“Aria?” Kace prods.
I snap back to him and say, “I want to do this. I’m tired of living like this. I need to just be me. I do. I need it desperately and I believe Gio does as well. Besides, now that I’m in your life this fake persona and skulking around in the shadows is not fair to you.”
“Me?” He sets the mug down. “This isn’t about me, Aria. I’m not worried about me. If you decide you don’t want to come forward, then we move forward with another plan.”
“I’m going to come forward.” It’s out without hesitation. I guess this really is my choice. I’ve chosen. I’m going to be me. “But,” I add. “I’m going to talk to Gio in advance.” I grab my phone and glance at my messages, and I’m not surprised at what I find. Gio hasn’t replied. “He’s not coming to breakfast. I need to go see him, Kace. Alone.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
My decision.
Those words keep replaying in my head as Kace and I undress in front of the shower. Perhaps, I think, because my denial of my own choices had been an automatic lie, but one I’ve convinced myself is the truth. Yes, I’m living in a maze created by someone else, but I never even looked for a door. I followed everyone, my mother included, who said that a door was a bad choice.
I’m remotely aware of Kace turning on the water, but I’m thinking of Gio. I don’t know what it is about meeting Gio alone that feels uncomfortable, but it does. It’s almost as if my mind is trying to tell me something and I resist hearing the message. I need out of my own head. I need that unnamed something that we all need when we’re trying to cope with a piece of ourselves that isn’t comfortable.
And while I know that Kace would give me a safe place to just let go, right now, I need control. So much so that when Kace catches my arm and guides me into the shower, I know he’s about to press me into the corner and fuck me, I never give him the chance. I push him against the wall, the spray of warm water on my back. The hard length of him against my front. I’m taking charge. Not him. Not this time.
“What are you doing, Aria?”
“Give and take,” I say. “We have to give and take. And right now, I’m going to do both.” His eyes narrow but he doesn’t move, he doesn’t try and claim the control I’ve so clearly claimed as my own. He, like no one else, understands me. Slowly I slide down his body, absorbing every inch of muscle I can in the process until I am on my knees. My hair is now wet, clinging to my back, while his thick erection now juts at my shoulder. And when my lips tease it, just barely tease it, his soft intake of breath empowers me all the more. I close my hand around his shaft and brush my lips over his belly. His lashes lower and lift. He stares down at me with a heavy-lidded stare, the pulse of his desire in my hand, and etched in his handsome face.
I don’t tease him or me.
I know where he was last night, what headspace, and it was right here where I’m at now—on the edge, standing on a rubber band, and that band is about to break. I want him to know that he doesn’t always have to be in control, that he can let go, too. And I want him to know that sometimes, I can’t let him have control, just like he can’t let me. He never really came down last night and perhaps I didn’t, either. We both need a hard and fast rush, a release.
I draw the soft head of his taut erection into my mouth—the salty taste of his arousal teases my tongue. He pants out a breath and his hand is instantly on my head. Aroused by the very idea that he is this aroused, I draw him deeper.
“More,” he murmurs, and I know, I know he understands that I don’t want him to hold back. That’s exactly what I don’t want. I want him to let go. I want him to let go because I made him let go. I take more of him, my grip tightening on the base of his shaft.
My gaze lifts and there is a grit to his teeth, a taut line above his lip. “Aria,” he whispers, and I suckle him. “Harder,” he orders, his tone rough, urgent. I draw him in, sucking harder, and he pumps against me, thrusting toward the back of my throat, and I have this sense of Kace unleashed, of an animalistic piece of him that he restrains with me, but that I’ve unleashed. The salty taste of him expands, the pulse of his cock intensifies, and just when I think he will come, he doesn’t.
He catches my shoulder, lifts me, and when I would protest, I’m already against the wall, my leg at his hip, and he’s thrusting inside me. I don’t have any sense of him stealing my control at all. He’s filling me and it’s what I need, and it feels like what he needs, too. It’s rough and wild and demanding, and so many things I cannot name. It’s right. So very right. He’s right. We are right.
