While We have This Moment Ch. 03

I tried to remember how this used to go. I started by putting my lips around the tip and then slowly worked my way down. Once I had him halfway in, I pulled back and started stroking him with just my mouth. I tried to move a little further down, finally engulfing at least three-quarters of his length. I tried sucking as I pulled up, and Aaron's grunts affirmed that technique. As I lovingly attended to his cock with my mouth, I used my fingers to keep my own arousal a little below the boiling point. Once I had teased myself to the point of frustration, and just as Aaron seemed to be trying to urge me to help him finish, I pulled my mouth off, slowly withdrawing him with one prolonged suck. Aaron groaned as the cool air contrasted with the undoubtedly warm haven my mouth had provided.

But I had another warm place in mind for him.

Straddling his hips, I slowly rubbed the length of his manhood beneath me.

"Are you sure this is OK?" I asked -- not to tease, but to ensure I wasn't rushing things.

"Damn sure," he rasped, his eyes darting from my face to my chest and back again. I reached between us and carefully wrapped my hands around his shaft. I had forgotten how warm a cock would feel, especially when hard.

I looked at his face. Aaron's expression was a mixture of uncertainty and excitement. Or maybe that was just what I saw because it was how I felt. I pulled his member slowly up, forcing him to adjust his position until he was poised at my entrance. I was as ready as I would ever be.

"It's been... a long time," he said sheepishly as I guided his tip between my lips.

"Oh God," I groaned, "Betcha it's been a lot longer for me."

"I'm just warning you that-"

"Don't care," I said, pausing to lean down and kiss him. "Plenty of time to go again later."

Aaron opened his mouth to respond, then changed his mind and instead began pushing up into me. He paused whenever I took a sharp breath at the unfamiliar fullness I was experiencing. I felt long-neglected muscles stretching to welcome him. I knew I was tight, even if I was sufficiently wet and ready, and it took several combined efforts for me to sink all the way down. Finally, my tingling lips nestled snugly around his root.

"Holy-... Denise, there are just no words for this," he whispered in my ear.

In agreement, I put my tongue to other use. For several minutes our lower bodies held still, accommodating themselves to a sensation that I hoped would become very familiar. Our kissing was slow and tender. Any elevation of the passion between us would make our bodies start moving, and neither of us seemed ready for that yet -- Aaron to delay the inevitable and me to give my pussy a moment to adjust and get comfortable.

I straightened up a bit and took deep breaths. I rubbed my hands slowly across his chest, noticing how muscular he was, even after losing weight to his disease. I raised my hips up a bit and then pushed down, both of us straining in pleasure as were were joined. As I sank down, I rubbed my clit, bringing myself closer to the edge. Eleven years of waiting had made me quicker on the draw now that I had flesh and blood to get me there. Flesh and blood that was now fully inside me. I hunched over a little, trying to angle myself so that his pubic bone could take over the work my fingers had been doing. Finding the right spot, I groaned softly and began swiveling my hips in small circles.

"Ohhh, babe," Aaron grunted. "I'm not going to be long. You got me so close with those sweet lips."

"Race ya," I whispered, shivering as I felt that delicious pressure right where I needed it.

With that, Aaron lifted his head and buried his face in my breasts. His tongue circled my nipples, which had hardened in my lust. My thrusting sped up, and I pressed harder onto him. Aaron rubbed and cupped my breasts, tweaking with his fingers whichever nipple was not in his mouth. The sensations overwhelmed me and my thighs started to tense up. I feared I would get a cramp before I could cum, but those fears turned out to be unfounded. My pussy clenched, and I squeezed my PC muscles to keep that pressure going. Feeling Aaron's rock-solid cock inside my intimate grip gave me the physical and emotional boost I needed to boil over. Lunging forward, I pushed him flat onto his back as I spasmed around him.

"I win," I gasped, my arms squeezing and rubbing erratically all over his body.

"Tie," he grunted, gripping my waist and forcing my body harder onto him. I felt him surge a little deeper and heard the shout he tried to stifle. My awareness of the kids across the hall and the need for discretion barely registered as I moaned in pleasure. I felt overwhelmed with love and desire. I felt connected and safe. I felt the delicious agony of my body seizing up and finding Aaron's body everywhere around me. Even as I coasted down from my peak, I felt Aaron still prolonging his. I shivered with the last tightenings of my tunnel, which seemed to elicit a few last swellings of Aaron's rod in response.

Worried I might be crushing him, I moved to roll away. But Aaron's arms wrapped around me and prevented my escape.

"In a minute," he said. "This feels too good."

