Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
KASEY
There’s something about touching Ava that rocks me to my core. Changes me on a deeply cellular level.
It’s a hopeless, joyful torment.
A pure, unfiltered eruption.
Without her I am nothing. With her, I am the entire goddamn world. She is the answer to every question, the light in every dark room. She’s the air in my lungs and the blood in my veins and when she smiles at me like she is right now, I come alive.
Goosebumps erupt on every inch of my skin as I pull her mouth to mine.
There’s nothing careful about the way I kiss her—it’s a claim, a promise made between two hearts, written in permanent marker, sealed with a blade across a palm.
It’s a pouring out of hurt and secrets to make room for things better held, like adoration and protection. Like love in its rawest form.
From the moment she walked through the doors of Wild Coyote—no, since the day she walked onto that fucking football field—I’ve been caught in the excruciating crux of trying to guard myself against the terror of what it is to love Ava and succumbing to every hair-trigger whim to tear my heart out of my chest and shove it into her hands, praying she’ll just put me out of my misery and take it.
She’s everything I want so badly wrapped up in a bow of temptation set out to destroy me—because that’s exactly what happened before. Ava destroyed me, and here I am like a fucking fool, asking her for more, please.
I have her shirt off in less than a second. My blood is rushing inside my body, crashing through my limbs and blaring through my ears. My skin feels too tight, like I’m swollen with my need for her, threatening to break.
“Kasey,” she gasps. Her nails dig into my shoulder as her head rolls back, eyes fluttering closed as my mouth drops to her neck.
“Ava,” I murmur against her skin. Confident. Crazed.
My hands sink down the length of her body, palm her ass, grip her thighs, and lift.
She wraps both hands around my face, her dark hair a curtain around us as she bends her neck to kiss me again.
I nearly trip carrying her up the stairs, clumsy and aching.
By the time we get through the front door, I’ve unfastened her bra and she’s pulling it down her arms.
“It doesn’t bother you?” she rasps. Her blue eyes beckon me like the sea in Scorpion Bay, where we waded through the water without a stitch of clothing. Before I was unmade and reborn in the back of my truck on that midnight beach.
“What?” I don’t remember the question, mind held hostage by the memory of the first time I got to see her come.
“My . . . pregnancy.”
“Yes,” I hiss, leaning forward to lick up her neck as I settle her hips against the back of my couch. God, yes.
She stiffens. “Wait,” she breathes. “It does?”
“What does, Ava?” I don’t think I’m keeping up, but it’s hard to stay focused when her perfect fucking tits are bare and her nipples are hard against my shirt.
“Does my pregnancy bother you?” she asks, frowning, and I realize where I’ve gone wrong.
“Fuck no,” I grit out. If she only knew how hard it makes me to think of Ava as a mother. The baby growing inside of her might not share my blood, but I’m desperate to claim her too, to make them both mine. The list of things I wouldn’t give for it is miserably blank.
I watch the worry on her face transform to something softer, something much sweeter. I hate that I made her doubt herself, even for a second. Doesn’t she know what she is to me? “Sugar, I don’t think I’ve ever been more unbothered about something in my entire fucking life.”
She laughs, and I love it. That I’m earning those again.
I lean in to catch it with my mouth, but the couch slides against the hardwood and sends me stumbling forward. I curse, lifting her back into my arms. “My room or yours?” I ask, gaze snagging on a clump of hair that falls forward off her shoulder, dangling against her breast.
“Yours.” She bucks her hips against my stomach, seeking friction as I walk with her.
“Almost there, baby,” I promise, feeling her need unfurl and pull taut. Her lips wrap around my earlobe, teeth scraping and sinking into skin. I grunt as pleasure rushes through me—I always loved that fucking spot, and she knows it.
My bed is still unmade from when she left it this morning.
When I’d come in to get ready for dinner, I studied the place her body had been, wondering if I imagined the whole thing.
Her tan leg hooking over my waist, the flimsy white panties she’d had on.
I wonder what she’s wearing tonight, what I might find beneath these jeans.
I drop her in the middle of the bed, and as if she can read my mind, she starts unbuttoning her pants.
“No.” I catch her wrist, stopping her. Her eyes hook into mine, a divot forming between her brows. “I want to,” I say with a shaky exhale.
But first, I just want to fucking look at her. Her deep, rich skin. The heavy curve of her breasts. The swell of her stomach, proof of her magic. Of her magnificence.
“Kasey,” she pleads, squirming. “Please.”
