Persuading Spring: A Sexy New Zealand Romance (The Four Seasons Book 4) (20 page)

“Talk to him,” he said.

Her lips parted, and she stared at the phone
for a long moment. “I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“You’re ready. And you have to do it
sometime. Talk to him and tell him the truth.”

Bridget picked up the phone, conscious of
her hand shaking. She realized that part of her was scared how she’d react to him.
He’d always talked her into going back with him in the past. She’d never been
able to say no to him.

Aaron was right though—she had to do it
sometime. So she picked up the phone, swiped the screen, and held it to her
ear.

 “Birdie?” Mal exhaled with a rush of
relief. “Oh thank God. I thought you’d never answer.”

“Hi, Mal.” She sat back in her chair and
drew up her legs again. It was getting chilly, and she wasn’t sure how long the
citronella candles Aaron had lit would keep away the mosquitoes, but she didn’t
want to go in just yet.

She glanced up at Aaron as he gestured as
to whether she wanted him to go. She shook her head. She had nothing private to
say to Mal, and it felt oddly comforting to have Aaron there.

He raised an eyebrow, but settled back and
sipped his beer, waiting.

She cleared her throat. “What do you want?”

“Shit. I don’t know what to say. I had this
whole speech prepared but I didn’t think you’d answer.”

She could almost see him running his hand
through his hair. His words conjured up a small smile—it was so typical of Mal
to infer it was her fault because she’d actually answered the phone.

“There is nothing to say. We’re done, Mal.
Why don’t we just end it there?”

“Don’t say that. Please don’t say that. You
know I love you.”

“Do you?” She surprised herself at the hard
tone of her voice. “Love’s not just about saying it. It’s about showing it.”
She met Aaron’s gaze, and caught her breath as a gorgeous smile spread slowly
across his face.

Suddenly, she couldn’t think what she’d
ever seen in Mal. Why had she spent so many years trying to persuade him they
were right for each other? She’d wasted so much time. And yet, if she hadn’t
been going to marry him—if he hadn’t jilted her at the altar—she’d never have
met Aaron.

Mal was speaking, but she hardly heard him,
her gaze fixed on Aaron’s face. The tension had gone from his shoulders, and he
had a sexy little grin on his face, as if he was mentally giving Mal the finger
and saying
I’ve got her now, dude. Your loss, my gain.

He’d thought she was going to succumb to
Mal’s charm. That she might go back to him. The relief in his eyes made her
heart leap. She could never love a man like Mal. Not now she knew what a real
man was like.

“You know me,” Mal was saying, putting on
what he thought was his charming voice. “I panicked, that’s all. I thought I
wasn’t ready for forever, but you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, do
you? I miss you. I’m perfect for you. Please, Tweety Pie. You’ve always been my
gal. I’ll love you until the day I die.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she said, and hung up.

For a long second, she and Aaron just
stared at each other, and then together they burst out laughing and rose from
their chairs, startling the dogs.

Aaron moved her back until she met the
glass sliding doors with a bump, then he caught her face in his hands and
kissed her. She sank her hands into his hair and gave herself over to it,
loving his passion, his sheer joy at the fact that she hadn’t left him.

He slid his tongue into her mouth and
entwined it with hers, hungry for her, half-asking, half-taking, and she moaned
her acquiescence and let her hands drop to his chest, scraping her nails down
over the cotton. He sighed and lifted his head, kissing her nose, her eyelids,
her jaw, and back to her mouth, pressing his lips from one corner to the other
before claiming them again.

“You know how I feel about you, don’t you?”
He asked the question fiercely, stopping to lift her chin so he could look into
her eyes. His burned into her, passionate and yet gentle too as only he could
be, and emotion tightened her throat so that she could only nod. It was too
soon for love, for declarations and promises, and she could see that he didn’t
know how to put what he felt into words either. But he’d told her that love
wasn’t just about saying it, it was about showing it, and even if she couldn’t
say the words, she could certainly show him how she felt.

