Chapter Twenty
Perched on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a towel, hair wet, Jo winced as Avery cleaned the scrape on her shoulder.
Before tonight, their showers had been soapy explorations that ended in weak-kneed euphoria.
The one they’d just shared had been mutually clinical, a quiet cleansing of the night’s horrific events.
Dawn’s relief to the darkness held her spellbound as she sipped the wine he insisted she drink while his tumbler of whiskey sat untouched on the nightstand. This was not the way she’d pictured her last night with him and not at all the memory she wanted to leave with him.
Avery blew against her skin. “Are you thinking about him?”
I should be. But all I can think of is you. How I almost got you killed. How much I need you right now.
She’d come to in the back of an ambulance in the museum parking lot, a paramedic taking her vitals as Avery held her hand and reassured her everything would be okay. His family hovered at the open door. Nick stood a few feet away, talking to a cop with lots of stars and bars on his uniform.
Witnesses, including a half dozen police officers, corroborated their statements.
She still wasn’t clear on how the cops had come to be there, except that it had something to do with Chase.
As soon as she and Avery were released, he had driven her to the hospital since no one could offer any details about Chase other than he was in route to the hospital with a gunshot wound.
When she didn’t answer, Avery wrapped his arms around her from the back and pulled her against his chest. “The surgeon said it was a clean through-and-through. No bones. No arteries. He’ll be fine. Just a small scar.”
“It’s not the physical scars I’m worried about. Because of me, he’ll carry an emotional scar for the rest of his life.”
Giselle hadn’t made it through surgery. He’d taken a life. That wasn’t something he’d come back from easily.
Avery took the glass from her hand, set it beside his, and turned her around.
Hands bracketing her neck, he tilted her chin with his thumbs, forcing her to look at him.
“You did not put him in that position. Sure, maybe they’d never have met if not through their connection to you, but he chose to enter into a relationship with her. He chose to be there last night.”
“To save me.”
“And I’m grateful to him for that.”
“But his life is forever changed.”
“So is ours, but none of this is your fault, and it’s over.”
It was over. They were over.
Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the desperation of knowing their time was running out. Maybe it was fear of almost losing him. It was definitely the feel of his hands at her throat. She loved the way he always felt the need to touch her, the way he welcomed her touch. She needed more of that.
Her face grew hot, her nipples hard under the towel, and the pulse in her clit throbbing. She ached to move his hands lower, to release the knot holding his towel on his hips, for him to tear the one from her body. She wanted him inside her, pounding her toward oblivion.
Skimming her palms over the hard rise of his pecs, Jo lifted her lips a breath away from his mouth. “Kiss me.”
Heat flared in his eyes as he traced her bruised jaw with his thumb. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m not fragile. I don’t want to feel fragile. I need to feel alive. I need to feel you.” She didn’t want him to make love to her. She couldn’t be any more emotionally connected. It hurt too much.
“Jo,” he warned.
“Please, don’t make me beg.”
One side of his mouth curled upward. “Maybe just a little?”
She loved that lopsided grin and the delicious flutter it stirred in her belly, consequences be damned. “Yeah, maybe just a little.”
His fingers curled around the back of her neck, pulling her into him. His mouth meshed with hers in a tender kiss that made her heart break a little more. It was as if he was trying to steal it.
He didn’t have to. It was already his.
Avery pulled back, his tongue slipping over his lower lip, his brow dipping low. “You’re still bleeding.”
“Kiss me anyway.”
A growl, low and deep, resonated from his chest, but when he claimed her lips, it was another achingly sweet kiss. His hands were painfully reverent, a whisper of a prayer over her skin. It was too much.
Breaking the kiss on a whimper, Jo pushed him away, yanked off her towel, and crawled farther onto the bed. On her hands and knees, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Fuck me, Avery. Fuck me harder than you’ve ever fucked me before.”
Slowly, he stood, fists clenching and unclenching at his side, his jaw ticking. His dick, long and thick and roped with veins, strained toward her while, behind his dark eyes, he struggled between the need to make love to her and his desire to fuck her.
She closed her eyes. “Please.”
The drawer of the nightstand opening signaled his surrender. The condom package tore. She opened her eyes to watch him roll on the condom. He stroked the shaft and thumbed the head, then climbed onto the bed and settled behind her.
