Provoking the Enemy

by M. E. Clayton

  I was going to let Ace claim me.

  I was going to let him own me.

  I was going to let him love me.

  I just prayed I wasn’t making a mistake bigger than all the ones I’ve made put together.

  I just prayed loving Ace wouldn’t destroy me completely.

  Chapter 20

  Ace~

  Everything in me screamed to love Ava tenderly. Everything in me urged me to take her softly and make love to her after everything she’s been through, but I knew-I knew-in my mind that taking Ava gently would backfire.

  If I started to treasure her now, she’d think I was doing it out of pity. She’d think I’d think she was weak and damaged, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

  I wanted to make love to Ava to cement my connection to her. I wanted to make love to Ava because I was pretty sure I loved her. I didn’t care that it’s only been two, unbalanced, explosive days. I was pretty sure what I felt for this girl was in the realm of love and happily-ever-afters. I wanted to make love to her, so I could take my time tasting every inch of her. I wanted to make love to her, so I could savor every experience with her.

  But this wasn’t about what I wanted.

  This was about Ava and everything she’s been through.

  This was about making sure she saw her dark desires as normal. This was about letting her see how I didn’t think of her differently. Sure, I saw her choices differently now, but I saw her as the same. When I had first met her, I had thought she was fiery with an untamable spirit, and I still saw her that way. I couldn’t change who I was around her or else she’d know she was getting a fake version of me, and she didn’t deserve that. She deserved someone to be completely real with her.

  Fuck it.

  “I love you, Ava,” I confessed as I bottomed out inside her once again. “I don’t know how or why, but, God, do I fucking love you.”

  Her pussy clenched around me and her moan was pure bliss. “Ace, please…”

  I was pretty sure she didn’t believe me…hell, who would? It’s been two goddamn days. But like I had told her at Delaney’s, I wasn’t going to question what she made me feel. “Please, what?” I taunted.

  “Please, fuck me harder,” she cried.

  “God, I love how you beg for my cock, Kit,” I grunted. “I can’t wait to do the filthiest things to you.”

  “Yes,” she moaned, bouncing harder on my cock.

  “I’m going to make you love every rough, dirty, disgusting thing I do to you,” I vowed. “You’re really going to be a dirty, little slut every time you’re in my bed.”

  “Ace!” Ava’s pussy gripped my cock like a vise, and she was cumming all over me. I didn’t let her catch her breath. I slammed into her harder and deeper through her orgasm forcing another one out of her. “Oh, God! Oh, God!”

  I couldn’t take it anymore. Her hot, tight cunt was milking my dick to the point of no return. I knew I wasn’t wearing a condom, and I knew the responsible thing was to pull out. I knew this. I knew this, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything other than marking Ava in a way no one else ever has. Knowing what I know now, I knew she’d never gone bare. I knew she wouldn’t grant anyone that privilege.

  I just knew.

  I stared down at this beauty cumming all over me and commanded, “Open your eyes, Ava.”

  “Ace…” she whimpered.

  “Open your fucking eyes, Ava!”

  Her lids were heavy, but they were opened. “What?”

  “I’m going to cum inside you, baby,” I warned her. “I’m going cum deep inside this pussy of yours and you’re going to let me.”

  Her eyes widened slightly, but she the small nod she gave me felt like everything. “Okay,” she whispered, and I did.

  I surged into her body with so much force, I could hear her body being knocked against the tiles. My cock exploded inside her and the feeling was unlike anything I imagined it could feel like. I’ve always worn condoms, so I knew the feeling of being bare inside Ava was going to be phenomenal, but cumming inside her had white spots dancing around in the back of my eyelids. “Fuck, Kit,” I hissed.

  I wasn’t sure how long we stayed as we were, the wall taking all of our combined weight, but cold splatters of water finally snapped me out of my daze. I slowly pulled out of Ava’s body and the wince on her face was a ridiculous validation. I held her steady as she found purchase under her feet, and pushing her wet strands back from her face, I looked down at her ask asked, “Did you still need to bathe, babe?”

