Chapter 24 Ava
AVA
Twenty minutes later, we reached Desmond’s penthouse, kissing each other in the elevator and the corridor.
The lights were dim when he paused to open the door, and in seconds, we were undressing each other in the hallway.
Fingers fumbling with need, I pulled his jacket off and undid the buttons of his shirt while he slid my clothes to the floor, leaving me in my underwear.
He picked me up just as I could make out a long hallway and a crystal chandelier at the entrance before he whisked me off to a room on the left.
I squealed as he walked into a huge room with a large four-poster bed at the center, where two of the walls had floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
We were twenty floors up with a dark sky outside. I’d never seen New York at night from a floor this high up. Lit square windows dotted skyscrapers nearby, and I felt deliciously a part of a world I’d never belonged to before.
Desmond deposited me on the bed before getting in with me.
The sudden surge of nervousness that had swelled up within me now receded, replaced by something strange.
Something warm and fuzzy, something unlike the usual emotions of fear and loneliness that normally occupied my heart.
I’d felt so alone for most of the past year, and I’d lost all ability to comfort myself in the depths of my loneliness.
Desmond’s presence had the solidity of a wall—calm, unyielding, and just there. It wouldn’t go away so easily.
He shifted closer to me, his fingers lingering on my boring hipster panties. It signified a life that was in sharp contrast to his, making me feel embarrassed.
“Can you please let me …” I began and then stopped.
“That is so you, sweetheart, and I love it,” Desmond said as he gently ran his fingers over the edge of my underwear, caressing my skin, drawing little circles around my belly button.
Little tingles now made my heart trace and brought the rest of my body to life. My legs were moving of their own accord, and my body shifted sideways to his, entangling my legs with his.
His mouth betrayed a small smile before he reached over and took mine in a deep kiss that was filled with a longing from the past many weeks. I opened my mouth as our lips met and felt his tongue reach out to stroke mine.
“I was a fool to resist you for so long, Ava,” Desmond said in between kisses while my hands went up to grab fistfuls of his thick, dark hair. “But seeing you with someone else? That hurt like someone had brought a knife to my chest.”
Before I knew it, we were sitting up in bed, kissing to oblivion and letting our hands roam around each other’s bodies.
His fingers grabbed the sides of my waist and trailed up sensuously, getting closer and closer up to my chest when I broke the kiss.
I took a breath and looked at him, into his eyes, scanning his face, and his immediate word was, “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” I asked.
“Don’t start rationalizing. Nothing about this night has been rational,” he said, pulling me to my feet and drawing me to him with force.
I felt the length of his torso hit mine, my hips connecting with his.
“You’re not getting away from me tonight, sweetheart,” he said, nuzzling my neck.
“Not that I want to,” I responded.
His kisses—gentle, slow, and teasing—found their way down to my breast. He kissed my peak, his tongue swirling and then tugging on it, and my body arched against his mouth.
He stopped and then looked up at me, an evil glint in his eye. “Do you really want me to stop?”
In response, I tugged at his hair and brought his head back to my breast. He uttered a laugh that was part growl and began licking and sucking my nipple with his thick lips.
He pushed me to the back wall, as his mouth devoured my breast, squeezing and pinching the other with his fingers as my moans filled the room.
Before long, he slid his fingers down, pulling my panties to the side. He uttered a small laugh, seeming pleased to find how wet I was.
“Is it too late to insist that I’m not into you?” I remarked with a smile.
His eyes met mine, and he smiled. He grabbed my hand and pushed it against the length of his cock. He was swollen and hard. “Glad I’m not the only one, baby,” he whispered. “I’m dying to get inside you.”
The sigh I uttered was probably from heaven. Pulling a condom from a drawer in the dresser next to us, he slipped it on.
The tip of his sheathed cock throbbed near my sex, and I ached for him. “Please, Desmond,” I whispered. “I can’t wait any longer.”
He parted my legs before lifting me up. He pushed deep and hard inside me while I gasped, my mouth falling open at the suddenness of it.
“Sorry,” he said, searching for my lips and kissing me while he pushed in further. “I couldn’t stay back any longer.”
I moaned and clung to him, wrapping my legs around his waist while he pushed, getting breathless as he moved in and out of me, finding a rhythm.
“Are you okay? You’re very tight,” he asked.