Jo lowered her face to the cool sheet and grasped it with both hands as she braced for him. He liked doing her from behind. She liked it, too. Hard. Fast. Relentless.
Fingers digging into her hips, he hiked her ass higher. She arched into his hands.
One finger circled her entrance, gliding through her slick arousal. He plunged deep and withdrew. He doubled up on the next few thrusts, stretching her, making her wetter. She moaned long and loud as heat coiled in her belly.
“This what you want?” The head of his cock replaced his fingers and eased inside.
Her pussy contracted, trying to coax him deeper. “Yes.”
“Fuck, Legs. I’m gonna wreck this pussy.” He slammed into her, filling her, making her whole.
“Yes, Avery, yes.”
He pulled out and drove in again. She tried to meet him, but he gripped her harder, fingers biting into her flesh, as he fucked her in a punishing rhythm. Maybe he had his own demons to fight.
Sweat slickened her skin. Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs. Friction forced her to the edge, but emotion chained her to the cliff. Fear. Sorrow. Love. Tears soaked the sheet as she reached for the sweet release that would burn them all away.
“Fuck.” Avery pulled out, flipped her over, and crammed her full of cock again. A gasp parted her lips, and her eyes flew open as he levered up on his elbows and stared down at her.
She turned her head to one side before he saw too much. Another damn tear betrayed her, trickling into the hair at her temple.
“Jo?” His voice was thick, gravel-rough, and tight as his fingers ghosted over her cheeks, as if he tried to determine the reason for her tears and erase them at the same time. “Look at me.”
She shook her head.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you.” Possessive hands slid over her palms. He laced their fingers together and drove them over her head. “You’re safe. You’re right here with me.”
Any response she might have made was balled up in her throat, so she nodded, which seemed to satisfy him.
Avery lowered his head. His lips slanted over hers, his tongue lapping across them as if asking permission. Answering with an invitation of her own, she wrapped her legs around him and sank her heels into the back of his thighs.
His hips flexed, leaving her nearly empty.
He rocked forward in a slow-rolling grind, and like a match to a tender box, he was a fire she couldn’t outrun.
She didn’t want to. Instead, she ran toward him as he fucked her with a tenderness she didn’t dare interpret as anything other than the residual effects of tonight’s events.
And she memorized every breath against her cheek, every heartbeat against hers, every touch until it blurred into not just Avery, not just Jo, but an us.
Until a groan slipped past the haze controlling her.
Until he thrust deep one last time, hips locked, and the pulse of his release shuddered through her.
Jo choked on a whimper and a pain so bittersweet she couldn’t breathe as her heart and her body went up in flames.
****
Jo listened to Avery’s heartbeat counting down the minutes as the sun broke over the horizon and panned across the room. Time was up.
One more minute.
She’d told herself that for the last ten. One more minute of lying in his arms, her head on his chest, their legs tangled. One more deep inhale of his scent, a mixture of citrus and sex appeal. One more teasing touch of his fingers on her skin.
Dragging out this last moment only made leaving that much harder.
As if sensing her inner turmoil, Avery rolled Jo to her back and settled beside her. Head propped in his hand, he traced the curve of her jaw with his thumb. “Tell me what’s going on in there.”
Too much. It’s all a jumble. I don’t know where to begin.
“Thank you,” she blurted, “for everything you did last night. I know you don’t like Chase. And honestly, I’m not that fond of him either. I had a hard time believing he was capable of that kind of malice, and I certainly never wished him harm.”
He held his fingers an inch apart. “Maybe just a little.”
She forced a smiled, hoping it wasn’t as brittle as she felt. “Maybe.”
“I get it,” he said, all teasing gone from his voice.
“I misjudged him, and I didn’t want to like him because he was such a D-bag to you.
I’ll owe him an apology for breaking his nose, and I’ve been thinking about his timing.
At first, I thought he caused the situation by showing up, but if he hadn’t, her path to you next weekend would have been clear.
She might have actually carried out her plan. ”
“I thought about that, too.” Her stomach turned queasy. “I still can’t believe she hated me enough to want me dead.”
Quit stalling. Get it over with.
“Jo?”
Even Avery knows you’re stalling.
She finally looked at him. “I have to go.”
“You should sleep first. I’ll take you to the hospital later.”
“No, I mean, it’s time for me to go. We’ve reached the end of our arrangement.”