15. AVA #2
In the bathroom, I wash my face and stare at my reflection. My cheeks are flushed. My hair is tangled from running my hands through it while we talked.
I strip and step into the shower. The hot water loosens my shoulders but does nothing for the ache that's been building low in my belly since Kai's hand wrapped around mine.
I towel off and open the bottom drawer where I keep the pajamas I never wear.
The set I pull out isn't pajamas. It's a dare I made to myself months ago in a boutique I had no business entering.
Midnight blue lace bralette, nearly sheer, with a matching thong and a silk robe so short it barely reaches mid-thigh.
The lace is fine enough that the dark circles of my nipples show through the pattern. The robe ties with a single ribbon that would come undone if someone breathed on it.
I've never worn it for anyone.
I put it on.
The mirror gives me back a woman I almost recognize.
The bralette cups my breasts, which are fuller than they were a month ago. Heavier. The lace strains against skin that's become exquisitely tender.
My nipples are darker than they were a month ago, visible through the sheer fabric, stiff from the air.
I turn sideways. The robe falls open. There’s a curve below my navel that the thong does nothing to disguise.
It’s more than that. I’ve added a lot of pregnancy weight. Hopefully, Kai will focus on the lingerie and not my tummy.
I retie the robe, adjust the lace, smooth the silk. My hands shake.
You're wearing lingerie for a man who is having the worst day of his life.
I walk out to the living room anyway.
Kai is on the couch, his hand resting on Biscuit’s back, rising and falling with her breathing.
He looks up.
His eyes start at my face then travel down slowly to the shadow of my nipples seen through the sheer fabric. The length of bare thigh below the hem.
His lips part. His chest expands with a breath he doesn't release.
When his gaze returns to my face, his eyes are no longer flat.
They're dark. Focused. Hungry in a way that sends heat flooding between my thighs so fast I clench against it.
I lean against the doorframe because my knees have become weak.
"You're staring," I say.
"Yeah. I am." His voice is rougher, lower. "Is that what you sleep in?"
“Sometimes. Have a problem with that?”
“No problem.”
But his eyes drop to my chest again.
I cross my arms, suddenly conscious of everything. My heavier breasts. The new softness in my belly. The way this body is changing in ways I can't control and can't explain to him.
"What?" I ask, too sharp, turning away.
"You crossed your arms."
"I'm cold."
He stands, crosses the room, each step unhurried.
“Is that really it?”
“I’m getting fat,” I say in a small voice.
His hand comes up. His knuckles graze my cheek, then trail down the side of my neck slowly, like he's memorizing the path.
"You are so beautiful," he says.
I start to shake my head, but his fingers hook under my chin, tilting my face up. His brown eyes hold mine.
"Your body is incredible. Whatever you think is wrong with it, you're wrong."
My throat closes. Because he's looking at me like the swell of my stomach and the fullness of my breasts are things he desires.
If you knew why my body looks like this, you wouldn't be saying that.
One knuckle drags along my skin, following the ridge of bone to my shoulder, then down the silk-covered curve of my arm.
Goosebumps erupt in the wake of his touch.
I want to grab his hand and press it against my breast. Against the ache that's been building there all night. Instead I stand still, pulse hammering, waiting for him to close the distance.
Touch me. Want me. Prove I'm still worth wanting even though my body is turning into someone I don't recognize.
"You're holding yourself like you think I'm going to find a flaw," he says quietly.
"Maybe I think you will."
His thumb strokes across my cheekbone while his brown eyes roam my face with an attention that makes me feel stripped past the lace.
"Not possible," he says.
His mouth finds the spot below my ear. His warm lips, his tongue slowly dragging along the tendon below my jaw.
My knees buckle. I grab his shoulders, fingers digging into bare muscle. The sound that leaves my mouth isn’t dignified.
“Let’s go to my bedroom,” I manage, pulling his hand and walking into the room.
I take off the henley and the light pours over his bare chest, the ridges of his abs, the V-cut that disappears into his waistband. The tattoos curve along his arm in patterns I've wanted to trace with my tongue for weeks.
His hands settle on my hips. Both of them. His thumbs press into the hollows above my hipbones, then slide inward, tracing the ribbon tie of the robe.
One slow pull and the ribbon comes loose. The silk falls open.
Cool air hits the bare skin of my stomach. His breath stutters against my neck.
His hands spread across my waist. They slide upward over my ribs, agonizingly slow, until his thumbs brush the underside of my breasts through the lace.
I gasp. The tenderness there transforms under his touch, pain transmuting into a sharp, bright pleasure that shoots straight between my legs. My hips press forward on instinct and I feel him, thick and rigid against my stomach through his joggers.
A groan tears from his chest. Low, rough, vibrating against my collarbone where his mouth has traveled.
His thumbs trace higher. Over the lace. Across my nipples. The pressure is light, barely there. My back arches into his hands because I need more.
"Kai." His name comes out wrecked.
"Tell me if something hurts."
"Nothing hurts."
Everything hurts. My breasts are so tender that one firm touch might make me cry or moan and I'm not sure which.
He cups both breasts, his palms engulfing the lace, squeezing with a gentleness that makes me want to scream. His thumbs circle my nipples, the texture of the lace creating friction that has me panting, wetness soaking through the thong.
He pulls back enough to look at me. His pupils are blown so wide the brown is nearly gone. His cock is straining against his joggers, the outline of it thick and obvious.
Watching his control slip sends a dark thrill through me.
I want him inside me. The want is so sharp it borders on pain.
His mouth covers mine. The kiss is deep, slow, thorough. His tongue moves against mine in a rhythm that mirrors what I want the rest of our bodies to do.
One hand slides into my hair, cradling the back of my head. His other hand presses flat against my lower back, pulling me flush against him.
The full length of his erection presses against my belly, proof that the body changing beneath my skin is still a body he'd choose. My hips roll against him and he groans into my mouth.
I kiss him back harder, faster. I grip his shoulders and pull him closer, trying to shift the tempo. To make it fast, physical, uncomplicated. Bodies only. No eye contact. No tenderness that might crack me open.
But his kiss slows. His hand in my hair loosens. His forehead presses against mine and he breathes. The tenderness in that breath makes my stomach drop.
"Ava."
"Don't stop."
"I'm not stopping. I'm slowing down."
"I don't want slow."
He looks at me in a way that makes me feel like the only person in his entire fractured world. And if I let this continue at his pace, with his eyes open and his hands gentle, I'll unravel into the kind of vulnerability I swore I'd never give another man.
I grab his waistband and pull him backward toward the bed.
"I want you," I say against his mouth. "Now. Hard."
I push him until his knees hit the mattress. He sits.
I straddle him, my thighs bracketing his hips, the thong the only fabric between my wetness and the rigid line of his cock.
I grind down. The friction drags across my clit and the sensation jolts through my whole body.
His hands grip my hips, fingers denting the skin. A sound tears from him that's half groan, half growl.
I lean in to kiss him, harder than before. No tenderness. All heat.
My hand slides between us and wraps around his cock through the joggers. He's so hard the fabric can barely contain him.
I stroke the length of him, base to tip. He pulses and twitches under my palm, the heat of him burning through the fabric.
A groan tears out of him, low and rough, the sound vibrating through his chest into mine. His hips push forward once, chasing my touch.
"Like this," I whisper, closing my eyes. "Just like this. No talking, no eye contact. Just our bodies fucking each other."
His hands go still on my hips.
"Stop," he says.
I open my eyes. "I don't want to stop."