened his arm around me.
“She’s not anymore, nor will she ever be again.”
Something final was in his voice. I lowered my brows, half torn between asking what he meant by that and being afraid to ask.
Lowering his head so that our faces were nearly touching, he took my chin between his fingers. “She was business. You are something entirely different.”
I frowned, scoffing. “Yeah? And what’s that?”
“My life. You and our children.”
He released my chin and moved to get off the bed, taking the tray with him. He carried it to the other side of the room, placing it on the leather chair that sat in the corner before returning to me. Again, he stood at the side of the bed, looking down at the items on the nightstand that still remained.
“We’re done talking about her,” he said as if all my questions were answered. “We’ve got more important matters to discuss.” He lifted the lube, uncapping it.
My eyes widened. “Such as?” My voice was breathless.
“When are you giving me more children?” he answered in a nonchalant manner, squeezing lube onto his fingers.
I swallowed, my body growing hot, nipples hardening at the sight of his actions.
“W-we jus
t got married.”
“Three months ago,” he muttered, moving to the bed.
I nodded and began crawling backwards.
“You know what happens when you try to run,” he warned, angling his head menacingly.
I could hardly believe how my body was already responding to his taunting considering he wasn’t even touching me. But it was always like this with him.
He caught me around one leg, pulling me to him at the edge of the bed. “You’ve never let another man touch you here.” He lowered the fingers with the lube on them to the opening of my backside.
I inhaled sharply when he began probing my hole. It hadn’t been a question but I still felt the need to answer. “N-no,” I moaned as his fingers sunk in deeper to my anal cavity. The idea alone of anyone but Aaron touching me in that way was unfathomable.
“Good. I would kill any man that has.” He kept his eyes on me, pulling his fingers in and out, ensuring I was well coated. “The knowledge that another man has seen you naked is taking all of my restraint to not have my security find him and bring him to me, as it stands now. You don’t want to know what I’d do to the man who’s had your ass as well.” His fingers picked up pace and his other hand moved to my clit, rubbing it.
I tightened my hands into the bedsheets, lifting my hips.
“You’re tight. Not ready for my cock yet but the plug will help.” He withdrew his fingers, pulling a whimper of need from my lips. He lifted the butt plug from the nightstand, lowering it to my anus. “Don’t tense up. Exhale,” he ordered.
I did as instructed and he slipped the plug into me at the same time I released the breath. I watched, my eyes halfway closed, as he lowered his briefs, freeing himself. He positioned himself on the bed, placing the tip of himself right at my vaginal opening. For once, he left my hands free, allowing me to wrap them around his waist. He peered down at me, eyes and face intent as he pushed into me with one forceful thrust.
A gush of air expelled from my body and I let out a silent scream, mouth ajar. I felt completely stuffed. Aaron wasn’t small by any account. Without the plug he was almost too much for me but with it, I felt impossibly tight, almost like a virgin again. But unlike that first night, Aaron didn’t give me time to adjust to his girth. He rammed in and out of me, in an obvious way of claiming me.
He growled, and pulled at my hair, exposing my neck again for him to taste as he saw fit. I dug my nails into his muscled ass, which only spurred him on. He was dogged in his strokes, giving me deep plunges that were on the borderline between pain and pleasure. I didn’t need to hear the words to know he was telling me, once again, that I was his. He took my mouth, claiming it savagely, the same way he was doing to my pussy.
I knew from the first night we’d been together, until then, why he’d waited so long to get physically intimate with me. Why he’d stopped me from kissing him those times. It was because of this. Because he knew he’d lose all restraint. He thought I was too sensitive to take the beast that laid inside of him. But as I came for probably the hundredth time that day, I pulled him to me, urging him to go deeper, to give me more. He wasn’t too much for me. He was exactly what I needed—who I needed.
When he lowered his head and bit my bottom lip before sucking it into his mouth and moaning as he came inside of me, I knew too, that we had indeed made another baby that day.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Aaron
Holding the car door open, I took my wife’s hand and helped her out. I heard my parents’ front door open.
“Mommy! Daddy!”
An excited thrill moved through me as the children ran to us screaming. Kennedy caught Patience around her legs first, nuzzling her face against her stocking-clad legs. Kyle was in my arms before I even realized it.
“Did you guys have fun?” Patience asked.
“I’m a girl, not a guy, Mommy!” Kennedy informed, causing Patience to giggle.
“I’m sorry, baby. Did you guy and girl have fun?”
“Yeah! I read grandmother a story. She never heard of Where the Wild Things Are.” Kennedy sounded truly amazed that her grandmother had never heard of her favorite book. My mother was lying, of course, having read the book to me as a child many times while I recuperated in the hospital.