"Take all the time you need," I said, then added, "until 5 o'clock." The reality was, I needed to shower, and the drive to work from Aaron's house would be considerably longer than I was used to.

"Plenty of time," he sighed. It couldn't have been any later than 4:30. I rested my head on his chest, listening again to his heartbeat and breathing, instinctively assessing his vitals. I thought back to the last time I had been checking his breathing, fearing he was in some drug-induced danger. Then I thought back to how unimaginable this scene would have been to me when we had met 8 months earlier.

"Well I'd say your nanny search worked out pretty well for you," I said, lifting my head to smile at him.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," he said, clenching his eyes shut, as if thinking of something painful.

"What wasn't?" I asked, knowing the answer, but wanting only to keep listening to him talk.

"You... Me... This..." he sighed deeply, his breath hot on my face as our noses nearly touched. "It was the opposite of what I planned." His eyes opened again and searched mine, seeking something like forgiveness, but for a sin I couldn't identify.

"You can't plan these things, doofus," I chided him. "Of course it wasn't supposed to happen, but it did. And is that so bad?" I asked, my voice cracking slightly, wishing I knew why he was still so conflicted over this.

"It is," he said softly. "Because I was using you. But not for this. This wasn't what I intended."

"And what exactly did you intend?" I whispered, running my hand across his brow to wipe away the sweat.

"Something I hope you don't hate me for," he confessed.

"Do you think that's possible?" I asked, worried what he might still be holding back.

"Well, if things had gone according to plan, you wouldn't have had the chance to. But now that... now that we've gone down this path..."

"You better start making sense soon," I said, sliding slowly down his side and shivering as his length slipped out of me. I curled up next to him and watched as he stared at the ceiling and explained.

"I was never supposed to be a part of the equation. Once I got my diagnosis, and once the doctor said we were most likely looking at three years, five max, my only thought was for my kids. What would become of them? I couldn't bear the thought of Amber having custody, and I had no family in the U.S. that I would want them around."

"Yeah, Dasha doesn't seem like the motherly type."

"You'd be surprised," he mused. "But she's had a hard life and doesn't really want my help, so... I guess it is what it is."

I felt momentarily sad for her and embarrassed of my quickness to judge. "Go on," I prompted him in the darkness.

"Hm? Oh. Yeah. So, since I needed some after school help, especially on days when I had treatment after work, I thought, Maybe I can kill two birds with one stone. What if I could find a nanny who would get so attached to Maya and Derek, that she'd want to adopt them? I could sign over custody before I died. My original plan was to find someone married with no kids, or maybe with kids old enough to be leaving the house. I hoped she'd have at least a few years with Maya and Derek and grow really fond of them. I was even considering asking someone to take them once the cancer got bad, before I was helpless."

I was struggling not to feel manipulated. What he was describing wasn't exactly wrong in any way I could pinpoint, but neither did it seem to be the right way to go about it. "Why did you hire me?" I asked when he paused.

"You seemed perfect. A nurse, stable, great with the kids. You were the first one that actually engaged them and interacted with them to the point that they wanted to be around you. And, to be honest, I think I was under the impression that you had a serious boyfriend... that you were at least headed that way. I think that's how I justified hiring a single woman." He sighed. "Anyway, the point is, you weren't supposed to love me, you were supposed to love the kids."

"And you didn't anticipate that it might be both?" I asked with some disbelief.

"No, not if I kept my distance."

"Fool." I said it as a rebuke, not as a joke.

"Probably," he conceded. "But in any case, from that point on I was preoccupied with positioning you to become their mother -- not through marriage but through, well, taking over once I was really on my way out."

"That's a lot to throw at a girl, Aaron. I mean... damn." I felt a strange mix of sympathy and frustration.

"I wasn't planning to throw it at you all at once. I hoped it would be more gradual, maybe in a year, once my diagnosis was a little clearer."

"You don't plan very well, do you?"

"When you're at the end of your rope, any thread of hope can look like a plan."

"And how did you think I would react to being deceived and manipulated into something I never asked for?"

"Life is a whole series of things we never asked for," he replied, voicing some hurt. "I certainly didn't ask for a tumor."

"Fair point," I said softly. "But my question stands. Did you think I would just be OK with you forcing your kids on me? And you lying about why you hired me?"

"I never lied, really. I just didn't tell you everything."

"Splitting hairs," I mumbled grumpily.

"And I couldn't force you to take the kids. I just... I just hoped you would. All I could do was set it up so you'd actually want to. That's why I put the fliers up at places that I thought would attract the kind of woman with a lot of sympathy and compassion -- churches, day care centers..."

"And a women's shelter in a poor neighborhood? Interesting choice. But I guess a lot of the women who pass through our doors are looking to make some changes in their lives..."

