Chapter 13
Avery
I’d suspected something had been going on between the three of them, but it wasn’t this. I wouldn’t have known Caroline was Terri. Now that Preston told me, I could detect a resemblance in the two women. Not in their appearance, but in their mannerisms. Preston agreed. We talked about that for a while when he suggested we get some of the chili he’d made for dinner.
I followed him into the kitchen, and he’d set two places at the island while he’d been cooking. I watched him as he filled two bowls, and we sat side by side eating our dinner.
The chicken chili was delicious. “Mmm. This is excellent. Where’d you learn to cook like this?”
He laughed and said, “Avery, I’m thirty-five. If I want to eat, I have to cook.”
“I realize that, Preston, but I can’t even cook chili this good.”
“Avery, there are probably a lot of things you can’t do as well as me.”
Was that a challenge because I loved a good challenge? “Is that right? Like what?”
“I make the very best chateaubriand you’ve ever put in your mouth.”
“Is that a fact?”
“It is indeed.”
“Well then, you’re going to have to prove that to me,” I challenged.
“Oh, I intend to.”
“Do you now?”
“Yes, Avery, I most certainly do.”
“What else can you do?”
“Let”s see.” He tilted his head, gave me a half grin and announced, ”Well, I am an expert marksman.”
“Is that so? Would you care to demonstrate?”
“Most definitely. I also plan to teach you how to shoot.”
“I see. Will you be using your extra-large gun?” I winked.
He raised his brows and then gave me a cheeky grin. ”Only if you ask very nicely.”
I bit my lip and tried not to laugh. “Preston, do you have any other exceptional talents you wish to share with me?”
“Yes, but I don’t care to tell you what they are right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because, Avery, they involve a very personal and intimate nature, and one simply does not boast about those things.”
Did he just say what I thought he said? Preston Mitchell was getting downright playful.
I closely scrutinized him and saw his lips twitch ever so slightly. Then my face got warm. No, scratch that. It reached the boiling point. I wanted to appear nonchalant, like it wasn’t bothering me, but when I gazed at him, our eyes locked. Suddenly, an electrical charge struck. Maybe it hit the entire room, because the twitching in his lips stopped and the gold in his eyes intensified. He slanted his head, and his lips grazed mine, soft at first, but later, not so much. His tongue tangled with mine, sending shock waves down to my toes. We were still sitting at the island but somehow my legs ended up over his as he continued to tease my mouth with his lips and tongue.
“You’re the sweetest thing I’ve ever known,” he whispered against my lips. He rested his forehead against mine and I could’ve stayed that way forever. What I really wanted to do was feel his warm naked skin under the palms of my hands, but I was done pushing it with him. This may take a while and I was willing to wait until the time was right.
“Are you okay?” he wanted to know.
“I’m great,” I said as I let out a tiny laugh. ”But you left out one very exceptional talent.”
”I did?”
“Mm-hm.”
”Which one is that?”
”Kissing.”
His lips caught mine again and he proved my point, as he left me lightheaded and breathless. I stroked his face and brushed my fingers lightly across his cheeks.
“Preston, can I touch you?”
He looked into my eyes, searching for something.
“You can always touch me. You don’t have to ask.”
“But I thought ... well, you know earlier when I ...”
“You caught me by surprise. If I know you’re there, it’s all good.” He brushed his hand through my hair, letting his fingers glide through. “You have the softest hair.”
I smiled. He was always saying the nicest things to me. I ran my hand along his arm, from shoulder to wrist. He was hard and muscular. I knew he was well formed, perfect in every way. I wanted to feel his skin so badly it was hard not to pull his shirt off. My hand slid to his neck, and I cupped it as I leaned into him, pressing my head next to his heart. It thrummed against my ear and its rhythm gave me comfort. His arms held me tightly and we sat together like that, unmoving, for some time.
I eventually lifted my head and told him, “Someday, Preston, I’m going to make love to you with my whole body.” His eyes widened, but I didn’t give him a chance to respond. I unhooked my legs from his and stood to clear our bowls, putting them in the dishwasher. He sat there and watched. When I was finished cleaning everything, I walked up to him and held his face in my hands, kissed him on the lips, and then said, “I’m very sleepy, so I’m going to bed. Good night, Preston. Thank you for a lovely dinner.”
Turning away from him, I headed up the stairs. His eyes burned into me the whole way as I high-fived myself the entire march up the steps.
As I lay in bed, I couldn’t get my mind off everything. Preston had been through hell and how could I not admire him for everything he had done? He’d given up his life for his job. It pissed me off that it destroyed his family, but those people he worked for let it happen. They saw his life unraveling and had done nothing about it. What kind of people did that? Were they so focused on their own goals that they missed what was happening to their people’s lives? That was scary.
