Ignite: Book 2 (The Heat Series 1)

by MJ Masucci

  He cuddled her in his arms while she iced her lip. He was nauseated by the injury that had been inflicted on her. If he ever got his hands on Tim, he was going to do ten times worse.

  Ava fell asleep, and when she awoke, Xander was still there with his arms around her asleep. She checked the clock and saw it was nearly 10:00 PM. She shook him awake.

  “Wake up; you have to go.”

  “I’m not leaving you. You just had a traumatic experience.”

  “If you stay here our relationship can be exposed. Do you want that?”

  “If it means keeping you safe.”

  “Xander, I’m fine. You can go home. Tim is not coming back here tonight.”

  He reluctantly unwound his arms from her and got out of bed.

  “I don’t want to leave you, but I will so we can keep our secret. I agree that I don’t want to go back to how we were. Not being able to see each other all day.”

  “I will see you in the office tomorrow. I’m sure this is going to be a shock to everyone so please play it up. You need to act like you didn’t know.”

  “Sweetheart, it is a shock to me to see you like that. I wasn’t here, and I should have been.”

  “You can’t always protect me.”

  He kissed her forehead and left the apartment before he changed his mind.

  In the cab home, he felt anger rising. He wanted to go to the police station tonight and tear Tim limb from limb. He was a sick individual. Let’s see how tough he would be with someone bigger than him. But cooler heads prevailed, and he went home instead.

  Ava walked into the office and was greeted by the looks of worry and curiosity. The skin around the lip had bruised overnight, and the wound was more noticeable than the night before. She had iced it again after Xander had left and this morning but the damage was done. Some of the swelling had subsided, but it would need time. The bruises on her neck were another story. She wore a turtleneck to hide them. If this had occurred in the warmer months, she would have had a hard time with this attire.

  While sitting at her desk checking her emails, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see Sam and was greeted with a look of shock when she saw her face.

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Tim happened to me.”

  Sam put her hand over her mouth. “He hit you?”

  “Yes, it’s a long story that I’ll tell you later.”

  “Does this have to do with his arrest last night? It’s all over the news.”

  “What? His assault of me is all over the news?”

  “No, he is being charged with possession and distribution of marijuana to kids at the school where he worked and other places. They went to his apartment and found bricks of it plus stacks of cash hidden under the floor. Did you know any of this was going on?”

  Ava started to realize that’s the source of his money for the expensive dinners. Her mouth dropped open. He didn’t get a promotion; he was selling drugs to finance his lifestyle. The man in the park must have been his supplier.

  “I had no idea. He didn’t seem like the type.”

  “He was, but I knew there was something shifty about him.”

  “Does it hurt?” Sam gestured to her lip.

  “A little but this hurts more.” She pulled down the turtleneck collar to reveal the bruises. They had darkened through the night revealing a perfect handprint. Sam clenched her fists.

  “I swear that piece of shit better not get out on bail. I’m going to send some of Nico’s bouncers after him.”

  Ava checked her watch and told Sam she would talk to her later. She hugged her friend tightly before she went down the hall. The light to Jacob’s office was off, so she went to Xander’s. The door was open, and she went in hoping he would be able to contain his anger at her injuries. The night before she could see the outrage on his face. He didn’t look up when she entered, and she said his name.

  The look of pain on his face was torture for her. He rose from his chair, putting his thumb gently over the wound on her lip. Then he folded the collar of her sweater down to reveal the bruises. He kissed them lightly and then replaced the collar.

  “I wish I had been there.”

  “I know, but it’s over, and Sam said something about him was on the news this morning. Apparently, Tim is a drug dealer. They found money and marijuana in his apartment.”

  Xander went to his laptop and typed in the news site. Indeed Tim had been charged with drug distribution. The college distributor was an undercover agent. The supplier Tim had used was arrested in the spring and wore a wire with each transaction between them. They had mountains of evidence against him. He was facing huge fines and up to fifteen years in jail.

  What Xander read next made his blood run cold. Tim had been suspected of facilitating the death of his wife. The woman had been sick and dying of cancer, but he was accused of giving her an overdose of painkillers that directly led to her death. The district attorney in the state of Florida had to release him for lack of evidence. He was never charged, but the investigation was still ongoing four years later. This man was a sick bastard. He would go to any lengths to get what he wanted. He could have killed Ava.

  Ava sat in front of his desk as he read the article. He didn’t say anything about Tim being a suspect in the murder of his wife. The less Ava knew about this, the better. She would eventually find out since it was splashed all over the news.

  He clicked off of the news article and handed her several folders of work. Jacob would be in soon, and she knew he was going to make a big deal over her injuries. He had always been the most protective of Ava’s family in New York, besides Xander of course.

  She heard the door to Jacob’s office open and rose to talk to him. She wanted his reaction to be in private, not in front of Xander. When he saw her, he rushed around his desk.

  “What the fuck?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “What happened to you?”

  She explained the incident from the night before. Jacob was upset that in the aftermath she didn’t call any of the family to be with her. She told him that she was able to deal with it on her own. She wasn’t about to reveal that Xander had comforted her. She showed him the bruises on his neck and asked him not to tell her father. He would once again assert why she should move back to Georgia even though she had lived in New York for the past nine years.

