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“Close,” I said, trying not to laugh at her description of Wolverine. “Who else?”
“Um… there’s a blue guy and a guy who goes really fast. I win.” She lifted her perfect ass, reached down, and yanked my towel open.
Four hours. This was over in four hours. The thought hurt, an ache deep in my chest. “Let’s go out tonight,” I said.
Ava shook her head, rubbing her pussy deliciously up the length of my cock. “The meeting.”
“Fuck the meeting. I’ll stand him up.”
“You’ll be fine,” she said, distracted because I was moving my hands again, rubbing her breasts and then dipping my hands under the T-shirt. “Everything will be—oh, do that.”
I was stroking her pussy now, moving my fingertips over it. My voice was choked when I spoke because I wanted her so bad. “Do what?”
“That.” She squirmed. “Do more, Dane. More.”
“How much?” Though I already knew the answer.
“All of it.”
So I did. I put my hands on her hips and moved her onto my cock, and she sunk down with a moan. I did it because I couldn’t stand to be without her for another second. I did it because I would do anything she fucking asked, and she had no idea.
She moved her hips, tangling her hands in my hair like she always did, and I already knew I was going to lose her. Somehow I knew. This was a fantasy, Ava and me holed up in my penthouse with the world far away. The real world was messy. Ava was messy, and so was I. In the real world, Ava was going to panic, and then she was going to run.
I pulled her down to me and kissed her deep as I flexed my hips, making her gasp. “Say you’re mine,” I said, knowing it was futile but trying anyway.
“Nice try, Dane Scotland,” she said, and her eyes closed in bliss as I moved again. “How do you do that? It feels so good.”
“Say it,” I said again.
“It’s like some kind of black magic or something.” She arched her back, lost in the sensation, and I took a second to admire the view. It was pretty gratifying, especially for my ego. “We shouldn’t be doing this at all, and yet you’re about to make me come. Again.”
“I’m good at it,” I said.
Ava was gasping, but she still had to one-up me. “That’s because… I taught you. Don’t stop.”
I didn’t. Because she asked me. I stroked her until she came, and then I came. Then, even though it was the middle of the day, we went to bed.
When I woke up, the bed was empty. So was my penthouse. Ava was gone.
She’d left a note on my kitchen counter, written on a torn piece of paper. It said only four words: Sorry. I need time.
I stared at those four words for a long moment, feeling them go through me. Sink into me. Become part of me. I knew that her mother had damaged her, that life had damaged her, that she couldn’t always control her reactions to things. I knew that she was trying to defend herself because everything hurt too much. I knew she had to put up walls. I knew she’d do this, but it didn’t hurt any less.
I looked around: at the mussed sofa, the remnants of the coffee on the counter, the rack of suits hanging pristinely next to my desk, at the boxes and bags that were the evidence Ava had been here. That even for a little while she’d been in my space, turning everything crazy and messing me up.
I picked up my phone, pulled up her number, and sent her a single text.
Then I searched the name she’d said: Tyrell. He had some kind of top secret ultra-private phone number, but I hacked it in less than four minutes. When he answered I said, “My name is Dane Scotland, and I need a haircut.”
The magic hour was over, and it was time for real life to start again.
Nineteen
Ava
* * *
I slept on the entire flight from Chicago to New York, passed out as if I hadn’t slept in days. It was some kind of crazy exhaustion, because when I woke up we were landing and I felt tears in the back of my throat. Don’t have a nervous breakdown now, I told myself. Keep it together, girl. You’ve got this.
