The bad decision-making—a.k.a. best idea ever—was a go. At least Ava was pretty sure that was the message conveyed when she’d grabbed Sam’s tie and pulled him into a kiss that had gotten them halfway home before the driver she kept forgetting was there cleared his throat. Loudly.
At which point Ava and Sam had come up for air, straightened in their seats, and gone about out of their flipping minds counting down the blocks until they made it home.
Ten blocks to go and Sam’s fingers were playing at the hem of her skirt. Inching it incrementally higher, he let his reach extend until he was grazing the inner flesh of her thighs, and she was half panting, torn between pushing him away and pulling him closer.
Five blocks, and his lips were back at her ear, his breath coming warm and humid against the whorl, as he whispered the coming tragic fate of her panties. A worthwhile sacrifice if ever there was one.
Two blocks, and the bold so much a part of her makeup returned, urging her palm up the heavy muscle of Sam’s thigh, working higher and higher toward her goal, until her wrist was caught in his iron grip, her progress stayed.
Sam met her eyes.
“When this cab stops, you’d better get inside that apartment before I get my hands on you, because I’m about tapped on restraint, Ave.”
And the fact that Sam considered his actions for the night restrained—hawt.
One block, and the demon in her demanded she climb over Sam so she was seated curbside and ready to dash.
Half a block, and Sam was groaning behind her, his hands at either side of her ass as she shimmied over her very own Shangri-La. And holy-moly, it was all she could do to keep going, because the feel of that stiff length pressed against her ass—it was playing crazy tricks on her mind. Skewing the few remaining bits of her judgment. Making her think, when weighed against the benefits of finally getting Sam inside of her, consequences like getting thrown in the slammer for public lewdness just didn’t seem that harsh.
Fortunately, before her mind wasted completely away, the cab pulled to a stop in front of the graystone they’d been calling home since her brother bought the building six years ago. Sam was all but throwing the bills at their driver as Ava bolted for the front door. She had the keys out and the door half open before Sam was on her. His hands snaking around her from both sides, his body pressing in from the back as he laughed, lifting her off her feet to carry her inside.
And thank God for that, because contrary to what her behavior that evening suggested, public displays weren’t really her thing. And the idea of her brother or friends coming home to the sight of Sam drilling her out on the stoop—well, by the time tomorrow rolled around, she’d probably care a little more than she did right then.
They’d barely made it a step inside the building before Sam had her spun around and backed against the security door, his mouth crashing down on hers with the kind of greedy hunger that surpassed her every fantasy. Because this was real. This was Sam gathering the fabric of her skirt, rocking between her legs, and for one precious night, wanting her almost as badly as she wanted him.
Another hard kiss and deep, plundering thrust of his tongue and Ava was moaning, scrambling for the sides of her dress and whipping it overhead.
Sam pulled back for a single second, his eyes raking down her body before shaking his head with an expression so bewildered it would have been adorable if it weren’t so mercilessly hot before diving back in for more. Their hands were everywhere. Hers, jerking at his tie until she made enough headway to get through to the buttons at his neck. His, wide against the backs of her thighs, kneading the curve of her ass, and then sliding up so he was cupping her from behind as he rocked into her again from the front.
She was panting, her blood firing hot through her veins, waking every inch of her.
“So wet,” he ground out above her ear as the length of his fingers pressed against flesh that was swollen and achy for him. “The panties, Ava. They’ve got to go.”
Right there in the hallway? Against the single door standing between them and the rest of the world?
Yes.
“Do it,” she gasped before his mouth descended again, the deep thrust of his tongue making her belly churn with need.
She felt the quick bite of the lace at her sides, the delicate garment fall away, and then the slick panel between her legs replaced by Sam’s rough workman’s hands. They weren’t gentle. They weren’t soft, and when he used them on her, every single incredible point of contact virtually exploded with sensation.
She’d dreamed of this.
Dreamed of what those calloused fingers would feel like against her skin, playing with her breasts, against her tongue. But the reality—it was like some kind of tactile high that was pushing her fast toward that place of release she almost never reached.
“Sam,” she cried desperately.
He pushed inside her.
Holy fuck, Ava was coming around him.
One single finger.
Barely halfway inside her.
And Christ, he wasn’t sure he was going to make it through the end of her shattered cries raining down on him without following her over the edge.
No way. Time to man up, asshole.
This wasn’t his first rodeo and there was no reason on God’s green earth the bite of Ava’s short nails at his neck and her fingers pulling at his hair should send him over the edge.
For fuck’s sake, he was practically a gold medalist in the Endurance Olympics—or at least he had been up until he felt the hard, rhythmic clenching of Ava’s orgasm breaking just for him.
He slid his finger in and out, stroking deeper with each pass. Then, taking those soft, desperate sounds with his kiss, he added a second finger, stretching her tight little body around his thrusts as he filled her lush, wet mouth with his tongue.
Jesus, his switch had flipped but good. Because this was Ava. And nothing in his admittedly vast and varied past had ever come close to burning him up the way she was.
