Chapter 24
Shelby
"Yess,” I hiss, holding Ace's shoulders as I ride his cock as he sits with his back against the headboard. Both his hands roll my nipples as he lets me do all the work. "I'm right there."
"I know," he says as I pick up my speed, and his hands go to my hips. My tits bounce up and down as I pick up speed. He leans down and grazes my nipple with his teeth. Making me moan and move even faster. I wanted to take my time this morning, especially since it will probably be the last time I'm with him. I throw my head back and finally let go with his name on my lips. His hands go to my hips as he thrusts his hips up and grunts out my name. I collapse on his chest, burying my face in his neck as we both try to get our breathing under control. "We have to get up," he says softly, bending to kiss my bare shoulder.
I don't say anything to him because there is a sudden lump in my throat, and I'm afraid that if I speak, it'll come out in a sob. We didn't sleep all night, both of us aware of our looming deadline to whatever we wanted to call this. Neither of us wanted the night to end, both of us not really speaking. "I'm going to head to the shower and finish packing when I get out." I nod my head, getting off him. I sit on the bed while he walks into the bathroom, my eyes on the two bags of luggage open on the floor. "It'll be fine," I tell myself, walking to the closet and packing the rest of my things.
One hour later, I'm zipping up my luggage when the knock on the door fills the silent room. Roberto comes in to grab our suitcases as I stand next to Ace. I take one more look around the room before walking out to the waiting golf cart. The ride to the airport is not much more. I sit in the back of the car, looking out my window with his arm around my shoulders, his thumb rubbing my arm, while my hand is draped on his knee.
I smile when I need to smile and only talk when he asks something. When they call for us to board the plane, I get up, grabbing my bag next to me. "Next stop home," I state, and he gets up, and I look at him. He's wearing his blue shorts with a white short-sleeve T-shirt. His eyes are crystal blue, just like the water we spent the week in.
We walk outside to the tarmac, and my hand slips into his so easily I don't even realize I'm doing it. We walk up the stainless-steel stairs side by side, and the flight attendant smiles at us when we get to the door of the plane. He lets my hand go to put it at the base of my back as he waits for me to walk in before him. "Do you want the window seat?" I look over my shoulder and ask him, and he shakes his head.
I scoot over when we get to our seats, tucking my bag under the seat in front of me. The attendant comes over when Ace takes his seat and asks us what we would like to drink. The both of us answer water and then laugh. I lean over and kiss him on the lips, and it is really sinking in that I won't be able to do that either when we get home. My head is telling me that it's okay since I got to kiss him all week long. We spent yesterday afternoon in the ocean in front of the villa. With my legs wrapped around his waist, we kissed for most of the afternoon.
I look out of the plane as my nerves start getting the best of me. My leg moves up and down, and he reaches over and grabs my hand in his. I look over in time to see him bring our joined hands to his lips where he kisses my fingers. "It's going to be okay." I don't answer him. Instead, I just look out the window as people start filling the plane. The captain comes out, and I close my eyes and lay my head back on the headrest when the plane starts to move.
"Shelby." I open my eyes, looking over at him. He leans onto the middle armrest. "What was your favorite part of this week?" His eyes turn just a touch darker.
"Um." I start to think. "There are lots of times actually." His hand comes up to my cheek as his thumb rubs my lips. "I don't know if I can pinpoint just one," I say, ignoring the way my heart is pounding in my chest, also knowing that it has nothing to do with the plane moving but everything to do with the man next to me. "What about you?"
"That's easy," he says. "You finding out that it was me who kissed you two years ago."
"Ace." I say his name, and he comes in and kisses my lips. His tongue slips into my mouth, and just like every other time, it's better than I remembered. I could spend hours just kissing him, and during this whole week, I have. He lets go of my lips now. "We're in the air."
I gasp and look out the window seeing the white clouds. "You kissed me to distract me?"
"No." He shakes his head. "I kissed you because it's my second-favorite thing to do with my mouth." I tilt my head to the side.
"Do I want to know what the first thing is?" I ask him, laughing.
He looks around. "I wish I could show you," he says, leaning his head back on the headrest. The smile on his face makes his eyes go even lighter, and I lean in for one more kiss before turning and looking out the window.
The flight goes by in record time. The whole time, my stomach is getting tighter and tighter while the pressure makes me feel like I can't breathe. The plane stops, and the seat belt sign goes off, and everyone starts to stand. I grab my bag as I get up and stand, waiting for the people to start moving. He smiles at me and leans forward, and I take one last kiss from him. He makes me pass in front of him, and I smile at the attendant on my way out. His hand finds mine, and I look down, knowing I should say something. “Ace,” I start to say to him as we walk toward the baggage claim.
“There she is.” I hear my sisters’ voices and slip my hand out of his. He looks down for a second at his empty hand and then looks ahead. I want to stop him from walking so fast away from me and tell him maybe we should talk. But all I hear is my sisters’ voices. "The not-newlyweds." I look up and see that my sisters are there with a huge sign that says:
Mr. & Mrs. Baker.
