by Claire Raye
She licks her lips now and it nearly kills me. “Back home,” she says, eyes still watching me. “To the States.”
“And what?” I ask. “You couldn’t even say good bye? Couldn’t give me your number?”
She shrugs, looking away briefly. “It was just a bucket list thing, remember?” she says, as though it was no big deal. “We never made any promises. We weren’t exclusive.”
“I was,” I blurt out.
Her eyes widen, apparently shocked at my admission. Truth be told, I am too, even if it is the truth.
When I took her upstairs that first night though, my initial thought was that it was just a one-time thing. A roll in the sack to give the American girl a story to take home to her friends. She wasn’t even my usual type anyway, even if just looking at her got my dick hard.
But the second I got her beneath me, the second I found myself buried inside her, staring into her eyes, I knew I was gone. I knew this was so much more for me.
When she’d kept coming back, night after night, I’d thought, hoped even, it was for her too.
Until the day she didn’t come back.
“Look,” I say, swallowing hard as I shove a hand through my hair. “This…this thing…” I pause, struggling to work out what to say. “This thing between us, it wasn’t just a bucket list thing, not for me anyway.”
Ava stares up at me, still not saying anything.
“I like you, Ava,” I admit. “I like you a lot. I like the way your body feels pressed against mine, the way you respond to my touch, to my…”
My words are cut off by Ava’s mouth on mine, kissing me hard. And it’s apparently all the explanation I need, as I wrap my arms around her, pull her close and murmur, “Come upstairs.”
“Yes,” she breathes out.
As soon as we get inside, I waste no time kicking the last two patrons out and locking the door behind them. V has already gone, but I don’t stop to consider why or when that happened. Instead, I grab Ava’s hand, ditching the clean up as I pull her toward the back stairs to my flat.
As soon as we’re inside, I pull off my t-shirt, throwing it on the floor before unbuckling the belt on my jeans; my sleeping dog barely acknowledging the intrusion.
“What are you doing?”
I glance over my shoulder, see Ava standing in the middle of the room. “Getting undressed,” I say, staring back at her. “You’re going to do the same and then you’re going to come over here and sit on my face.”
Ava’s eyes widen, her mouth falling open as a slight flush creeps up her neck. I chuckle, remembering all the times I caused this reaction in her. It shocked her, the way I talked about sex, about all the things I wanted to do and all the things I was going to do to her.
But it turned her on too, that much was very obvious and I’m pretty sure that hasn’t changed.
I strip out of the rest of my clothes and cross the floor to the bedroom end of my flat. “Come here,” I say, beckoning her with my finger.
She swallows hard, but complies, pulling her clothes off as she walks toward me. It’s a fucking turn on watching her, my dick rock hard by the time she reaches the bed where I’m now lying.
“I…” she starts.
I shake my head, cutting off whatever she was about to say. “Here,” I say, pointing to my mouth. “I want to taste you.”
She takes a deep breath, nodding slightly before climbing onto the bed and straddling my face. I wrap my hands around her thighs and pull her closer as I press my mouth against her.
Ava’s head falls back as a long, low moan falls from her mouth. I smile as I lean in and taste her again, teasing her as I suck her with my mouth and lick her with my tongue. She comes quickly but I don’t let her go, my fingers digging into her thighs as I hold her against me.
“Lewis,” she breathes out, leaning back so her hands are resting against my chest.
I slow down a little, letting her ride out the orgasm I just gave her, even knowing I’m going to give her another. She tastes amazing, better than I remember, and I’m hit with a realization of how much I really have missed her these past few months.
So much.
Too much.
“Oh god,” she eventually breathes out as she opens her eyes and looks down at me.
I stop for a second, kiss the inside of her thigh before saying, “We’re not done yet.” And then I get back to work. Licking her, working her over again, pushing her to the edge and then pulling back until she’s begging me not to stop, to just keep going.
I slide a finger inside her, feel her clench around me as I suck hard, and then she comes again, grinding against me as she rides it out for a second time.
“Come here,” I murmur, as she pulls away, too sensitive for any more. I pull her into my arms, rolling us over so she’s beneath me. I grab a condom from the drawer, sliding it on before I move between her legs, brushing the head of my dick against her. “You’re so wet,” I murmur, as I slide inside, slow and deep.
Ava arches beneath me, her nails digging into my back and fuck, she feels so good.
As much as I want her though, I slow everything down. Keeping my hips and movements long and slow. She gasps beneath me, rakes her nails down my back, marking me.
“Open your eyes,” I whisper, my mouth against her ear.
When I pull back, she looks up me, her blue eyes now pools of blackness as they stare back at me.
“Hey,” I say, smiling down at her. “I’ve missed this. Missed you.”
It’s more than I expected to say, to ever confess, but before either of us can try to work out what my words really mean, I lower my mouth to hers, slide my tongue into her mouth and kiss her deeply.
She kisses me back, hungry and hard, as she pushes her hips against mine, telling me she’s missed this too. Telling me she wants more. It almost makes me smile, how much she can’t say these things, can’t tell me what she really wants, despite how much I ask her to.
