“So?” she asked when he let her go. “Want to come in?”
He traced a finger along the curve of her jaw. “Absolutely.”
She led him inside. Maura Dell, who was sixteen and had been babysitting Sylvie for four years, came in from the living room as they were taking off their coats and boots.
Ava introduced Maura to Dare, tucked a few bills into Maura’s hand and then saw her out the door.
She turned to find Darius waiting by the arch to the living room. A hot shiver raced just below the surface of her skin. “I need to check on Sylvie.”
“Go.”
“Some coffee or something?”
He shook his head. “I’ll be right here.”
She ran up the stairs. Sylvie was fast asleep on her side, both hands tucked under her cheek. Ava shut her door and went back down to Dare.
“All good?” he asked.
“Perfect.”
He offered his hand. She couldn’t take it fast enough.
In her room, he backed her up against the door and took all her clothes off. She just stood there and let him do it, reveling in the feel of his brushing hands as he pulled off her sweater and took down her jeans.
His voice was so wonderfully rough and deep as he instructed her to lift her arms, to raise one foot and then the other.
Getting undressed shouldn’t be all that exciting.
But it was. When Darius undressed her, it definitely was.
When she was naked, he took both her hands and held them high against the door.
And there were kisses, his tongue stirring such exciting sensations, his scent all around her, the wool of his sweater and his black denim jeans rubbing her everywhere, a little bit rough and a whole lot arousing.
When he went to his knees in front of her, she almost collapsed to the floor in sheer ecstasy. But she pressed back against the door and managed to remain upright as he kissed her some more, nudging her legs a little farther apart, using that mouth of his and those highly skilled fingers to drive her completely out of her mind.
She came apart. Right there against the door, just shattered into a million fully satisfied pieces.
And then he picked her up and carried her to her bed and set about shattering her all over again. Eventually, he took his own clothes off. She pushed him back onto the pillows and ordered him not to even move.
For once, he actually obeyed and let her do what she wanted to him. His body was hers, he said. She took him at his word, kissing him everywhere, taking him into her hands, worshipping him with her eager mouth.
And then he took control again, sweeping her away to a place where nothing existed but the two of them, wrapped up tight in each other, rocking together in a hot, endless glide, until she came apart again. That time, he went with her.
It was past two when he got up to go. As she watched him pull on his sweater and zip up his jeans, she wanted to jump from her nest of tangled covers, grab hold of his arm and beg him to stay.
Which was completely contradictory and totally wrong. The whole point was he wouldn’t stay. What they’d just shared—and would continue to share for three more glorious weeks—was exactly right. Just what she’d been needing. An amazing lover who wouldn’t stay.
Best Christmas present ever.
“Friday,” she whispered, when he bent close to kiss her good-night. “Sylvie and Brad’s daughters, Cindy and Lisa, go to my mother’s house. It’s an annual thing. A Christmas cookie bake-off. The girls sleep over.”
He sat on the edge of the bed. “So you’ll be alone.”
“Except I won’t.”
“Because you’ll be with me.” He bent close again.
She accepted his kiss with a smile. “I drop her off at six.”
“Once you do, drive straight to my place. And bring your toothbrush. You’re staying the night.”
* * *
It was snowing again Friday afternoon, but not too hard. All the weather reports predicted the snow would end by midnight. The roads would be clear. Ava would have no problem getting back to Seven Pines in time for an eight o’clock breakfast with her parents and the girls.
She got Sylvie to her mother’s at a quarter of six.
But then her mom wanted her to stick around. “Brad’s dropping Cindy and Lisa off any minute now,” said Kate. “You should stay. It’ll be fun.”
“Can’t, Mom. Really.”
“Tell me you have a hot date.”
“Yeah. Me, a giant bowl of popcorn, extra butter, and my trusty DVD of Love, Actually,” she baldly lied.
“Sweetheart, that’s just sad. You don’t need a romantic movie. You need a man.”
And she was going to get one. “Don’t even start. Please.”
“Someone has to remind you of everything you’re missing.”
“Well, you’re doing a great job of it, Mom. I’m totally convinced. Feel free to stop now.”
Sylvie, who’d tossed her backpack on her grandpa’s pleather recliner and hit the sink to wash her hands, was already putting on the kid-size apron that Kate kept just for her. “Gramma! Hurry up. We have a lot of work to do. When are Cindy and Lisa getting here?”
“Soon,” answered Kate.
“Love you, honey,” Ava called from the door before her mother could start in on her again. “See you in the morning.”
“Bye, Mommy.” Sylvie flipped a quick wave over her shoulder, opened the door of a lower cabinet and started banging cookie sheets together. “Gramma!” she called, her head in the cabinet. “Come on.”
“Have fun, Mom.” Ava pecked a quick kiss on Kate’s cheek and got out fast.
