With This Man

  ‘Of course. That’s why I didn’t speak to them for years. We only reconciled when you came into my life.’ I pat the couch next to me. ‘Ava, come and sit down with me, please.’ I don’t know if it’s instinct or a sense of duty, but she does, settling warily. ‘I’m going to give you a shortened version because, frankly, it’s so far in the past and there are so many other things I need to share with you, tell you, things that are more relevant to our lives now. Things that have made us happy. Things that have built us. Things that helped us get over the shitty stuff and brought us to now.’

  ‘But it’s all part of our story, good or bad.’

  I can’t argue with that. ‘But it’s painful, Ava.’

  She reaches over and takes my hand. It’s a natural display of comfort, and I’m so grateful for it. ‘Tell me.’

  I rub into my weary eyes with my spare hand, squeezing my other around hers. ‘I was a twin myself,’ I begin, and she smiles softly, changing the hold of our hands so her fingers are laced with mine, moving closer. ‘My brother was the good boy. The achiever. I was . . . well, a pain in my parents’ arses, I see that now. I led him astray, and . . .’ Fucking hell, I can feel a vice squeezing my heart, air being drained from my lungs. ‘We were out one night. Drinking. It was my idea. I encouraged him. Jacob walked into the road.’

  Her hand covers her mouth, realisation hitting her. ‘Jacob,’ she mumbles.

  I nod my confirmation of our son’s name and my dead brother’s. ‘Mum and Dad blamed me for Jake’s death. I was a mess. I felt so guilty.’ Something tells me that I should hold back on my ex-wife and dead daughter right now. I’m already bombarding Ava with so much. So, right or wrong, I skip it and go straight to the beginning of my life at The Manor. Or the end of my life until Ava crashed into it. ‘I went off the rails. Took up residence at The Manor. Uncle Carmichael passed away, I inherited the place, and the rest is history.’

  Her cheeks puff out, her head shaking slowly, disbelieving. ‘I don’t even know what to do with all of this.’

  ‘Do nothing. Say nothing,’ I tell her, pulling her closer. ‘When I met you, you pulled me out of the black hole I’d been trapped in for so long. You gave me new life and purpose. I felt good for the first time in years, and I wasn’t about to let you refuse me those feelings.’

  ‘So you got creative?’ Her eyebrow hitches a smidgen.

  ‘Yes. I swear, I’d never worked so hard to get laid.’

  A small gasp followed by a playful slap of my upper arm prompts a little laugh from me, and as a result, Ava rolls her eyes, not being able to help smiling herself. I pull her onto my lap, and she doesn’t complain, coming with ease. ‘Was it good?’ she asks. ‘When you finally got me into bed.’ Her lips seal tightly, as if she’s bracing herself. She’s wondered this before. She’s looked at me and considered what it would be like to be intimate with me.

  ‘You mean against a wall.’

  ‘Huh?’

  This is better. This is the important stuff. The feelings, the connection, the out-of-this-world sex. ‘At Lusso.’

  Her frown is huge. ‘What’s Lusso?’

  ‘A complex on St Katharine Docks. You were the designer. I bought the penthouse. That’s how I heard your name and why I got you to The Manor. I liked what you did with it. Italian shit everywhere.’

  ‘Oh. So you did get me back to your apartment, then?’

  ‘Not quite. I got you in the bathroom on launch night.’

  ‘I screwed you in the bathroom of a show home? Oh God!’ Her forehead falls onto my chest and rolls from side to side in despair. ‘That’s not like me. I don’t do things like that.’

  I smile and wrap her in my arms, savouring the moment of her being so close. She wasn’t like that. I know. That was one of the things I loved about her. Problem is, she’s still that young woman in her mind. ‘It was incredible. The want thrumming from your body, mirroring mine. We were inevitable, baby. A spark just waiting to explode. And, trust me, we exploded.’

  I swallow, my face in her hair, my body coming to life just talking about that moment in our history. The moment she gave in. The moment the explosion happened.

