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reassured him, doing a terrible
job of it as her eyes were still leaking at a mad pace. At the moment, however,
she was telling the truth, as she wasn’t exactly crying over Aidan. “It’s
Dmitri. It really hit me for the first time. I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t be silly. Here, come here.” Aidan sat on the bed and
reached for her, tugging her down to his knee and wrapping his arms around her.
After a moment’s hesitation, Lily bent her head to his shoulder while the tears
ran their course. When the sobs and sniffling hitched to a stop at last, she
let him pull her down to lie on the bed, where he seemed content to stroke her
hair and let her relax in the aftermath of her crying jag.
    “I ended up going to dinner with the string section,” Aidan
said quietly after what seemed like hours of silence. “I think the first
violin, Amy, did this same thing last night, but she felt better today. She said
what helped was thinking about how excited Dmitri was before the trip. He’d
been to so many places all over the world and it was kind of a standing joke
with him that he’d never been to Paris. She said after she thought about it,
she figured he probably died exactly the way he would have wanted to. Right at
the beginning of yet another adventure. That was his favorite thing.”
    “That’s true,” Lily whispered.
    Aidan reached for the tissue box and offered her a new
handful of them. She tried to be circumspect, then gave up and did the serious
nose blowing that needed to be done. He was nice enough to pretend to ignore
it.
    “I wish I’d known him,” Aidan said after she was finished.
“They all had such great stories about him. Is that ice cream?”
    Lily looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe.”
    “You were eating ice cream straight out of the container for
Dmitri?”
    “No.” She sat up and reached for the carton, pulling the
laden spoon out and taking a bite.
    A single creamy drop escaped, and before Lily could catch
it, Aidan rose and pressed his lips to her chin, swiping at the spot with his
tongue. Lily froze, spoon in hand, as he proceeded to her cheek, then her
forehead, then her nose and finally down to her mouth, where he stole some of
the ice cream she had yet to swallow.
    It was a gooey, silly, sweet kiss, and Lily broke into a
smile when he released her mouth. Her eyes and cheeks ached from crying but the
smile felt good anyway. “I should be making you go.”
    “I should be going on my own and not putting the
responsibility on you to make me,” Aidan contested. He kissed her again,
however, less gooey and less silly, stealing her breath and not a little of her
sense.
    When her equilibrium returned, Lily took the ice-cream
carton into the bathroom, placing it carefully in the sink where it could do no
harm as it melted. She rinsed her sticky fingers and returned to close down the
laptop, moving it back to her suitcase. Then she stood at the foot of the bed
and watched Aidan’s reactions as she stripped down slowly, camisole and bra,
jeans and thong. By the time she stood before him, naked and already needy, he
was mostly undressed and fully hard himself. His jeans and boxer briefs hit the
floor with a jingle, the sound of keys and coins.
    Without a word he reached out a hand and Lily took it,
closing the distance between them as Aidan sat back down on the edge of the
bed. His mouth found her nipple as his fingers found the slick heat of her
pussy, and Lily trembled as pleasure began to thread its way through her.
    “Now.” She straddled him, ready to impale herself. She
didn’t want foreplay, didn’t want to play at all. She wanted him inside her,
raw and fast.
    Aidan seemed to have other plans. He held her up by the
thighs when she would have fallen onto him, and let her down so slowly she wanted
to scream. The pressure of his hands, her efforts to work her way onto his
cock, spread her legs wider, arousing her even more.
    Then, when he was finally filling her, Aidan pressed her
close at the