Page 66 of From Square One

“Shut up,” I say with a grin, flicking his nose.

He sighs, like the remembrance is taxing. “You needed space, so I gave you space. While you were dealing with that, I was trying to figure out if we were in a good enough mindset to be in a relationship. Because we’re both sort of…” He screeches to a stop.

“Careful,” I warn, and then it’s his turn to flick my nose.

“Let’s go with emotionally wounded,” he decides.

I shrug. “Dramatic for my situation, but I’ll give you a pass.”

He gives me a smile that brinks on exasperation. “I determined my life was better with you in it,” he whispers. “That so long as we weren’t hurting each other, we could be a healthy couple. We’re both the self-destructive type. You block yourself off. I get reckless. In that time apart, we realized how well we balance each other.”

“Did we, now?” I ask, eyeing him with feigned suspicion.

“When you’d hole up, I’d drag you out scratching and clawing,” he says. “When I tried running off and being irresponsible, you threw a leash out and clotheslined me. You see? Balance.”

“I guess,” I say, sounding dubious.

He grins a bit hungrily and draws me fully down to press a minty kiss to my mouth. “Why are you provoking me when you’re the one who said I should sleep?” he breathes.

“You’re the one holding me prisoner,” I say huffily.

He kisses me again, lingering longer before tugging me up by the hair. “We came away from it stronger,” he says, redirecting the subject, and the fact that he didn’t take the opportunity to change it warms my chest. “I know it’s weird hearing me talk about it without your memories. But I hope you know…or maybe feel in your heart…that I won’t ever intentionally hurt you. That I do love you. That…” Aaron pauses, then says, “That it’s not an act.”

I initiate the kiss this time. I squeeze his strong jaw between my fingers and lean down, lips parted, to meet his. He exhales slow through his nose, his lashes fluttering like he’s been starved of these moments. “It’s strange hearing my thoughts and reactions from someone else,” I admit. “But my heart trusts you, so I’m letting my mind follow.”

“And the rest of you?” His fingers carve another trail down the back of my neck.

I roll my eyes, but my pulse quickens anyway. “Didn’t you scream at your dads that we weren’t having sex?”

“Penetrative,” he tacks on. “There are other kinds. But I’d understand if it feels too soon.”

The issue is that it doesn’t. It seems so ludicrous that I’d willingly take this step when my brain says I haven’t known him personally longer than a month. But I’m attracted to him in this carnal way I can’t comprehend. “You said you’re a service top.” I swallow, hating how consistently hot my face is around him. “That means you take charge or something?”

Aaron’s eyes sparkle at my willingness to discuss it. I can’t stand how pretty they are. I want to be swallowed up by his stare. “I do,” he says, “but I use that term because I focus more on how my partner feels than myself. Like, I only feel good if I know you feel good.”

He sounds so earnest, not at all teasing. I shift my jaw, wondering if I should cut the conversation. But it’s fine, right? Two people in a sort-of relationship talking about intimacy? “What about me makes you want to be like that?” I ask weakly.

“I wasn’t sure at first,” he says, still stroking my back. “You were just so unsure of yourself and wouldn’t take initiative. You clearly wanted intimacy, but you were so shy and wishy-washy about it. It was funny to me.” He takes a moment to collect his memories. “Eventually, I started to understand how your mind worked.”

“Meaning?”

“Through trial and error, I realized that you like being taken care of. Nobody’s done that for you, so I think the idea was attractive to you. You wouldn’t admit it, though, because you have a phobia of doing anything that might possibly be considered selfish.”

I scoff, steering my eyes away. “Receiving without giving is selfish,” I mutter.

“That’s where the misunderstanding is,” Aaron says calmly. “You’re satisfying me by letting yourself be satisfied, sunshine. That was hard for you to wrap your head around. At some point, getting you to feel anything other than guilt was such an accomplishment that the thought of it started turning me on. I wanted to do everything I could to see that rare side of you that was too distracted to worry about being selfish.”

The casualness of this conversation is making me sweat. Aaron’s hand cups the back of my neck and pulls me in closer.

“Are you uncomfortable?” he whispers. “I don’t mean to pressure you.”

“No, I’m fine,” I squeak, burying my face into his shirt. “It’s just weird, not remembering.”

“I know.” His hand on my spine creeps low enough to tickle my waistband, before drawing up again. He’s been following the same trail up and down my back for a while. “Is there anything you want to know about the past fifteen months? About me?”

I consider it, lulled by the steady rise and fall of his chest. I might fall asleep before he does. “What do you want your life to look like in ten years?” I ask, with just enough of a job-interview intonation that he laughs.

“I’m living in the countryside with a massive lawn where I can let my golden retriever and black Lab run loose,” he says, and suddenly, he’s rolling. I make a disgruntled noise of surprise as he sprawls me on my back, then braces his arms around me, hovering, his face inches away. “The house is big with lots of natural light. It’s an old fixer-upper. The kind that’ll keep me busy. I have a Harley in the garage and take my partner for rides when the sky is clear. I cook him dinner every night and give him massages and whittle him wooden ducks. I let him fall asleep on me in the bathtub and make him pay for it later. I’m financially stable and still hot.”