I love how he eats. How is it I've never noticed that about a man before?  He's so neat and precise about it, about everything really.    I think I expected him to be a lot messier in things. But he isn't.

I mean he isn't Oliver borderline OCD, but he's far tidier than he looks at first glance.  Even his rugged appearance, when you looked closely, was actually very uncluttered and orderly.

He looks different with his beard trimmed back —still exceptionally good looking, still devastatingly handsome, but different. I wonder what he'd look like completely shaven?  Still beautiful, I had no doubt about that. His jawline was strong and his skin smooth and flawless. I wouldn't mind seeing the whole of his face sometime.  

His eyes sparkle like they always do when he's had wine, and the open collar of his white shirt purposefully teases me, daring me to reach over the table and lick the soft warm skin of his neck.  

How is it that he's never been on a date with a woman?  Didn't he say last night he'd been someone's boyfriend?  He never once took her out on a date?  Suddenly I understand why he was terrible at being a boyfriend.

"Would you like to see the dessert menu?" The blonde girl asks. She's in her early twenties and pretty in that all-American, fresh-faced, straight white teethed way. Plays hockey and tennis, holiday's in Cabo. She bats her eyelashes at Aidan whose gaze moves from her back to me. When he doesn't answer her she drags her eyes somewhat reluctantly to me. 

"No, thank you," I say. "You don't want anything?" I raise an eyebrow at him. Since he's always hungry I find this hard to believe.

"Do I want dessert?" He says, more to himself than me.

He runs his long finger back and forth over his bottom lip, thoughtful.  It makes my mind wander and the insides of my thighs tingle. I know what he's thinking. I'm thinking the same. Beneath the table I slip my foot out of my shoe and run it up the inside of his thigh, enjoying the way his eyes widen. He spreads his legs a little wider for me. 

He doesn't look at the waitress when he speaks. "Just the bill thanks," he tells her, his voice low. 

"Actually, you know what, I've changed my mind," I turn my head to smile at her. "I wouldn't mind having a look." I slide my foot further up his leg, pressing my bare toes into the hard muscular part of his inner thigh, up across the growing hardness between them.  

I want him, but I'm also enjoying being here with him, on a date. The atmosphere is nice, the wine is good, and the food had been delicious. We'd shared oysters and then I'd had lobster and Aidan steak. He'd told me he never follows a fish starter by a fish main, and so had chosen a huge slab of meat instead,  which he'd asked for rare and with chips, not vegetables. He'd let me taste it, stretching across to feed me a piece from his fork. Then he'd politely asked permission before reaching over to stab a piece of my lobster with his fork.  

The girl nods and lifts the empty bottle of wine from the table and leaves us alone, though not before throwing another covetous look in Aidan's direction. Not that I could blame her for that. He looked particularly 'sexy' tonight.  As soon as she's out of earshot he narrows his eyes on me.

"You love fucking torturing me don't you?" He says, the side of his mouth quirking up.  I consider telling him no, that I merely love fucking him, but I refrain.

He slips his hand under the table and grabs hold of my foot, pressing it harder against the semi-arousal between his legs. My body trembles at the contact.

"Is that what I'm doing? Torturing you?" I smile, lifting my wine glass. I sip slowly of the cool sweet white which had gone lovely with the fresh lobster. "I thought we were having a lovely night; a lovely first date. I just want to prolong it a little that's all," I shrug. 

A strange look cuts across his face as he leans forward.  It presses my foot harder into the warmth of his thigh, his cock.

"First date?" he nods slowly.   "Ok, so how's the second one going to work?"

My body hardens and my shoulders tense up.  So he had been thinking about it too.  About after.  In two days we'd have to go back to the city, and I honestly had no clue what that meant. What it meant for Oliver and I.  For Aidan and I. I glance down away from him and look at my hands, my left hand specifically to where my platinum wedding band is glinting in the orange glow of the restaurant. When I lift my eyes a moment later he looks expectant and a little tense.  I don't want to talk about this right now. I want to pretend for a little while longer. 

"You never told me what the 4th thing was," I smile, wondering how long I could avoid thinking about the subject entirely. The subject of Aidan, and how I'd deal with not being with him. Because maybe Aidan will be another thing that I'll need to learn to live without.   Something else that I would probably need Esther to help me live without.

He stares at me a long time before speaking.  "You were supposed to guess," he says quietly, a little reserved now.    