She’s kinda shy about it all and it’s fucking adorable. How turned on she gets by my dirty talk but how little she can bring herself to say the same things out loud to me.
“Tell me how much you’ve missed my dick,” I say, teasing her as I pull back.
She groans, wrapping her legs around my hips, her heels on my arse and urging me back inside her.
“Ava,” I growl, thrusting into her, hard and deep. “Tell me.”
“I, I’ve…I’ve missed…you,” she breathes out, her words lost in the moans she’s letting out with every thrust, every push of my hips against hers. “Oh god…”
I smile, moving my mouth back to hers as I kiss her again, my hips moving faster now because as much as I might want to make this last, I can’t wait any longer. I want her now, right fucking now.
“Fuck,” I bite out, sucking on her bottom lip. “Fuck, Ava…”
I slam my hips against hers, my back bowing as I try to push deeper. She cries out, her nails piercing my skin as I repeat the movement. On the third time, I can’t hold back, coming hard inside her as she calls out my name and clenches around me, riding it out with me.
I collapse against her, my arms on either side of her body as I attempt to prop myself up so I don’t crush her.
“Relax,” she says, smoothing her hands up my biceps.
I lower my body to hers, rolling us over so she’s now lying on top of me, our bodies still joined. My heart hammers in my chest as she buries her head against my neck, her long black hair now loose and spread all over my chest.
I close my eyes and inhale, the scent of vanilla that was once a memory, but is now a reality. My mind flashes to all the early mornings I woke to her hair splayed across my pillow, my chest, my thighs. God those few months we spent together were intoxicating.
Ava lifts her head, a hand sliding over my chest as I ditch the condom and she settles herself between my legs. She brushes a hand against my cheek and I smooth the hair back from her face, tucking strands of it behind her ear, trailing my fingers to the
ends, twisting them through it as memories of this very hair wrapped around my fist makes me smile.
“Even better than I remember,” she eventually murmurs, her voice husky and sexy as hell.
I chuckle. “Oh is that so?” I ask, eyebrow cocked. “So you have thought about me?”
She cocks a brow back at me. “Maybe…”
Laughing, I lift up and kiss her, my hand sliding to the back of her head as I pull her back down with me. “You’re fucking adorable, you know that, right?” I murmur. “But I’ll bet you did, sweet girl.”
She exhales, not answering my question as she slides lower and rests her chin against my chest. I watch as her eyes flick to my arm, now resting against the pillow, my hand beneath my head.
“You have a new tattoo?” she asks, watching as her fingers trace the ink on the inside of my bicep.
My mouth curls into a smile, remembering the feeling of her fingers tracing the lines of ink on my skin as she fell asleep in my arms. She seemed fascinated by my tattoos.
“You keeping track?” Her eyes flick to mine and I watch as she bites her bottom lip, blinks up at me. I chuckle. “Yeah, it’s new,” I tell her. “You like?”
She nods, her eyes moving back to the design as she whispers, “I do.”
“I like that you’re back here,” I say, twisting strands of her hair around my fingers again. “I really like that you came to see me.”
She glances at me again, that bottom lip of hers back between her teeth as she watches me, a strange but enticing look on her face.
“I got hard just seeing you,” I whisper, watching her. “Remembering all the things we’d done together.”
She squirms against me, her stomach rubbing against my dick, which is already half awake again.
“This is what you do to me,” I say, pushing my hips against her. “This is what I’ve been dreaming about since you left, Ava.”
She exhales a hard breath as she looks up at me, a look on her face that I can’t read.
“So,” I start, needing to know. “Are you going to tell me why you just left?”
Chapter Two
Ava
“Google Julia Harris,” I say in response to his question and he lifts me off him, his eyes narrowed and focused on me.
“I know who Julia Harris is,” he replies, but still reaches for his phone that is sitting on the nightstand. He rolls over, lying next to me now, and I shift so I’m pressed into his side.
Typing in her name and then showing me his phone, his search reveals pretty much everything you could imagine. Up first being her IMDB page and then Wikipedia and all the most recent and top stories that mention her, along with several stories about her much-needed break from the Hollywood scene.
Reading the first heading causes a lump to form in my throat and a twinge of sadness to pool in my chest. It’s the reason I’m back here, but not the only reason.
Lewis looks down at me and I reach out and click the tab at the top of his screen that says “images”. Pulling up several headshot style pictures and even more of Julia walking hand in hand with Aiden. Her relationship was something she tried hard to keep private, but it eventually found its way to the paparazzi. It only takes me a bit of scrolling until my likeness appears on the screen: pictures of Julia and me at events, pictures of us walking out of hotels, restaurants, outside her house in L.A. and in the airport together.
Lewis clicks on the first picture, enlarging it on the screen as he examines it, but he still says nothing. He moves on to click the next one and another after that.
“Wait, you were dating Julia Harris and that’s why you left?” As much as he sounds appalled, he also sounds far too intrigued and I should’ve known he’d take it in this direction.
“Oh my god, Lewis, no,” I say, leaning over and biting his shoulder gently and shaking my head. “I’m her personal assistant. Well, only for a little while longer.”