Preston’s prison sentence was insane. It was one thing to go through that because you were stupid enough to have committed the crime to begin with. But to go to prison because it’s part of your cover? Again, what kind of people let their employees do this?
My stomach hurt just thinking about it. But the most painful of it all was that Preston didn’t think he was worthy of anyone because of it. That was just bullshit too. I felt my blood boil when I thought about it.
I got out of bed and started pacing. It was all so damn unfair. He had done it all to help our country get rid of the drugs coming in, but the price he had paid was much more than he bargained for.
Looking at the clock I saw it was one in the morning. I would never sleep now, as worked up as I was over this. There was only one thing I could do, and had to do it before I lost my nerve.
I walked across the hall and opened Preston’s door. I didn’t want to startle him. The last thing I wanted was to feel a choke hold again.
“Preston,” I called out in a quiet voice. “Are you sleeping?”
“No, are you okay?” I detected concern in his tone.
“I’m fine, but can I get in bed with you?”
“Um, wait a minute.” He threw back the covers and got out of bed. The moonlight streamed in, and I peeked at his perfect naked silhouette as he stood. I wanted to fly across the room and latch on to him, but I didn’t. I grabbed the carpet with my toes and clenched them tightly to remind me to stay put. He turned around and said, “I’m sorry. I sleep nude, so I wanted to pull some boxers on.”
“Oh.” I gulped. Just the thought. Yum.
“Come on in.” He held the covers back and I climbed into his large bed.
“Are you sure it’s okay?”
“I’m sure.”
“I couldn’t sleep because I’ve been thinking.”
“About what?”
“About what you said.”
“Well, that’s a fairly broad subject since I said quite a bit about a lot of things.”
“I’ve been thinking about you.”
“I see.”
“I disagree with you.”
“Avery, you have me at a disadvantage. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I’d been lying on my back staring at the ceiling, so I rolled to my side and lifted to my elbow so I could see him.
“You said you were tainted and dirty. But I disagree.”
“Hmm, I see.”
“No, I don’t think you do. Preston, if that shithead Little Dickie had raped me, would you think any less of me?”
“No! How can you even ask me that?”
“Because you seem to think I should think less of you because of what you’ve been through. It’s the same thing.”
I was met with dead silence.
After a bit he finally said, “No, Avery, it’s not. I’ve chosen to be with prostitutes.”
“That’s because you don’t think you’re worthy of any other women. Am I right?”
“That’s true, but ...”
“So, if you thought you deserved other women, you would never have chosen to be with prostitutes, correct?”
“Well, of course. But ...”
“No buts. Just a yes or no will do.”
“Avery, are you a lawyer?”
“Very funny. I’m trying to explain something. You’re putting yourself in this position. Did you hear what I just said? You are putting yourself in this position. No one else is. The truth is I admire you for what you’ve done. I could kill the bastards who hurt you. Just like you said you could kill Little Dickie for hurting me. But it’s the same damn thing. You have to get over this and take the stigma of feeling not worthy off of yourself, because you are worthy. I think you’re very worthy. I know everything about you and I’m not running away. I don’t think there’s a single thing about you that’s dirty. It pains me to know how brutally you were hurt, but that’s it. I’m going to touch you now. But that’s all I’m going to do. Just touch you. I’m not even going to kiss you. I just want to touch you.”
And that’s what I did. I reached out my hand and started with his lips. My fingers traced the outline of their fullness before they moved to his brows. I smoothed the creases between his eyes away as I massaged light circles with my thumb. Then I touched his cheeks and neck. He was uncommonly beautiful, with the glow of the moon forming shadows across his face. I wanted nothing more than to kiss him but touching him seemed so much more important right now.
Scooting next to him so that our bodies touched, I let the tips of my fingers slowly walk their way over his torso, moving from top to bottom. I felt the raised surfaces of each scar as I tripped over them. I lingered on each one, memorizing their contours and trying to comprehend how painful it must have been. My eyes pooled with water as I continued my journey of getting to know Preston’s body. It seemed like when I ventured to the most sensitive areas of him, the more concentrated his scars became. The bastards knew where to hurt him the most and my heart broke for each time he was injured and the torture he experienced. A long time later, I laid my head over his chest, and hearing his heart beating against me, I drifted to sleep with my arms curled around him.
Morning came all too soon,and when I awoke, I was still wrapped around Preston like paper around a Christmas present.
