7. AVA #2
He turns when he hears me. He's shaved his beard down to clean stubble, and his jawline is sharp and defined.
My stomach drops straight through the floor.
"You look better," I manage.
"You look like you just swallowed something." His voice is low, amused.
"Gum. I swallowed my gum."
“Did you?”
He grins. Full, wide, devastating. The crooked nose makes it asymmetrical in a way that should be imperfect but somehow only makes him hotter.
“Yes,” I comfirm weakly.
You're friends. You're friends. You're friends, you absolute disaster of a human being.
On the night before his release, I bring him chocolate chip cookies from the bakery on Seventh because I’m running out of excuses to keep coming here, and baked goods feel like a safe farewell.
They say take care of yourself, but I’m definitely never going out with you.
Don’t they?
The truth is, there’s nothing I’d like more than to go out with him.
But I can’t.
I won’t.
Wanting Kai Donovan has already gotten me into enough trouble.
His room looks different. Half-packed. Someone has stacked clothes in a bag by the door. The monitors are still running but feel like a formality now.
He's sitting on the edge of the bed in jeans and a henley, looking too healthy to be a patient as he strokes the succulent.
“Last night,” I say, handing him the box. “How does it feel?”
“Like getting out of prison.”
“Quite a comparison. Speaking from experience?”
He huffs out a laugh. “Can’t say I am. Managed to stay on the right side of the law so far.” He takes the box. “But I’ve been here way too fucking long, Ava.”
“Fair.” I settle into my usual chair. “So what’s the plan? Back to your place, physical therapy, slowly rejoin the world?”
“Back to the penthouse, yeah. Mira’s staying with me for the first week.” He opens the box, takes a cookie, and bites into it. His eyes close briefly. “These are incredible.”
“I know. I have excellent taste.”
He swallows and fixes those brown eyes on me. “Come visit me at the penthouse.”
My stomach drops.
His penthouse.
The bedroom where he told me to keep my eyes open. The wall where he drove into me until I screamed.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Because you need space to recover. Having people show up the second you get home kind of defeats the purpose of leaving the hospital.”
It’s a perfectly logical excuse.
It also has absolutely nothing to do with why I can’t go there.
“Mira will be there,” he says. “It’s not like we’d be alone.”
It’s almost like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
"Kai..."
"You've visited me every day for almost two weeks. Now I'm getting released and you're pulling back?"
"I'm not pulling back. I'm being realistic."
He sets the cookie box aside and stands.
I swallow hard. From this angle, I have to tilt my head back to see his face. He's tall. I'd forgotten how tall. Sitting in heels, the difference is significant.
"Tell me the real reason," he says.
Because the last time I was in your penthouse, you made me feel things I’ve spent weeks trying to forget.
Because nothing about the way I feel around you is safe.
Because I’m carrying your baby, and you have no idea.
I’ve spent the last few days convincing myself there’s only one way to handle this.
Walk away.
Once he’s settled at home, I’ll email him and tell him about the baby. It’s cowardly, and I know it. But he doesn’t know where I live. I can tell him the truth without having to stand in front of him and watch his face when he realizes what one night with me left behind.
And after that, I don’t have to see him again.
The thought makes my chest ache.
Which is exactly why I need to do it.
Right?
"I told you the real reason."
"No, you didn't. You gave me the version you thought was okay.”
My lips part. Nothing comes out. How the hell does he do that?
He's standing close enough that I can feel heat coming off his body. He smells like soap and masculine cologne, the scent that lived on my pillowcase for days after I left his bed.
"Come to the penthouse," he says again, quieter.
"Kai, I can't."
"Give me one bad reason," he says in a low tone, "and mean it."
I open my mouth to be clever.
His hand comes up to my face. His palm cups my jaw. His thumb slowly traces my cheekbone, and every nerve ending in my body fires at once.
He kisses me.
Not the way you kiss a friend you're testing boundaries with.
He kisses me like he's been starving for it. His mouth opens mine, hungry, no finesse, all need. His hand slides from my jaw into my hair, gripping the base of my knot and tilting my head back.
The sound that breaks out of him is low and starving.
It lights a fuse at the base of my spine.
His other arm hooks around my waist and pulls me up out of the chair until I'm standing against him, pressed chest to chest.
A sound escapes me. Low, needy, humiliating.
His tongue sweeps against my lower lip and I open for him without deciding to. He tastes like chocolate and want. His teeth graze my bottom lip, catching it, pulling gently before releasing.
I grab the front of his henley with both fists, pulling him closer when I should be pushing him away.
He groans against my mouth. The sound vibrates through my chest and pools between my legs.
His hand tightens in my hair, tilting me deeper, and I match him. My tongue meets his, my body arching into him. I'm kissing him back with every ounce of hunger I've been suffocating.
His hips press forward. I feel him hard against my stomach, and my brain short-circuits. Heat floods down my spine, between my thighs, into every place his body touches mine.
My hand slides up his chest, over his shoulder, nails dragging against the back of his neck.
He makes a rough sound into my mouth that turns my knees liquid.
His lips move to my jaw, my neck. The spot below my ear that he found six weeks ago in his living room and apparently found again through pure instinct.
I gasp, fingers digging into his shoulders, my hips rocking against him once before I catch myself.
"Kai." I'm breathless. "We can't..."
"We already are."
His mouth finds mine again. Slower this time but deeper, wetter, his tongue stroking against mine in a rhythm that makes my stomach clench.
I whimper against his lips and hate myself for it.
The door opens.
"Kai, Mom sent... oh."
Mira stands in the doorway, a bag dangling from one hand, her dark hair loose around her wide eyes. Her mouth forms a small O.
Kai doesn't let go of me. His arm stays locked around my waist, his forehead pressing against mine. His breathing is ragged.
So is mine.
Mira backs out slowly. "I'll just... yeah. I'll be in the hallway for a while. A long while."
The door clicks shut.
We stand there, breathing each other's air. His hand is still in my hair. I can feel his heartbeat slamming against my palms through his shirt.
He kissed you. You kissed him back. You're carrying his baby and he doesn't know and you just kissed him like none of that matters.
This is unnervingly familiar.
A picture of my father's easy grin sharpens in my mind.
His charm that feels real until you need him to stay. The way Mom's face still flushes when he touches her cheek, decades of disappointment erased by one casual gesture.