When the last spasm speared through her, she felt herself being lifted into strong arms. When she opened her eyes, Aidan was entering her bedroom. He placed her on the bed, leaned down and kissed her, sending rekindled desire spiking through her.
When he ended the kiss and eased off the bed, she watched as he quickly removed his clothes. She could only lie there and admire his nakedness. He was a fine specimen of a man, both in and out of clothes. Just as he’d appeared in her dreams. Thick thighs, muscular legs and a huge erection nested in a patch of thick, curly black hair.
How will I handle that? she asked herself when he pulled a condom packet from his wallet and quickly sheathed himself. He took his time and she figured it was because he knew she was watching his every move with keen interest.
“You have done this before, right?” he asked her.
“What? Put on a condom? No. One wouldn’t fit me.”
He grinned over at her. “Funny. You know what I’m asking.”
Yes, she knew what he was asking. “Um, sort of.”
He lifted a brow. “Sort of?”
She shrugged slightly. “I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said softly. “Technically not. But...”
“But what?”
“I was in high school and neither of us knew what we were doing. That was my one and only time.”
He just stood there totally naked staring at her. She wondered why he wasn’t saying anything. What was he thinking? As if he’d read her mind, he slowly moved toward her, placed his knee on the bed and leaned toward her. “What you missed out on before, you will definitely get tonight. And, Jillian?”
She swallowed. He’d spoken with absolute certainty and all she could do was stare back at him. “Yes?”
“This will not be your only time with me.”
Her body reacted to his words and liquid heat traveled through her body. He hadn’t spoken any words of love but he’d let her know this wasn’t a one-time deal with them.
She didn’t have time to dwell on what he’d said. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She closed her eyes and let herself be liquefied by the kiss. Like all the other times he’d used his expertise to make everything around her fade into oblivion, the kiss was the only thing her mind and body could comprehend. His hands were all over her, touching her everywhere. She released a deep moan when she felt his knees spreading her legs.
“Open your eyes and look at me, Jillian.”
She slowly opened her eyes to look up at the man whose body was poised above hers. He lifted her hips and his enlarged sex slid between her wet feminine folds. He thrust forward and her body stretched to accommodate his size. Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around him and when he began to move, she did so, as well.
She continued to hold his gaze while he thrust in and out of her. Over and over he would take her to the edge just to snatch her back. Her inner muscles clamped down on him, squeezing and tightening around him.
As she felt new spasms rip through her, he threw his head back and let out a roar that shook the room. She was glad most of her neighbors had gone away for spring break; otherwise they would know what she was doing tonight.
But right now, all she cared about was the man she loved, and how he was making her feel things she’d never felt before.
He kissed her again. Their tongues dueled in another erotic kiss and she couldn’t help but remember the words he’d spoken earlier.
This will not be your only time with me.
She knew men said words they didn’t mean to women they were about to sleep with, and she had no reason to believe it was any different with Aidan.
Besides, considering that she needed to stay focused on her studies, it was a good thing he wasn’t serious.
* * *
Aidan wtched the naked woman sleeping in his arms and let out a frustrated sigh. This was not supposed to happen.
He wasn’t talking about making love because there was no way such a thing could have been avoided. The sexual tension between them had been on overload since the day he’d arrived at her apartment and neither of them could have lasted another day.
What was not supposed to happen was feeling all these unexpected emotions. They had wrapped around his mind and wouldn’t let go. And what bothered him more than anything else was that he knew he was not confusing his emotions with what had definitely been off-the-charts sex. If he hadn’t known before that there was a difference in what he felt for Jillian, he definitely knew it now.
He had fallen in love with her.
When? How? Why? He wasn’t sure. All he knew, without a doubt, was that it had happened. The promise of great sex hadn’t made him take a week’s vacation and travel more than fifteen hundred miles across five states to spend time with her. Sex hadn’t made him become her personal test coach, suffering the pains of being close to her while maintaining boundaries and limits. And sex definitely had nothing to do with the way he felt right now and how it was nearly impossible for him to think straight.
When she purred softly in her sleep and then wiggled her backside snugly against his groin he closed his eyes and groaned. It had been great sex but it had been more than that. She had reached a part of him no woman had reached before.
He’d realized it before they’d made love. He’d known it the minute she told him she’d only made love once before. As far as he was concerned that one time didn’t count because the guy had definitely done a piss-poor job. The only orgasm she’d ever experienced had been with Aidan.
But in the days he’d spent studying with her he’d gotten to know a lot about her. She was a fighter, determined to reach whatever goals she established for herself. And she was thoughtful enough to care that Pam not bear the burden of the cost of sending Jillian to medical school. She was even willing to sell her family home.
And he liked being with her, which posed a problem since they lived more than a thousand miles apart. He’d heard long-distance affairs could sometimes be brutal. But he and Jillian could make it work if they wanted to do so. He knew how he felt about her but he had no idea how she felt about him. As far as he knew, she wasn’t operating on emotion but out of a sense of curiosity. She’d said as much.
However, the biggest problem of all, one he knew would pose the most challenge to the possibility of anything ever developing between them was her insistence on Pam and Dillon not knowing about them.
Aidan didn’t feel the same way and now that he loved her, he really didn’t want to keep it a secret. He knew Dillon well enough to know that if Aidan were to go to his cousin and come clean, tell Dillon Aidan had fallen in love with Jillian, Dillon would be okay with it. Although Aidan couldn’t say with certainty how Pam would feel, he’d always considered her a fair person. He believed she would eventually give her blessing...but only if she thought Jillian was truly in love with him and that he would make Jillian happy.
There were so many unknowns. The one thing he did know was that he and Jillian had to talk. He’d given her fair warning that what they’d shared would not be one and done. There was no way he would allow her to believe that her involvement with him meant nothing, that she was just another woman to him. She was more than that and he wanted her to know it.
She stirred, shifted in bed and then slowly opened her eyes to stare at him. She blinked a few times as if bringing him into focus—or as if she was trying to figure out if he was really here in her bed.
Aidan let her know she wasn’t seeing things. “Good morning.” He gently caressed her cheek before glancing over at the digital clock on her nightstand. “You woke up early. It’s barely six o’clock.”
“A