12. Avery
AVERY
He doesn’t choose me.
Another week of turning myself inside out about my growing feelings for Kill, and I’m back in a luxury resort, this one on the Mediterranean coast and it feels huge, sprawling along the coastline. The task went well, I thought? A polygraph test.
While some of the other girls stammered over the questions about their reasons for being here, their previous sexual partners, or their feelings for Kill, all those were too easy for me.
Yes, he’s paying me, but that’s not why I’m here.
And then Kill chose Jemma to take to dinner tonight.
He’s paying me. He sent me a gorgeous dress. Silk. A deep-green that sets off my hair beautifully. It made me feel like a princess wearing that dress. I thought it would be me. I thought I’d bask in the warmth of his attention.
Instead, I sit alone in my bedroom and stew. It’s stupid, and unreasonable, but I can’t help it.
My man is with another woman.
Except, he’s not mine, is he? He’s as far from being mine as Pluto is from being a planet. Just an asteroid that was told it was special. Not unique, one of many, many in the vicinity.
When reading a historical novel fails, I try to browse for a new book.
And when that doesn’t distract me, I put on the television.
That’s a waste of time too, as I stare at the expensive screen and wonder if he’s laughing with her.
She’s quite funny. Maybe they’re bonding over a shared love of guns.
She probably knows what ammunition goes with what gun, and what the difference between a shotgun and a pistol and a handgun is. Or something.
Will he kiss her?
I’m fully torturing myself, and I know it’s stupid to be so jealous, but I can’t help it. This is the worst thing that has happened to me.
I flop back onto the bed, leaving the television on, and stare at the ceiling. When did I get so invested in what should only be a job? This is a well-paid job, and could open doors for me to get another one. Maybe a junior position in a law firm, like I thought I wanted.
Years of legal training, and this is the result? I haven’t even got the critical reasoning skills to logically argue myself out of wanting a man who hired me to help him not marry. I have a degree in being a hopeless case.
I didn’t use to think I was a romantic. I’ve never been interested in boys, preferring my books or studying, or television shows. And my helpful libido has popped off at a man almost twice my age. Helpful. Thanks. Good timing.
It’ll be hours before they return. The other girls are in the social area of this part of the resort we’re staying in, but I can’t stand to be on display right now. I’m too liable to show how much I care in inappropriate ways like tears and a big outburst.
What if she’s touching him? Worse, what if he’s touching her? I wonder if she’ll invite him back to her room. It would be against the rules, but Jemma isn’t a rule taker. I bet she’d find a way.
The hours drag past like a half-dead animal clawing to its den to finish its life in peace and comfort. I don’t know what to do with myself, and I hate that I care so desperately.
Probably Kill’s mother is happy. Since she doesn’t seem to like me, she’ll be pleased he chose someone else.
And what about Kill? Why did he choose her?
He could have chosen me, and we could have pretended to be falling in love for these few hours, and damn, but I didn’t realise how much I was enjoying that pretence.
How much I wasn’t faking it, but chipping away at my heart to give to Kill.
But maybe he’s doing it out of some other reason? Most likely, he wants to see if Jemma is really a good fit for him as a wife.
She probably is.
I turn on the television for some noise, because without it, I’m listening out for Jemma returning from the date.
It makes me a bad person, no doubt, but I hope it went terribly, and finishes early.
Maybe she’ll say something awful and Kill will reject her, so I don’t have to worry about being compared to her.
I flick through channels, including the ones not in English, unable to settle. I miss having my phone, but they’re taken from us for these dates.
Then it happens.
There are doors open and shut, squeals, giggles. I don’t go out to hear about Jemma’s date. I think the details might break me. And from the sounds, I’d rather not know. Jemma is excited, and clearly thinks it went well.
I’m glad, and I’m devastated.
At least the evening is over, and I can stop torturing myself.
But I’m crumbling inside, and if you sliced me open I’d bleed as green as the dress Kill gave me, because I’m more jealous than I thought was possible. It’s a toxin I can’t eject.
I stare at the screen without seeing it until the fuss dies down. The other girls call “good night,” and “well done” to Jemma. They close their doors, and then there’s only the low noise of the television.
I should go to bed.
I’m considering it, when a rapid tap echoes into my room.
What?
It’ll be… I don’t know what. But despite my best efforts to tell myself I’m not concerned, my pulse jumps as I spring to my feet and rush to the door.
There’s no peep hole, so I say, “Who is it?”
“Open.” The answer is in a deep, gruff voice, and emotion explodes through me.
Kill. It’s Kill.
My hands shake as I pull the door open, and only a crack of the corridor is revealed before Kill has pushed against the wood.
I’m wearing pyjamas, I realise. I should change.
Put something cute on. I gasp as he slips into the room faster and more agile than I’d have thought a man as big as him could move.
The door shuts almost silently and wordlessly he pushes me against it.
“Avery,” he rasps against my cheek, and delicious shivers ripple down my spine. Heat blooms between my legs as he steps between my feet, his knee urging my thighs apart and his hips trapping me.
