Free Taking You by Jessie Evans

voice that made it clear he was finished humoring her. “Look at me.”
    Aria reluctantly turned to meet his eyes, not wanting to hear that she was being ridiculous, even though she knew it was the truth.
    “We might not have meant those words when we first said them,” he said, his gaze so intense and unguarded it made Aria’s breath hitch. “But now I hope you know I live by those words.”
    “I do, babe,” Aria said. “Of course, I do. And I feel the same way.”
    “Seriously, Red. It doesn’t matter how we got started, it matters how we live from here on out. And from here on out, there is nothing I want more in this life than to love, honor, and cherish you until the day I die,” Nash said, the tenderness and sincerity in his voice making the prickling in Aria’s eyes become a full-fledged sting.
    “Everything else is just gravy,” he continued, running his fingers through her hair to fist at the nape of her neck. “You’re my meat and potatoes.”
    Aria laughed even as the tears filling her eyes slipped down her cheeks. “You should have stopped after the first part.”
    “You don’t like being my meat and potatoes?”
    “I love being your meat and potatoes,” she whispered, reaching up to capture his face in her hands, cradling him like the treasure he was. “I love you, Meaty.”
    “And I love you,” he said, using the hand fisted in her hair to pull her close, a possessive gesture that made Aria’s nerves hum with awareness. And then he wrapped his free arm around her waist, lifting her into the air until her feet dangled before kissing her like the world was about to end, and the hum became a roar.
    Nash demanded entrance to her mouth; Aria’s lips parted with a moan as he swept inside, meeting her tongue with firm, hungry strokes that made her wish she’d taken him up on that offer to visit the family bathroom. All she wanted right now was Nash’s hands on her, Nash’s fingers between her legs, coaxing the slick heat from her body before he replaced his hand with something more intimate and pushed inside.
    She wanted him filling her up, claiming her with all the passion she could feel coiled in his tense muscles, banishing the last of her sadness with the blissful feel of his body pounding into hers.
    “Let’s get out of here,” she mumbled against his mouth, breath coming fast.
    “Downstairs bathroom?” he asked, as breathless as she was.
    “Or the woods behind the building or the backseat of the truck, I don’t care,” she said, claiming his hand as he set her back on her feet. “I just need you.”
    “And I need you,” he said, squeezing her fingers as he drew her across the terrace and down the stairs leading to the bottom floor. “Don’t ever doubt it, baby.”
    “I don’t.” Tears filled Aria’s eyes again, just the way he called her baby enough to make her start sniffling all over again.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, stepping off the stairs onto the concrete patio. “I don’t know why I’m so emotional today.”
    Nash smiled over his shoulder as he headed for the door to the bottom floor and the hopefully unoccupied family bathroom. “It’s a wedding, babe. Half the women in there have cried today and some of the men, too.”
    Aria shook her head. “No, seriously, I don’t cry at weddings. They don’t hit me that way. I mean, I cried at my friend Hannah’s wedding, but that’s because I was…”
    She froze just inside the door, her hand slipping from Nash’s with a swiftly drawn breath as an unexpected thought danced through her head.
    “What’s wrong?” Nash turned, his eyes looking even greener with the light green walls of the lounge area behind him.
    “I think…” She bit her lip, struggling to remember the first day of her last period. She knew it had been before she and Nash had their epic four-times-in-one-night adults only evening, but she couldn’t quite…
    “When was our last date night?”
    He frowned. “Um…it was after the