Holy fuck, I wanted to have a baby with him. Not like this second, but one day. I wanted all of that with Riley. All those things that Eric decided I couldn’t have because he didn’t want them. Riley could give that to me, and I really wanted that. I wanted the happy life together that he had promised. I wanted our happily ever after.
I put my hands over my face and breathed heavily as tears fell down my face and my shoulders racked with my sobs. I gasped in shock suddenly when strong hands pulled my hands away from my face. Through tear-stained eyes, I stared back into Riley’s worried blue eyes. He scanned me with an anguished look etched across his face. His thumb brushed across my cheek and wiped away a tear.
“Hey,” he whispered softly. “What’s with the tears? What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, shaking tears onto the floor beneath me. “I can’t find my wedding ring!” I blubbered.
His face softened, and he wiped more tears away from my face with his calloused fingers. “Why are you crying? It’s just a ring.”
“Aaron! It’s my wedding ring!” I exclaimed. “I haven’t taken it off since we got married! I--I felt like if I took it off, our marriage would be over.”
His eyes got cloudy in confusion at my words. “Fi, why is it so important for you to find your ring?”
I pulled away from him with a hurt look on my face. “What do you mean why is it important? If I lose that, I lose you.”
“Fi, what are you talking about?”
“Aaron, I love you. I love you so fucking much, and that’s so scary to me to love someone so completely.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to lose you again.”
He held my face in his hands, his blue eyes searching mine for answers. “Fi, when did you lose me before?”
“When I told you to ask out Stacey, and then you left for the NHL. Left me. Like everyone else does,” I sobbed. Fuck, the tears were really coming now. I had a vague notion in the back of my memory of him kissing me goodbye this morning and this happening then, too. Fuck. “Like Eric did.”
“Sweetheart, you didn’t lose me, not then. Not now. I’m not going anywhere,” he tried to reassure me. “I’m sorry if I made you feel like I abandoned you; that was never my intention. But to be fair, your ex didn’t really want me around.”
I slid my hands around his neck. “Aaron, I’m sorry I wasted so many years on a man who didn’t appreciate me. I wasted so much time being afraid of my feelings for you.”
He leaned into me and wrapped his arms around my waist. I didn’t let him get another word in edgewise and instead pressed my lips to his. Kneeling on the floor in front of each other, he wrapped my hair around his hand and kissed me back. When he pulled away, he didn’t look happy like I thought he would; he looked kind of annoyed. I shrank away from him and bit my lip.
“You so totally stole my thunder,” he finally said.
“What?”
He laughed and ran a hand through his blond locks. “I came home right after the game, and I was going to take you out somewhere nice for dinner and do the whole grand gesture thing and tell you how much I love you. That it’s the real reason why I married you.”
“What?”
“I wanted to be your knight in shining armor. I thought if we stayed married, you would come to love me like I love you. Like I have always loved you.”
I laughed. “Oh my God, we suck at communicating.”
“Truly,” he remarked. He fingered the ring on his own finger. “I only take my ring off when I have to play.”
“C’mere,” I urged and pulled his face back down to my lips, easing myself on my back on the carpeted floor. Riley hovered over me, his hands on the side of my head and an amused look on his face.
“Right here?” he asked. “You want to have sex on the floor? When we have a perfectly good bed two feet away?”
I already threw my shirt over my head and pulled his suit jacket off his broad shoulders. “Uh huh,” I answered and unclasped my bra behind me. I grinned as the fire lit into his eyes at the sight of my naked chest beneath him.
“Seriously?” he asked again, but he undid his tie and rushed to get the buttons undone on his dress shirt. “Wait.”
“What?”
“Why did you get drunk with Dinah yesterday? And why were you crying and apologizing to me this morning?”
“Fuck, baby, I’m sorry. I got drunk with Dinah because I was scared.”
“Aw, Fiona. You’re the love of my life; I would never leave you.”
“The love of your life?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Fiona, I’ve loved you since we were seventeen years old hooking up in your parents’ basement.”
“Really?” I asked, my voice hitching up an octave in surprise.
He nodded. “Okay, maybe before that, but that was when I knew.”
“C’mere, big guy, and show me just how much you love me,” I urged and started to peel my underwear off.
“Oh, fuck yes,” he breathed as we shed the rest of our clothes, and he did what he was told.
“Hey, I’m still hungry,” Riley mused later as we laid side-by-side naked and sweaty after having moved to the bed for a second love-making session. That phrase used to make me gag and roll my eyes, but the sex today had been slow and gentle. I usually liked it rough, but there was something nice about the way he cradled me softly and repeatedly told me how much he loved me. No wonder the sex was so good with him; it was because I was madly in love with this man. I regretted
