28. RHETT
RHETT
Dinner arrives as I’m getting in the house, needing a shower after making sure the stables are all taken care of for the long weekend…
among other things. There’s enough fresh hay in each of the stalls to last through until we return on Monday, and I’ve left the feed within easy reach in case Jo decides she needs to meddle.
Which I know she will if we’re not here, even if Rowan has asked Jesse to drop by with Alison and the girls while we’re away to keep her demons from making work of her idle mind.
“Thanks,” I tell the pizza guy as he takes the tip I pull from my wallet that I left on the entry console and grab the pizza boxes from him before I lock up the front door for the night.
Although I still haven’t talked to Avery about going to DC this weekend, I’m hoping she’ll want to come too.
As much as I don’t want to involve her as I look into the cause of Robert’s death, I’m hoping that she can help me get the answers I need from his doctor.
That needle bruise is bugging the shit out of me, and given that Dr. Haas hasn’t replied to the last email I sent asking if there was something missing from the notes he sent over… I don’t have a good feeling about it.
As I walk through to the living area, I pause and smile at the way Iris is so engrossed watching The Cat in the Hat.
We read it again last night before I tucked her in, and every day we go through our new routine where Avery bathes her and I read her to sleep, I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to do that in our own home.
The bungalow isn’t massive, but it’s plenty big enough for the three of us.
And every Saturday morning, the sight of her surfboard and suit beside mine has me thinking that that’s where it belongs all the damn time. They belong with me all the damn time.
“Pizza!” Iris’s excited yell draws me from my thoughts as she jumps up from the couch.
Before I’ve reached the kitchen, she’s already dragging her small stool over to the crockery cabinet and taking down plates one by one like Jo taught her to do so she can help set the table.
“Where’s your momma?” I ask, putting the pizza boxes down on the counter.
“Showering.” Iris replies with a shrug. “She said she got messy helping you.”
At her retort, my heart picks up its pace. My insides warm as a wave of heat rolls through me, heading all the way down south at the memory of Avery’s and my quickie earlier.
“You want me to go tell her to hurry up?” Jumping down from her stool, Iris looks up at me expectantly, bright eyes wide as she watches me wash my hands and joins me at the sink to wash hers too.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll go tell her pizza is here while you finish setting the table.” After I’ve dried our hands, I grab some paper plates from the cupboard above the fridge, along with plastic cups. “No dishes tonight.”
“Yes! Does that mean we can watch a movie together instead?”
“If your mom says so, yes, we can.”
“My choice?”
“Aaah…depends. Are there flying ponies?”
“Umm…” Iris side glances away from me.
“Why don’t we try something new? Halloween is coming up…maybe something spooky?”
“Addams Family?” she calls after me as I head upstairs.
“Didn’t you watch that with your mom the other night?”
“Yeah, but you weren’t here. I wanna watch it with you, Doc.”
Looking over my shoulder, I’m greeted with her Puss in Boots eyes and cute pout. “Addams Family it is.”
The kid is impossible to say no to. Much like Avery, she has me wrapped around her finger, and there’s no other way I would have it as I watch her run to the couch and set up the movie while Jo is napping in her favorite armchair.
When I reach Avery’s bedroom, she’s facedown on the bed, her towel wrapped around her.
Her breathing is light and even. I’m surprised she’s asleep with the way her legs are jutting off the end of the bed awkwardly and her wet hair is stuck to her neck and back.
Any other person would be cold and uncomfortable, but she’s passed out.
Well, I need a shower anyway, so I might as well let her rest a little longer while I do so quickly.
It takes me no more than five minutes to hose myself down and get myself clean.
Once I’ve put on the flannel pajama pants that Jo thought would be more comfortable than my sweat shorts, and a fresh T-shirt, I wake Avery up gently.
“I’m too tired to move,” she groans, looking up at me through the coarse strands of her mane. “Oh my God, what have you done to me?”
It’s impossible to hold back my chuckle as I finger her hair from her face to reveal her ruddy pink lips and dainty nose.
“Pizza’s here.”
“I only ordered it like two minutes ago,” Avery mutters with a pretend sob, rolling to her back with my help. When I stand, lacing our hands together so I can pull her up, she grins up at me. “Consider me thoroughly screwed, Dr. Reynolds.”
“Hmm…you can still move…”
“Barely,” she retorts, looking over her shoulder when she pauses in front of the chest of drawers and drops her towel.