At that moment the girl comes back and places the dessert menu down in front of me, which I lift and pretend to look at. I can still feel his eyes on me, intense and heavy. "Ok... what about eating?" I ask.

He shakes his head.  "That one isn't allowed.  I'd die if I didn't eat. Like breathing, sleeping and pissing — I do those a lot too.  Necessary."

"Good point, ok," I nod and look back down at the menu, properly this time. "Oh, they have Eton mess —my grandma made the best Eton mess," I tell him pointlessly. "How strange they have it here."

"Never tried it."

"Oh, then I'll get that and you can share it with me?" I suggest. 

"We going to be like those disgusting couples who ask for two spoons?" He smirks. My stomach flutters.  Is that how he saw us?  A couple?  Were we a couple?  He probably meant it as a figure of speech.

"Definitely," I nod, turning my menu face down to signal I'm done deciding.  "So drinking, working, and music.  No basic human requirements permitted... hmmm what else is there?" 

Under the table, he begins to stroke and massage my foot, strong warm squeezes of my toes and instep which make my whole body relax and soften. His eyes as we stare at each other are smiling and tender and then the waitress comes over to take my dessert order. 

"Two spoons, please," Aidan adds after I tell her what I want.  I smile at him and glance around at the waitress who gives me a tight smile before spinning on her heel and striding off.  Oh, she hates me. She wants him and hates me because I get to have him. Then, like a light bulb being switched on, I suddenly know what the final thing is. 

"Sex," I say.

"Sure, where?" He nods, swallowing the last of his wine. 

I laugh. "No, I mean that's the fourth thing."

His eyes light up and his bottom lip disappears into his mouth as he smiles. I was right.  I don't know how I feel about being right.

"Thought you'd have got that one first, to be honest," he remarks. From nowhere the image of him making love to Sasha and numerous other glamorous, waif-like women whips through my mind and I feel my fingers curl and my body tense again. Then I begin to feel cold and a little foolish. I go to move my foot away from its spot between his legs but he grips it hard and holds it in place. "Though to be fair, I'm having a shit load more of it since yesterday afternoon. If you'd asked me this on Thursday I'd have said something else."

"Really?  What would you have said if I'd asked you on Thursday?" I lift my glass to my mouth. 

He thinks about it a moment. "Thinking about sex. Or wanking.  Or wanking whilst thinking about sex," he chuckles softly, running his free hand over his mouth.

I just about manage to cover my mouth so as not to spit my wine all over the dinner table as I laugh.  Did he actually just admit to that over the dinner table? It's not funny anymore when the image of him pleasuring himself floats into my mind and I feel my cheeks heat and my mouth dry up.  Good god what an image.  

Aidan keeps his eyes on mine as he begins to stroke himself with my foot. I cast a quick glance around the restaurant, suddenly scared that someone might be watching us. However the place is busy and oblivious, and the dark green tablecloths hang low on every table, relaxing me.

"So, I was thinking you should take me to the Irish pub on the way back, buy me a Guinness," I tell him.  We'd passed it on the way here and he'd grumbled something under his breath that sounded like 'every corner of the shitting world' which had made me smile. 

He groans and rolls his eyes. "Seriously?  Irish pubs are the worst places on earth, Eloise, trust me."

"They are?"

He nods. "Yes, except in Ireland.  Then they're just pubs."

"I don't care," I pout.  "I still want to go to one, I've actually never been inside one before," I tell him.  "I've always wanted to. I want you to take me," I sound like a petulant child.

He smiles. "They aren't magical places, you know that right? They're dark, normally full of drunks and they sell the same kind of alcohol we have back at the house." He fixes me with a pointed look and runs his tongue over his bottom lip. 

"We don't have Guinness back at the house," I point out.

He sighs. "Fine, we'll go inside and I'll buy you one pint.  Then we're going home. Where I'm going to do to you what I've wanted to do to you all night."

I smile, flirtatious. "Which is?"

He leans over, reaching across the table to take hold of my hand which he begins stroking in soft feather-light touches.  When he speaks his voice is low and rough, and his accent thick.  "Bend you over that fancy dining table, shove up that too short dress and fuck you, hard." There's a blatant, brazen look in his eye that almost makes me moan out loud. Instead, I bite my lip. He drops his eyes to my lips and licks a tongue across his own. "Where the fuck is that dessert?" He growls, glancing towards the serving station. 