* * *
Darius opened the door as she raised her hand to knock. “I thought you’d never get here.” Daisy bumped past his legs and stepped out to greet her. Ava set down her tote and gave the dog a good scratch behind her floppy ears. “Come on inside before you freeze to death.”
“Don’t I get to say hi to the horses?”
“Did you notice it’s snowing?”
“Not that hard.” She rose and clapped her mittened hands together. “Come on.”
He reached out, grabbed her wrist, and dragged her over the threshold. Daisy slid through behind her and he shut the door. “I need a kiss first.”
“That’s what I’m here for. To give you what you need.”
He framed her face in his hands, slipping his fingers up into her hair, under the pom-pom ties of her knit hat. “Deliver.”
So she did. By the time he lifted his head, she was ready to forgo the visit to the horses and head straight to bed.
But he only laughed, pulled on his boots, grabbed his coat and hat and led her out to the pasture. It was nice for a little while, out in the snow. She petted the horses and fed them the treats he’d brought out with him. But it was cold and getting colder.
They went back in, got out of their coats and left their boots in the front hall. He grilled them some chicken and she tossed broccoli and cauliflower in olive oil with salt and pepper and then roasted them in the oven.
They sat down to eat.
Neither of them had heard any news about Jody. Darius said that probably meant she was fine. If not, someone in the family would have raised the alarm.
Ava sat across the kitchen table from him and thought how easy it was with him, like they’d known each other forever—which, essentially, they had. But it wasn’t only that sense of being a part of each other’s worlds, each other’s lives. There was something else, some deeper familiarity. Some feeling of connection she couldn’t quite put a name to.
But that was all right. She didn’t need to go defining her feelings for him, getting too deep into him. The deal was not to go deep. To keep it simple and pleasurable. Sexy, sweet and temporary.
He led her to his room at a little after nine, shutting the door when they got in there, leaving poor Daisy on the other side.
The bed was a California king. A natural stone fireplace blazed to cozy life with the flick of a switch. The floor-to-ceiling windows framed a view of the mountains—not that you could see much of them in the dark with the snow coming down.
They stood facing each other by the fire.
“Undress,” he commanded.
She did, swiftly, without fanfare or pretension, pulling off her socks first. She shed her sweater and her thermal shirt. She unhooked and shrugged out of her bra. After the bra, all she had left were her heavy leggings and her panties. She shimmied them down and kicked them away.
“Ava.” He said her name slowly, as though he liked the flavor of it on his tongue, as though he couldn’t get enough of saying it.
So strange, so unlike her, to be so comfortable with someone.
And yet to be held on a razor’s edge of need with that someone, too.
He reached for her. She fell into him, offering her mouth to him.
He took it. Her senses caught fire.
There was just something about him, about his kisses and the way he touched her, about his scent of wood and leather, about the feel of his skin under her hands. It scared her a little, how much she wanted him.
It scared her how much more this was beginning to feel like than what it had started out to be. So much more than the lovely, uncomplicated fling she’d bargained for.
As though every time he touched her, every time he put those too-soft lips on her, he was working her, working the lock on some deep, secret part of her, getting just that much closer to opening her up wide.
“Undress me,” he said.
And she did, pulling and tugging and easing and unbuttoning, guiding everything off and away.
“Touch me.”
She couldn’t obey fast enough. She put her hands on him, caressing him, rubbing her palm against the silky trail of hair that led down to his belly and below it. She knelt before him on the soft rug in front of the fire.
And she took him in her mouth, played him with her two hands. For her pleasure and his—and for more.
For some safer place where she had control of this thing between them that somehow got stronger, more compelling, day by day. Because he wasn’t supposed to be like this, so focused and sure, so coaxing and tender and...true.
He was supposed to be...less. Supposed to be just as she’d remembered him—defined him, really—back in high school. Not only killer-hot and oh, so charming. But also easy. Effortless at everything. With a short attention span, especially when it came to women. The kind of guy you could count on not to stick around. The perfect candidate for a steamy affair with a clear expiration date.
Should she have known somehow that he was so much better than she’d given him credit for?
Oh, who did she think she was kidding? Of course, she should have known. All the signs had been there. She’d seen his protectiveness when it came to his sisters. She’d watched him with the Blueberries—so patient and funny and kind.
And as for all the women he supposedly used and discarded, where were they? In the past year and a half, since she’d gotten close with his sisters, she hadn’t seen him with a single one.
How could she not have realized that once she started in with him, it would only get better, that she would only want more?
“More,” he whispered, as though he knew her inside and out, could see into her mind and pluck out whatever disjointed, hungry thought he found in there. His fingers threaded through her hair. “Yes. Like that, sweetheart. Just like that...”
She pushed all the scary thoughts away. She focused on giving him what he asked for.
And then he was bending over her, getting her under her arms and lifting her. One moment he filled her throat and surged between her eager hands.
