Broken Wings

Part Forty-Four...the morning after

A/N Thanks for your best wishes and condolences, been a rough six weeks. Lovely to know that you're all thinking of me. So here is the next chapter, hope it doesn't disappoint. Love to you all, MZxxx

Chapter Forty Four

Dinner on the rooftop, a walk in the park with the dogs. It was a beautiful end to a lovely weekend. Aaron was friendly, and occasionally romantic, but he didn't pressure her, and that made her so happy. So relaxed, and so comfortable.

But there was still the thought of the coming night. Did he want to sleep with her? Did he expect her to share her bed? Did she want to? It was all so worrying. And she could feel the curling tension in her stomach as the day progressed.

If Aaron was as worried, he hid it well. But then he didn't share her hang ups, he was confident and strong in all ways. She watched him from her place on the sofa opposite him, Cliffy was crawling over him and he was tickling the mutt, Coco jumped up, not wanting to miss out on the attention. It was cute to watch, and she smiled.

He spotted that and sat up, "you're laughing at us?" Glaring menacingly, he looked at the dogs, then howled, "let's get her!"

All three ran across the room and pounced on her, Cliffy licked her face, whilst Aaron started to tickle her – he knew she was ticklish. Coco just plonked herself on her chest, and she couldn't wriggle free without knocking her to the floor, she was trapped.

"Ganging up on me?" She managed to breathe through her tears of laughter.

Aaron must have taken pity on her, because he stopped his ministrations and sat back to look at her, lying there. Suddenly the heat turned up, and he nudged Cliffy to one side.

"I'm the only one who gets to kiss her Cliff, you know that."

And he did.

The dogs jumping on them finally forced them apart, but by that point, Julia was all soft and gooey, as pliable as putty in his hands. So he slipped on to the sofa next to her, dragging her across his lap to lie in his arms.

"You OK?"

She nodded, her head against his chest, "I'm good."

His laugh rumbled through his body and into hers, "so you're not lying there, wondering what happens later..." He stooped down and theatrically whispered, "...when the lights go out."

She rolled her eyes, even though he couldn't see that, he KNEW what she was thinking, the man was so bloody infuriating.

"No, not really."

He chuckled again, a deep grumble, "OK. IN that case, I want you curled up with me in my bed, always. But I know that you're worried about that. So it's OK. You get your bed, but I get kissed, tastes...touches...whenever I want to. That's the deal."

Heat washed over her as she digested his words, he was giving her an out, but that wasn't what she was focussing on, it was the latter. Before she could really process things, he was kissing her again. And as with the last kiss, she was lost.

"Shit."

He lifted his head and looked down at Julia, her lips looked swollen, her eyes glassy. She was beautiful anyway, but here, with this level of arousal in evidence, she blossomed. He meant what he said, he wasn't about to start stressing her out by dragging her into bed. Even if that was exactly what he wanted.

He had no agenda with her, but he knew that he had to keep chipping away at her defences, without scaring her off. Tomorrow, when he was in the office and out of the bubble that she seemed to pull him into, he'd plan his next steps.