The dessert comes a minute later, and apart from two small bites which he feeds me, Aidan polishes the entire thing himself in four spoonfuls. And he didn't want a dessert. It's the messiest I've ever seen him eat.  He pays using his credit card, leaves an overly generous tip, and then pulls me out of the restaurant.

The town is busy with lots of people milling around, and diners eating out on tables set out on the pavements. The chatter, laughter and the clinking of wine glasses signalling that it's Summer upstate.  It's a quaint little place, Lake Placid, with lots of low wooden structured buildings and houses with wrap-around terraces. Pretty and picturesque.  As I always do when I go somewhere new, I try and mentally bank as much as I can about how it looked and felt right now.  Then I realise it isn't necessary because I'd been doing that anyway. I didn't want to forget a thing about any of this.  For later. After.

"You think my dress is too short?" I ask as he pulls me up the street behind him. As ever, his long bouncy strides make it hard for me to keep up with him.

Aidan stops walking and turns his head, then glances down my body before meeting my eye. "Depends," he says. 

"On what?"

"Are you wearing knickers?"

I frown. "Of course I am,"

"Good."

"So if I wasn't then it would be too short?" I ask as I look down at myself.  I'd have to agree.  It stops about an inch past my bum.  Wearing this dress without underwear would be brave, very brave. 

"No.  It is too short.  I just wanted to know if you were naked under it or not.  Didn't know if I could just come out and ask. This being a date and me being clueless. I'm still learning the basics here."

I smile at him. "You're doing okay so far,"

"That right?" He says as he pulls me into him.  His body is hard and warm and I press myself against his chest as he wraps his arms around me. Again I marvel at how perfectly my body fits inside his. 

"Yes, it is," I whisper as I stare up at him. 

How is it possible to be this comfortable with him, with a man I've known a few weeks?   For everything that we do to feel comfortable and natural and not at all wrong?  Like we didn't have this huge suffocating weight of reality hanging over us.  I know that what we're doing is wrong, and I know that I'll have to pay for the consequences of it sooner or later —but it just didn't seem to matter when I was close to him. When he was close to me.  When we were together.  

He looks into my eyes in such a way that it occurs to me that maybe he can tell what I'm thinking.  "You think we could just stay here forever?" He asks softly. 

I drop my eyes from the weight of his stare and focus instead on the open collar of his shirt. "Hmmm, I think there would be a few people who would miss us don't you?"

His hand comes round to skim the side of my face and his eyes glaze over a little, growing distant. "Miss you, maybe."

Because I can feel him slipping down into that dark hole again, something he does often which he thinks I don't notice, I lean up and kiss him. His mouth is hot and wet and he moans softly as I move my tongue against his.   I love how he kisses me.  How careful he is about it and how focused he is about it.  It feels practised, as though he's thought it out beforehand and perfected just how it should be.  

Of course, he hadn't — it was just something else he did in that precise way he had of doing things. He holds my face and pushes his nose against mine, his lips moving in smooth circular motions as his tongue laps at my mouth.  He tastes divine. Seductive.

When I pull back from his mouth I can't breathe properly but it doesn't matter.  He tastes his own lips and then nods, as though making a decision. 

"Let's get this fucking Irish pub out of the way and go home," he huffs and pulls me with him again. 

The pub is busy and there's a band sitting on a raised dais near the back. I say band, it's really just two men sitting on chairs; one with an accordion and the other with a guitar.  The music is upbeat and I guess what I'd call Irish music.  Though I suppose Aidan would know better than I would whether it was traditional or not.   

When I turn to him he rolls his eyes and throws me a look to signal he's in some sort of social hell.  I beam at him and pull him further into the cosy but somewhat dingy bar.  It's busy but we're lucky, and manage to find a high table with two stools close to the door.  As I hop up onto the stool Aidan puts his hand on the back of my neck and leans in.

"I'll get the drinks," he says still looking grumpy.  God he really doesn't want to be here. But he came, for me. I smile again.

"Are you going to cheer up a little?  Come on, this is fun." I gesture my head back to the small stage which has several tables in front, mainly occupied by elderly people clapping and stamping their feet. I start clapping my hands too and turn back to find him staring at me.  He still isn't smiling but the side of his mouth looks at least partially amused.   

"This is about as far away from my idea of fun as we could get, to be honest."

"Music not cool enough for you?" I scrunch my nose at him. 

He nods, smiling. "Yeah, that's it."

