The Best Kind of Forever (Riverside Reapers)

AERIS

It’s been thirty minutes. Hayes has already crushed five beers and is now currently shotgunning his sixth. His alcohol tolerance is frightening. Lila, Josie, and I watch from the sidelines.

“This is bad,” Lila murmurs, one hand over her eyes, her fingers making the tiniest peephole for her to look out of. “But I can’t look away.”

Revulsion skips across Josie’s face. “I can’t either.”

Faye joins us to watch the fiasco taking place, a beer in her own hand.

“How did my oaf of a brother end up with someone like you?” she inquires, taking a sophisticated sip of her drink—a polar opposite to the man currently in the middle of a chugging contest.

“He, uh, kinda just stumbled into my life,” I tell her, thinking back to the first night we met. To the night I was crying my eyes out because of my brother. To the night I’d sworn off drinking hard liquor. To the night I believed that life wasn’t worth living.

“You’re good for him, Aeris. I mean that. I haven’t seen him this happy since…” Faye trails off.

“Since?”

“Since our mother was alive.”

Their mother, of course. I should’ve put those pieces together.

“I’m so sorry, Faye,” I say softly, reaching out to give her shoulder a little squeeze.

She runs her fingernails against the red grooves in her solo cup. “It’s okay. I loved my mom, but Hayes was closer to her. It broke him. I don’t think he’s ever really recovered from it. I wish he didn’t have to carry all of this weight on his shoulders. He feels responsible for me, even though I’ve told him that’s not true. I want him to start living his life again,” she murmurs.

Sympathy tarries in my chest, causing the airflow circulating through me to leave on a swift set of wings. “I know what you mean. My brother…he passed away. There were so many days I just wanted the pain to go away, but I was too afraid to make it stop because I’d grown so used to it.”

There was a time in my life where I couldn’t even talk about Roden without crying. With Faye, though, everything seems easy. That must run in the Hollings family.

“Aeris, I’m so sorry. What…what changed?” Her shaky words ride out on a slash of breath.

“I met your brother,” I confess, hope sprouting inside of me.

Being with Hayes has made me realize that I’m a lot more than my trauma. The trauma from Roden, the trauma from Wilder, the trauma from my father. While it’s good for me to acknowledge and accept what’s happened to me, I’m not the sum of my hardships. I’m more than that.

“I hope my brother can try to move on…to accept what’s happened,” Faye stammers, and before she can say anything else, I hug her, the rapid beat of her heart in close competition with mine.

“He will. I know he will.”

I have no doubt in my mind that Hayes will find peace one day. I mean, if I believe I can (and that’s saying a lot), then I know he can. And now he has his father on his side to anchor him if he needs it.

By the time the cake has been devoured and all the alcohol is gone, we’re onto presents. Bristol’s been chatting with Lila the entire night—no surprise there—and Casen and Josie have been unable to take their eyes off each other.

Gage lugs a large, rectangular-shaped box and places it in front of Hayes. I almost don’t want to know what it is.

Hayes wastes no time in unveiling the atrocity in front of him, and I can say for certain that everyone is confused when a fully furnished fish tank is revealed. A fake seaweed plant resides next to a large cave sculpture, and a miniature treasure chest bubbles in the corner, surrounded by bunch of colorful aquarium rocks.

Hayes’ eyebrows tug together in confusion. “G, did you get me a fish?”

Gage scoops up a dollop of chocolate frosting from his plate, sticking it in his mouth. “Yep. It’s a Peruvian Blue Fin. They’re really skittish. He’s been hiding in that cave ever since I picked him up from the pet store.”

“Okay, let me rephrase: why did you get me a fish?” Hayes is trying to peek into the cave, but he’s having trouble finding the right angle.

From where I’m sitting, all I can see is a dark blob.

“You just seemed kind of stressed lately. And animals help with stress,” Gage states matter-of-factly.

Casen cackles. “I think they mean more like dogs or cats.”

“Not true. According to a lot of scientific articles, observing fish can actually improve mood and anxiety,” Bristol interrupts, amassing some bewildered stares from the group.

“What? I read.”

Gage’s lips twitch into a shit-eating grin. “See? It’s a good investment, trust me. They’re very low maintenance. You’ll barely even know the little dude is there.”

“Uh, thanks,” Hayes says, still analyzing the tank with a squint of his eyes.

“Did you really get him a Peruvian Blue Fin?” I whisper to Gage.

Gage’s chest flutters with a chuckle, and he shakes his head. “God, no. Those things don’t exist. Hayes is going to be feeding absolutely nothing for weeks before he catches on.”

Hayes moves on to a box with an F scribbled on striped wrapping paper. The handwriting is too legible to be Fulton’s.

