Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
R eed’s keys jangled in his hand as he guided Ava up the walkway to their house, his other hand resting against the small of her back. It wasn’t quite a touch—just a whisp of contact, a silent reassurance, a readiness to catch her if she stumbled. She hadn’t spoken since they left the hospital. Her face, pale and drawn, was a mask of exhaustion, her usual fire dimmed to embers. The silence between them had shifted—less charged, more delicate, like a thread pulled too tight, on the verge of snapping.
He unlocked the door and pushed it open, stepping aside so she could enter first. The hall was cloaked in shadows, save for the soft glow of the entryway lamp they always left on. The familiarity of it sent something bittersweet curling through his chest. Ava hesitated, her steps deliberate, careful, as if she were moving through water.
“Do you want some tea?” he asked, voice low. “Or something stronger?”
Ava turned, her dark eyes unreadable in the dim light. She looked smaller somehow, not in size but in presence, like the weight of the day had hollowed her out. Something inside him clenched at the sight.
“No,” she whispered, her voice barely there. “No, I don’t want tea.”
Reed nodded, setting his keys down on the table, their usual clatter muted against the silence stretching between them. He shrugged off his jacket, hanging it on the hook—the same one he’d used before everything had unraveled between them. The motion felt foreign and familiar all at once, like stepping into an old rhythm he wasn’t sure he had the right to reclaim.
“You should get some sleep,” he said, gaze fixed on the floorboards. “It’s been a hell of a day.”
Still, she said nothing. When he finally met her eyes, he found her watching him with an intensity that sent a slow, creeping heat through his veins. There was something raw in her stare, something vulnerable yet fierce, as if she were balancing on the edge of a decision.
Then she said it.
“Make love to me.”
The words dropped between them like a match into dry kindling.
Reed’s breath hitched. “What?”
Ava took a step closer, close enough that he could see the fine tremor in her hands. “I need you tonight,” she said, steadier now, but still soft. “Please.”
He crossed the space between them in three long strides, but stopped just short of touching her. She was close enough that he could feel the heat of her body, hear the unsteady rhythm of her breath. Her lips parted slightly, her chin tilting up toward him in silent invitation.
“Ava,” he murmured, his voice rough. “You just went through something traumatic. You’re not thinking clearly.”
She let out a quiet, bitter laugh. “I know exactly what I went through, Reed. I don’t need you to explain it to me.” Her fingers lifted, hovering just above his cheek, as if she were afraid to make contact. “I need to feel something other than this. I need you.”
The last word was a plea, fraying at the edges, unraveling something inside him.
He had spent days—weeks—holding himself apart from her, his anger and hurt an armor he refused to shed. But now, looking at her—truly seeing her—he saw past the layers of distance they had built, past the tension and the unresolved fights. What remained was the woman he had always loved.
And she was breaking.
“Okay,” he said, barely above a whisper. Then, finally, he reached for her.
His fingers traced the delicate curve of her cheekbone, the line of her jaw, relearning the shape of her face like a blind man reacquainting himself with something precious. Ava’s eyes fluttered closed, and she leaned into his touch, pressing her warmth into his palm.
He kissed her.
At first, it was tentative, a whisper of lips against lips, a question rather than an answer. Her mouth was soft, dry, the faint taste of salt lingering on her skin. She made a small, desperate sound in the back of her throat and pressed closer, her hands fisting in the fabric of his shirt.
“Bed,” she murmured against his lips. “Take me to bed.”
Reed didn’t hesitate. He swept her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. She weighed almost nothing, and the realization sent a pang of guilt slicing through him. Had she been eating? Sleeping? Had he even noticed?
The hallway was short, but it felt impossibly long with her in his arms. The bedroom door stood open, a silent contrast to the memory of slamming it shut between them only days ago.
He laid her down carefully, as if she were something breakable. When he reached to turn on the bedside lamp, she stopped him, her fingers closing around his wrist.
“No,” she whispered. “Just the moonlight.”
Silver-blue light filtered through the half-open blinds, casting striped shadows across the bed. Reed stood beside it, unsure suddenly, despite the countless times they had done this before.
Ava sat up and began to unbutton her blouse, her fingers clumsy with fatigue. Reed gently moved her hands away, replacing them with his own. He undressed her slowly, reverently, as if she were made of something precious and fragile. Each inch of skin revealed was a gift he hadn’t known if he would ever receive again.
When she was naked, she lay back against his pillows, her dark hair a stark contrast against the white cotton. The moonlight turned her skin to marble, highlighting the delicate architecture of her collarbones, the gentle swell of her breasts, the hollow at the base of her throat where her pulse fluttered visibly.
Reed undressed himself with less ceremony, his eyes never leaving her. When he was done, he stretched out beside her, propped on one elbow, and simply looked at her for a long moment.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, and meant it with every fiber of his being.
A tired smile touched her lips. “Even like this? Puffy-eyed and exhausted?”
“Especially like this,” he said, and bent to kiss her again.
This time there was more heat in it, more urgency. Her lips parted beneath his, and he tasted the sharp mint of the hospital mouthwash she must have used before they left. Her hands roamed his back, her short nails scraping lightly against his skin in a way that sent shivers down his spine.