  She laughed in my face and it was magical. “The water’s cold, Ace,” she pointed out.

  I leaned down and kissed her neck. “Good,” I murmured against her wet skin. “I like the idea of your pussy messy with my cum. I’m not ready for you to wash it away.” When I pull back, I looked down, and Ava’s face was bright red. This time I laughed. “Are you blushing?” I asked, not hiding my smile.

  Ava pushed at my chest. “Stop it,” she chuckled.

  We stepped out of the shower together, but I quickly scooped her up bride-style and carried her to the bed. She didn’t object when I laid her down all wet on the sheets, and she didn’t object when I came down on top of her and cradled my cock in between her legs. In fact, she spread her legs wider to make room for me.

  I hated to bring it up, but I wasn’t one for ignoring the big issues. “You know we’re going to have to talk about…everything, sooner or later, right?”

  Her face softened, but it was in resignation and not sadness. “I know, Ace,” she muttered. “But…not now. Not now while we’re…doing this. You’re laying on top of me and you have no idea how big that is for me. You’re laying on top of me and I’m not freaking out.” She grimaced a bit before amending her statement. “I mean, yeah, it’s a little…uncomfortable, but I’m not freaking out. I’m not panicking, and…that scares me as much as it frees me.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t understand. I’d never be able to understand how she felt, and I wasn’t going to insult her by pretending I could. The most insulting thing you could do to a person was pretend to understand what they were going through when you’ve never been through it yourself. You could offer real comfort and sympathy, but to say, ‘well, if it was me…’ when it wasn’t, and you can only speculate, was not the way to go about helping someone because, well, they weren’t you, and you weren’t not them.

  “I’ll never pretend to understand what you’ve been through, Ava,” I told her. “But I’m also not going to pretend to be something I’m not with you. I know you’ve been hurt, and I know you have a lot of things to work out, and…and we might hit some rough patches along the way. And I promise to stop whenever you really need me to. However, I’m not going to stop when it’s just you acting out.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Baby, unless you’re showing me real terror, I’m going to fuck you in the worst ways. And I’m not going to let anything stop me from enjoying you how I need to or how you need it, too,” I explained. “I meant what I said earlier, Ava. I’m going to flip everything that scares you into everything you’ve always craved.”

  “You don’t think I’m sick for enjoying…how forceful you are after everything that’s happened to me? You don’t think I’m messed up in the head?”

  I leaned down and placed a kiss on her forehead. “Oh, I think you’re super fucked-up,” I said chuckling. “But I don’t think you’re sick. I think you’re wild and beautiful and amazing.”

  “I don’t know how it happened, but I knew you were different when I wanted to scratch Amanda’s eyes out at the party for approaching you,” she confessed. “I’ve never experienced jealousy before then.”

  My dick started growing at her confession. “I won’t share, Ava,” I informed her. “I don’t care what or who you did before me, but I will not share now that I have you.”

  She let out a deep breath. “Neither will I, Ace,” she replied. “I have to be the only one because…I’ve never done
this before. If I have to learn how to navigate a relationship, it can’t be a cheating one.”

  It was easy to slide my dick in her pussy because she was still wet from my earlier release. Her back arched, and her lids felt closed as Ava let out a deep moan, “Mmm…Ace…”

  I flexed my hips until I was seated inside her as deep as I could go without flinging her knees over my shoulders. “Do we still need to get tested and have the condom discussion?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  Ava’s eyes flew open and her sapphire gaze was filled with hot-white need. She shook her head. “I promise you, Ace, I’ve never had sex without a condom before. And, as wild as I am-was, I still wasn’t stupid about it. I had regular health check-ups and made sure they included sexual health screenings, too.”

  I took her word for it. I rocked into her body slow this time because I wanted her begging and withering beneath me. I wanted her to feel every inch of my cock and I wanted it saturated in her cream. “There won’t be any part of your body that won’t be covered in my cum at one point or another, Kit,” I promised. “I’m claiming every inch of you and claiming everything you have to give.”

