Final Call (The Call #2) (20 page)

“Let’s not anger him.
How about a drink instead?”

He motions for me to
lead the way, and we both take a seat at the bar. I sigh. Fucking
phone.

“Have you thought about
what I said?”

“About the
pictures?”

Tyler nods. “No
pressure. I’m just wondering since you leave again in a couple of
days.”

“I don’t know. Do you
come to Seattle much?”

“I will be now that
Aaron lives there. I split my time between here and there.”

“Can we come back to
this? There’s still a lot to…work through…before I make any
decisions.”

He studies me for a
second. “He still doesn’t know?”

I shake my head. “I’m
going to figure it out when I get home. Somehow. And no,” I snap
when he opens his mouth. “Don’t even go there, Tyler Stone. Don’t
you dare.”

He holds up his hands.
“Okay. Okay. I’m just throwing it out there though, Day. If.”

“No. This is my
problem, and I’m going to deal with it. Now let’s talk about
something else.”

“Let’s talk about why
Aaron is walking toward you with a face like thunder.”

I spin and stare into
angry blue eyes. “Uh-oh. Tyler, what did I do this time?”

“We’re leaving,” Aaron
snaps, grabbing my arm. “Tyler, are you back tonight?”

“Nope. Not now,
anyway.”

“Excellent. Dayton.” He
pulls me from the chair and after him, dropping his hand to mine so
it doesn’t look like he’s fucking manhandling me.

Oh fuck.
What if
he’s found out somehow? What if he knows about Naomi?

I’m too afraid to ask
as he deposits me in the car and gets in after me. He orders the
driver, whose name I’ve never learned, to take us back to Tyler’s.
Then he turns his back on me. I take a deep breath and wring my
fingers in my lap. Jesus.

I can feel his
annoyance and frustration like it’s my own. It’s an awful feeling,
one I want to scrape off my skin and shake away. One that clings to
me.

“Inside.” One word.
Short. Sharp. Controlled.

I follow him, knowing
that a smart answer won’t help me from whatever has him so
annoyed.

He opens a cupboard in
the front room, pours two fingers of whisky, and drinks them in
one. The glass slams against the side and his fingers curl around
the side of the bar so tightly that I can see his knuckles
whitening.

“Care to explain why
three payments to Monique were declined?”

Every bit of tension
oozes out of my body.
He doesn’t know.

I drop my purse on the
sofa and pull off my heels. “I told her to cancel them.”

“She hasn’t had a
dollar off of me.”

“That’s the idea of me
telling her to cancel them.”

Aaron turns, questions
now filling his eyes where his annoyance just was. “Why? Why would
you do that?”

“Because I needed to be
with you without that.”

“Why the fuck didn’t
you tell me, Day? This whole time I’ve thought you’ve been here
because you’ve been forced to be. And you haven’t. You’ve been here
because, what? You’ve wanted to be?”

I nod slowly and meet
his eyes. “I needed to be with you without the obligation that
comes with the money to figure out how I feel. I needed to know I
could decide what I want without knowing it was there and forcing
me to decide. I needed to do this as Dayton the person, not Dayton
the call girl.”

“And? Have you
decided?”

I cross the room to him
and undo his tie. I leave it on the bar next to us and untuck his
shirt, sliding my hands beneath it and around to his back as I lay
my face against his chest.

He lets out a heavy
breath and holds me to him. “You’re not answering my question.”

“I’m going to call
Monique when we get back to Seattle.”

“And?” He cups my face
and pulls me back from him when I don’t answer. “And fucking what,
Dayton?”

“And I’m going to tell
her I’m done. I’m leaving. I quit.”

His lips crash into
mine with a ferocity I never believed possible. They stoke a fire
deep in the pit of my belly with each hard and forceful movement
across mine.

“Does this mean you
forgive me?”

I nod against him. “I
do.”

“I don’t know how you
do, but I’m… God.” He kisses me again. “I’m the luckiest
bastard.”

“I know,” I mumble.

He buries his face into
my hair and takes a deep breath. “You’re incredible, you know that?
I am so very, very lucky to have you.” He presses his lips to my
collarbone, and the words tumble from my lips before I can stop
them.

