Insolence (5 page)

Aric’s mind spun as again he experienced one of the
strongest orgasms of his life. His knees felt weak and his breath burned in his
chest. The taste of Ainsley’s kiss was sweeter and hotter than any he’d
received in twenty years of kissing girls. And it left him totally wrecked.

They leaned against each other until they could breathe
easily once more. Then they washed each other leisurely. Once dried and dressed
in jeans and t-shirts, they made brunch together, falling into their old
familiar friendly ways. Aric needed the space the mundane tasks provided. The
enormity of what had happened between them and what that meant for the future
sat like a specter in a shadowy corner of the room where he refused to look. He
felt confused and completely out of his element.

Keeping things neutral seemed to be the best way to spend
the day if they weren’t going to head back to the bedroom, so they ended up on
the couch watching football. Aric sensed the tension lying just beneath the
surface of Ainsley’s quiet demeanor. He felt the same tension within himself.
More sex was out of the question. His body had pretty much given up the ghost
in that department, demanding a respite. He could tell that Ainsley felt the
same. They both sat limply on the couch, obviously satisfied but exhausted.

Aric’s base instincts hadn’t all been swamped by exhaustion,
however. Ainsley’s scent teased his senses and he sat as close to her as he
could without touching. By halftime, he couldn’t take it any longer and he
stretched his arm along the back of the couch, his fingers tangling instantly
in her hair. He rubbed the satiny strands between his fingertips, content to
touch that little bit of her.

“My flight leaves in a couple of hours.”

The words crashed into his contentment, sending panic racing
through him. Aric swallowed hard, his heart thudding erratically.
Shit!
He blinked his eyes closed and drew a deep breath before he reopened them.
Ainsley stared at him warily.

“I’d almost forgotten,” he replied, trying to keep his voice
neutral and even. “But I guess we could probably use some space to think about
this thing between us.” He swallowed hard again. “You should go home.”

Aric was trying to convince himself more than Ainsley. His
instincts set off alarm bells inside him. He didn’t want her to leave, but he
couldn’t tell her to stay either. The specter of their changed relationship and
clouded future left the shadowy corner and loomed over him. It reminded him of
how much he enjoyed being with Ainsley, how intensely he wanted her to stay and
how easy it had been for him to let go of his lifestyle.

“You
want
me to leave?” Ainsley’s incredulous tone
shook him to the core.

“Yes. No! I— Geez, Ains,” he sputtered, feeling as if
someone had just put his self-confidence in the paper shredder. “It’s just that
I guess we need some space to think about this.”

Ainsley scooted away from him on the couch. She rose to her
feet, her green eyes glittering. “Don’t include me in your ‘we’, Aric. I can
think and speak for myself.” She frowned at him. Anger and something else,
something that looked like pain, suffused her face. “What do you think is going
to happen now? What do you want from me? From this? Tell me what you’re thinking!”

He knew that her exasperation was wholly warranted. He
hadn’t dealt with any of it correctly.

“I don’t know what to think, Ains. This weekend has
been…weird. Strange. Unbelievable. God, I don’t know what to feel, let alone
know what to do. You’ve turned me inside out, and I just want to toss you over
my shoulder, carry you back to bed and chain you to it so no other man can ever
have what you gave me.” His breath came out in frustrated puffs as he struggled
to find the words to explain himself.

“What? First you tell me to go home, that we both need some
space. Now you tell me you want to chain me to your bed. Just what the hell do
you want, Aric?”

“I can’t answer that. I don’t know what I want,” he gritted
out, fear and anger warring within him. “All I know is that you’ve seriously
fucked with my head.”

“I see.
I
fucked with
you
.” Ainsley’s eyes
dropped to the floor as she turned away. “I’ll just get my things. I have a
flight to catch.”

Panic flooded Aric. He was so messed up inside his own head
over her that nothing he said came out right. She took a few steps away from
him and he lunged off the couch and caught her arm, spinning her around.

“No. You’re not going anywhere,” he growled, knowing he had
probably bruised her arm with his grip and confused her with his contradictory
words.