"Music snob," I stick my tongue out.

He nods again and leans in to kiss me.  A small peck this time which feels chaste and tender. "So, you really want Guinness?"

I nod, eager. "Yes, I really do."

His lips curl up and he nods once more before turning to go to the bar, which looks busy but not ridiculously so. Whilst he's gone I open my bag and feel inside for my phone.  I wonder if he'd tried to call.  He hadn't called all day which was strange for him. 

I reach in but my hand finds the folded up paper first, which I pull out and unfold again.  I'd done it at every opportunity I'd got.  When he went to the bathroom during dinner, then when I had.  It was beautifully drawn.  Scraggy and quirky, but elegantly simple.  He'd signed the bottom right corner with his name: AidanJFoley.  The gesture had left me speechless earlier.

So Aidan was romantic without the slightest realisation that he was. 

I grin at the paper for another moment before folding it and slipping it back inside my grey clutch. Then I pull out my phone with a slightly heavy feeling. No calls from Oliver; just a text from my sister saying she missed me and to call her when I could.  Since I don't want Aidan to catch me with my phone and risk another potential replay of last night, I decide to reply to Gabrielle tomorrow.  He returns a few minutes later carrying two pints of the dark beer, and places them down on the table, then pulls the stool closer to me and slides gracefully up onto it. 

"Oh, I know this one," he says gesturing at the band. The band had just kicked things up a gear, the guy playing the accordion now massaging what looked to be a set of bagpipes.  Irish bagpipes?

"You do?"

He gives me a withering look before smiling and shaking his head, mouthing the word 'no'.   I hit him on the arm and slide the pint towards me.   It looks slightly intimidating —Black and thick with the familiar foamy head. 

"Cheers," he says lifting his pint. 

"Cheers."

He's looking at me with that hot familiar look I know so well now.   As though he's imagining all of the things he wants us to be doing instead of what we're doing right now.   Though as I think about it, the way he looks at me hasn't really changed.  He's always looked at me in the same way — deeply and intensely.  It's just that I had an idea of what went through his mind now.  Not all of it, god he was a fortress, but some of it he was powerless to hide.  I gaze longingly at the way his fingers wrap around his glass and imagine them instead on the parts of my body that I can still feel them echo across.   

The liquid is thick, cold and bitter, yet goes down my throat smoothly.  I wipe the foam from my lips and give him a nod as I place it back down on the table.

"It's nice," I tell him.

He nods and smiles, before a comfortable but charged silence settles over the space between us.  It feels very much like we're any other couple enjoying a first date.  Which we are but also aren't. As I bring the glass to my mouth again I wonder if it felt like that to him too.  But then I remember that he's never been on a date before. Across the table, Aidan's smile deepens. 

"What?" I ask, my mouth mirroring his. 

He runs a hand over his mouth and shakes his head. "Just never thought I'd be sitting in an Irish bar in upstate New York drinking Guinness with Eloise Airens."

I start a little with surprise. "Airens? How do you know my maiden name?" I frown.

Had I told him? It still slipped out on occasion when I wasn't paying attention. Had it? 

A strange look comes over his face but it's gone in an instant. He lifts his pint, shrugging slightly.  "Your book was published under your maiden name wasn't it?"  He brings his glass to his mouth and takes a few long deep gulps.  "Call it a Freudian slip. Or wishful thinking," he adds morosely.

I nod slowly, unsure of how to respond to that.  To his wishing that I wasn't married.  I take another long gulp of my own pint and look over at the band as I think about it. Would Aidan and I even be here if I wasn't married?  Oliver had brought me to New York.  Oliver had dragged me to Aidan's show.  I'd gone to see Aidan under the pretence of purchasing a piece of art for Oliver. Would I ever have met him if not for being Oliver's wife?  All pointless questions I don't know the answer to and never would.

When I turn back to him he's still looking at me, nibbling on the inside of his bottom lip with his teeth.

"Is the piece finished do you think?  Do you have much more to do to it?" I ask.  It had looked finished when I saw on Saturday. It was beautiful.

"Why?  You fed up being my subject?"

"Of course not. I was just curious if it would be ready in time that's all"

"And I told you it would be." His tone is sharp, his body hardening. He turns his head from me towards the stage, staring intensely at the musicians who were tuning up their instruments. Though as I stare at him I see that he's not looking at them at all, he's miles away as he chews his bottom lip furiously.  Cautious, I reach over and take hold of his hand, which causes him to start slightly. He looks down at my hand first, his eyes lingering there for a long time before he looks up at me.

