13. Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
Ava
The bedroom door creaks open, rousing me from a deep sleep. I sit up, startled, and a tall, broad, shadowy figure stands illuminated, framed in the doorway by the hallway light.
“Who’s there?”
“You know,” Stephen’s deep voice rasps.
“Is something wrong?”
He doesn’t answer, but he steps into the room. The bedroom lock snaps into place, loud in the quiet of the room. Shadows overtake the room.
“Is Landon okay?”
“I’m here to take care of you,” he says.
My heart rate slows and then races again at the implication. “You think you’ve still got it?” I taunt.
“I never lost it,” he says. “Only you did.”
Then he’s drawing me out of bed, cupping the side of my cheek, and trailing a line of kisses down my neck.
Oak, citrus, and sandalwood mingle around me, reminding my senses of the joy only certain smells can bring. A gust of partial memories swirl, not quite landing, but every one is of him and me tangled in tantalizing, exquisite physical contact.
The security lights from the yard peek through the curtains I didn’t close tight enough, creating just enough light to see faint outlines, broad strokes. But I’d know him even in the darkest dark.
“Do you think you’re ready for me?” he murmurs against my ear.
“Not yet,” I say, even though I am. If he went exploring, he’d find me soaked, so ready it’s almost painful. I’ve never wanted any man the way I want Stephen—immediate, undeniable, uncontrollable. Chemistry that can’t be faked.
But it’s been forever since anyone has touched me with such reverence, and I don’t want the end to come too soon. “Don’t stop.”
His fingertips trace the exposed skin along my neck, my collarbone, and down my arm.
Shivers of pleasure follow in the wake of each caress.
He’s so huge, takes up so much space that I feel tiny in comparison—a sensation I haven’t had since he left.
A gentle giant who would hurt himself before he’d ever hurt me.
This is exactly the version of Stephen I’ve been craving after so much indifference.
“Never met anyone as beautiful as you.” His deep voice is in my ear. “You’re so pretty it should be a crime.”
“You’d have me arrested?”
“Locked up, chained down, just for me.”
“No one’s replaced me yet?” I try to keep my tone teasing, but I’m desperate to know.
His hands and lips are distracting, but it’s his words I’m clinging to.
It seems impossible there hasn’t been anyone else in six years.
Someone else who captured his heart, even if temporarily.
I’ve lived lifetimes since the last time he touched me like this—too long.
The idea of him with another woman makes my stomach twist in knots.
“All I think about is you. All I dream about is you.” His lips are whisper soft against the curve of my neck as his big hands slide up under my black silk negligee, drawing it over my head. He bunches it into a fist before letting it drop to the floor by our feet.
When I ease my hands under his T-shirt, I realize it’s the first one I ever bought him the summer before I left for college—the deep burgundy gave his tanned skin a gorgeous glow.
I’d never bought a man a present before—only boys—and I’d been so nervous to give it to him that I’d concealed my uncertainty with bravado, said I wanted him to dress better.
God, I was such a brat. So wrong and awful about so many things.
When his shirt is gone, I run my palms along his chiseled chest, marveling at the way his muscles ripple under my touch. Stephen’s physique is stunning, and the want that’s been building inside me is reaching a fever pitch. I don’t just want him; I need him. Like oxygen.
“Ava,” he rasps.
Hearing my name causes a full-body ache to sweep through me, settling in the center of my core. With him, “Ava” is a prayer and a curse.
“I thought I lost you.” My voice cracks. “And I’ve never been so sad. No one had ever broken my heart before.”
“I came back.” He nuzzles my nose.
“Too late. Why did you have to come back too late?” My throat is thick with emotion.
“Too late? Come on, Ava.” His lips are on my jawline, so close to my mouth that I’m almost panting with eagerness. “It’s only too late when we’re both in the ground.”
A surge of recklessness buoys me up, dries my tears, bulldozes any sense of caution. “You’re right.” I grab the back of his head, and I push up onto my toes, finding his mouth with mine. When he angles his head to embrace the kiss, I moan his name.
Why has it only ever been like this with him?
Shocks of desire shoot straight to my core, as though my libido has been dead, and his presence is the defibrillator, bringing it back to life. Not only am I not in the ground, I am So Fucking Alive.
Mid-kiss, Stephen picks me up and tosses me onto the bed, and as I go down, I laugh, but my amusement is short-lived when he follows me into the heavy blankets, hands and teeth and lips everywhere.
My skin is so electrified that each caress is almost painful, but I still arch into the contact, desperate for more.
It’s been so long.
It’s been too long.
He slips his hand between my legs, and I spread myself wide, eager for his touch. I cling to his shoulders as he hovers over me, his long, thick fingers playing my most sensitive parts like the chords of a song he memorized.
“So wet for me,” he says, his gaze piercing. “Have you been thinking about what it’d be like for me to be inside you, stretching you, filling you? Do you remember what it was like to have me driving into you, pushing you to the brink?”
“Stephen, yes,” I breathe out, wiggling under his touch. His words inspire visceral memories of exactly those things, and every part of me wants to relive them. So much yes.
“You’re so good at coming for me, baby. I love it. Do you want to?” He locks his gaze with mine, and my vision is hazy with lust.
“Yes. God, yes.”
He slides a finger inside me, then two, and I’m trembling with anticipation.
“More,” I say, because that’s what I’ve always wanted with him. More and more and more.
A third finger, and I’m so close, hovering on the brink. If his thumb so much as flutters over my clit, I’m done.
“Stephen,” I beg.
“You want to come?”
“Yes. Please.”
“Too bad,” he says, and then he’s gone. A mirage vanishing in the desert.
I wake with a scream of frustration, hitting Raul’s pillow with my fist over and over before taking it and stuffing my face in it to scream again. My body aches with unspent desire, lust that has nowhere to go. The edge I was so close to toppling over is distant now, no longer easily within reach.
The door handle rattles, and I remember I locked it before I went to bed. I don’t even know why.
“I heard a scream,” Stephen’s deep voice penetrates the thick bedroom door. “Let me in.”
I breathe deeply into the pillow for another one, two breaths. The urge to throw open the door, let ruination in, rises briefly to the surface. Stephen would take one look at me and know—he always knew. Maybe we could finish what that dream started.
But at what cost?
My company. My son.
“Mrs. Santos,” he says. “I’m breaking down the door.”
“Nightmare,” I call back. “Don’t… I’m fine.”
A heavy silence sits on the other side of the door, and I’m sure he still wants to come in here to check, to know for sure I’m not lying.
“Do you need me?” he asks. “Can I help?”
Yes. “No.”
“You’re okay?”
“Yes.”
Silence sits heavy between us, and he’s still at the door, deciding if I’m lying.
“I guess I’ll go back to bed, then.”
It’s another beat before his heavy footsteps sound along the hallway, returning to whatever spare room he’s opted to use.
I flop into the bed, the plush, expensive sheets enveloping me, and I stare at the ceiling.
The last night Stephen was in Bellerive, he gave me six orgasms, and I haven’t had a single one since. Not with another man. Not alone. Not with a hot tub jet.
And now not even Dream Stephen is willing to achieve the impossible.
Karma really is the biggest bitch.