I nodded, tiny gasps leaving my lips with every movement he made. “It’s just … it’s been a while,” I whispered.
“How long?” he asked, his mouth sucking while he moved, gently now.
“Eleven months,” I muttered, and he stopped to stare at me.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, touching my cheek with his thumb. Then, he followed it up with a kiss on my cheek, my temple, and my forehead, featherlight kisses that relaxed me completely.
The last time we’d made love together, he’d told me he loved me. While love certainly didn’t exist anymore, the intense physical attraction we shared was undeniable.
“It’s okay. I’m glad I broke my dry stretch with you,” I said, looking up at him, overwhelmed.
“Then, I’d better make it good,” he said, planting one last kiss on me before he slid a finger down between us.
Rubbing my clit, he thrust, driving me mad with pleasure. I rocked my hips with him, rising to meet him while he sped up.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he said as I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking and sweaty next to him. “I need to feel you come around me,”
I arched in a few seconds, my legs quivering as I came, letting out a cry of surprise. He thrust faster, deeper, until his lips parted, pulling me forward while he spilled into the condom.
With a shout, he shuddered in my arms, holding me tight while I felt limp. I leaned into his solid chest, feeling tendrils of pleasure snaking through my body while being held close and protectively by him. I’d thought this would never happen again between us, and it had.
He pressed kisses on my forehead and my hair. “You were fucking perfect,” he said, and I looked up, my eyes misty.
I didn’t know why, but the thought that I was finally back with Desmond made me want to cry. I hadn’t realized I wanted him this bad. Or that I had missed him this much.
Hours later, that night, we lay in bed, tired and spent from lovemaking, but still awake. It was as though we were unwilling to let this night end.
“Is this the norm for you on your dates?” I asked in the semi-darkness as his fingers caressed my arm, feeling a pang of envy for the other women who got to go out with him.
He leaned closer. “I wish I could’ve given you a proper date, sweetheart, with all the works.”
I blushed, but refused to be distracted. “Who have you been dating recently?”
He kept one long, lingering gaze on me and saw that I was serious. “Women I might have met at parties and networking events. Wealthy women, beautiful women, all equally nice, but nothing that went longer than three or four months.”
I turned away, looking at the city lights blinking at us through the windows. Something in me felt a little unsettled at the idea of Desmond dating other women. Jealousy, I realized. I wished that I’d had a great multiyear-long relationship I could brag about. I didn’t.
“I haven’t had relationships even half as successful as that,” I admitted unwillingly, turning back to him.
His liquid brown eyes looked serious and contemplative as they rested on me.
“The last serious relationship I was in”—I counted on my fingers—“was eleven months ago.” I smiled ruefully at him. “I had a terrible dry spell after that.”
He blinked. “Eleven months of not dating someone long-term or a year of not even a one-off date?”
I knew where he was going. “Not even a Tinder date,” I said, trying very hard to pass it off as a chuckle and failing. “Harvey, the guy I was having dinner with when I met you, was my first attempt in eleven months at breaking that spell.”
Desmond turned away and whistled under his breath. “Are you serious? How could men stay away from you for eleven months? Didn’t men show up at your restaurant? I can’t believe someone didn’t ask you out.”
I shook my head at his unbelievably good opinion of me. “I don’t think I can claim to have that kind of effect on men.”
He smiled. “If I remember, Jack Li and Mark Becker both stopped talking to me after I started dating you in high school. Jack was voted the Most Popular boy in our class, and Mark was—”
“The prom king,” I said, now unable to stop from smiling too.
Yes, most people had thought I was crazy to turn Jack down back in high school when he asked me out. But dating Desmond had left me with no regrets. Until his mother’s death. Until we had parted ways.
When I looked up, Desmond was smiling at me.
“What?” I asked, as his six-foot-three-inch body moved closer to my shorter five-foot-six-inch frame.
Desmond drew me to him, running the palm of his hand up and down my back and sending tingles of anticipation down my body. Desire flared up between us, and I wondered how we’d managed to stay away from each other for so long.
“There is something I have to tell you,” he said in that quiet way of his.
I felt a sense of fear flitting around me, inching closer and closer.
“A few minutes before I left work today, we found out that the reporter who investigated our acquisition of your restaurant also made some relationship allegations,” he said with a sigh.
Shoot.
I looked away, feeling despair.