7. AVA #3
Kai is a professional athlete who had me for one night and didn't call. The fact that there's a reason he didn't call doesn't change the pattern I recognize—charming men who make you feel chosen and then vanish when it gets hard.
I untangle my fingers from his shirt and press my palms flat against his chest. Push.
"I don't want this."
His eyes search my face. "You just kissed me back."
"My body kissed you back. My brain knows better."
"Ava..."
"I already told you, Kai. I don't want you like that.”
Okay, that must have been the biggest lie I’ve ever told.
"Wow." He nods once. "Tell me how you really feel."
"I'm sorry, but I already told you." My voice comes out quieter than I intended. "You just weren't listening."
I grab my bag. "I'm gonna go. You're getting discharged tomorrow. Focus on that." My hands are shaking and I shove them into my pockets so he can't see.
"Ava." His voice is strained.
"Get some rest."
I leave before he can say anything else. The hallway is empty. Mira is nowhere. In the elevator, I press my back against the cold metal wall, my lips swollen and tingling and tasting like him.
Biscuit greets me at the door when I get home, tail going berserk. I drop onto the couch and she climbs into my lap, settling her warm weight against my stomach.
I shower then eat toast I don't taste. I brush my teeth and climb into bed, staring at the ceiling fan rotating above me in the dark.
Kai's mouth is still on my skin. I can feel it. The pressure of his hand in my hair. The heat of his body against mine. The hard length of him pressing into my stomach through his jeans.
My hand slides beneath the sheets.
I don't decide to do it. My body decides for me, the way it's been deciding things without my permission since the night of the gala.
My fingers find the ache between my legs. I'm already wet, still wound up from that kiss.
I close my eyes and let the memory flood in.
Kai's hands fills my imagination. His calloused palms on my hips, pinning me, holding me exactly where he wants me. His voice, rough and low: Scream for me, Ava.
My fingers circle my clit slowly, trying to build it the way he built it. Patient. Deliberate. Like he had all the time in the world to unravel me.
I see his stubble scraping my jaw as he moved to my neck, sucking on that sensitive spot below my ear until my knees buckled. His teeth scraping, tongue soothing.
Feel the slow drag of him inside me, stretching me, filling me until I can't think about anything else.
My breath catches. I press harder, faster, chasing the heat that's coiling at the base of my spine. My free hand grips the pillow.
With my other palm, I cup my breast, rolling my nipple the way he did. Pinching just enough to send sparks down my spine.
Come on, I beg silently. Just let me have this.
I imagine his weight pinning me to the mattress. The slow, stretching drag of him pushing inside me, so thick and perfect it stole my breath. The way he gripped my hips and driven deep, whispering rough praise against my ear while I fell apart around him.
My thighs tremble. The coil tightens low in my belly. I chase it with two fingers sliding inside myself, thrusting in the rhythm he used. My breath comes in short, desperate pants. The ache is almost unbearable.
There—almost—
But it slips away.
The peak hovers just out of reach, taunting me. My own fingers feel clumsy and wrong. Too small and familiar.
They can’t replicate the heat of his skin, the power in his thrusts, or the way his voice went gravelly when he told me to scream for him.
I growl in frustration and switch angles, rubbing my clit with frantic little circles while I pump my fingers deeper.
Sweat beads on my skin. My back arches off the bed. The tension winds tighter, cruelly close…
…and collapses again.
I try everything. Faster. Slower. Harder.
I picture him above me, brown eyes locked on mine, that crooked nose brushing my cheek as he fucked me like he’d never let me go. I whisper his name into the dark like a curse.
Nothing works.
After long, humiliating minutes, I finally pull my hand away and press it over my eyes, chest heaving.
My body throbs, an empty, restless ache pulses between my legs and deep in my core.
The ceiling fan spins above me, slow and indifferent.
I lie there furious and so unbearably alone I could cry.
Wetness coats my thighs. My lips still taste like him. And my stupid, traitorous body refuses to let me finish what he started.
Yet I’m pining.
Like my mother pining for my father every time he wanders back with his easy smile and broken promises. Like Joan Hartley, who should have learned decades ago that charm is not the same thing as commitment.
I'm making the same mistakes.
This is the thing I swore I'd never do.
Kai doesn't remember me. Maybe he's drawn to me right now because I keep showing up with food and jokes. That's gratitude dressed up as attraction.
I'm not deluding myself. He's not about to give up his playboy lifestyle for me. I'm not going to be the woman who magically changes him or any of that fairy-tale crap.
When his memory comes back—when he's back on the ice surrounded by women who look like they were engineered in a lab—I'll be exactly what I was before.
One night.
One he never thinks about.