"Let's go back now," I say.

"You haven't finished your pint."

"I know."

His eyes begin to heat up and he starts to stroke my fingers with his. "I told you what will happen when we get back." It sounds almost like a threat. Desire curls deliciously around me, between us, soft tendrils of heat stroking against my thighs, the back of my neck.

"I think I can live with that," I whisper.

Aidan grabs my hand and practically pulls me off the stool and out of the Irish bar just as the band starts up again. 

***

"I've asked you to marry me five times El, just put me out of my fucking misery already," Oliver groans.  I turn to face him, smiling at his pout.

"And tell you no again?"

"Why are you torturing me? You know how crazy I am about you, you're doing nothing for my ego here you know."

"I think your ego will be just fine Mr 'Man who rules the world number 22'," I smile.  

He rolls onto his side and leans up on his elbow over me, his body warm and slightly damp against my own. The room is hot, and even though the French windows are wide open and the white curtains are billowing from the breeze, the Paris night was far too bloody warm. 

"I surprised you with a trip to Paris, we had dinner and drank wine on the Seine, I proposed to you over oysters and champagne on the tower. What more do you want from me, baby? You're killing me here," he drops his head and pushes his hardness into me. 

He'd made love to me twice since we'd come back from dinner.  The first time the door had barely closed before he pushed me onto the bed and fucked me rougher than normal, as though angry at me for saying no again.  Then we'd showered and he'd ordered wine and we'd made love slowly, and what most people would call passionately. 

He lifts his head and reaches out to stroke his fingers softly across my shoulder, watching the movement of his hand as it goes. I watch him as he does. So handsome. Oliver bloody Alford. Suited, successful, Porsche-driving banker.  Like this, he was different though. The way his copper hair looks ruffled and grabbed at makes me feel warm and sated.  Naked and in bed with that sleepy pleasured look in his eye makes me feel lucky. Lucky that I get to see a side to him no one else did.

Eloise Airens Alford. No that didn't work.  Eloise Alford.  It would have to be Alford.  It would have to be all or nothing. 

I sigh dramatically. "Yes, you would think it would be enough to sweep a girl off her feet. I'm so hard to please. Why on earth do you even want to marry me?" I roll my eyes before smiling up at him. His hand stills and he peers down into my eyes. 

"You know why, El."

"Because I said no?"

Oliver liked a challenge.  He was a competitive bugger; driven and successful in everything he did.  Money. Investments. Property. He is an impressive man. It's just that the things Oliver was successful in didn't particularly impress me.

"Yes," he smiles. "It makes me want you more."

"Weird reason to want to marry someone don't you think?" My voice is playful and light.

Oliver looks away briefly and then back at me, eyes serious. "Don't you love me?" He asks. 

His voice is so sincere and so raw that I find myself momentarily stunned.  I'd never seen or heard him sound so vulnerable before. Oliver was always staggeringly confident in everything that he did. It was intimidating most of the time. It was part of the reason I'd said no five times. To teach him a lesson, that he couldn't have everything he wanted simply because he wanted it. It was certainly why I'd refused to date him initially.  Confident, arrogant men did nothing for me.  

"We've been seeing each other four months, Oliver, it's too soon to get married," I tell him. Hoping I sound diplomatic, reasoned.

"I'm 36, I'm not getting any younger."

"You don't look 36..." I tell him pointlessly. 

He sighs. "I've dated a lot of women, El, you know that, and I've never wanted to marry a single one of them. Not one. So this is a bit of a shock to me too, you know," he gives me a charming smile before leaning down to kiss me. 

I close my eyes and open my mouth to let him in.  I'm 27.   I care about him.  A lot.  He makes me laugh and treats me well and by sheer luck, I'd somehow managed to publish my book before I'd done the married with children thing.   A goal I'd always set myself.  I wasn't anywhere near ready to do the children bit but I could possibly get my head around being a wife.  Being Oliver's wife. 

It just feels soon.  Why didn't it feel soon for him?   But what am I waiting for?  Something better?    Better than Oliver Alford? Handsome, smart, and successful. By all accounts, I'd "bagged" myself a very eligible bachelor. I actually felt sick thinking about that.  It was partly this that prevented me from saying yes. But then, I couldn't not marry a man I cared about just in case people thought was after his money. 