  Her legs pulled back, spreading herself wider for me. “I hope so,” she breathed.

  “I plan on fucking you like a filthy whore and I just hope you don’t ever come to hate me for it,” I said, admitting out loud how tricky this was going to be.

  Ava’s hand reached up and cupped my cheek. “You can make me crawl to you on my hands and knees, Ace. You can treat me however you want, as long as you don’t treat me like a victim.”

  Chapter 21

  Ava~

  My body was deliciously sore all over. Ace hadn’t lied last night when he had promised to use me until I was useless. With every brutal thrust and every tender touch, he had introduced me to emotions I had thought I was too messed up to ever feel.

  I wasn’t sure where he’d gone off to, but waking up alone in my bed, I was able to rest lazily and contemplate my next move. I had always assumed I’d end up at one college or another, but Ace had change my indifferent attitude towards college now. I was registered to go to Georgetown, but I didn’t need to go to Georgetown. My grandparents on my dad’s side had set up a trust fund for me way before they passed on and or I even existed. They had set up a trust fund for future grandchildren and it was accessible at the age of eighteen. So, I truly didn’t need school, but I wanted to go. I just wanted to wait until Delaney left me first. I had wanted it to be her saying goodbye, not me.

  The door creaked open, making me sit up. I watched with a smile on my face as Ace sauntered over to the bed, fully dressed, and looking sexy as hell. He had a magnetism that had always pulled me towards him, but now that I knew what he was capable of in bed, it was going to be hard to stay clothed around him.

  “Hey, baby,” he greeted. “How are you feeling?”

  “Complete honesty, I have a bit of a headache,” I admitted, but it wasn’t all that much of a surprise. Between the fight with Elise, the emotional meltdown at Delaney’s, the fight with Ace, the all-night sex, my head should actually hurt worse than it did.

  “Hurt too much for company?” he asked as he sat on the edge of the bed, reached over, and started rubbing my thigh.

  “Naked company?” I teased. Even though my body ached, I wouldn’t say no to morning sex.

  Ace chuckled “No, babe,” he replied. His head jerked towards the door. “Your friends from last night are all downstairs.”

  I froze. “Wh...what?”

  “They showed up about fifteen minutes ago,” he informed me. “I told them you were still asleep, but they said they’d wait.”

  “They?”

  Ace smiled. “Well, Delaney said she’d wait. The others are just backing her play.”

  Shit.

  I wasn’t expecting this. I hadn’t been prepared for everyone to show up here. Sure, I expected Delaney to make an appearance, hell, maybe even Emerson, but not the entire group.

  No longer consumed with raw emotion and rage, facing these people in the cold light of day was something I wasn’t sure I wanted to do. Of course, I wanted to talk to Delaney, but all of them? The bottom line was that I wasn’t exactly sure where I fit in with this crowd. The doubt came from knowing that had it not been for Deke falling in love with Delaney, they never would have hung out with me.

  Ace sensed my hesitation. “You want me to tell them to leave?”

  Yes!

  God, how I wanted to take the coward’s way out, but I knew I couldn’t do that. Delaney deserved better, and if I was being completely honest, so did Roselyn and Emerson. They were willing to accept me and give me a fair chance regardless of my past with the men they loved, and I had to treat that for the treasured gift it was. Plus, after all the years that have passed since I’d been with Liam and Ramsey, neither boy has ever treated me disrespectfully or like trash. I think that deserved some credit, too.

  “No,” I mumbled, my throat dry. “Let me…let me shower really quick and I’ll be right down.”

  Ace nodded before leaning in to place a kiss on my forehead. “Okay, Kit,” he muttered against my head. “I’ll let them know.”

  Then he leaned down to give me a good morning kiss, but I stopped him. “Morning breath,” I mumbled. He threw his head back and laughed. “Jerk.”

  Ace looked back down at me and smiled. “Baby, after the things you let me do to you last night, do you really think morning breath is a deal breaker?”

  “It is for me?” I retorted like a brat.