Ainsley’s eyes closed as if she couldn’t bear to see him.
“Please, Aric. This is difficult enough. Please don’t make it harder,” she
whispered.

“Why is it hard? I want to know, Ainsley. I felt all along
that there was something behind you coming here and offering to be my sub. Tell
me what’s going on.” The panic inside him raged, nibbling at his control until
fear began to creep in too.

She hung her head, the sleek, dark hair spilling over her
face. Beneath his hand, her body trembled. After a moment, she raised her head
and Aric nearly gasped aloud. Pain darkened her eyes to forest green. A white
line of tension encircled her full pink lips, making them pinched and paler
than usual. He had the fleeting thought that this was the real Ainsley, this
was the woman who’d been hiding inside his best friend for years.

She seemed almost incandescent with her heart bared for him
to finally see and he felt something inside him give way as he realized what
she’d kept hidden from him. A haunting, deep-seated yearning. Fierce emotion
and want. Endless lust and a deep agony that made his heart ache to see etched
on her face. Instantly he wanted to take her in his arms and soothe away her
hurts.

“It’s hard because I’ve spent twenty-six years dreaming
about you, waiting for something that I now know wasn’t ever going to be mine.
I spent those years hoping that one day my dreams would come true,” she rasped,
her voice rough and uneven with obviously suppressed tears. “They’re all gone
now. I really tried to make them happen. I came here with that express purpose
but—” She broke off on a shrug, pulling her arm free of his grasp. “All I’ve
done is forced the truth to the surface and that’s ended all my hopes for the
future.”

At that moment, her words came back to Aric, the words she’d
spoken at the bar when he’d asked her why she’d offered herself to him.
“Because
this is who I have always longed to be. Who you never
let
me be.”

Damn it! He’d misunderstood her! He’d thought she wanted to
explore submission but she’d meant that she longed to be with him in whatever
way he would have her. She’d longed to belong to him and he’d never noticed.
He’d never looked beyond the façade she’d always presented to him. He had never
gathered up his courage, set aside the fact that they were best friends and
thought about whether she could want him the way he’d always wanted her. He’d
known forever that he wanted her but he’d always been too afraid to act on his
attraction. Two nights ago in Insolence, Ainsley had been the one to act on the
feelings that had always simmered beneath the surface between them. He’d still
been in denial.

Swallowing, she drew a shaky breath, her gaze boring into
his. “Didn’t you ever wonder, Aric? Didn’t you ever stop to think that maybe
there was something more to me than what you saw? All I ever wanted in life was
to come home to you. Why do you think I used to hang out at your house all the
time? It had nothing to do with my parents’ divorce. It had everything to do
with
you
. I felt like I belonged when I was with you.”

Shoulders drooping, her gaze fell again and she turned away,
taking a couple of steps toward the door before stopping. “I waited a long time
before I gave up my virginity because I wanted you to have it.” A rusty, self-deprecating
laugh escaped her. “My God. I was so naïve. So stupid. All the men I could have
been with, men who wanted a chance to love me, and I turned them all down
because I had this dream in my head of the two of us and how good it would be.”

She spun around then, her eyes flashing fire. “And it was so
incredibly good. So fucking hot I thought I would literally melt,” she snarled,
her expression almost feral with defiance and pain. “Even you can’t deny how
good it’s been between us. The chemistry is perfect. No one will ever measure
up to you now, but you knew that when you brought me up here. You knew you
would spoil me for anyone else, as if I wasn’t already ruined.”

Bitterness dripped from her every word, and Aric stood in
stunned silence trying to make sense out of them. At first, his head filled
with images of her with other men, men who touched her and licked her and put
themselves inside her. And the man who’d taken her virginity? He wanted to beat
the man bloody. His hands clenched into fists at his side. His thoughts were
irrational and he knew it, yet he couldn’t stop himself from thinking them.

“This was my last hurrah. I came here to give you everything
that I am, Aric. Give you what I would give no other man.”

She walked back toward him, her spine straight, her gaze
direct, the Ainsley he’d always known…and loved.