“Why won’t you say
it?”

“Say what?”

I swallow and step back
from him, closing my eyes. “Why won’t you tell me you love me?”

“I have. So many
times.”

“No. No, you haven’t.”
I turn back to him. “You’ve said you’ve never stopped loving me.
You’ve said your heart belongs to me. You’ve said you’ve never
loved anyone else, but you’ve never actually said it. You’ve never
looked me in the eyes and told me you love me.”

“You know I do, Dayton.
And if you don’t, I want to know why.”

“I do. I know it, but I
need to hear it. I just stood here and told you that I’m giving up
my life to be with you and you still haven’t said it.”

Silence lingers between
us, growing steadily heavier until Aaron finally speaks.

“That’s what you’ve
been waiting for, isn’t it? That’s what you wanted in my
office—when you said you wanted me to strip myself bare and tell
you how I feel.”

I nod and close my
eyes. “It’s stupid, so stupid, but it’s like hearing those words
will make me realize that I’ve made the right choice in choosing
you over my life. I don’t care if that makes me weak or pathetic. I
wish you would say them, but not because I’m standing here asking
you to. I want you tell me because you want to. Because
they’re—”

“True,” he finishes.
“They are. I haven’t said them because you are this crazy
independent woman who fights me at every turn. I can’t do anything
without you pushing back at me, and your independence is one of the
best things about you. You don’t hang on to my arm and beg me for
things. You don’t look at me like I can buy you the world. You look
at me like I’m a pain in your ass half of the time, and that’s why
I haven’t told you. You balk every time I talk of something more
serious than a night together.”

His palms are warm as
they close over my cheeks and tilt my face up to his. I open my
eyes and stare into his.

“But I do, Dayton.
Don’t ever doubt for a second that I love you. I love you when you
wake up in the morning, your hair is a mess and your eyes all misty
from sleep. I love you when you’re spilling soda on your shirt and
brushing crumbs from your lap. I love you when you’re glancing at
me, thinking I don’t notice, and I love you when you’re asleep and
you’re whispering my name.” He rests his forehead against mine. “I
love you every second of my life, and that love is so strong that
it encompasses everything else I feel.”

I hiccup as he folds
his arms around me. His heart is pounding inside his chest,
thumping against my chest, and I know mine is doing the same.
They’re beating the same, right down to the same rhythm. Like they
were always meant to. Like there’s no other rhythm they could
possibly beat to except for the one reserved just for us.

“It scares me how in
love with you I am, Dayton. I think I love you even beyond love
itself. You’re my obsession, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to
keep you. You have to know that.”

I nod again, fisting
his shirt.

“There,” he whispers,
walking back with me. “I’ve told you. Now let me show you.”

Aaron sweeps me into
his arms and carries me upstairs, unzipping the back of my dress
before setting me on the edge of the bed. His fingers are soft
against mine as he slides the sleeves over my shoulders, exposing
the turquoise bra he loved so much.

He ghosts his
fingertips over the curve of my breast. “So I get to take it off
after all.”

I smile at him, and he
dips his head. His kiss is slow and languid, an exploration of my
mouth that’s filled with revelry and adoration. It reverberates
throughout my whole body, a sweeping caress that touches every part
of me.

“This isn’t fair,” I
whisper when he kisses my jaw, tugging at his shirt.

He smiles against me
and straightens. His fingers work the buttons and he shrugs it off,
leaving it to drop to the floor behind him.

My fingers, like they
have a mind of their own, sweep over the taut muscles of his
stomach. They trace each shadowed indent of skin, finally following
the shape of the ‘v’ muscle and resting on his hips. I lean forward
and kiss the patch of skin above his pants, his skin is scorching
hot beneath my lips.

Aaron leans me back on
the bed and slides my dress down my legs. His mouth travels down my
body and over my breasts, leaving a blazing trail of seduction as
he goes. His hand slips beneath me and unclips the bra, which is
gone a second later.

This is different. This
time, as he explores my body, there’s no rush, no hurry, no
desperation. There are no whispered words of naughty promises that
send my body into overdrive. There’s only his breath coating my
skin in murmurs against me I can’t decipher.