  As a result of my thoughts, my cock starts to stiffen, and it can’t have escaped Ava’s notice, since she’s sitting on the damn thing. She better not move; I can’t promise I’ll be able to hold ba—

  She shifts, and I suppress a growl, not very successfully. I’m iron behind my jeans. My veins are hot. My heart jumping. It’s not a good place to be when any kind of Jesse-style fuck is off the table. Lips straight, she finds my eyes, and I see that dormant lust lingering in their depths. She swallows and drops her gaze to my lips. Fucking hell, I’ve never been so starving for her. Never been so desperate to take her. Never felt so paralysed by desire. She’s just staring at my mouth, her body now unmoving on my lap, her mind clearly racing. She wants to kiss me. Wants to taste me.

  ‘Are you ready to stop fighting it now?’ I ask, being catapulted back to Lusso when I finally got to take what I so badly wanted.

  ‘I need all of you. Say I can have all of you.’ She immediately looks confused by her words, but I’m fucking elated, because even though she doesn’t know where these words are coming from, they’re coming, and that’s really all the hope I can count on right now.

  ‘You can have all of me,’ I tell her quietly, even though she already owns every fibre of my being.

  She slowly drops forward until her lips gently meet mine. It’s a beautiful moment, one, along with many others, that I will cherish for as long as I live. I don’t take the lead, deciding that I should let her take it at her own pace, and I’m more than happy with her pace. It’s slow. It’s soft. It’s gentle and loving and everything that it should be. It’s everything that I feel.

  The sofa melds around my back, and Ava melds into my front, my head resting back, my mouth and my tongue lax to easily follow her movements. My hands keep a firm hold of her hips, just enough to tell her that I’m here and I so desperately want to be. I haven’t tasted her in over a week. It’s the longest stretch I’ve ever gone without kissing her, feeling her, and maybe that is why every sense feels heightened. She tastes more potent; my skin feels hypersensitive to her touch. It’s perfect. So perfect, I never want it to end.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I ask against her lips when she pauses a beat before resuming her exploration of my mouth, her palms holding my cheeks as if she’s scared I’ll move and break her flow.

  ‘You are such a good kisser,’ she mumbles, pushing her front into me, not helping with the situation behind the fly of my jeans. Kissing, yeah, great, but I’m not sure if she’s ready for more just yet. ‘It feels like we’ve done this a million times, got it down to a fine art.’

  ‘We have done it a million times,’ I say, quickly cursing myself when she breaks our lips and pulls away.

  ‘Of course.’ Her cheeks are flushed, and I’m struggling to fathom whether it’s with embarrassment or desire. ‘Sorry, I got a little carried away.’

  Oh, the strength it takes for me not to bark my frustration nearly breaks me. ‘Don’t apologise,’ I order as softly as I can, taking her chin and directing her face to mine. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For that amazing kiss.’

  She smiles, almost shyly. ‘Thank you, too.’ Her blush is heartbreaking because it signifies the loss of our time, and deeply gratifying because I can at least make her blush again. She was so used to me after all these years, nothing I said or did fazed her any more.

  ‘I want to take you out tomorrow,’ I tell her. ‘Do you think you can manage it?’

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  Reaching for her hair, I push a stray lock over her shoulder. ‘A little trip down memory lane.’

  She says nothing, just smiles as I rise from the couch with her still attached to my front. Encour
aging her to find her feet, I turn her by her shoulders and push her on. ‘Go get ready for dinner.’

  ‘Bossy again,’ she muses.

  ‘Like I said, get used to it.’ I release her at the bottom of the stairs and watch as she takes them slowly, constantly glancing over her shoulder at me. I cock my head, lifting my eyebrows when she tries to hide a secret smile. ‘What’s tickled you?’ I call.

  Her delicate shoulders jump up in a small shrug, but she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. She felt something powerful just then. Something in our kiss that reinforced the rightness of her being here with me. She was lost in that moment, and her mind was blank for all the right reasons.

  Chapter 19

  The next morning, I’m all set. I’ve called Dr Peters to ensure I’m not pushing her too far, and he reassured me that my plan to revisit some of our past is a good idea. Just to take it easy with her, which was a stupid fucking thing to say. We also chatted briefly about all these small hints of memories, all the words, and he seemed thrilled by that. All in all, I’m feeling pretty good.