Reed took his time with her, determined to show her with his body what he couldn’t yet bring himself to say with words. He kissed a trail down her neck, pausing at the spot just below her ear that always made her gasp. Her skin tasted of salt and the faint antiseptic smell of the hospital, but beneath that was the essential Ava-ness that he had missed so desperately.
His hands mapped her body like a man rediscovering beloved territory after a long absence. The soft curve of her waist, the jutting angles of her hipbones, the sensitive skin of her inner thighs—all of it familiar yet somehow new in the dim light of their reconciliation.
When his mouth found her breast, Ava arched beneath him, a soft moan escaping her lips. He circled her nipple with his tongue before taking it gently between his teeth, and was rewarded with her fingers tangling in his hair, holding him to her.
“Reed,” she breathed, his name a prayer on her lips.
He took his time, working his way down her body with deliberate care. Her skin flushed beneath his attention, goosebumps rising in the wake of his touch. He could feel her trembling, but it was different now—anticipation rather than fear, desire rather than distress.
When he settled between her thighs, he looked up the length of her body to find her watching him, her eyes dark and wide in the moonlight. He held her gaze as he lowered his mouth to her, the first taste of her sending a jolt of pure want through him.
Ava’s head fell back, her eyes closing as a shuddering sigh escaped her. Reed lost himself in pleasing her, using all the knowledge he had gathered over their time together. He knew exactly how to build her slowly, knew the rhythm that would make her thighs tense and her breathing quicken.
Her hands clutched at the sheets, at his hair, at anything she could reach. Small, broken sounds fell from her lips, growing more desperate as he brought her closer to the edge.
“Reed,” she gasped, tugging at him. “Reed, I want you. Inside me. Please.”
He moved up her body, positioning himself above her. For a moment, he simply looked down at her—her hair a wild halo around her head, her lips parted, her eyes hazy with desire but still shadowed by the day’s ghosts.
“I’m here,” he whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “I’m right here with you.”
When he entered her, it was with aching slowness, watching her face for any sign of discomfort or hesitation. But there was only relief in her expression, a kind of homecoming that echoed what he felt in his own chest. She wrapped her legs around his waist, drawing him deeper, her hands clutching at his shoulders.
Reed moved within her with measured control, fighting his own need to lose himself in the sensation. This wasn’t about him. It was about giving Ava what she needed, about proving to her—to them both—that some connections couldn’t be severed, no matter how hard they tried.
“Look at me,” he murmured, and her eyes opened, locking with his. “Stay with me. Right here.”
The intimacy of that gaze was almost more than he could bear. In her eyes, he saw everything—her fear, her need, the rawness of her emotional wounds. But he also saw the trust that had never quite died, the love that had persisted beneath the anger.
Their rhythm built slowly, inexorably. Reed kept one hand on her face, his thumb stroking her cheekbone, keeping her anchored to the present. His other hand slipped between them, finding the spot that made her gasp and arch against him.
“That’s it,” he encouraged as her breathing hitched. “Let go, Ava. I’ve got you.”
He felt it when she began to come apart, her body tensing around him, her eyes widening with surprise as if pleasure was the last thing she had expected to find tonight. He watched her face as she came, memorizing every nuance of her expression, storing it away against the possibility of future loneliness.
His own release followed soon after, catching him almost by surprise. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathing in the scent of her as his body shuddered with the force of it.
For a long moment afterward, they remained tangled together, reluctant to separate. Reed could feel Ava’s heart racing against his chest, gradually slowing to a steadier rhythm. Her fingers traced lazy patterns across his back, and he pressed soft kisses to her neck, her jaw, her temple.
Finally, he shifted to the side, gathering her against him so that her head rested on his chest. Her hair tickled his chin, and he smoothed it down with a gentle hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered into the darkness.
Reed tightened his arm around her. “Don’t thank me for that,” he said, his voice rougher than he intended. “Never for that.”
She was quiet for so long that he thought she might have fallen asleep. But then she spoke, her voice so low he had to strain to hear it.
“I saw myself in her eyes. That little girl. I knew exactly what she was feeling.”
Reed swallowed hard, fighting the urge to try to fix this for her. There was no fixing it. There was only being present with her in it.
“I know,” he said simply.
“I thought I’d dealt with it. Put it behind me.” Her fingers curled against his chest, nails digging in slightly. “But seeing her there...it was like no time had passed at all. I was twelve years old again, waiting for someone to tell me my parents were dead.”
Reed kissed the top of her head, letting her talk, knowing she needed to expel the poison of the memory.
“The difference is, her parents lived.” She tilted her head back to look at him. “Because of you.”
“Because of you,” he corrected gently. “You’re the doctor, remember? I just bring them in.”
A soft smile touched her lips. “You did more than that today. You saw me falling apart, and you...you anchored me.”
Reed touched her face, tracing the curve of her lower lip with his thumb. “That goes both ways, you know. You’ve been anchoring me for years.”
The admission cost him something, but it was worth it to see the softening in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “For pushing you away. For not talking to you about...” she trailed off, gesturing vaguely.
“We both messed up,” he said. “But we’re here now.”
Ava settled back against his chest, her body warm and solid against his. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Reed tightened his hold on her, pressing a kiss to her hair.
“Don’t thank me for that,” he murmured. “Just…stay.”
And for the first time in days, she did.