Playing for Keeps (The Game #2)(58)
Author: Emma Hart

He needs a little shove to let his heart break completely free from the confines he keeps it in. He might have let it go a little for me, but he needs to let it go for himself.

I just hope this weekend can do that for him, even just a bit.

I begin to hum to myself as I wrap a towel around my body, the soft melody of Cry With You by Hunter Hayes filling the small room. I scan the rows of bottles and tubs on my shelves, grabbing a vanilla moisturizer to match my shampoo.

The unsung words of the song haunt me, resonating through my body as I perch my foot on the edge of the bathtub and rub the moisturizer along my leg. The song reminds me of Aston, all his pain and all the pain I feel for him. It reminds me how I know I’ll never leave him, how I can give him the kind of love he needs to get through whatever his past throws at him.

Just like Hunter Hayes, I feel all the pain.

I let the towel fall away as I rub the moisturizer all over my body, letting it dry the water remaining on my skin. Two rough, warm hands cup my hips and a hot, chiseled chest presses against my back. Aston’s lips blaze a trail across my shoulders, his hands moving to my stomach and holding me flat against him.

“Were you watching me?” My voice is slightly shaky.

“Would you slap me if I say yes?” he replies in my ear, his hands moving up to cup my br**sts.

“No,” I breathe out, pushing into his hands.

“Then yes, I was.” He kisses my neck, his hands massaging me in a way that tugs on all my stomach muscles and starts a desperate ache between my legs.

“Why?”

“Because,” he whispers. “I couldn’t not. I don’t know if you realize how beautiful you are with no make-up on, your wet hair, wearing just a tiny towel or nothing at all. I’ve never seen you totally natural before, and I didn’t think you could be any more beautiful than you usually are, but you are.”

He slides his hand down my stomach, easing his fingers between my thighs. He rubs his finger against my clit and pushes his hips into me, his erection digging in between my ass cheeks. My head drops back against him, and he blazes more kisses down my exposed neck, curving his fingers and soothing my ache. He keeps it up, holding me against him even as heat swamps my body and my legs give out. He holds me as the shaking subsides, still kissing me tenderly.

“My turn,” I whisper, spinning in his arms. I cup him with my hand, running my fingers along the outside of his boxers. He tugs us back into my bedroom, and I creep my fingers inside his boxers to touch him fully. He’s rock hard, and my fingers barely go right around him as they start a steady, pumping rhythm up and down him.

Aston pushes us onto the bed, moving his hips in time with my hand, and plunges his tongue into my mouth. The ache starts between my legs again, and I involuntarily buck my hips when he groans my name into my mouth. I squeeze him in my hand, not stopping my body’s responses to the desperate exploration his hands are undertaking.

It doesn’t take long before he pulls away from me, rolls on a condom and positions himself against me. He looks into my eyes as he pushes inside me, my muscles clenching around him. There are so many words I could say to him in this moment, so many things that need to be said between us, but this feels like it’s meant to be.

The first time since we came out. The first time since we used the word love.

After, we both shower and get ready for Mom’s party. My dress swishes about my knees as I stand and check my reflection in the mirror, smoothing the skirt out. Aston steps up behind me, linking his fingers with mine, and smiles.

“We make a pretty hot couple.” He winks, and I laugh.

“I’m not used to having to share looks and brains with someone. I always assumed I’d be the smart one out of us,” I tease him.

“Oh, you’re the smart one, all right.” He touches his lips to my temple. “You’ve taught me a lot in the last month. A lot I wouldn’t have learned without you.”

I reach up and touch his face, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “You don’t know that.”

“No, I do. When we were on the trail today and we stopped for lunch, you taught me how something barren and empty can be full of life and beautiful.”

My lips twist up slightly. “The canyon was deserted,” I remind him.

“But it was full of life because of you,” he says honestly. “You added to the beauty of it, bringing a desolate place alive. Just like you did for me. I always thought I was dead inside, that I had to feel that way. That I couldn’t remember because remembering meant feeling, and feeling meant being. And then there was you. You made me remember what it was like to live.”

“Aston …” I take a deep breath. “But none of that matters if it’s all for me. You have to ask yourself who you live for.”

“At first it was you. All you. Now? Now it’s a little of both. You taught me how to love, and I’m pretty sure I love myself just a little bit, now. I’ll never see what you see, but it’s more than I’ve ever had.”

I blink harshly, trying not to cry, because he can’t possibly understand how much those words mean to me. He can’t understand how much I wanted to make that pain better for him, make him understand he’s more than he thought. And he definitely can’t understand how his words seal around my heart, gripping onto it like a vice.

“Really?” I whisper.

‘Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her.’

“Really, baby. I live for me, but I love for you.” He kisses my temple again, and I feel every word.

He was always my Mr. Darcy.

And I was always his Elizabeth.

Epilogue – Aston

I tug the zipper of my jacket up higher as a cold wind blows in off San Francisco Bay, and fight the urge to turn and run back to the marina. I won’t run. This is something that has to be done, for me.

Megan squeezes my hand, curling into my arm, and we begin to walk into the small cemetery where my mom lies.

I feel sick. Emotion stronger than I’ve felt in a long time swirls around my whole body, from hatred to pity, fear to anger, yet through it all … Through it all is a bit of love for the woman that tried and failed to give me life.

We weave silently through the graves and markers, heading to the back of the cemetery. I hold the white rose I bought tightly, clutching it to my chest, and try to breathe deeply.

I will never forgive her and I will never forget her, but I can finally be at peace with her.

The small, black marble headstone sits alongside my Gran’s, and Megan places a small bunch of flowers against it silently. My eyes trace the letters of Mom’s gravestone, following the engraved patterns, and it begins to blur as my eyes sting with tears.