  I know where we’re going, what we’re doing, and I’m really looking forward to it. That kiss last night. It was just a kiss, but it was earth-moving. I felt like she was breathing hope into me. It made sleeping alone again that little bit more bearable.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ I ask as Ava performs a full assessment of me in the hallway, her eyes roaming up and down my tall frame.

  ‘You just don’t seem the type to wear leather trousers.’ She’s thinking so hard she’s frowning. ‘Then again, you didn’t seem the type to own a sex club, either.’ Looking up at me, she shrugs a little. ‘I guess they go hand in hand.’

  Laughter so rich and loud spills out of me. ‘It isn’t what you think,’ I assure her, chuckling as I produce another set of leather trousers. ‘These are yours.’

  ‘Oh God, next you’ll be pulling out a whip.’

  I recoil, my arm dropping limply to my side. ‘There’s no whip.’

  ‘Oh shit.’ Her mouth snaps shut, her disposition quickly awkward. ‘I’m guessing whips are a no-go zone for us.’

  ‘It’s not the most thrilling part of our history.’ I hand her the trousers, and she takes them, if a little cautiously, not because she’s still wondering what we’re doing and why she’ll be wearing them, but because her mind is whirling about that horrid time.

  ‘You told me that I punished you, too,’ she says, looking at the leather in her grasp. ‘You punished yourself by being whipped. So how did I punish you?’

  I flinch, the cracking of leather across her back echoing through my skull like the perfect kind of torture. Though her reasoning at the time eventually made sense to me, it didn’t make it any easier to accept. Anger sizzles, threatening to surface as I eye her with caution and collect my keys and shades. ‘I’d rather not revisit one of the most horrific moments in my life.’ My answer only seems to enhance her curiosity, and in true Ava style she pushes on.

  ‘Something tells me that I didn’t dump your arse for a few days. Or give you the silent treatment. So how did I punish you?’

  ‘It’s not important.’ I make my way to the door, eager to end this conversation. I’m a fool. Evading questions and distracting Ava in the early days of our relationship was what got me in such a mess in the first place. Haven’t I learned?

  ‘Your body language disagrees,’ she calls, pulling me to a stop at the door. ‘Tell me.’

  Tell her. Will she believe it? I didn’t at the time, and I saw first-hand the nightmare unfolding before me. That bastard lashing her, her body hanging limply. I swallow and turn to face her, as well as facing up to my responsibility. ‘You weren’t punishing me for sleeping with someone else.’

  She flinches at the reminder, and though the vision hurts, something sick inside me appreciates her reaction. Because it’s another sign that she cares. The thought of me with another woman pains her. Even now, when she doesn’t know me. ‘Then what was I punishing you for?’

  ‘Having my guilt thrashed out of me. For hurting myself.’

  Another flinch. It’s a minor reaction in contrast to the horror scene that played out in The Manor that awful day, but it still pricks at my skin relentlessly. Her jaw stiffens, her eyes becoming fierce. It’s familiar, if unwelcome right now. ‘Tell me.’

  I match her stoic expression and spill. ‘You had yourself whipped, too.’ Her mouth falls open. ‘You let some scumbag shackle you half-naked and you let him whip you. Happy?’

  ‘Do I fucking look happy?’ she spits, throwing the trousers to the floor. ‘Why the hell would I do that?’

  ‘Because,’ I say, unable to rein myself in, the anger that’s lain dormant within me all these years racing to the surface unstoppably. I get my threatening face close to hers. She doesn’t budge an inch, squaring up to me in return. My defiant little temptress. My angel. My Ava. Here she fucking is. ‘Because you wanted me to understand how much you loved me. Because you wanted me to feel how you felt when you found me being thrashed.’ My nostrils flare as she stares me down, our noses nearly touching, my body bent a little to make sure of it. ‘And it fucking worked.’

  Her jaw, so tight, is ticking wildly. She’s mad. Whether she’s mad because she knows deep inside that she really did do that, or if she’s mad because she can’t remember, isn’t a question I’m bothered about in this moment. Because beyond the anger, I see a familiar, potent craving. I see that mixture of fury and desire. The need to rip a strip off me and rip my clothes off.