How the hell was it even possible they could be like this together and still have managed to make it twenty years without giving in once or twice before?
A dark corner of his barely functioning rational brain knew.
Because it was Ava.
Because he’d never been willing to risk the most important person in his life for some casual fuck.
But that wasn’t what was happening here.
They weren’t risking anything. This was just the culmination of a series of events that would never occur again. Stalker Steven needing a blunt intervention. A chemical reaction neither of them had expected when they came into contact. An unanswered question between two friends—two adults—who knew exactly what they were getting into, and they were solid enough in their relationship for a single night between them to be just that. A single night, granting a depth of intimacy that hadn’t been there before. One that would make them stronger.
Another breathless cry and Ava bit at his bottom lip, sucked it into her mouth as she rode his hand.
In the fucking hallway. Of the fucking apartment building her brother owned. Because he couldn’t stop.
Ford would lose his mind over this. That was, if the guy actually noticed.
There’d been a time, around fifteen years ago, when he’d have definitely noticed and might have given Sam something to think about. But those days were long gone.
And Ford never just dropped by over here. Almost never.
Shit.
Drawing back from the kiss, the tender grasp of Ava’s teeth, and that scorching, needful heat in her eyes, he shook his head. “Ava, which apartment?”
Her eyes slanted over to his door, and he wondered if she was thinking about how many women had seen the other side. Because now he was. And for some reason he didn’t want Ava to be one of the masses. This might be a one-night thing—which was pretty much his M.O. with women. Even when he was with the same woman a number of times, it was almost always a series of single nights, separated by other single nights with other women—but despite that time-frame similarity, this wasn’t the same.
Not even close.
He practically lived in Ava’s apartment. They cooked their meals together there, spent the free hours of their mornings and evenings together. Heck, he’d helped her pick out nearly every piece of furniture in the place. It was their space—more comfortable than any he’d ever been in—and he wondered if bringing something into it that went beyond the “friendly” it was built on would be a mistake. If it would somehow taint a space that meant almost as much to him as the woman he essentially shared it with.
Only then Ava was looking back at him, her smile burning away thoughts of anything but spending as many hours making that mouth his as she’d give him. “My bed seriously doesn’t see enough action. Upstairs?”
He swallowed past the lump that formed in his throat with that admission.
The sort of misplaced chest-thumping reaction at knowing he was going where not many had been before…he shouldn’t get off on that. It made him feel like a dog, but he was too far gone to stop. All he could do was catch her mouth with his and reach down until he had the backs of her thighs in his hold and he’d hoisted her up. Legs locked around his hips, Ava laughed, nuzzling into his neck past his shirt collar, running her teeth over his jaw as he took the stairs two at a time.
He came to a reluctant stop. “Your dress and—”
“Later.” Her legs tightened around him. “I need you.”
“You’re going to kill me,” he ground out, mentally repeating that, no, he could not set her back on the stairs and do her right there. No way.
Rubbing herself against him, she sighed, “Would it be such a bad way to go?”
Easy answer. “Hell no.”
At her door he set her down, let her lean against the wall as he held her wrists over her head and pressed a thigh between her legs, kissing her while he used his key to let them in. When the door opened, she backed inside, leading him by his tie past the overflowing built-in shelves he’d installed and giving him the sense for the first time in his life the accessory wasn’t worthless after all. She tugged him past the dining room table they’d refinished together and he thought about putting her on top of it. But as if sensing the direction of his thoughts, she shook her head, leading him the rest of the way.
Once they made it to her room, a space he’d visited a hundred times before—a space that didn’t see enough action—Ava’s touch turned hypnotic, the smooth stroke of her soft hands making him want to take it slow. Make it last. She slipped the tie from around his neck. Worked the buttons down his shirt and pushed it over his shoulders, then down his arms.
She gathered his T-shirt at his sides and pulled it over his head. Then, her eyes locked with his, carefully she undid his belt and slid her open palm over the front of his pants.
Fuuuck.
Her fingers curved around him and he watched her pupils go wide, her breath catch, and the pink tip of that wicked tongue wet the swell of her bottom lip.
Sam snapped.
Catching Ava by her knees, he tossed her back on the bed, following her down with a hard, plundering kiss, the weight of his body and roll of his hips. He wanted her to feel him, there. He wanted their bodies moving together, rocking in time, over and again.
Another minute and he’d have been naked. But the look on her face when she’d taken him in hand…
He’d never seen anything like it.
And now to have her beneath him, her knees sliding up his ribs, one high heel digging into his ass—
He swore, pulling back, a hairsbreadth from losing control. From jerking down his fly and slamming inside her. From going mindless. A place he never went. A place he didn’t trust.
Not even with Ava. Especially not with Ava.
She peered up at him, her hair a dark spill of gloss and shine around a face he knew better than his own. Her hand drifted to his cheek, up into the hair she seemed to love to pull, and then down his chest and stomach until she’d hooked her fingers into the still secure top of his pants. A flick and she had him undone.
“You know where the condoms are,” she murmured with barely a nod toward the nightstand he’d stocked himself. “Hurry.”