"What?"

"The clinic. You put your flier up in our clinic."

"No... I definitely didn't do that."

"Well how do you explain me seeing it there?" I asked, confident he had just forgotten.

"I promise I didn't put one there. I still haven't been there."

"Well, you're wrong," I said, ready to drop the subject.

"The mysterious hand of fate at work," Aaron said softly as I crawled out of bed and headed towards the bathroom.

After I started the water running for a shower, I poked my head back into the bedroom and said, "Fate doesn't hang up fliers!"

*******

Events moved quickly, probably because we felt the urgency of the limited time given us. We waited a week to tell the kids that I would be around a lot more, planning to tell them in another week or so that I would be staying. Maya upended that plan, though, while we were telling them that I would be around more. She was studying my face intently as Aaron spoke, then she suddenly asked in hushed awe, "Did my Daddy give you true love's kiss?"

Apparently our blushing faces were answer enough. Maya tearfully embraced me in a way she never had before. Derek just went along with it, true to his nature, never really excited but calmly expressing his approval with two thumbs up.

I found it a little awkward to be asking for yet another few weeks off to get married that winter. I only requested two days, planning to just make a long weekend of it. When Dottie and Thomas asked to meet me in her office late one afternoon, I was a little worried that I had gone too far in asking for that much. Dottie sat behind her desk, her silver hair smoothed and flowing over the shoulder of a sparkling black dress. It was not her usual work attire. Thomas stood by in his white coat, stethoscope still around his neck. His large, dark frame towered over us, but his gentle demeanor kept him from seeming threatening.

"Thomas, dear, did you bring your tux or will we need to run home first?" Dottie asked as we settled down. It still baffled me to think of them as husband and wife, and not just because of the age difference.

"It's in my office, Dot. I'll be ready to go in plenty of time," he assured her with a smile.

Dottie looked at me and said, "Fundraising dinner. I wish Gina would handle all of these things herself, but..." As she spoke, she shuffled some papers around to clear space on her desk. I knew why Gina wanted her there. Not only was Dottie a compelling spokesperson and fearless negotiator, she often played bad cop to Gina's good cop. Dottie brought the guilt and shame to those who did nothing about our city's problems, and Gina brought the bright picture of what it could look like to get involved in the solution. Dottie had the stories, Gina had the bar graphs. "Anyway, what's with these two days off you're requesting?"

I wiggled in my seat and tried to sound confident. "I have the days saved up, I'm sure of it. And Kara will be there both days to oversee-" I glanced up at Thomas, who was suppressing a laugh.

"Denise," Dottie said sternly, "A four day weekend is hardly enough time to host a wedding and to be alone with your new husband. I insist you take at least two weeks."

My nervousness shifted almost imperceptibly to excitement. "Two weeks? Are you sure that-"

"No one is indispensable, Denise. We love you and value your work, but we'll survive without you."

"Thank you, Dottie," I said with restrained enthusiasm.

"Besides, we're going to need to get used to having you gone for a while if you're serious about that nurse practitioner degree."

"Oh, I think that might still be a ways off," I said, realizing Aaron and I hadn't talked about the details and timing of that yet.

"It'll be easier to do now than later, I think," she said softly. "But that's your choice, of course."

"Well, thank you, I'll consider that," I was bouncing my leg in eagerness to call Aaron and tell him to start making different plans...

"Please, Denise, enjoy the time you have," she said, her eyes glistening. "My last years with Glen were... they were very special. But we had a history, too, that you don't have yet with Aaron. Death... It clarifies our priorities and helps us cherish what we otherwise take for granted."

I couldn't respond. I felt like I would cry if I opened my mouth.

"We're happy for you, dear," she concluded, standing up. As she stood, she opened a drawer and pulled out a familiar piece of paper. "And Thomas and I feel a certain responsibility for you and your husband." She handed me a folded up copy of the flier that had been posted in our clinic. I gave her a questioning look, still too emotional to speak.

Thomas's deep voice spoke up. "As soon as she saw this posted in our church, Dottie thought of you. I agreed. But neither of us could explain why. So we moved it to the clinic where you would see it and left the rest to..."

"Fate?" I laughed.

"Well, I would say Providence," Dottie corrected, "but it's the same idea."

"Sometimes Fate needs a hand," Thomas commented.

"Or a flier," I mumbled thoughtfully.

"Now shoo!" said Dottie. "We've got business to attend to and you've got a fiancé to talk to."

I smiled as I made my way out to the car, carefully putting the folded paper in my purse. The moments left to us may be limited -- they always are -- but I was determined to make sure that we didn't waste a single one.

*******

The End