He pulls up from my mouth. "I love you, Eloise Airens," he says, eyes soft and sincere. "I love your mind and your body and your talent and your grace, but I also love that you fight me on every single bloody thing."

"Don't you think that would start to grate after a while?  My fighting you on every single bloody thing?"

He shakes his head. "No, because think of the make-up sex we'd have..." his smile turns wicked and I feel something hot begin to curl and expand below.   

I laugh softly and look away from him for a moment before bringing my eyes back to his.

Mrs Eloise Alford. It feels different. Strange.  I remember when I was little and all my friends spent their time thinking about what their names might be when they grew up and got married.  It had always left me feeling cold and strange.  I'd never practised my name with the surnames of boys I was madly in love with. I'd never been madly in love with any boy — not properly. I'd had crushes sure, deep all-consuming crushes, but I'd never been in love. 

The idea of giving my name away felt odd.  I was my father's daughter, I didn't want to belong to another man and have his name take away that part of me that belonged to my dad. But that was silly; I could always keep my own name if I really wanted to.  I'm sure Oliver wouldn't care about that. It didn't matter whether I was Eloise Alford or Eloise Airens.  It was the fact that I'd be his wife.  

Whenever I had given any thought to getting married, the man I married was always blurry and out of focus.  I only knew his character traits: Passionate, Charming, Intense, Loving, Understanding, Olive Lover, Cat Lover, Down to earth, Funny. Oliver was a lot of these things.   Even if I had avoided him like the plague at first. 

Even if I had dismissed him as a complete charmer looking to fool me into writing a positive piece about him. I'd been wrong about that because he pursued me even after the article was published.  Even more so in fact. Oliver had been a persistent nuisance who'd pestered me until I gave in.  Persistence was also a trait I liked in men apparently. 

"You never answered my question," he says stroking his hand down my chest to my breast to circle my nipple, which springs to life again under his touch. 

"I did, five times," I smile. I know perfectly well which question he's referring to.  I'm not sure I want him to ask it again.  I need to be able to answer it if I'm going to marry him.  Am I going to marry him?

He sighs, "I asked if you loved me."

"Oh, now I remember," I nod as I gaze up into his eyes.  He continues to move his thumb lightly over my nipple, back and forth, delicate soft strokes which are too soft.  He always treats me as though I'm a delicate thing.  As though he's afraid he'll break me if he handles me too hard.  Sometimes I wish he'd be rougher.  Sometimes I wish he would try and break me. Crack me wide open.  I'm curious to know what's in there. "I like you very well," I tell him. I bring my hand up to run it through his hair, pulling at it gently.  He lets me pull his head back by his hair. 

"Well, that's progress. He looks pleased. 

"What if we're miserable?" I ask him.

"Then we'll buy a big house and live in separate ends," he says. 

"I'm serious, Oliver, we barely know each other."

"That's not true. You know me. You know me better than any woman's ever known me, Eloise, and that includes my mother."

"And you think you know me?" I ask, drawing my hand through his hair and down the back of his neck, which is warm and smooth and a little damp. 

He stares at me a long time before shaking his head.  "No. I doubt anyone will ever really know you, El.  I want to though.  Maybe someday I will," he takes a deep breath and his eyes go distant, as though he's trying to picture that 'someday' where he might know me.  For a moment I do too.  "I'd certainly like to spend my life trying to."

When he smiles again it's his charming one.  The one that he stunned me with when he turned up at the office that day.  He'd arrived with lunch because I'd told him I was too busy every time he'd called to ask me out to dinner. I didn't love him, not yet.   But then, I'd never been in love.  Not properly anyway.  I wasn't even sure I was capable of it.  I wonder if I should mention that to him?  Was it cruel not to?  He loved me.  Time would tell if I could love him back in the same way.  I wanted to.

"Ok," I nod. 

"Ok, what," he looks wary but hopeful.

"Ask me again."

He pulls his head back and stops circling my nipple, fixing me with a look of hope mixed with wariness.

"Eloise Airens, for the 6th time," he smiles a little before looking serious again.  "Will you marry me?"

I say nothing for a moment while a strange sense of deja vu comes over me.  Or premature deja vu where I have an image of me walking up to an altar which is set outside in a wide-open space on a hot summer day.  I see a figure at the end of the aisle waiting for me.  Like always, the face is blurred but it feels familiar, the way he looks at me is familiar, the weight of his stare is familiar. His gaze comforting and filled with love. 