Avery’s a sight for sore eyes with her creamy skin and sinuous curves. The dimples at the base of her back accentuate her perfect ass, but it’s the bruised crescent on the curve of her shoulder that snags my attention. The bite mark I left in the barn, flushed pink against her skin.
She’s standing in front of the mirror, fingers ghosting over it. A smile tugs at her lips while she nibbles on them. Like she’s trying to hold it back. When she tilts her head to get a better look, her thighs press together. Rubbing.
Fuck. Fuuuck…
My cock thickens at the sight of her, at the realization that my mark on her skin is doing to her what watching her touch it is doing to me.
Hazel eyes flick up in the mirror, finding mine. For a beat, neither of us moves. Then, slowly, deliberately, her gaze drags down my reflection. My chest. My stomach. Lower.
Avery holds it there, staring at my hardening cock with zero shame and a smirk that makes my blood run hot.
“Like what you see, Doc?” she murmurs, her eyes still fixed below my waist.
“Do you, sweetheart?”
“Yes. It’s so good, you know...” Avery finally looks up to meet my eyes again, and the smirk morphs to a pensive pout.
“Having a mark on my body that reminds me of something beautiful. Something wonderful instead of—” She swallows with a frown.
Then with a deep breath continues, “It’s sort of liberating. ”
The word catches me off guard. “Liberating?”
“Yeah.” My girl turns the mark toward the mirror again, studying it like something precious. “When you lose control with me, it’s… empowering. Knowing that I can make you that desperate, that hungry, and still feel completely safe?” Avery meets my eyes again. “That’s freedom, Rhett.”
I’m behind her in two strides, my hands settling on her hips, my chin on the shoulder that doesn’t carry my mark. Our eyes lock in the mirror.
“I’m your safe place, Avery.” I press my lips to the bruised crescent.
“And you have never looked more beautiful than you do right now with my mark on your skin.” My grip tightens on her hips, and my pulse picks up at her hum.
“The sight of you is going to live in my head rent free forever.” I press another kiss to it.
“For fucking ever, sweetheart. And every second I’m not with you, I’m going to have to contain every ounce of need I have for you. It’s going to be the end of me.”
Avery leans back into my chest and sighs. A soul-deep, all-body hum that warms all the way through me to the core of my chest.
Fuck. It doesn’t matter that I had her not even an hour ago, my dick is bobbing to attention.
Every one of my muscles clenches in response to the woman in my arms. I’m in a haze, watching in the mirror as she tugs one of my T-shirts from the top drawer and then pulls it on along with her pajama shorts.
Avery’s brushing out her hair when I sit on the bed and take a deep breath to ask her about this weekend.
“Would you come with me to DC?” Avery asks quickly as though she wants to get it over and done with.
“Ah…”
“You don’t have to,” she adds, finding my gaze in the mirror. “It’s just that Callie thinks it would be a good opportunity to talk to some of my father’s acquaintances. I don’t know… I…it’s…”
“Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to go visit Haas with me tomorrow. Rowan looked into him, and apparently he golfs at the Congressional Country Club every Friday afternoon, and turns out that—”
“Nora is hosting the fundraiser there?”
“Yeah.”
“Freaking Callie! She really did work me over…” Avery shakes her head while gathering her hair on top of her head and twisting it into a messy knot there.
“What happens if he doesn’t want to talk to us?
In fact, how are we even going to access their golf course?
Do you have any idea how exclusive that place is? It’s like the Platinum Club.”
“It’s about who you know, right?”
“Rafe?”
“No, Avery.” For a moment I wonder if Rowan got something wrong, because the way she’s looking at me doesn’t tell me that she has a membership. But then realization sets in as she asks, “Me?”
“You’re a member, right?”
She turns to me with a worried look on her face. “My dad was…I guess we’ve had membership since I can remember, but…”
Avery grows silent with an awkward shrug as she turns to face me. Her gaze is downcast as she continues. “With everything that’s happened and Dad being gone, I can’t see our family membership still being active. That club is extremely hoity-toity. They have a ridiculous waiting list…”
“Well, Rowan seems certain you’re still a member.
” Coming to stand in front of me, she looks down at the ground, hands knitting over her flat belly.
Something about her reaction doesn’t sit right with me.
“We don’t have to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.
My diary is clear for Monday, so I can go see him at his office then. ”
“I didn’t think we’d be going back to DC this soon, and I’m a little overwhe—”