“Well, fuck, that sucks because that would’ve been super hot.”
“Lewis,” I reprimand, swatting him on the chest, but he grabs for my hand and sucks my middle finger into his mouth.
I’m back for this reason and the way he makes me feel. It’s intense and heady, and this banter between us turns me on more than anyone else. If there’s one thing I regret, it was leaving him the way I did, without giving him the chance to understand why I did it.
“My job is demanding, and I go where my employer goes. It makes it hard to maintain relationships, so instead of putting you in that situation, I left.”
“You didn’t even give me a chance…”
I don’t let him finish his sentence because I do feel like a jerk and I absolutely hated seeing him with that other girl in the bar. A sick feeling of jealously weighed heavy in my stomach at the sight of them together and I wanted to claw her eyes out. But we were never exclusive, and I did this to myself. It was supposed to be a one-time thing, a bucket list item as Lewis had said, yet I couldn’t stay away.
“I know I didn’t, and I’m sorry,” I say, quietly, my fingers tracing the outline of his new tattoo. “I just thought the whole thing was just a…”
“A fling? A months long fling?” There’s a harshness to his tone now and I feel him tense against me. “It became more than that for me.”
His words stop my heart and the room is still for a few seconds, the only sound is the hard breath that Lewis exhales as he crosses his arms behind his head.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t filled your bed and your time with other women?”
He can pretend that this is more for him, but I know better. He isn’t the type of guy who waits on a girl, because it’s obvious that girls throw themselves at him. He had options and lots of them. Plus, he’s hard to resist, clearly, I was one of those girls.
“Ava,” he growls, his teeth clenched as he says my name and he shifts so he’s now hovering above me, my body pinned underneath him. “For the last three months I’ve jerked off to memories of you, of being buried inside you, of the taste of you.”
His words drive me to squirm underneath him, seeking relief from what he does to my body.
“So if you think I haven’t sat here waiting for you to return, you’re fucking wrong, Ava.”
And there it is again, my name on his lips, the way he says it causes a shudder to roll through my body and goose bumps to rise up on my skin.
“You affect me like no one else,” Lewis says, as he takes my wrists in his hands and pins them above my head. Holding them there in one hand, his other hand moves to my breast, grabbing roughly.
I gasp out loud and admit, “You have that effect on me too.”
“Then why the fuck did you disappear?” he demands.
The whole situation that first night in the bar made me feel like a fish out of water. I wanted to play it coy, act like this would be a story I told about my trip to London; an anecdote about a hot, tattooed bar owner with the body of Manchester United soccer player who fucked me senseless. But I’m not that girl and I came back the next night and the night after that, each time sneaking out in the early morning light.
I thought that was what he wanted, but I wasn’t being fair to him.
“Relationships don’t fare well with my career,” I say, recalling my previous attempts and knowing that people get tired of waiting. That’s when they cheat, they lie and they resent me. It hurts and I figured the decision to leave was better than getting hurt…again.
“So you made that decision for me?” Lewis hisses, but his mouth moves to my neck, sucking and biting.
I was definitely beginning to regret that decision.
“You never asked my last name,” I say, trying to indicate that I thought he didn’t care, that he wasn’t invested in this.
“Because it felt like every night with you would be my last and I didn’t want it to end.”
I realize our lack of communication and our ability to play it casual has caused a bigger slew of problems. He’s angry with me now and rightfully
so. I left without an explanation, making him feel used and never considering his feelings in all of this, just assuming he didn’t care.
He’s still sucking at my neck, making all sensation shoot between my legs and making it hard to concentrate on anything but his mouth.
“Lewis,” I murmur, his name a plea for him to do more.
“Tell me you’re staying,” he says, as his hand slides between us. “Tell me you want only me. Tell me it’s my dick that makes you come.”
“Lewis,” I moan again, my words now desperate. “I’m staying because…because…I want you.”
“I need you, Ava.”
He slides inside me again and I know I’m fucked—literally and figuratively.
“How long are you here for?” Lewis asks, his hand running up and down the length of my back, letting each fingertip fall between my vertebrae.
“Indefinitely,” I say, my voice weak and tired. I’ve now been up for at least twenty-four hours. Catching a flight from Chicago to London, checking into my hotel and then coming straight to the bar.
“What do you mean?” Lewis asks, but I catch the excitement in his tone as he props himself up on his elbow, looking down at me.
“I took a job in London.” I hate that my job with Julia is ending, but I know it’s not the end per say. We became friends throughout working for her and we still talk regularly, but she’s taking a break and certainly doesn’t need me hanging around.
“Doing what?”
“Still working as a PA, but I’ll mostly be here in London.”
When the job opportunity presented itself, I knew I needed something different. I needed a change and while it was always in the back of my mind that Lewis was here in London, it wasn’t the whole basis for my decision.
Lewis doesn’t ask any more questions, and the room falls silent, but it’s comfortable and calming. There’s something about the quiet of the room, about the darkness that makes me vulnerable and I say, “That girl you were with is really beautiful.”
And without missing a beat Lewis replies with, “She’s not you.”