“How about you, son?” I asked Kyle, placing him down on his feet.
“Grandfather took me fishing.” He told us all about their fishing trip, which was really just a walk out to the lake that rested out behind Townsend Manor.
My mother waited patiently at the door for our arrival. She greeted Patience with a kiss on the cheek and a cheerful grin.
“I truly wish the children could join us for the rest of the evening,” my mother stated, frowning. Our family dinner had turned into more of a business dinner with a few of my father’s associates showing up. The children would be kept with a nanny in a separate part of the house while the adults mingled.
Once inside, I helped remove Patience’s light jacket. My mouth watered at the sight of her brown, bare shoulders due to the sleeveless dress she wore. It cinched at her waist, flared a little at the hips that had grown deliciously from bearing my children, and stopped an inch above the knee. I ran my eyes up her body and my frown deepened at the sight of the Burberry scarf she wore to hide the marks I’d left behind after the previous day’s events.
“Stop it,” she hissed in a whisper.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Looking at me like that. You’re insatiable.”
The left side of my mouth kicked up and I pulled her to me, laying my hand firmly against her abdomen, bending down low so only she could hear me. “Only for you, and don’t you fucking forget it,” I growled, nipping at her earlobe. She gasped and pulled away from me, throwing daggers my way with those sepia eyes. My grin grew.
“I’ll be damned. I think that might be a genuine smile.”
If it was, it surely morphed into a frown at the sound of Tyler’s voice as he approached. Reluctantly, I pulled my gaze from my wife to my youngest brother.
“Tyler,” Patience greeted. “How’re you doing?”
“I’m doi–” His movement toward her along with his words were cut off by my hand to his chest.
“Don’t get too close.”
Tyler blinked his hazel-green eyes my way.
“Uncle Ty! Uncle Ty!” the children returned from the living room shouting.
Despite the fact that he was wearing a suit, Tyler bent low, scooping both Kyle and Kennedy in his arms. They shrieked with laughter. He placed the children down just as Diego entered, to which he greeted his oldest nephew with a secret handshake just between them.
“He’s so good with them. Maybe we should let him babysit more often.”
I cut my eyes to my wife. “That’s because he’s a child himself. And we’re not leaving my children alone with him.”
“Our children,” Patience reminded as if I could ever forget.
“You should listen to your wife. I’ve found when I listen to mine, life goes much smoother.”
I pushed out a breath and turned to Carter who was giving me a superior look over the rim of his champagne flute. Next to him stood Michelle, champagne glass in her hand. She and Patience greeted one another, and left to assist my mother in taking the children to the other part of the house where they would be overseen by the nanny. My eyes watched Patience for as long as I could, until they rounded a corner and she was no longer visible.
“You owe me a hundred bucks.”
I turned to see Joshua now joining us and looking between our two other brothers. To my confusion both of those knuckleheads dug into their pockets and pulled one hundred dollar bills out, passing them to Josh. He chuckled as he pocketed the money.
“The hell is that about?”
“These two didn’t believe me.” He gestured between Carter and Tyler.
I waited for him to expound but nothing came. “Care to elaborate?”
Joshua cut his dark eyes their way befor
e pivoting to me. “I told our dear brothers that the big guy had really done it. He’d gone ahead and fallen…hard.”
I angled my head at him, still not catching on, and growing more frustrated by the moment. “Joshua, if you keep beating around the bush, I’m go–”
“All right,” he chuckled, holding up his hands. “Calm down. After that eventful day in your office, I mentioned to our brothers that your wife really was the one, and that you may not have realized it then but you were definitely in love. They didn’t believe me. Bet me a hundred dollars. Clearly, that little display a moment ago,” he nodded in the direction the women and children had gone, “proved them wrong. Ergo, I’m two hundred bucks richer. End of story.”
I looked from Joshua to the other two nitwits who just wore ridiculous grins.
“Mind your damn business, idiots,” I growled, then brushed past Carter and Tyler toward the living room. My father, along with a few of his former colleagues and their wives, were in attendance. I shook off my previous annoyance and put on my game face to discuss business for the next hour or so before dinner was to start.
I rubbed elbows with a number of colleagues in the energy business. One had flown in from overseas to conduct business in Williamsport, specifically with Townsend Industries. We talked shop for a while, when an image across the room caught my eye. I watched as Patience walked over to Michelle, who appeared to be holding her same champagne flute. Patience whispered something in her ear and pulled back, handing Michelle another flute, while taking the one Michelle held and placing it on the dish of a passing waiter. Michelle appeared grateful, taking a sip of her new drink. The two women continued talking for some time. Unfortunately, my line of sight was cut off when my eldest brother stepped into it.