I laugh and look at Ace, who doesn't look at me, and I can feel his walls are up. "Hey," I greet when we get close enough to my sisters.
Clarabella comes over to me. "Shit, getting left at the altar agrees with you," she says, kissing my cheek, and I look over to see Presley give Ace a hug as she jokes with him. "You look amazing."
"It's the tan," I mumble and look over to see if I can catch Ace's eyes, but Clarabella is switching sides with Presley to hug him.
"You look," Presley says, looking at me, and she searches my eyes. "I don't know what that look is," she says, laughing, and hugs me. It's the look of a properly fucked woman who is wondering how she can prolong this without trying to sound needy.
"I'll go get the bags," Ace says, walking away from us, and I want to follow him and go with him.
"I'm going to go help him," I state, and my sisters laugh.
"I think he can handle two suitcases," Clarabella says. "Besides, we want to hear all about your week."
"Yeah," Presley agrees, and all I can do is watch Ace wait for the bags. The smile that was on his face the whole week is gone. "You didn't text us after that first day. Um, hello, Shelby," she says, and I look over at her.
"I'm sorry, what?" I ask.
"What the hell did you do all week?" Clarabella quizzes, folding her arms over her chest. "You went radio silent."
"I was on vacation," I remind her, trying not to look at her in case she can see all the memories replaying in my head.
"Here you go." I hear Ace, and for the first time today, he doesn't lean over and kiss me.
"Thank you," I mumble as I try to catch his attention.
"Ladies." He smiles at my sisters. "It was a pleasure." He smirks at them and then finally turns to look at me. "Shelby, thanks for the week."
"Was she a buzzkill?" Presley asks, looking at him, and he looks down at his feet and then looks up again, looking straight at me with a soft smile on his face.
"She was perfect," he replies, and I can't help the smile that comes on my face. "I'll see you guys around," he says, grabbing his luggage and walking away from us. I watch him go even though the whole time, I want to yell at him to stop, but I don't do anything but follow my sisters out. The two of them are telling me what I missed, but the whole time, I try looking around to see if he's around here somewhere.
I don't say anything on the ride back to my house. Instead, I look out of the window and wonder where my phone is. I get home and walk into the house, stopping when I see that the picture of Joseph and me is gone. I look around the family room seeing his magazines are gone. Walking to the kitchen I see everything that he touched or would look like it belonged to him is gone. "Who cleaned out my house?" I look over at Clarabella, who is huffing up the steps trying to get the luggage into the house.
"Did you bring bricks with you?" she asks, stopping to take a breath. "How is it that your luggage is a million pounds when all you packed is skanky-ass clothes?"
"I forgot about the clothes," Presley says, laughing as she walks to the fridge and grabs something to drink. "What did Ace say when he saw you in those ho clothes?"
"He didn't say anything," I mumble, looking around and wondering if they are going to be here long.
"Was Joseph the one who cleaned up his stuff?" I ask, and they laugh.
"Are you kidding?" Clarabella says. "Mom came in with a brown box, and anything that didn't look like you bought it, she tossed in the box." I look at her with my mouth open now. "Then she dropped it off on his front porch."
"She did not," I say, walking over to my purse and getting my phone. Seeing it's dead, I walk over to the counter and plug it in.
"She did," Presley confirms. "And she wrote dickhead on the box." She laughs. "It's my new screen saver."
I look at the time on the stove and then turn to look at my sisters. "I'm tired," I tell them, hoping that they don't see me lying.
"You were on vacation for a week," Clarabella points out, folding her arms over her chest. "Seven days."
"Yeah," Presley says, leaning against the counter. "Besides drinking and passing out, what else did you do?"
"We didn't do anything," I gasp. "It was two friends on vacation." I look over at them. "I'm going to start my laundry."
"Well, this is fun," Clarabella says. "But I can tell when you are trying to get rid of us."
"I told you she was going to be like this," Presley claims. "I told her to let you Uber home by yourself and make you think we didn't care. But no." She glares at Clarabella. "We had to be supportive."
"Thank you guys so much." I look at them. "It's just I'm . . ." I don't even know what to say.
"We get it," Clarabella says. "It's hard being home without seeing Joseph's stuff, and you have to settle in."
"Yes," I agree, not telling her that I didn't think about Joseph once since I kissed Ace.
"Well, listen, you call us if you are feeling down," Presley says. "All you have to do is call Clarabella, and she's going to rush over here." I laugh as they argue out of the house.
I wait for their car to be gone before running to the kitchen and grabbing my phone. I'm powering it on when the doorbell rings. "Fucking hell," I say to myself, walking to the door while trying to get Ace's number to come up. "What did you forget?" I pull open the door, expecting to find one of my sisters there, but instead, he stands there with his head down and when he looks up, all I can do is smile. "Ace."