"Yes," I tell him.  "I'll marry you."

I feel and hear something inside me make a strange noise.  Like a piece of me breaking off and dropping on a hard concrete floor, the sound of it echoing through my whole body.  The sound and feeling disappear instantly when Oliver kisses me hard and moving between my legs, then slides deep inside me. 

Aidan's breaths are the only sound filling the room as I drag myself out of the past and the night I agreed to take Oliver's name.  I'm not sure what took me there in the first place, except that I could still hear Aidan calling me Eloise Airens in the bar. I liked the sound of my old name on his lips.

"You bit me," I tell him, turning to inspect the red tingling spot on my shoulder.

"In my defence, you're very biteable and I was in the throes," he replies. He sounds sleepy and pleasured and very sexy.  I love when his voice sounds like that.  I love that I have something to do with making his voice sound like that. 

"That's not an excuse," I giggle, nudging him with my elbow.  He's lying on his back staring at the ceiling, his hair rumpled and messy, his chest rising and falling quickly with over-exerted breaths. 

He'd done as he promised. As soon as the door closed he'd pulled me into his arms and walked me back to the dining table, eyes intense and burning hot. There he'd spun me around and pulled me back against him and run his hands down my body, slid up my dress, and yanked down my underwear.  He'd bent me over the table and taken me hard and rough, the roughest he'd ever been with me. As he came he'd bitten me hard on the shoulder and growled my name against my ear. He stayed inside me as he stroked and teased me to orgasm with his finger, shuddering around him.  

After turning on the fire he ordered me to take off my dress, which I'd done as I watched him strip out of his own clothes. Then he'd pulled me down with him to the floor where he proceeded to cover my body with his mouth, ending at my feet, torturing me with soft sensual strokes of my toes with his tongue. It had tickled at first, and I'd tried to yank them out of his grip, terrified they smelled awful, but his hands were strong and he'd given me a look of warning before continuing to lick the tops of my feet and toes. Immediately his mouth had begun to tease and excite my body, the way it always did.

"Your body is a work of art, every inch of it," he said as he ran his tongue back and forth over the skin on the tops of my toes.  "I'm not gonna be satisfied until I've tasted all of it so get fucking comfy.

In my drunken haze, I'd decided there were worse things I could think of than Aidan kissing and massaging my feet, and so I'd settled back on the rug and watched and enjoyed as he'd tasted every inch of me. 

Afterwards, he'd made love to me slowly and gently as though to make up for his roughness on the dining table. 

Now, I felt sated and relaxed, more so of both than I could ever remember being.  Aidan was thorough. A perfectionist when he made love to me.  An even balance of rough and gentle, of pleasure and pain, of give and take.

I turn up onto my side and press my body into his.  His face is flushed and slightly damp and from nowhere (or somewhere) the urge to taste his moist skin overtakes me. I lower my mouth to his shoulder and press my lips to him, grazing the sweat-slicked skin with my tongue. He turns his head and kisses me, pressing his mouth to my temple tenderly. The gesture only adds to my overwhelming feeling of contentment.

What is it about Aidan that makes me feel like this? That makes me feel like there was nowhere else on earth I should be?   I'd felt that in his presence since I'd first set eyes on him.  Looked at, alive, living.  That was his doing. His gift.  When I pull my head up from the crook of his shoulder he's staring at me, his grey-blue eyes wide and unshielded.  Keeping his eyes on mine he brings his hand up and begins fiddling with the ends of my hair.

"So this was a date then," he says quietly, dropping his eyes to where his hand is. "Wish I'd been doing it the whole fucking time."

"Oh, they're not all as good as this one," I tell him. 

"So, I did okay then?" He looks like a proud little boy.

I smile and nod. "The flower sketch was a perfect start, the restaurant choice was great, and the walk home in the moonlight was very lovely and very gentlemanly." I shoot him a sideward glance.  "Though I should add, I don't normally sleep with men on the first date."

"Ah ok... I must be really fucking good at them then." He grins before moving his head to my nipple, covering it with his mouth.  He sucks hard, flicking his tongue back and forth before taking it between his teeth and pulling at it gently. It makes me gasp and I arch my body into him.  He moves quick, pushing me onto my back and then moves on top of me. He continues to circle and stroke my breast with his tongue as he slides his hand down between my legs where I'm still sticky and warm from him.  As he spreads my legs and settles between them a desperate fierce need for him washes over me. It feels like it's from somewhere deep inside. A place I didn't even know existed.