“Faye, you didn’t have to get me anything,” he says, his gaze softening in tandem with his voice.

“I mean, it’s nothing too fancy. You’re also impossible to shop for,” she says, shrugging. “It was the least I could do for my favorite brother.”

“Your only brother.”

“Uh-huh. That’s what I said.”

He removes the wrapping paper in one fluid motion, revealing a green, velvet box. He cracks it open to find a gold, diamond-encrusted watch perched between two soft cushions.

Hayes brushes his finger over the crystal of the watch. “Faye, I love it. But you didn’t have to get me something so expensive.”

Faye waves him off with a dismissive flap of her hand. “I’ll probably be living off ramen and Capri Suns for the next month, but it was worth it.”

After Hayes gets through the rest of his gifts, ranging from video games to new clothes, I’m the last person to give him his present. I hand him a package wrapped in shiny paper. He told me I didn’t need to get him anything—you know, the usual boyfriend speech—but I was determined to find him something.

He unveils a simple, black frame with a photo of us. It’s a picture of us dancing the night of our first date. When I was scrolling on Instagram, the photo popped up on my feed, and it looked too professional to be taken by some regular ol’ paparazzi. When I clicked on the linked account, it belonged to a photographer. I messaged him and asked if he could send me a copy. Apparently, he’s a local who spends his free time hunting out potential once-in-a-lifetime experiences to memorialize. He told me that he’s never captured a man so obviously in love before, and I didn’t have the heart to correct him.

“I thought you might like it,” I say, a blush brewing underneath my skin.

Hayes’ smile liquifies my insides. “Aeris, this is incredible. Thank you.”

He plants a chaste kiss on my lips before I can respond, but the obnoxious howling of our friends makes us pull apart sooner than I would’ve liked.

Gage cups one hand around his ear. “So, Hayes, you’d say that this birthday party was a success then?”

Hayes rolls his eyes. “Yes, Gage, the party was a success,” he says in exasperation.

Gage hums happily as he pats himself on the back.

“Even though a lot of you”—he fixes a narrowed look a Kit and Gage—“get on my nerves, you’re family. And I’m so grateful for every one of you.”

Family. Not even second family, but family. I haven’t had a family in the longest time, and never in a million years would I have thought it would consist of a group of hockey players. But sharing in this love, being here with everyone, it closes the empty hole inside of me that my parents left when they abandoned me. And there’s a part of me that isn’t so scared of the future anymore.

AFTER WE DROP Faye off at the airport, Hayes and I start cleaning up. The guys offered to help, but I wasn’t opposed to some alone time with my boyfriend.

I push some of the empty containers into a large trash bag, keeping my eye on Hayes as he reaches up to take down a nest of streamers.

“Did you have fun?” I ask.

Hayes gives me a panty-melting simper. “This was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had.”

“Really?”

He crosses the space between us, his hands on my waist as he pulls me into him. “Really. And it was all because you were here,” he says.

“I think you’re giving me too much credit.”

“Well, I mean, there is something you could do that would make my birthday better.”

I smack my forehead. “Oh, shoot. We never set the chocolate sauce out, did we?”

I strut over to the fridge, deliberately swaying my hips from side to side, and I can feel Hayes’ eyes on my ass the entire time. I dig around to pull out the Saran-wrapped bowl of chocolate sauce that Josie had whipped up from scratch, and I place it on the dining table.

Hayes takes the seat closest to me. Heat thickens across the back of my neck when I glance down at his legs.

“Spoons?”

He doesn’t say anything, so I go ahead and open the drawer, grabbing two spoons.

Instead of sitting beside him, I wrap one arm around his neck and lower myself onto his lap. A low groan makes its way out of him.

Stay cool, Aeris. Stay cool.

I peel back the thin plastic layer on top, dipping my spoon in and gathering a little pool of cocoa. The minute I turn toward Hayes, he wraps his lips around the bowl of the spoon, looking up at me through his thick lashes.

Oh, dear Lord. I’m in trouble.

His mouth detaches from the spoon with a pop, and he leans back in his chair, a cocksure grin on his face. Can humans smell pheromones? I hope they can’t, otherwise I’d reek of desperation right now.

My thumb instinctively comes up to wipe a dreg of chocolate from the corner of his mouth, but he grabs my wrist before I can fully pull back my arm, lapping at my digit with the snap of his tongue.

Oh, God. How am I already soaked? Does just being in Hayes Hollings’ presence make girls instantly wet? It must be some kind of superpower of his.

He slowly unbuttons the first few buttons on my blouse, revealing the red, lacy bra cupping my breasts. My nipples feel especially sensitive, and I wouldn’t mind feeling the heat from his mouth engulf them.