  When we’re angry with each other, the sex is even more passionate, crazy and satisfying. It’s all here before me now, yet I cannot be the one to make the first move. I can’t push this. For the first time in our relationship, I’m depending on her to give me what I want, and, more importantly, what I need more than anything in the world. Our connection. Our chemistry.

  ‘Kiss me,’ I demand. ‘Now.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Watch your fucking mouth!’ I bark, a secret smile hiding behind my straight face.

  She doesn’t try to hide hers. ‘Screw you.’

  ‘Three,’ I say lowly.

  ‘Zero, baby.’ She lunges forward, smashing her lips to mine, her arms virtually strangling me as she climbs up my body. I stagger back, fucking chaos breaking out in my leather trousers – heat, blood and solid flesh raging down there. She’s unforgiving in her demand for my mouth. Harsh stabs of her tongue against mine, vicious tugs of my hair, deep, throaty groans of pleasure.

  My back hits the door frame, jolting her in my arms, not that it distracts her from her mission. I can do nothing more than keep up with her pace, silently demanding her to start ridding us of clothes so I can lose myself in her. Find the peace I need. Relish the joining of our bodies.

  Her hot, wet tongue circles my mouth, our heads tilting and turning constantly, taking other angles, pulling back, smashing together once again. It’s madness. Disorderly. Absolutely incredible.

  And then as quickly as it started, it stops. Like she could have been hit with a thousand volts of electricity, she catapults back, forcing me to release her before she dives clean out of my arms. ‘Oh my God,’ she sputters, brushing herself down, hands faffing everywhere, eyes avoiding mine. That kiss has wiped me of breath. I’m panting like I’m exhausted. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘Well it wasn’t me,’ I mutter to myself, forcing back the mental image of me doing exactly that. Coming all over her. Kneeling over her, her arms pinned down, my hand thrusting my cock in her face as she watches. My cum coating her lovely face. And her tongue licking it all up. Fuck! I physically rearrange myself, looking for room in my trousers to accommodate my raging hard-on. There’s no room. Not in these damn things.

  ‘Something got the better of me.’ She looks up at me. And I can see immediately that she gets it. Even if she doesn’t know
me, she gets it. The ridiculously strong attraction was the first stepping-stone to utter fucking perfection. And thank God she’s not misplaced that.

  ‘Yes, I got the better of you,’ I say, peeling my back away from the door frame. Ava darts surprised eyes at me. ‘Now, are you finished unravelling your knickers, lady?’ I take her hand, scoop the trousers from the floor, and lead her out to the garages.

  Pressing the button on the remote, I hold back while the door rolls open. ‘Bloody hell, Jesse!’ She drops my hand and moves into the garage, motioning to the lines of cars and superbikes. ‘Are these all yours?’

  Making my way over to the cabinet, I pull our helmets down from one of the shelves. ‘All ours.’

  ‘These must be worth hundreds of thousands.’

  ‘Which is why the garage is alarmed and the cars all have trackers.’

  ‘Trackers?’ Her head tilts, somewhere between interest and worry. ‘Did you have a tracker on my car?’

  ‘Of course.’ I don’t beat around the bush. ‘A nice little app on my phone told me where you were at all times.’ I laugh when she snorts, disgusted. ‘Don’t worry. You had the app too.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘Yes, you worry about me as much as I worry about you.’ I hold up the helmets.

  ‘What are those for?’

  ‘We’re going swimming,’ I quip drily, pointing to her hands. ‘And those are your trunks.’

  Ava glances down at the leather trousers in her grasp, comprehension coming to her. She inhales quickly and swings towards my superbike, definitely thrilled by the prospect. ‘I’m going on that thing?’

  I’m laughing again. ‘That’s a little different from what you said the first time I took you for a ride.’

  ‘A ride?’ Her eyebrow cocks with interest, extending my laughter. There’s that suggestiveness in her again.

  I approach her slowly, a little ominously, and dip, bringing our faces close. ‘You love riding the bike, but you love riding me even more.’

  Red creeps into her cheeks. It’s such a satisfying sight, again taking me back to the early days when she was trying to hide how much she was floored by me. She tries to rectify her fluster. ‘I would challenge that, if I didn’t know it to be true.’