Chapter 14 #2
I left them, heading to my room and trying to clear my head in the shower.
What I was doing was dangerous and unlike me.
I needed to focus. Ava was a commodity, nothing more.
But no matter how I repeated the words, they didn’t change the warmth that sat in my chest or the constant desire to touch her that hounded me like a craving I couldn’t quell.
It almost seemed like I was fraying at the seams.
Toweling my hair, I pulled on a pair of pants and took my phone out. After a few seconds of debate, I hit Greyson’s number.
“I hope you’re calling this late to tell me you’re sending Ava home.” He sounded gruff, as usual.
“Not gonna happen,” I replied.
“Then what the hell are you calling for? Did you change your deadline? Because you’re lucky I haven’t brought my force down on your ass yet.”
“You haven’t because I’ll kill her the second you do.” This time, the words came out hollow. “You know what I want. You crawling up my front steps in less than two weeks.”
There was a distinct growl on the other end of the phone, and I thought I heard a woman’s voice. Riley. My new sister-in-law and the woman who should have been in Ava’s place and all this confusion would never have entered my head.
“Touch a hair on her head and I’ll keep you alive for years while I torture you.”
“All talk, Grey. That’s all you are. You don’t stand a chance against me. Now shut the fuck up and tell me your guy really killed her stepfather.”
I rubbed my hand over my face, hating the silence on the other end of the phone.
Greyson and I had been playing enemies for decades, and this question made no sense to him.
I shouldn’t have asked it, but I needed to know.
The thought of that man alive was eating at me and if he’d gotten away, I would hunt him down and drag him back so she could watch me rip him apart piece by piece.
A few more seconds of silence before he said, “What’s going on, Mer?”
Even after over twenty years apart, he could still get into my head. Inseparable as kids, our parents had often joked about how we shared one mind. How the bond between us was so strong. Shit, it still was. Enemies or not, it remained, and I had spent years submerging it below my anger at him.
“Just answer the fucking question,” I snapped, my grip on the phone so tight it cracked.
“His torso is in a lake, the rest of him we buried below a shopping mall in Creekwood.”
“Did he suffer?”
More silence and I worried he would grow suspicious.
“Yes. Den locked him in the same basement he kept Ava in, then took a part of him for every day he kept her down there before the man bled to death. Weighed his torso down with bricks from the basement when he left it in the lake.”
Relief surged through me. My brother and I were alike, so there should have been no question that if his man hadn’t finished the job, Greyson would have done it for him. But I needed to hear it, to have confirmation that the man had suffered.
“Good. You have ten days before I want to see your pathetic ass in front of my gates or she’s dead.
” I disconnected, hating how saying those two words cut me like a rusty blade.
Throwing the phone on the bed, I raked my hands through my hair.
Attachment was something I didn’t do, especially with women.
I took what I needed and walked away. Emotionless transactions, nothing more, and if they wanted more, they were greatly disappointed.
But Ava had gotten past my barriers, chipping away at the locks within days until all my plans for her had morphed.
I couldn’t imagine killing her. I had a reputation as a heartless killer, one who shot and asked questions later.
Yet I was hesitating, distraught over the idea that if my brother didn’t bend, I would have to hurt her.
Like an injured dog backed into a corner, I resorted to punching back.
Texting Breaker, I told him to make sure he fed her when she woke.
I finished dressing and left through the garage, taking Pack and two others with me.
Being away from her would help, and the club would give me a necessary distraction. At least I thought it would.
I owned several clubs through the province.
Charter was the one I frequented. Upscale and catering to the more elite clientele, I preferred the atmosphere to the grittier options.
The music blared, lights streamed, and women danced on the few poles strategically placed on the dance floor.
Snapping my collar, I strolled through the club, making the rounds until I settled into a corner.
Entertaining the brown nosing of the pathetic social climbers who wanted a piece of my attention and those who owed me money, I settled into my usual demeanor.
Drink in hand, I caught the eye of a pretty brunette in a tight, sequined dress that clung to her body in all the right ways.
She sauntered over and I nodded to Pack to let her by.
Leaning over the table, her breasts deliciously displayed, she said something, but my mind fucked me over when it decided Ava’s breasts were more tempting.
I blinked, taking another swig of my drink.
“What do you think?” she asked, clearly waiting for a response to some question she had asked.
Damn, she was sexy and from the look in her eyes, she was offering exactly what I needed, only she wasn’t what I wanted.
Against all rational thought, I swirled my alcohol in my glass and let my eyes rove over her body as she stood, thinking how she looked too thin and didn’t have the hips I wanted to grip.
I could have easily taken her into the lower part of the club and fucked away my cravings for the spirited blonde and pink haired woman in my house, but I knew it wouldn’t help.
That I’d be disappointed and somehow left feeling guilty because that amazing woman looked at me with eyes that trusted.
Screwing some random woman in the dark corners of my club might damage that look, and the idea of that happening killed me.
Waving her away, I muttered, “Go find someone else to flaunt that sexy body to. I don’t want it.”
I gulped down the rest of my drink, averting my eyes from her gaping mouth. Rising, I adjusted my shirt cuffs and walked past her, hearing her complaints and ignoring them.
This was bad. Really bad. Pack said nothing as he drove me home and I stayed silent, my mind playing through why I had given up a night of sex with a gorgeous woman when any other night I would have used her until she left with wobbling legs and I was drained.
That man seemed like someone else. A man searching for something and never finding it.
Just like Ava had said. Searching for her all this time and now that I’d found her, no amount of temptation would compare.
It was late when I returned, and Ava no longer slept on the couch.
I glanced down the hall where I knew she was likely reading and forced my feet to take me to my room.
Standing under the shower and scrubbing off the smell of the club and perfume belonging to a woman I hadn’t even touched, my mind drifted back to Ava.
I wanted her desperately. To go to her room and ravage her, to have her come undone around me, to taste every inch of her and hear her scream in pleasure and not pain.
The thoughts flooded me, and I pictured her under me, skin to skin, mouth to mouth, our bodies moving as one.
Stroking myself only worsened the need until a desperate hunger gripped me and my hand flew to the wall to stabilize myself.
Every stroke I imagined was her pulsing around me, clenching in the throes of orgasm.
My hand moved faster, my body rigid with the release that was so close it hounded me.
Grinding my teeth, I silenced the roar that sought to flee as I came, splattering my desire for Ava on the shower floor, only for it to be swept away with the water.
Left only partially satisfied and irritated that I’d resorted to using my hand instead of taking the real thing from a woman who had been more than willing, I settled into bed.
No amount of scrolling on my phone or answering emails helped to halt the sensation that something was missing.
I looked over at the empty side of my bed, realizing only then that I had gotten into the side I never slept on, as if I had expected Ava to take my usual side.
With a sigh, I looked at the time. One in the morning.
Ava would still be reading. She was like me—a night owl.
Her demons, like mine, made sleep a fleeting thing.
I could count on one hand the number of nights I’d slept well, and they included the nights I’d held her through her nightmares.
With a sigh, I tossed my phone on my nightstand and threw the covers back.
Pulling a pair of sweats on, I stalked from my room, annoyed at this newfound dependency for a woman who was only in my life by chance.
An idiotic mistake. Or maybe a fortunate turn of fate.
Whatever the reason, I knew two things: Ava would sleep in my arms tonight and I had completely lost my mind.