The sun had set and the breeze was cool,
but the garden wasn’t overlooked and suddenly she wanted him there, in his environment—to
share him with the spring evening, with the smell of jasmine growing around the
deck and the salty sea off to the west.

Taking the hem of her T-shirt in her hands,
she lifted it over her head and dropped it to the floor. Then she unbuttoned her
jeans and slipped them down her legs.

Getting the idea, he did the same, removing
his shirt and jeans. He stared as she undid her bra and tossed that onto the
pile, and then slid her panties down her legs.

“Bedroom?” he asked hoarsely, sliding off
his boxers. “Living room?”

“Here,” she whispered.

He opened the sliding door and ushered the
dogs inside, then closed it and returned to her, naked now, pressing her up
against the door again so that she gasped as the cool glass met her skin.

His warm hands slid over her body,
caressing, arousing, cupping her breasts and teasing her nipples, slipping
between her legs and exploring her soft flesh.

In return, she brushed over his shoulders
and muscular arms, down his chest, then took his erection in her hand and,
while he continued to kiss her, aroused him gently. She watched him with
affection as his forehead creased with a frown, his eyes closing so he could
concentrate on the sensations she was arousing, his breath whispering across
her lips.

“You’re a fine figure of a man, Aaron,” she
murmured, conscious of him filling her hand, impressively long and hard.

His eyes opened, filled with wry humor as
he reached for his wallet on the table and took out a condom.

“You’re easy to please,” he said, and she
loved that self-deprecation, his quiet humility. He would never dream of saying
I’m perfect for you
—he would have said
You’re perfect for me
, and
that was a difference that Mal would never understand.

He rolled the condom on, then, to her
surprise and shock, picked her up and wrapped her legs around his waist.

“Eek! You’ll drop me!”

“I’m very careful with my valuables,” he
said.

“Your
taonga
?” she whispered.

“My
taonga.
” He pinned her against
the glass, and slowly lowered her until he slid inside her.

Bridget tipped her head back onto the glass
with a groan. She was impaled on him, and could feel him deep inside her, so
thick and solid at the root that she almost came on the spot.

“Too much?” he said hoarsely. Holding her,
he pulled his hips back and thrust, burying himself in her once again.

She groaned again, her mind spinning with
confusing sensations. Him hot and hard inside her and the cold glass against
her back. Her flushed cheeks and the cool breeze across her skin. His gentle
eyes and his demanding mouth. His love, and his passion.

“Aaron,” she said, breathing his name
against his lips, and he groaned and thrust harder, grinding against her clit
and carrying them both closer to the edge with every move.

She gave in and just let it build, let him
take her, because she was safe in his hands, his actions speaking a thousand
words. The orgasm was quick, hard, and fast, and she pressed damp palms to the
glass as she pulsed around him, wanting to cry, but not from sadness.

“Bridget.” He said her name as his climax
swept over him, and she welcomed his hard kiss, his gasps against her lips, and
the aftershocks of an orgasm that rippled through her, leaving her limp in his
arms and happier than she’d ever been in her life.

*

“I wonder whether Mr. Brooks saw us out of his
window,” Aaron said as they lay in bed later that evening.

Bridget rose up onto an elbow and stared at
him. “I didn’t think the garden was overlooked?”

“Only by the house in the corner. I think he’s
partially blind anyway so if he saw anything it was probably a skin-colored
blur.”

“Oh jeez.” She flopped back onto the bed.
“You lead me astray, do you know that?”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it yet.” He
rolled onto his side to face her and grinned.

“Yeah,” she said, screwing her nose up at
him. “You have far too innocent a face to be that naughty.”

“It’s a great disguise. Lets me get into
all sorts of trouble.”

She laughed. “Like what? Give me some
hints. Tell me what wicked things you’d do to me if you had the chance.”

His eyelids lowered to half mast, and a
delicious shiver ran through her at his wicked smile. “Don’t let my penchant
for rescuing wounded creatures fool you. I have a thousand things I want to do
to you in the bedroom, and I intend to work my way through the list one at a
time.”

“A thousand?”

He tipped his head from side to side. “Give
or take.”