And when it’s over, we have somehow ended up on the floor of the shower, me on top of him, me in control. My face is buried in his neck when he says, “Tell me that gave you what you needed. Tell me it helped, that I helped.”
I lean back and stare down at him, and this is one of those moments when I appreciate the complexity of this man who can be tender and demanding, sweet and yet hard, and with it his ability to know when to take and give control. “You did,” I whisper. “You so did.”
And in the process, he’s sent me a message. With him, I’m finally able to be any version of myself I want to be. In a lifetime of limits, I have none with him. And that’s how I need to live and how I need to dictate my decisions, and they are mine to make.
***
Post shower, Kace and I are at the bathroom sink, him shaving while I flat iron my hair. I’m in a pink silk robe and he’s in nothing but a towel. He’s shaving and there is this new, raw intimacy between us that I cannot explain. Every time I think Kace and I can’t get closer, we do. It’s rather surreal considering that every time I think Gio and I cannot grow further apart, we do. My mind tracks back to yesterday in the shop, to our fight. I don’t believe a word he said. I’m admitting that to myself now and it’s not a fun place to be.
“Hey.”
At Kace’s gentle prodding, I blink him into view to realize that I’m staring at myself in the mirror with the flat iron in the air.
“You okay, baby?”
I nod. “Yes. Just—I was thinking about Gio.” My cellphone buzzes with a text and I reach for it where it lays on the counter when Kace asks, “Gio?”
“Savage,” I say, reading the message out loud: Gio is back at McDonald’s eating three egg McMuffins and a stack of pancakes and sausage. He’s not coming to breakfast. I don’t like to lose bets. Want me to wrestle the egg McMuffins from him and force him to come to you?
I text Savage back with: I’m best equipped to kick my brother’s ass, and I’ll enjoy it more than you. So just wait, before I glance at Kace and say, “I told Savage to just hold up, but I swear, Kace, I’d go wrestle the food from his mouth myself if I thought I could get there before he leaves.”
“Maybe you should give him a day to process me being in your life, baby.”
If I believed Gio was shocked and didn’t know, I might agree, I think, but I don’t know what I believe right now. “I need to give Blake the go ahead and make plans to be me again. That means I need to talk to Gio now, not later.”
Kace wipes the remnants of shaving cream from his face. “Give him one day. We can go ahead and talk to Blake, and make plans.”
I stand and face him, emotions lifting in my voice. “Screw Gio. He came back to protect me, but won’t even talk to me? I don’t believe he’s here for me at all. He’s here for Sofia. Maybe he’s here for you because he believes she’ll get to you first. I don’t know what he’s doing, but I know we aren’t making decisions based on him. Not anymore.”
My cellphone rings and I glance at the caller ID to find Crystal’s number. “Crystal,” I tell Kace. “I’m going to talk to her and then go and see Gio.”
He leans close and kisses me. “Okay.” With that one word, he heads toward the closet.
For some reason, this makes me smile, and I answer the call with that smile in my voice. That’s the power of this man in my life. “Hey, Crystal,” I greet. “Are you back in th
e city?”
“I am,” she says. “And unfortunately, this isn’t a social call. I know what happened with Alexander in San Francisco. I still can’t believe he pulled that crap.”
“Yes,” I agree, sinking back onto the vanity chair, and adding, “it was bad.”
“And it’s not over. He showed up here this morning pissed because he said you offered Ed wine he wasn’t offered.”
I facepalm. “I cannot believe Ed did that to me. He declined the wine to avoid a fight with Alexander. Or so he said. Clearly not.”
“Well, here’s the thing. If you want to sell to Alexander, I can make it happen and spare you the torture.”
“You could do that on your own without giving me a commission. And honestly, I’m of the opinion you should get me out of the middle of this.”