And when his mouth
reaches the apex of my thighs, the removal of my panties is slow,
and the journey back up my legs is accompanied by a thousand
peppered kisses. It’s joined by a crazy anticipation of what’s
coming, of a silent beg from me for the show he’s promised.

His tongue’s strokes
are as slow and easy as his kisses were earlier. His hands are
wrapped around my legs, keeping them open, and he sucks lightly on
my clit. He slides his tongue between my folds and inside me and
over that tender bundle of nerves until I come apart beneath him in
a way that’s crazily intense.

His pants hit the floor
with a clunk of his belt, and he leans over me, his lips covering
mine. “You taste good on you,” he whispers.

I smile. “Like your own
personal heaven and hell all in one, right?”

“Exactly like that,
beautiful woman. Exactly like that.”

Aaron pushes himself
inside me slowly, so slowly that I feel the stretching of all my
muscles as every inch of him finds its home. Each stroke is deeper
than the last, long and sweet, deliciously erotic. His heavy breath
in my ear is seductive, and I don’t remember ever feeling this
way.

Like right now, in this
moment, it’s just me and him and the love that’s finally out in the
open.

Like everything is
perfect.

“Aaron.” His name is a
desperate plea from my lips as I feel the orgasm inside, coiling
and sculpting deep in my belly, sending red-hot shoots of pleasure
out.

“Easy, baby.” He kisses
my neck, lingering on my pulse point.

“Please… I need…”

He pushes right into
me, hitting the right spot, and pulls back out. He does this again,
still slowly, still gently, still with a remarkable amount of
restraint. I push my hips into him when I feel his cock swelling
inside me, and as soon as he presses his thumb against my clit, I
feel the first red-hot spurt of his come inside me and let myself
go.

It hits me so
intensely, so incredibly strong, that tears spill from my eyes.
When it’s all over and Aaron’s tucking us into bed, they’re still
falling, leaving wet patches on the pillow.

He pulls me into his
chest and wipes the tears away with his thumb. “Sex and crying is a
habit with you.”

I choke a laugh,
covering my mouth with my hand, and nudge him. “Shut up. I
just…”

“Just what?”

“Love you,” I whisper,
tilting my face back to look at him. His lips curve on each side, a
light sparking in his eyes. “I love you. That’s all.”

“That’s all, she says.
Like it’s so simple.”

“It is, remember? You
told me it’s simple.”

“So I did.” He presses
a gentle kiss to my tender lips. “I love you, too, Bambi. I love
you so much.”

Chapter
Eighteen

The grey skies and
heavy rainfall in Seattle are a stark contrast to the early summer
sunshine we left behind in London some sixteen hours ago.

“I want to go back,” I
mutter, putting up the umbrella the flight attendant just handed to
me before I get off the plane. Thunder rumbles overhead. Of course
we’d land back in the middle of a rare frigging thunderstorm.

“Come on, woman. Stop
complaining.” Aaron nudges my back and I sigh.

“Okay, but if I ruin
these shoes in all those puddles…”

“I’ll buy you another
ten pairs. Now go.”

I laugh and walk down
the steps, the damp air making me shiver through my thin cardigan.
Note to self: check destination weather before getting on a
plane.

Aaron rests his jacket
over my shoulders with a kiss to my cheek. I smile gratefully at
him and lift my umbrella for him to come under. He raises his
eyebrows, but I give him a hard, no-nonsense look.

Not that I’m averse to
that white button-down shirt getting wet, of course. I’m just not
prepared to deal with the inevitable man flu if he gets soaked.

We hurry into the
airport and speed through our checks. I shake off the umbrella
before lowering myself into our waiting car and drop it by my
feet.

“Well, that’s my shoes
ruined.”

“From a little
rain?”

“That’s not a little
rain. If I’d have known it was raining, I wouldn’t have worn
these.” I lift my leg and flash him my black Louboutins, the iconic
red underside showing as I do.

Aaron’s strong fingers
grasp my lower leg and he lifts my foot higher. I slump back in the
chair, pursing my lips, unimpressed, and he kisses my ankle.

“I like these. I’m
definitely replacing them. They’ll match that red thing you
bought.”