Vacant Heart

Chapter Thirty-Three

I'm elated.

Incandescent.

Euphoric.

Oh Lord, my skin is on fire. Aidan's against the chestnut oak headboard and my cheek is tingling against his similarly burning chest. I've listened intently as his heartbeat has slowed with time, and the tremors between us began to dull.

Between his legs, I struggle in and out of consciousness, wishing to savor every minute of my time here this weekend, but my health will not allow it. I've lost sleep this week, been blown to pieces by secrets and extremes. I've lost a good deal, and gained just as much.

His presence is an elixir, a powerful spell that prevents the negativity that has only recently become so consuming. Not missing a beat, Aidan's hand scours and dips over the curve of my back and he whispers into my hair.

"Stop fighting it. Sleep."

Stubbornly, my fingers drift over his pecks, mindlessly grazing his nipple before traveling further until I can plant my hand over the valley of muscles that are his abdomen.

"No."

"Yes," he counters, laughing when I kiss his skin, humming against it.

"I'm far too busy."

My nails are tickling his skin in their descent.

"Are you?"

"Mhm." I slide my hand over the dip of his hip and straight down and over the soft skin of his thigh. I smile to myself when his chest expands under my cheek at my exploration, my fingers drifting over the sparse hair at the top of his legs. "You're incredibly fit."

"Thank you."

He bends his knee, and my hand falls between his thighs. He sucks in a gulp of breath and then releases it with a winded laugh, clearly shocked—but enjoying it. I have him firmly in my grasp, and grin at how quickly my touch has aroused him, despite the time we've already devoted to pleasure tonight.

"You're pretty well-endowed too."

"I thought you were tired," he says amusedly, his grip tightening against the back of my neck as my own tightens around his healthy girth.

"Shh."

He can't argue. I won't let him. Grinning along with him, I lift up enough to nudge his nose with mine, and tease his lips with the prospect of my own. I bite down on my skin when his eyes flicker to mine, frustrated by my toying, the usual gray hue almost black, his pupils dilated.

"You're too much," he confesses, chuckling to a barren ceiling. Triumphantly, I gaze closely at his features as he reacts to my fondling, how his eyes close, those dark lashes flickering when my hand slides down further, cupping his virile balls, exploring him as his body were all mine.

"You like that about me, right?"

He nods, fisting my hair. "Yes."

"What else?" I caress his face with my lips. "What else do you like?"

"I like—"

Our mouths are inches apart when his house line blares all around us, and I open my eyes slowly, witnessing the moment his do as well. My cheeks are boiling, simmering with lust and his chest is scattered with rosy patches of color, a reaction to his own pleasure.

I hate technology.

"Let it be," he says to me, and I nod, focusing on his lips, far too aroused to stop now. He's thick in my dominating grasp, elevated and rock hard. We wait for the phone to settle down, but it just rings again with a strange urgent tone.