  He granted me some mercy and just said, “We’ll talk about this later.”

  “Yeah,” I snip as I threw the covers off and headed towards the bathroom, “after I brush my teeth.” After a quick shower, I got dressed, and braced myself to face the people downstairs.

  I knew they weren’t here to judge me. I knew they weren’t here to be cruel or intrude on my secrets, but that knowledge did very little to ease my anxiety.

  No matter what anyone said, we all had secrets. They might be emotional secrets, mental secrets, or, flat out, a secret other life, but we all had them. They were usually the ugliest parts of ourselves, because the last thing anyone wants, is for everyone to see just how dark their heart is, or how shameful. A suburban housewife might fantasize about getting dick from both ends, but she’d never confess that to her adoring husband because then he’d see her in a different light. So, even though it’s a small secret that’s not hurting anyone, it’s still a secret. It’s still a secret part of her that she’s unwilling to share.

  We lied all the time. Small lies, big lies, it didn’t matter. We lied to ourselves and others because we were forged from sin. We kept secrets because we were human and we were imperfect.

  Hell, sometimes we protected the lie so fiercely, we could almost convince ourselves that the secret didn’t even exist. An upstanding member of the public community could actually convince himself that it’s okay to screw underage girls because it’s not ‘real’ if no one knows about.

  Secrets were at their most powerful when they came to light.

  People think secrets were at their most powerful as long as they remained secrets, but that wasn’t true. Sure, you could blackmail someone by promising to keep their depraved secret a secret in exchange for something, but that was because the person with the secret knows, deep down, that if their secret were to come out, it would shift their entire world and the world of others around them.

  And that was when the power of that secret could be seen by everyone.

  I headed down the staircase and I couldn’t lie. My heart was beating a mile a minute and my palms were beginning to sweat. I knew I was going to have Delaney at my side, along with Ace, but I didn’t know the others well enough for them to know something that only Delaney should know. In all actuality, had Ace not overheard the argument with Elise, I wasn’t sure when I would have been ready to tell him the truth, if ever. And even knowing that Delaney had deserved to kno
w, after standing by me all these years, I wasn’t sure when I would have ever gotten around to telling her.

  And now everyone knew.

  Well, maybe not everyone, but enough people to know that I couldn’t hide from it anymore. And then there was still the fact that, just because Elise took off, that didn’t mean she was out of my life. This was still her house. And what about Greg? Did he know? Would he insist on making Ace stay away from me now? Would he continue to date Elise? Would she convince him it was a lie, or that I had asked for it?

  I cleared the stairs and headed for the main room. When I walked in, I saw the faces of everyone who witnessed my little meltdown last night. Delaney, Deke, Roselyn, Liam, Emerson and Ramsey were standing and sitting throughout the room. Ace was standing, leaning up against the fireplace mantle. He was the first person to notice me.

  He walked over to me as I entered the room, and he didn’t put his arm around me or anything affectionate like that. He let me pass him and followed behind me, just standing guard at my back. And that mattered more than he could possibly understand. Ace was letting me face my demons while still having my back.

  I had meant what I said last night. I didn’t care how…depraved he treated me in the bedroom as long as he didn’t treat me like a victim. I would be whatever kind of whore he needed as long as he respected me and my choices outside the bedroom.

  I didn’t want to be a broken victim.

  I wanted to be strong survivor.

  Delaney jumped up from the couch and rushed over to me. She wrapped her arms around me and my heart broke. This was why I hadn’t told her. I didn’t want her to pity me. I didn’t want her to treat me like I was wounded even though I was. I hadn’t wanted her to see me as weak.

  She pulled back, and I was surprised when I didn’t see any tears. Instead, she narrowed her eyes at me and said, “You’re an asshole, Ava.”

  I let out a laugh. “Wh… what?”

  Delaney turned from me like I had offended her somehow, and once she was standing in the middle of the room, she turned to face me again, and said, “This entire time we could have been plotting that sonofabitch’s demise, but noooooooooooo. Now the guys get to have all the fun,” she pouted.