“Shit, Aeris. You have no idea how much I want to fuck your tits right now—how good my dick would look sliding between them,” he growls.

He removes my shirt a lot more delicately than last time. He probably would’ve torn my bra off too if those things weren’t so expensive. His touch roams every square inch of me, tracing the slope of my waist. There’s something both wild and docile about it, and the buzzing sensation that overcomes me is comforting in a way that words will never be. He pulls my lower lip between his teeth, tugging just enough to lightly bruise the delicate skin. When his tongue flicks over the bite, warmth reaches every part of me with an unprecedented determination.

Every nerve inside of me is electrified with an inexplicable feeling—a feeling of two souls being bonded together, a sacred bridge rising between two minds, connecting us by the thinnest thread in the universe.

With heavy eyelids, he pours the remainder of the chocolate sauce down the front of my chest, and as soon as the stickiness hits my skin, my whole body shudders. Dark brown liquid slathers my flesh, trickling down my stomach and into the waistband of my pants.

I throw my head back, letting him devour my tits, and he rolls my pert nipple between his long fingers. A moan levitates up my throat, my hand jerking roughly in his hair.

He notches his groin against my denim-clad cunt. My underwear is already damp with arousal, restricting my movement. I want them off. I want nothing between us. I want to be skin to skin with him.

He’s breathing so heavily that it sounds like a jackhammer in my ears. “Be a good girl. Tell me all the ways you want me to fuck you.”

“I want you to fuck me so hard that I forget my own name. I don’t want to be able to walk straight for days. I want to have bruises all over my skin from your hands and your teeth, and I want my vagina to be so sore that I can’t imagine ever taking another inch of you.”

“Fucking done.”

I’m on autopilot when I lift his shirt over his head, flinging it somewhere to the side. I use my breasts to smear the chocolate around his chest, watching as his skin shines under the canopy of sweet confectionary. I bite my tongue to stop from licking every drop off of him.

I lower myself onto the floor, right between his knees, dipping my lips down to the mountain range of his abs. The aroma from the chocolate is disorienting in the best way, and I tongue his navel, watching his stomach hollow.

“Fuuuck.” He lolls his head back, his hand tightening in my hair, pulling at my scalp. The needy whimper sticking in his throat stokes embers of passion inside of me—embers only for him.

I end my expedition at the top of his faint happy trail, and then my fingers move down to unzip his pants and pull down his boxers, letting his cock leap out in all its eight-inch glory. It’s angry and red from neglect, and it shines with a pearl of pre-cum over the swollen head.

“I love how hard you are for me,” I breathe, tracing my finger along the dominant vein running up his shaft.

His dick spasms, and his hands dig deeper into my sides. “And I love how hard you make me.”

I shed my jeans and my thong in record time, leaving us both naked and covered in chocolate. He pulls me back onto his lap, and my pussy is sopping when his fingers strum the overstimulated area. His penis nearly covers half my torso with its erect state, and my cunt palpitates from the proximity alone.

Hayes slides his fingers inside me without preamble, stretching out my walls, hunting for that special spot that makes me scream his name and fist his hair. They curve and flit, gaining momentum until a loud moan slips out of me.

My upper body shivers, and I pull myself closer to him, my nails scratching his back harshly as they search for relief. “Wait, we need a—”

He twirls his digits in an expert circle, and the sensation budding inside of me cuts off my train of thought.

“I got tested a while ago. I’m clean. But I can go—”

“No,” I stop him, stilling under his hand. “I have an IUD. We’re good.”

It’s criminal the way he pumps inside of me, now knuckles-deep inside my swollen cunt.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” he growls, removing his drenched fingers.

I shuttle my entrance over his dick, which is pulsing with anticipation to shunt inside of me. The first stretch is the most delicious. The moment his tip sidles against my core, I instantly clench around his shaft, and vertigo plays with the edges of my vision. I feel so full, the pressure in my cervix growing with each passing moment.

His breath mutates into a guttural rumble that shakes my frame. “If you’re going to continue milking me like that, you better be ready to watch my cum drip out of you.”

When he goes to silence my mewls, I can taste the bitter tang of chocolate on his tongue. There’s a slow crawl of heat that sprawls in my stomach when he bucks against me, every banded muscle in his torso tightening like a rope.

His hands are firmly dug into my sides to keep me in place as I ride him. He pistons his hips against my pelvis, something heady darkening in his eyes. I arch against him to grant him a better angle, and I can feel a burning pain blaze up from where his nails are breaking through my skin.

“Fucking hell, Aeris. I need to feel every inch of you. Please let me feel every inch of you.”

The faster I go, the quicker his self-control vanishes, and I’m cherishing every single moment of him begging for mercy. Hayes Hollings. Begging. That’s an Eighth Wonder of the World.

