Page 91 of Say It Again
Daniel huffed and kicked his legs over the arm of the chair, sinking farther.
“Okay, it’s ready.”
“It is?” he asked, twisting around to see. “Can I look—?” He grunted when Aaron scooped him out of the chair and tossed him over his shoulder. His arms dangled limply toward the floor as Aaron hauled him down the hallway. He sighed, “I don’t know why you do this.”
“This? Because I like how burly it makes me feel.” Aaron smacked his ass and said with bravado as he thrust an arm toward the sky, “I am big strong man with tiny chosen mate.”
He snorted. “But tiny chosen mate can walk.”
“Shh, tiny mate. Look what I’ve done for you.” Aaron pushed open the bathroom door and gently lowered him to his feet. “Big strong man has made you fire.”
Daniel gasped, his hands snapping to cover his mouth. The bathroom had been transformed into an unbelievably spectacular venue for romance with a bathtub filled to the brim with iridescent bubbles, bath bombs that fizzed like geysers, and glittering candles balanced on about every flat surface.
“When did you?” He could hardly speak, lifting his arms so Aaron could tug his shirt overhead. “Why did you?”
“Because I wanted to.” Aaron kissed his cheek. “Because I like to make you smile, tiny mate. Get in.”
This man. He shook his head in disbelief as he stepped into the bubbles and settled in. This man was dreamy. So damn dreamy that he even knelt beside the tub and lathered a loofah in the most balanced air of humble and dignified to ever exist. He frothed Daniel’s arms and back while they held each other’s gaze. While the silence broadened. While Daniel searched his mind, struggling to identify ways in which he might ever compare to how dreamy this man was.
“What are you thinking?” Aaron asked after a moment, rinsing his back with scoopfuls of water. “You seem deep in thought.”
Daniel fortified himself with a breath. “You should tell me the story from earlier.”
Aaron’s surprised gaze flashed to his. “From earlier at the grocery store?”
“Yes. Tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s something I don’t know yet.” He folded his hands over the side of the tub and rested his cheek. “I want to know what makes you you. I want to know everything there is to know about you.”
“Yeah?” Aaron grinned a little as he readjusted in his seat. “Okay, so I was in college.”
“For what? For interior design?”
“Yeah.” Aaron rubbed his eye. “And I met Chase.”
It was quite the task, but Daniel kept his nose wrinkle shockingly brief. “Do we still talk to Wild Chase?”
“No. No, he moved, and we lost touch. Anyway, we’re in the fort, and he asks if I want to make a quick couple of hundred bucks. I’m not sure what to think when he follows up with, ‘I kid you not, Silva, all you have to do is let this guy kiss you.’”
Daniel squinted, pulling his knees to his chest. “Kiss you?”
“Uh-huh. Kiss me.” Aaron smirked. “Kiss me while he did his thing.”
“His thing?”
“His thing.”
Daniel bit his lower lip. “People pay money for that?”
“You’d be shocked. So anyway, I said yes because that’s a lot of money when you’re nineteen, and kissing isn’t that big of a deal, right?”
“Kissing is no deal at all. If it were, I’d be screwed.”
“Right. So that experience, which was my first, was eye-opening. Because there I was in this nice hotel room with this nice guy who was trying to hand me money for having kissed me, and I can’t take it. I can’t take his money.”
“Really? Why not?”