Chapter 9
Dane
Ava was drunk. She’d downed her second margarita in record time, and she ordered a third when I went to the bathroom. By the time I got back to the bar a minute later, she was almost halfway done.
This wasn’t like her; she wasn’t a big drinker. Then again it had been so many years, and who was I to judge? She was a thirty-year-old grown woman, and we’d just dredged up a bunch of serious shit. If she wanted a few drinks, she was entitled. I kept it to one beer so I could drive her back to her hotel.
My best friend might be the devil, but at least he put his sister up in one of Chicago’s nicest hotels. I let the valet take my Lexus as I helped Ava out of the car.
“I’m fine,” she said, but she wobbled on her heels and her voice didn’t sound very confident.
“I’ll walk you upstairs,” I said, letting her lean on me as we crossed the lobby, a few of the rich snobs glancing our way. I glared at them until they looked away again.
We got into the elevator—alone, luckily—and as the doors closed Ava said loudly, “This doesn’t mean I’m sleeping with you.”
“I know,” I said.
“I’ve had three margaritas,” Ava said as if she was making an important announcement to the empty elevator as we rose to her floor. “I’m not sleeping with you, Dane Scotland.”
“Okay.”
“I’m really not.”
“I got that.”
“I might kiss you if you ask nicely,” she said as the doors opened. “Oops.”
I nodded at the elderly couple waiting for the elevator, looking at us in surprise, and led Ava past them. “That’s not necessary,” I said. “Give me your key card.”
She did. “You smell nice.”
Was she this drunk, or was she playing it up? If she was playing it up, it was kind of sexy, though I wasn’t taking the chance. “You’re not getting me in bed, you know,” I said as the room door closed behind us.
Ava rolled her eyes and made a pfft sound—it was actually kind of funny—then reached to her right hip and unzipped her dress. It gaped open, though she didn’t pull it off yet. The leopard-print fabric sagged, and I could see the smooth line of her waist, the curve of her hip, a strip of thin black fabric that was the hip of her panties. I tore my gaze away as she reached up and pulled the tie from her blonde hair, letting it fall. “Do you know how many guys I’ve dated since you?” she asked.
I felt the back of my neck stiffen. “I’m not interested, thanks.”
“Too many,” she said, as if I’d asked. “New York is full of guys. I was going to start a new life, be a new woman. It was going to be amazing.” She started uncertainly for the bedroom, and I followed her. She was going to kill herself on those heels.
“Ava,” I said.
She ignored me, counting on her fingers. “There was the bartender I dated. And the other bartender, the shorter one. The guy who said he was going to be a DJ, but I never saw him get any gigs. The guy I met on a set who wouldn’t admit he was gay, even to himself. The guy who was Amanda’s friend who turned out to be cheating on his girlfriend. The other guy—he was a bartender, too—who dumped me because he owed too much child support and had to move back in with his parents.” She sat on the edge of the bed and unfastened her designer shoes.
“I don’t need to hear anymore,” I said, walking over to the bed and pulling her shoes off.
“One guy said he was a real estate agent, but all he did was smoke pot,” Ava said. “Do you know how many guys smoke pot like it’s their job? So many. So many.”
I braced my hands on the bed, looking at her. “Ava.”
“The last guy just ghosted me,” she said, tossing her handbag to the ground. “He flunked out of law school. What does a girl have to do?”
I leaned in and kissed her.
She tasted like icy tequila and salt, like lip gloss and Ava. She kissed me back, arching into me and opening her mouth, running her hands up into my hair. It had been so long—so fucking long.
I remembered the last time I kissed Ava. I remembered the last time I’d touched her, the last time I’d seen her naked, the last time we did anything and everything. I remembered every second of it, while she’d probably forgotten. But she remembered me now.
She bit my lip and I bit her back, letting my teeth graze her as we fell back onto the bed. She wound herself around me as I braced myself over her, and we took the kiss deeper, deeper. I could smell her, the vanilla smell and something expensive she used on her skin mixed with her sweat and the smell of sex. I knew exactly how she liked it. I’d practiced with her dozens of times. I wondered if she still liked sex the way I did it, if she’d ever realized over the years that all of those losers weren’t me.
I wasn’t going to find out tonight.
I broke the kiss and we stilled, both of us out of breath. My entire body was on fire, from my head all the way down, deep into my balls. Ava’s legs were hooked over my hips, her ankles locked. The tie in my hair was gone and her fingers were wound into the strands, gripping me.
“You’re drunk,” I managed to say.
She said the two words that were the death of me, the two words that ripped into my gut, mixing painfully with the arousal: “Don’t go.”
I tried not to groan. I’d kissed her because I wanted her to stop talking, to stop thinking about those guys and only think about me, if only for a minute. But this… this wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to be Ava’s drunken walk down memory lane. “I have to go,” I said, gently disentangling myself from her.
She let me go reluctantly, her hands sliding out of my hair. “I’m not that drunk.”
“Yes, you are.” Three margaritas. She made out with me because of three margaritas. I had to remember that.
“Dane.”
“Get some rest.” I glanced at her unzipped dress, her bare legs, her bare feet with their painted toes. Every inch of her was perfect, even when her hair was messed and she was glaring at me with drunken annoyance. “Call me tomorrow.”
Ava pushed herself up on her elbows, scowling. “Where are you going?”
“Home,” I said. It came out casually, though I was gritting my teeth. I made my feet move, made myself stride out of the bedroom and toward the door.
She didn’t speak again until the door was closing behind me.
“Dane Scotland!” she shouted. “I’m not that drunk!”
Then the door closed, and I couldn’t hear anything else she had to say.