A symphony of moans ruptures the sex-fueled atmosphere. We nearly tip over the chair we’re both on as Hayes’ arm shoots out to grip the edge of the table. The only noise in my ears is the squelching of skin on skin, the slapping of my ass on his solid thighs, and the slurping of my vagina as I slide effortlessly over his erection.

His length twitches inside of me. “Fuck me,” he groans, his chest heaving.

“I thought that’s what I was doing.”

I lick my way up his neck, savoring the sweetness of the chocolate, even loving the tinge of salt from the sweat encasing his flesh. My tongue outlines his pulse point, and even though I can’t see it, I can feel it beat steadily.

He chuckles something deep and throaty, arousal composing his words. “That tongue’s going to get you in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

He bends forward, his lips on my collarbone, his teeth brushing against the taut skin. When I feel him bite down, I know a hickey will be there.

“How about…”

Hayes’ hands guide my hips as he thrusts into me, alighting a wick of lust, a flickering flame that burns my veins and promises to slacken every one of my muscles. I bite back a whiny moan.

“…a little…”

The next time I bear down on him, his cock probes against the spot that has me seeing stars, and I’m not even fully comprehending what he’s telling me. No, I’m too distracted by the overwhelming ache twisting my insides into balloon animals.

“…edging?” he finishes, and within a second, he’s moved me off him and pulled out.

He moved me like I was weightless. Hell, I didn’t even realize we’d changed positions. That electrifying need I was chasing dims to a tiny spark, and I’m about to grouse my annoyance, but then he bends me over the table.

The collision of my chest against the wood isn’t hard, but it’s definitely powerful enough to make me gasp. From behind me, Hayes wraps his hand around my throat. I’m shivering from the chocolate cooling on my skin and the way he has my bare pussy spread open.

“I can’t. I need to…”

“Come? You will. Just when I say so.”

My legs shake as my vagina throbs, and I swallow harshly under his fingers.

His hand is keeping my head lifted, and he presses his crotch to my ass, the weight of his dick nudging against my thigh. Anarchy breaks out inside me, and I’ve never wanted something so badly in my entire life.

Impatience oozes from my tongue. “Hayes, if you d—”

His fingers tighten around my neck, and then I feel his breath skate down the side of my cheek. “You’ll what?”

Oh my God. I need him to fuck me. I need him to do something. Anything.

I whimper when he starts to swivel his hips, the tip of his cock prodding along my wet entrance.

“I’ll do it myself,” I growl.

“Like hell you will.”

He finally sinks into me, his dick performing knee-weakening and mind-numbing strokes. Each one is purposeful, precise, and they operate at a speed that has my walls fluttering in tandem. Both of his hands have migrated down to my ass, and he slaps one of my cheeks so hard that I wouldn’t be surprised if it shook the walls.

Between the sting in my ass cheek and each slam of his penis, I’m close, panting for that ache between my legs to be satiated. His grip on my hips is starting to waver, and the timing of his breaths is becoming more erratic.

With one last jerk from Hayes, my orgasm hits, stringing me up by my neck and flinging me into the stratosphere. Not far behind me, I can feel him as he releases, his cock spitting warmth into my lower half, and there’s cum dribbling down the inside of my thigh when I collapse onto him.

We’re both a boneless pile of sweat and chocolate sauce, and it takes us a few minutes before we even consider moving in the slightest. With my back to his chest, I can hear the rapid pounding of his heart, feel his hard stomach expand with air.

He uses two fingers to gather the cum that’s on my leg and push it back inside me.

“I don’t know how, but that was better than the first time,” he breathes against my neck, his chest rumbling with delight underneath me.

Is there some weird, universal thing that happens in people to compel them to admit their love for their partner after they just fucked like animals? Because if there is, I’m right there, and I’m so close to telling Hayes that—

I turn around to face him. “Hayes, I—”

“Aeris, I love you,” Hayes professes, stunning me into silence.

My heart plays pattycake with my chest. His voice stands at the edge of my mind’s bluff, echoing throughout my body.

Hayes Hollings loves me. I never thought I’d hear those words. I’d accepted that I probably wasn’t destined for love—not after Roden and Wilder. I’d accepted that I’d never have a wedding, I’d never get married, and I’d never have kids. But within weeks, all of my preconceived notions about love have been turned upside down.

I don’t know if I would’ve met Hayes if I wasn’t at the bar that night. I don’t know if I believe in soulmates or love at first sight. I’d like to think that we would’ve found our way to each other eventually, that the universe knew he was out there for me.

“Hayes, I love you too.”

The look on his face is nothing short of complete and utter happiness. A spectrum of emotions spike through me, and I’m starting to worry if I said it weird, but then he kisses me, and everything suddenly makes sense.