“Ooh.”

He nuzzled her neck. “Want me to name a
few?”

They’d only just made love, but already she
could feel her body moistening, preparing itself for him. “Go on then.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but
the sudden buzz of a mobile phone stopped him. He stared at her. “Mal again?”

“Mine’s in the living room,” she said.
“It’s yours.”

His eyebrows rising, he sat up, retrieved
it from the bedside table, and read the screen. “It’s Mateo.”

Bridget frowned. He spoke to his son
several times a week, before the boy had his bath and went to bed—usually much
earlier than this. He’d told Bridget that he’d bought Mateo a twenty-dollar
mobile to keep in his school bag, against Nita’s wishes, because he wanted his
son to be able to call him if he felt the need, and Bridget suspected the boy
was making the call on that phone.

Aaron swiped the screen and answered. “Hey,
mate.” He listened for a bit, his stiffening body telling Bridget that Mateo
was upset even before he said, “Calm down, son. It’s okay. Just tell me what
happened.”

His gaze met hers as he listened, his eyes
full of pain, and Bridget swallowed hard against a lump in her throat. She
could only imagine how awful it must be to have a child and yet be so far away
from him and be unable to help when he was in trouble.

“Did you tell anyone at school?” Aaron said
softly. “Not even Miss Fox?” He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s all right,
Mat, calm down. I’m not going to do anything without your permission, but you
have to understand that we need to sort this out. The boys are bullies, and if
we don’t do something they are going to seriously hurt someone, and it might be
you.”

He murmured comforting words while he
listened for a while, and Bridget thought she could hear Mateo crying. She felt
like crying herself. She’d never been badly bullied at school, but she knew
girls who had, and it had made their lives a misery. She’d even heard of one
student who’d tried to take her own life after being repeatedly bullied on
Facebook and Twitter. God forbid it ever got that bad for Mateo—it certainly
sounded like more than your average pushing around in the lunch queue.

“All right,” Aaron said when Mateo
eventually calmed down. “Go and blow your nose, and then come back.”

While he waited, his eyes met hers again
before he tipped his head back on the wall. “This is hell. I don’t know what to
do.”

“Can he change schools?” Bridget suggested.

“It’s a possibility I suppose, but it’s the
nearest one to where Nita works. She doesn’t have any family around her, so it
would make it difficult for her to drop him off and get to work on time.”

Well, that was kind of her fault and her
problem to deal with, Bridget thought, but she didn’t say so. “What about the
police? Would they get involved?”

“Maybe. He doesn’t want me to do anything,
he says. He’s terrified it will make things worse.”

“It can’t get much worse, Aaron. Just using
the word terrified in the same sentence as your son’s name makes me want to
march down there myself.”

He gave her a small smile. “Thank you.”

An idea came to her. “You told me that one
reason you helped me on the quay was because you wanted to set an example for
Mat. Can you come at it from that angle? Ask him what he thinks is the right
thing to do?”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully, then
lifted the mouthpiece up as Mateo came back. “Yes, I’m still here. Listen, Mat,
I want to ask you something. If it were the other way around, and I was the one
getting bullied, what advice would you give me? What would you tell me to do?”

He listened for a while. Then he chuckled.
“Yeah, it was a mean question. But you need to think about it. Imagine that
someone told me a man was hurting an animal—a dog—beating it up and mistreating
it. I couldn’t just stand by and let it happen, could I? There are lots of
things I could do. I could go around to his house and smash the guy’s face in.
That would feel good, but I could hurt myself in the process, and there would
be nothing to stop the man doing it again with another animal. The best thing
to do would be to tell the SPCA or the police—they would remove the animals and
take him to court so he would never be able to own another pet again. Sometimes
you have to think about the bigger picture, about doing what’s right. These
boys need to be taught that they can’t treat other people like this. If you
don’t do anything, it will get worse. And telling your teachers isn’t being a
snitch. It’s not like the boys have bunked school and you’re telling on them,
or even like they’ve stolen something and you’ve reported them. You’re being
physically abused by them, and it’s just plain wrong.”