Closing my eyes, I let this all sink it. Let it soak into my heart. “Okay, sugar.” I nod, looking back down at her. “Let’s get you out of these.” I carefully, slowly, reverently unbutton her jeans. Pull the zipper down. Catch a glimpse of lavender lace.
My breath hitches. Heart stops.
“Fuck.”
Ava shimmies beneath me. Impatient. Whining.
I pull the denim down her legs and reveal more lavender. More lace. More soft, perfect skin. I let the pants drop unceremoniously to the floor at my feet and straighten.
And look.
“Your turn.” The words scrape from her throat. “Let me see you.”
I reach over my head to grip the back of my shirt, pulling it up and off me. My fingers hook into the leather of my belt buckle and start yanking, but Ava props herself up, rising up to her knees. Lays a warm hand over mine. “I want to,” she echoes.
I grin down at her. On her knees, her face reaches my chest, and as she fumbles to work the buckle, she presses an open-mouthed kiss over my heart.
Another against my ribs. I close my eyes as she blazes a trail across my skin, licking and sucking and kissing.
It’s a slow and tortuous pursuit. Everything I need.
A metallic thud sounds, and I realize my belt has joined my shirt and her jeans on the floor. I open my eyes to find hers fastened to my fly, where I’m straining uncomfortably. She licks her lips. Looks up at me. “Can I?”
“Ava,” I groan. “You can do anything you goddamn please.”
Her pupils swell, those beautiful sapphire blues chased away by a startling black.
She works my jeans much faster than I did hers, fingers frantic and fumbling with a desperation that matches my own.
The tension in the air around us is so thick it crackles, and I wonder if there could possibly be anything better in the entire universe.
Or any other universe. No, I quickly think. Surely not.
She gets my pants loose, shoves them down my thighs. I hear her deep inhale as she takes in the sight, reaching to wrap her hand around me. She gives me one, lazy pump. “I forgot how—” She swallows. “Remember our first time?” she asks, eyes lifting to mine.
I nod. I’d been so scared of hurting her, but she promised she could take it. Said we wouldn’t be made not to fit together. “You made it so good for me, Ava. You always did.”
She snorts. “You did all the work.”
I reach to grip her chin, lifting her face. “You’re going to make it good for me again, aren’t you?” Her cheeks grow crimson as she attempts to nod, the flesh of her face swelling around the tips of my fingers. I hum with approval, anticipation zipping up the back of my neck. “Show me.”
She pulls her face out of my grip and turns her attention back to my dick, flattening her tongue against the head. The feel is . . . exquisite. Mind blowing. So good. Her hand wraps around the base, giving me another languid pump while her tongue dips lower, pausing, rising back up.
“Yeah,” I grit out. “Perfect.”
She hums, and it vibrates through me. I nearly lose it, but force myself to breathe in deep. Try to slow my racing heart down a little.
But then she wraps her lips around me, sucking me into her mouth, and it’s too much, too fast. Her cheeks hollow as I disappear further inside of her.
My stomach clenches, molars grind, until I feel the back of her throat.
“Fuck,” I mutter, gripping her hair at the base of her neck, tugging her loose. “Don’t make me come yet, Ava.”
“Already?” She grins, her lips slick. Filthy.
“It’s been a long time,” I concede, taking a step back. “Get on your knees.”
And she does. I praise her with soft murmurs as I kiss up the length of her spine, gripping her hips tightly between both hands as I pull off her underwear.
I dig my fingers deep into her flesh, anchoring, holding her still.
My mouth reaches the back of her neck, and she tilts her head to the side to give me better access.
I suck at her throat, scraping my teeth against her skin, relishing the whine it draws out of her.
I stand again, straightening. Lifting her ass higher so I can see her better.
She’s more than wet—dripping, actually, down the inside of her thigh—glistening in the moonlight.
I’d wondered if pregnancy would make it harder for her to be turned on, to want something like this, but she seems more than ready.
Like perhaps she wants it even more now.
“Look at you,” I whisper. I want to taste her, but I’m not sure I have the patience. It’s been ten years, and I’m worried if I don’t get inside her, soon, I might actually die.
“I missed this,” she mumbles into the mattress. “Missed you.”
My heart stutters.
I graze my fingers through her slick skin—just enough to tease. She perks her ass higher. Begging. Nudging herself against my dick. “We don’t have to do this, sugar.” I need to say it, to tell her, but the thought of stopping kills me.