“Good morning there.” His voice was even huskier than usual, making my belly tighten.
“Good morning back to you.” I didn’t want to look at his face yet. I wanted to inspect all his tattoos that I couldn’t see from the night before. They were everywhere and sexy as hell. During the night, my head had moved down to that fine sprinkling of hair that enticed me so as it trailed past the waistband of his boxers.
“You know something, Preston?”
“What’s that, honey?”
I finally raised my head and had to refrain from gasping. The man was a hundred and one ways to all kinds of sexy. His hair was messy and had that wavy thing going, and his face was covered in the perfect amount of scruff. Half-lidded golden eyes stared back at me as I swallowed a few times and then licked my lips.
“God, you”re a tease.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly compete with you. Not even close. Here you are all twisted around me like I don’t know what, and you’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. Your warm breath has been tickling my abs for well over an hour as I’ve just been lying here and watching you. Without a doubt, you win the tease award.”
“Nope, no contest. You don’t have a bird’s-eye view of this hot ink like I do. These are amazing.”
“You really think so?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I’ll have to tell you what they mean someday, then, won’t I?”
I ran my hand across several and looked back at him. “I’d like that very much.”
He took my hand and laced his fingers with mine. “Come up here. You’re too far away.”
I scooted closer.
He kissed my cheeks, then my nose, and then my lips.
“What a perfect morning,” he said.
“Couldn’t agree with you more.”
After a bit, we got up and went downstairs to make coffee and breakfast. I made omelets and toast. Preston raved about them, but they weren’t anything special. He was just being polite.
“You up for a little hike today?” he asked.
“Sure.” But then I realized I didn’t have any hiking boots, not to mention I was carrying all this extra weight. I doubted he’d want to take a huffing and puffing Extra-Large Avery along. “Oh no! I can’t.” My glum expression conveyed my feelings to him.
“Why, what is it?”
“No hiking boots and, uh, I’m not sure I could go very far.”
“Why’s that?”
He would ask me that. “It has to do with this.” I motioned up and down my body. “I guess you could say I’m out of shape.”
“Not a problem. We’ll take an easy trail and go slow. You have running shoes, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but ...”
“They’ll do for today. It’ll be fine. Tomorrow we’ll drive into town and get you set up with a pair of hiking boots. How does that sound?”
I smiled. “Only if it’s not too much trouble.”
We both got dressed and Preston prepared our gear. He had a large daypack that held several water reservoirs which he filled. Then he pulled together some trail mix and other items for lunch and we struck out about an hour later. It was a gorgeous day with a clear blue sky and the temperature was in the sixties. We both wore light jackets, but it wasn’t long before we had to shed them. I tied mine around my waist and he stuffed his into the pack.
As we hiked, I followed him and admired the view. Not of the mountains as one might think, but of Preston’s ass. He had a mighty fine ass indeed. He reached up behind his head to adjust the pack, and as he did so, his shirt slid up, exposing the waist of his shorts. That’s when I realized he was armed.
“Preston, do you always carry a gun?”
“Yeah, usually. Does that bother you?”
“No, not particularly. I just noticed it and wondered. Do you ever not carry one?”
“Yeah,” he said smiling as he turned around. “When I’m lying in bed with a lovely woman draped over the top of me.”
“I see,” I said, smiling in return. “Is that it?”
“No. I don’t carry when I bathe.”
He was being a smartass now.
“What about when you swim?”
“Always when I swim.”
“Really?” I didn’t know guns worked underwater.
“No, Avery, I was just kidding.”
I slapped him on the stomach. He grabbed me by my shirt and pulled me close. Since I hadn’t been expecting that, I stumbled and he caught me, letting me regain my balance. Once I had, he held me by my hips and planted a kiss on my lips.
“That’s all I’ve thought about since we’ve been hiking.”
“Good.” I wanted him to think about me as much as I thought about him which was all the freakin’ time. He’d wedged his way into my thoughts, and I had intermittent visions of him. When I wasn’t imagining how he looked, I was thinking about things he’d said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that. I think about you, so it’s only fair that you think about me.” I smiled sweetly at him.
“When you smile like that, it’s deadly, you know.”
“Preston, you give me way too much credit.”
“You don’t give yourself nearly enough credit.”
I spun him around and gave him a gentle shove, forcing him to move along. Smiling, I began to hum a song to myself. A little while later, his hand reached back for mine, his fingers wiggling their silent invitation. I took his hand and his warm fingers heated the rest of me as we laced them together. Neither of us spoke a word as we walked along, and even though my life had taken an unwanted turn, I’d never felt happier in my twenty-eight years.