Beautiful Mistakes

Taking a seat next to her on the couch he rested his head in his hands and sighed, admitting, "I don't know. I don't know why she did it. I don't know… what I did wrong."

Immediately chastising herself for her utter lack of understanding and compassion, Julie carefully wrapped her arm around Aaron, giving him a slightly awkward, lopsided hug.

"You did nothing wrong," Julie assured him. "It is not your fault that Shannon cheated on you. She made a decision to betray you—a decision I would never make."

Sitting back, he looked over at her. "But you weren't there, Julie. You don't understand. There was absolutely no indication that anything was wrong. Everything was going great between us—or, I thought it was. It was good, just like you and I are good right now. I have no idea what went wrong, one day everything was great, she loved me, she wouldn't leave me, we were going to have a life together. Since I couldn't have kids we were thinking about adoption because I really wanted a family. Things were going in the right direction and then out of nowhere—boom!—I'm sleeping with your brother and I'm pregnant with his kid."

Feeling a little self-conscious, Julie thought of her own poppy seed.

"I don't want to go through that again, Julie. I can't… do that again. It took me a while to come back from losing Shannon, but… I know there will be no bouncing back for me if I lose you."

There was an unfamiliar tug in Julie's heart when he dragged that last part out—those words more sincere than any declaration of love Matt or Jack had ever been able to muster.

Julie realized, looking at him in that moment, that she was no longer angry.

Although she wanted his trust—and aimed to win it eventually—knowing that he kept her hidden away and guarded like the Hope diamond out of fear made her feel infinitely better. Sure, it meant he didn't have much confidence in her ability to make sound decisions just yet, but they were still new, and her track record wasn’t great. When they had been together longer, Aaron would realize Julie wasn't Shannon. He would realize that he didn't have to keep guards on her, because if unwanted guests came sniffing around she would simply express her disinterest and go back to Aaron.

Just not yet.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was trust.

He would trust her someday, she knew that in her heart.

With a tender smile, Julie reached out and touched his cheek. "Aaron Turner, you couldn't get rid of me if you tried." She missed a beat, then she added, "You did try, remember?"

His lips curved up slightly and he said, "Did I ever tell you how glad I am that it didn't work?"

Her smiled widened and she tugged on his shirt, pulling him in close to her. "How 'bout you show me instead?"

She saw a glimpse of his smile widening, then his eyes closed and so did hers as their lips met, conveying all the things that words just couldn't adequately express. Within the kiss all the distrust dissipated, fear fell away, apologies became unnecessary, and everything fused together to give Julie that safe feeling like she had never experienced before she felt Aaron's touch.

As she lost herself in his kiss, Julie began to lean back against the arm of the sofa and Aaron followed her. The second she felt the heat of his chest against hers something primal exploded inside of her, and she decided instantaneously that she didn't give a damn about going on a date.

No words were necessary as she felt Aaron's eagerness in his intense exploration of her mouth, the way his hand tenderly wrapped around her arm just because he needed to touch her.

Leaning back more completely, Julie reached down to the bottom of his T-shirt and yanked it up his back, smiling at him briefly when he raised his arms to help her get the fabric off of him and then feverishly yanking him back down to her lips again.

His fingers found the buttons on her cranberry button down and he quickly began undoing them as he continued to kiss her, giving her goose bumps when his thumb would accidentally brush against her skin in his haste. Once he had her fully unbuttoned he slipped his hand inside the shirt, just lightly holding her around the waist.

Briefly, she considered suggesting they move to the bedroom, but then his hand slipped inside of her lavender lacey bra and she decided they didn't need a new location. Her fingers found the button of his jeans with little difficulty and she unfastened them, then slowly lowered the zipper.

Suddenly he broke the kiss and pulled back.

Letting out a low noise of confusion, Julie reluctantly opened her eyes to look up at Aaron, raking his fingers through his hair and muttering a low curse.

"What—why are you stopping?" she asked.

"We have a date. I… almost forgot about our date."

"Forget about our date," she said eagerly. "I don't care. We can go on a date another night, right now I just want you."

Groaning, he said, "Please don't make this harder than it is, Julie."

She was about to keep trying when he quickly climbed off her, grabbing his T-shirt off the floor.

Throwing her hands dramatically over her face she cried, "Are you serious? Has there ever been a tease greater than you, Aaron Turner?"

Smiling, he removed her left hand from her eye and leaned down to kiss her. "I'm sorry, but I really can't cancel this date. I promise you, as soon as I can possibly get you back to this apartment we will pick up where we left off."