“Kill, you shouldn’t be here!” I whisper fiercely. “If anyone hears us, I’ll be kicked out of the competition!” As if I care. I’d sell my soul for whatever happens next with Kill.
He dips his head, and his breath ghosts over my cheek, then my ear.
“Then you’ll have to be a good quiet girl, so nobody hears, and close your eyes, so you can’t see me, love.” The words shimmer over my skin.
I jolt at the last word. Just a casual endearment. He doesn’t mean it, but my body thinks he does. Trying to stop myself from melting into him is like holding water in my hands.
“Did you have a good dinner?” I bite out, remembering through the dark explosion of arousal he’s detonated in my body that I’m upset with him.
That he chose one of the actual candidates to be his wife to go for an intimate one-on-one.
He might be in my room, but he spent all evening with someone else.
“I don’t want to talk about my god-awful evening,” he growls and brings his hand to my throat, wrapping his fingers around and forcing his thumb up under my chin so I have to tilt my head back and look at him.
There aren’t many lights on in the room, just the television and the one beside the bed, so it’s shadowy in the small corridor next to the door. “I want to kiss you.”
His green eyes are terrifying in the half-light. The panes of his face are in shadow, and his grip on my neck is harsh. Blood pounds around my body and excitement shudders down me.
I make a tiny involuntary whimper, because my whole pelvis has liquified. I’m heat and sensation and need. I barely feel like my normal limits exist, because everything has dialled up beyond the point I’ve felt before.
“Avery,” he says again, dragging his lips over my cheek. “Say yes, love. Close your eyes.”
His lips are right over mine, so close that the fire between us is a pulsing, living thing.
“Yes,” I whisper, and before I can finish the word, he claims my mouth.
I let my eyelids drift shut. At first his lips are hard, as though the relief that’s cascading over me is just as intense for him, but his kiss is the antidote to every bitter, toxic thought I’ve had while he was out with Jemma.
He rumbles as he squeezes my waist, keeping me pinned in place, and that’s exactly where I want to be.
The sweep of his lips eases, and it’s sweet and passionate in equal measure.
Then he demands and coaxes my mouth open, and his tongue darts over mine.
He groans when my tongue meets his, and I feel the vibration of that satisfied purr in my chest as much as I hear it. I meet his kiss halfway, copying his movements and drowning in the sensation of him as I arch away from the door, trying to get closer.
I think at first I haven’t understood how he’s standing, because Kill is so tall, everything is in different places. Also, I’ve never been held like this before, his hands on my waist and my throat. So tightly. I’ve had kisses before, but they were hasty, mouth on mouth. Not full-body experiences.
But he’s getting hard. For me. Because of me. Confidence sparks in my chest, because even if there’s nothing else to it, Kill wants me. Is turned-on. He hardens further as he presses himself against me.
I lift my hands as best I can, but he’s got me so tightly, there’s not much space to be grab him.
I can reach his shoulders or his head. But I content myself with exploring his muscled lower back.
I respond not just to his hungry kiss and the demand of his touch, but also to the feel of him.
I guess I knew muscles were considered attractive, and I knew Kill was gorgeous.
But running my hands over him takes my breath as surely as the way he’s kissing me like he’s desperate for me.
And then I venture to touch him lower down, and my hands rest on the start of the curve of his bottom, and it’s silly to be this weak, but he really is sculpted to the sort of perfection I’m certain I’ll only be lucky enough to encounter once in my life.
And that knowledge doesn’t stop my insides lighting up.
He digs his fingers into the side of my neck and deepens our kiss, his tongue in my mouth in a blatantly possessive gesture. It’s dominant, and dirty, and I crave more. I want to be his in every way.
“You were all I could see, love. I thought it would never end. I couldn’t think for needing you.”
He rolls his hips and I gasp when his erection is undeniable.
It’s a steel rod on my soft belly and my clit pulses in response when he pushes further.
There’s the barrier of both of our clothes, and still, I can’t believe it gets any better than this buzzy happiness that’s all over me.
Except, I bet it does. I’d love to be skin to skin.
Then the hand he has at my waist strokes down.
I squeak as he grasps the top of my thigh. I’m wearing old pyjamas.
“Are you naked underneath these?” he rumbles the question against my lips, and I melt.
“Yes,” I say faintly. And as he moves his hand to the waistband, it’s encouragement as well as fact.
“Such a good girl to wait up. Did you miss me?”
For a second, my brain stutters, protesting that I shouldn’t tell him. That I’ll give him too much power over me if he knows that I was pining.
“Yes.” It’s a whisper.
“I thought of you too, love. All fecking evening, I thought of you and how you’d feel. I have to touch you.” His fingers slip beneath the waistband of my pyjama bottoms, and I gasp. “Can you spread your legs for me, love? Let me touch you like you’re my sweet, good girl?”
He sounds husky.
And I probably shouldn’t, but I’d do anything he asks.