Would I ever get enough of him? 

You'll bloody have to. 

I'd have to take my fill and get back to my bloody senses soon.  It's not like we could stay here forever.  It's not like he was going to be in New York forever either.  A cold shiver runs over me at the thought of that.

"When do you go home?" I ask absently.  He stops kissing my nipple and lifts his head up, his eyes serious under the half-light of the fire. 

"Not sure yet," he says.

"But your run at The Weston finishes when?  A week? Two?"

"Two but they've asked me to stay on for a bit longer and extend it."

A weird tightening happens in my chest and belly.  I don't want him to go.  God, I'm not ready for him to go.  How the hell do I just continue being here after he was gone?  The tightening intensifies.

I try and keep my voice casual. "And are you going to? Stay?"

His eyes flicker and he stares at me for a long time before speaking.  His gaze is heavy and focused, as though he's looking for something in my face, my eyes.  Stay. I hope they say. Please, stay. I can't ask him to stay.   I want him to stay.  I want him to want to stay. 

"My aunt's ill," he says finally, casting his eyes down away from me.  "Cancer."

I move to sit up. "Oh, Aidan, I'm sorry.  Is it... I mean, are they treating it?  Is she going to be okay?"

He lowers his head and settles it on my stomach, and I slide my hands into his hair and begin massaging his head softly.  I assume it's the aunt he went to live with after his father died.  My heart hurts for him all over again.  He turns his head to the side and closes his eyes.

"I actually don't know.  I think so," he says.   "I hope so."

"I'm sure she will be," I say, because what else is there to say?  It feels stupid and ill-informed.  I don't know if she will be.  I don't know anything.  I don't know when he's leaving me and suddenly my selfishness knows no bounds because I still don't want him to go. I still want him to stay, with me. 

But that can't happen. Because he needs to go home. To his aunt. And because I'm married.  I married a man even though I didn't love him and now I'm paying the price. I can't ask him to stay. I can't ask him for anything because he isn't mine to ask things of.  Aidan isn't mine to have.  Someone else is. I have someone else who loved me.  

I had a conversation with my sister, just after I got engaged. She'd asked me why I was marrying Oliver.  I'd explained to her how I didn't really think I was capable of falling in love with someone properly. I'd read about love and passion in stories all my life, and realised fairly quickly that that kind of all-consuming love didn't actually exist in real life.  Real-life relationships never measured up to what my imagination and expectations told me I wanted and needed. I'd told her that in that case, I may as well marry Oliver.  She'd given me the strangest look —a mixture of confusion and pity.  When I added that I was also marrying him because he loved me she'd looked even more sorry for me.

When I'd had that conversation with her it had felt true.  I hadn't thought I could fall in love with anyone.  I genuinely believed I was incapable of it. None of the men I'd dated —five excluding Oliver —had come close to making me feel like I was in love.  I'd always felt like I was looking over their shoulder for the right one, the passionate one, the intense one, who could take my breath away with one look.

I gaze down at the soft curls on the top of his head, the strong shoulders and arms that are wrapped around my body, the long, beautiful hands.  Why couldn't I have met Aidan before?  Before I had responsibilities. Before I'd said yes that night in Paris? Whilst I still had my father's name?  

It hits me hard then.  I could easily fall in love with Aidan. Chances were I'm halfway there already.

Oh god. 

I'd crossed a line. Of course, I'd crossed a line two days ago when I'd gone to his loft and let him fuck me against a wall.  Or maybe I'd crossed a line before that, when I'd gone to his loft and commissioned a piece of art for my husband. But consciously falling in love with him wasn't sensible. I hadn't thought it possible so I hadn't even considered it might happen. How the hell could I have let this happen?  

I can't. I won't.

I have to end this.  After these few days are over I need to stop this.  It was best if he left New York.  He had to leave.  He had to go home. 

I had to go home. 

With more difficulty than I've ever had in saying anything before, the words squeeze out of my body.

"You should go home," I say. "See your aunt.  I'm sure having you with her would make all the difference to her." My voice is quiet and uncertain.  Of course, it is.

He turns his head and looks up at me, the makings of something dark and bitter fluttering over his face. It's gone in an instant and he looks like he always does, beautiful, intense and a little sad. 

"Yeah, I should," he mutters and lowers his head back down again.