The next, she lost him as he pulled her up. “Darius!”
“Right here, baby. Wrap your legs around me.”
She did, and her arms, too. He carried her to the bed and laid her down on it. She tried to hold on to him, to drag him down with her, but he easily untangled himself from her grip to take a condom from the bedside drawer.
“Oh, hurry,” she begged him. “Please...”
“I’m here. Right here...”
And then he was there, wrapping his big arms around her, easing between her open thighs and coming into her with one hard, possessive thrust.
All her thoughts spun away into velvet darkness.
There was only this pleasure. Only this man who had given her everything she asked of him.
Everything.
And so much more.
* * *
Darius Bravo lay staring up into the darkness with Ava in his arms.
She was fast asleep, had been for hours. Just before she dropped off, she whispered that she intended to keep him up all night, to kiss him all over, to have him on the big chair in the corner and up against the wall between the two bureaus.
“A tour,” she’d whispered with a naughty giggle. “A sexual tour of your bedroom. We’re going to make love in every square inch of it...”
He’d been all for that plan and told her so. They’d kissed on it, long, wet and thoroughly. And then she’d snuggled against him with a soft little sigh.
And dropped off to sleep.
He’d really liked the sexual tour plan. But she was a hardworking single mom. The woman never stopped, morning till night. She had to sleep sometime.
He smoothed her hair. Even in the darkness, it gleamed. Gold streaked with caramel and amber. He’d always loved her hair. And her eyes that were blue and green, swirled and blended together, so watchful sometimes. Too careful. Over the years, he’d frequently fantasized about seeing them glazed over and hungry.
And now, at last, he had.
He wanted to laugh suddenly.
Just throw his head back against the leather headboard and let the sound roll out. But if he did, he might wake her.
Couldn’t have that. She needed her sleep.
However, the fact remained: there was a hell of a joke here, and it was on him.
Because he knew it now. He saw it now.
He was in love with her and had been for...how long?
Since high school?
Not possible. He hadn’t really known her then.
He’d only watched her from a distance, sensed a certain strength in her, a careful detachment that made him want to break through to her. She drew him like a beacon. The attraction she held for him had made no sense to him at all.
But he’d wanted to know her, even back then, though it was painfully clear to him just from the way she carried herself that knowing her wasn’t going to be easy.
He’d made that one stab at it anyway. And she’d turned him down flat.
So he’d let it go, let her go. Because he was the guy who never really had to make an effort over anything or anyone. He worked hard at football and to get good grades, but that was it. The rest of life should be fun, right? Why knock himself out for some girl who didn’t want him, even one he couldn’t stop thinking about?
Still, he hadn’t forgotten her. He’d compared every woman he’d ever met with her, and they all came up short. Which was patently ridiculous, given that he’d had exactly one conversation with her, the one in which she had told him no.
And as he came to understand himself a little better, he’d started to see that the memory of Ava Janko, who’d married some other guy and moved to Southern California, simply provided him with another excuse not to get too serious with any other woman.
The memory of Ava had helped him keep his life the way he liked it. Unencumbered. Free.
Yea
h. By the time he came home to settle in Justice Creek, he had his mysterious ongoing yen for Ava Janko all figured out. He’d put his silly fantasy of her behind him.
And then he’d heard she lost her husband.
And then she moved back to town, same as he had. He’d seen her around a couple of times before she started working with Garrett and Nell. He’d felt the pull, strong as ever.
And told himself not to be a sentimental idiot. He didn’t know the woman, and he never would.
If only she hadn’t gotten hooked up with Bravo Construction, hadn’t made friends with his sisters. If only he hadn’t indulged himself in months of outrageous flirting with her.
If only he’d kept the hell away from her.
He could have gone on as always, never having to admit that she really was special to him, that she did something to him that no one else did, that she reached right down inside him, that she somehow had taken complete possession of his heart.
He never would have had to know.
But now he did know.
And now he wanted all the things he used to run away from.
Ava stirred in his arms. A soft little snore escaped her. He smiled at the sound as she settled once more. He held her loosely, her head pillowed on his chest, his arm resting in the curve of her waist. Dipping his head a little, he breathed in the scent of her—citrusy and summery, somehow. Like oranges and sunshine, clean and warm, sweet and fresh.
He wanted her, wanted Ava, in every way. He wanted her tight, limber little body. He wanted her mouth under his and her hands on his skin.
And he wanted a commitment with her, the beginnings of a future, eventually a family with her and with Sylvie. He wanted everything. And she was only in it till New Year’s.
Somehow, he needed to change her mind about that, though he couldn’t see how. She’d made it painfully clear that she’d loved her husband and she just didn’t want to go there again. So taking a knee and declaring undying love would only send her running for the hills.
He needed to find other ways to convince her to stick with him after the holidays.
Clearly, he was going to have to up his game.
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