“I’ve given you my submission such as it is, my body, my
heart, and I can see that it’s changed absolutely nothing between us.”

Her chin tilted up defiantly, with that touch of insolence
that fired his blood. His cock stirred but he ignored it, his senses and
emotions completely captured by her.

“I came here to tell you I love you. I’m
in
love with
you. I always have been whether you wanted to see it or not. I used to try to
hide it from you, but not any longer. It’s part of who I am and I’ll be damned
if I’ll spare your feelings by hiding my own.”

Her voice rose slightly and the challenging expression in
her eyes made him ache to toss her over his shoulder and carry her back to bed.
But shock held him frozen as he tried to reconcile the fact that, despite his
big, bad Dom lifestyle, when it came to Ainsley, he’d been a fucking pussy for
years.

“Since we’re done here, I’ll just get my things and catch my
flight.” She turned away again. “I don’t think I’ll be coming home anymore.
There’s nothing here for me.”

Her long legs carried her into the bedroom so swiftly Aric
couldn’t gather his thoughts to stop her. His head rang with her words. She
loved him. She’d always loved him. Warmth spread in his chest. Happiness began
to overtake the panic and fear that had held him in its grip from the moment
she’d said she was leaving. She was his. She’d always been his. Possessiveness
exploded within him.
She loves me.
She’d subbed for no man but him.
She
loves…me
.

Over the years he’d rejected woman after woman, knowing
instinctively that none of them were right for him. He’d thought he just wasn’t
interested in a relationship, but the truth was that he wasn’t interested in a
relationship with
them
. The only woman he’d ever felt comfortable with
was Ainsley, but for years he’d told himself that he couldn’t bear to ruin
their friendship, that she wasn’t the kind of woman who could embrace a life of
kinky sex. She could never even play at being his sub. She was too strong, too
dominant herself. And he had been too fucking afraid to act on the emotion that
now seemed to seep from his very pores.

By the time Ainsley came out of the bedroom with her
overnight bag, Aric had marshaled his scattered and overwrought thoughts. He
knew exactly what he wanted and knew the lengths he would go in order to get
it. His gaze tracked her across the room. She pressed the button for the
elevator and stood fidgeting, waiting for it to come. She kept her face
resolutely turned away from him.

“I didn’t give you permission to leave.”

Aric’s words were soft but the command was there
nonetheless. Ainsley stiffened. Since she wouldn’t look at him, he walked over
to her and cupped a hand beneath her chin, turning her head so that their eyes
met.

The door inside him that he’d kept closed for two decades
sprang open. His heart soared, recognizing her as the one woman he’d always
needed, always loved. He smiled at her, angling his body closer, his free hand
taking her case from her and dropping it on the floor. He snaked an arm around
her waist, pulling her closer despite her stiffness. Then he played his hand.

“Will you marry me?”

She became so still that he knew she held her breath.
Finally she drew a deep, sobbing draft of air. “No.”

Ice sluiced over him, instantly and painfully taking hold of
his heart. “Why not?” he ground out, fear getting a toehold within him.

She tipped her head back, looking up at him with a scornful
expression. “Because that isn’t what I want and it’s not what you want.” Her
lip curled derisively. “But for whatever fucked-up reason you’ve decided on,
you don’t want me to walk out on you. Marrying you won’t give me what I need,
Aric. It won’t make you love me. Now let me go.”

His nostrils flared as possessiveness gripped him. “Never.”
Knowing the elevator door wouldn’t open without his key, he pinned her against
the aluminum surface with his body. “You said you love me. That makes you mine,
Ainsley. I keep what’s mine. I don’t intend to let you walk out of here and into
the arms of another man or another Dom.”

She glared at him. “This isn’t about me being your sub,
Aric. You were right. I’m not naturally a sub. But you’re a Dom and I love you
enough to be happy fulfilling your needs. There isn’t anything I can’t or won’t
be for you.”

His breathing grew heavier with each word she spoke. His
heart pounded like a jackhammer. His cock thickened until it ached. “Then be my
wife.”

A strangled sound rose from her throat. “No!”