  They went to Xander’s office to discuss what they needed her to do for that day. She was given her work assignment, and she went to the research room to start it. Due to the circumstances, it was the best place to be. She didn’t want to sit at her desk as colleagues whispered. Worse she didn’t want to sit on the couch in Xander’s office and see the pained look on his face each time he looked at her. She didn’t want anyone’s pity.

  Hours later she stretched and got up to retrieve a law book that she needed. She was the only one in the research room for lunch since the other assistant who had been using the room had left. As she paged through the book, she heard the door to the room open and close. Then as he got nearer to her, she smelled him. He pushed the hair away from her neck and rolled down the collar of her turtleneck placing a soft kiss there.

  She turned, and he rolled the collar all the way down, again the pained look on his face. She removed the collar from his grasp and pulled it up.

  “Stop feeling guilty. You can’t protect me all the time. I lived for twenty-three years without you watching over me and another four after that. I should have been more careful.”

  “I never should have left you in the first place.”

  “You had to have lunch with your parents.”

  “That is not what I mean. I should never have left you four years ago. You would be my wife now and never have met him. I can’t lose you again.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” She said as she walked back to the table with the book she had been holding in her hand.

  “Why? Do you think in the blink of an eye we can’t be taken from eac
h other?”

  “No, I know it. I have no plans to exit this earth anytime soon.”

  The conversation ceased as the door to the room opened. They were hidden by the book shelves, and he planted a kiss on the tip of her nose.

  “I love you,” he whispered as he backed out of the room.

  Ava continued to work until her stomach was growling so loud that the woman opposite her on the table kept looking up. She finally went to the break room to see if she could scrounge a smoothie from the refrigerator. She had forgotten to bring her clean food today with all of the chaos of last night.

  She hunted through the refrigerator for something to eat and found a mango smoothie. Not her favorite flavor but it would be nourishing. She sipped at it with a straw and went to Jacob’s office. She wanted to see if he had any extra work to add to her list of items. His office door was closed, and the light was off. She went to Xander’s office; his door was slightly ajar, and she could hear him talking on the phone. She peeked in, and he looked up to nod for her to enter.

  She sat on the couch and sipped at the smoothie, wincing occasionally. Using the straw was the lesser of two evils since the plastic lip of the bottle would press against her wound. She paged through a magazine on the coffee table while he finished up with his phone conversation. Then he turned his attention to her. She was unaware he was watching her sip until she heard him sigh deeply.

  “Why are you staring at me?”

  “For two reasons, one, because I love you and two, because even with that wound, you sucking on that straw is sexy as hell.”

  “If you would stop being so stubborn I would suck something else.”

  Xander felt his cock twitch at the thought of her red lips wrapped around his girth. He shifted in his seat.

  “Not with that lip like that. I can’t even kiss you.”

  “I can deal with the kissing and maybe even the sucking.”

  Xander put his hand up to stop her. He wasn’t going to entertain the conversation. They did a little more work together, but it was already nearing the end of the day, so she went back to her desk to get ready to leave. The investigation officer in her complaint had called her to let her know they were charging Tim with assault and battery. She was asked to come to the station to allow them to take pictures of her injuries. She complied, and that was when she found out about the other charges against Tim, the ones Xander hadn't read aloud from the article.

  After photos at the police station, she went home and right to her bedroom. Tim had given her a bracelet with several gold charms. She had commented that it was too expensive for her to accept but he insisted. Now she dropped the bracelet like it was on fire. He had purchased this with drug money. She wanted to throw it away, but she would donate it and hope it helped someone in need.

  Xander came by shortly before seven. He had brought over tacos, but she was in no mood to eat. The news she now had about Tim made her sick. How had she been so wrong about him? Besides, she had to stick to soft foods until her lip was better. She made herself a small bowl of oatmeal and she sat with Xander while he ate. She barely touched the oatmeal and dumped most of it out in the garbage.

  “Sweetheart, is that all you’re eating?”

  “I just don’t feel very much like it. My lip hurts, and my stomach is in knots. I found out some horrible things about Tim.”

  She told him about what she read, and he just nodded.

  “You knew, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I was waiting. You didn’t need anything further added to it.”

  “I wish everyone would stop telling me what is good for me. I told you, I’m not twenty-three anymore. I can handle things like any other adult.”

  “I’m sorry, I should have told you, but I can’t break out of that need to protect you.”

  “You don’t need to anymore. I can handle my own life.”

  He hugged her and kissed her cheek. Tonight there would be no kissing since her lip was injured. Instead, they lay on the couch, and she leaned against him until she fell asleep. She was exhausted from lack of sleep the night before. He gently slipped out from behind her and carried her to bed. She didn’t stir when he tucked her beneath the covers, and he kissed her forehead. He had watched her slumber before he left.

  On the way home he thought about how it would be when he lived in his own apartment. They could start sleeping in the same bed. He missed having her in his arms at night. Xander knew that sleeping together without sex would bring on its own new sets of arguments. He was determined not to rush into sex with her a second time.

  The rest of the week went quickly though they didn’t see each other as much as they wanted, it gave Ava time to do more cramming for the test. Lidia and Brett had come to visit. Kaycee had settled the lawsuit against the trucking company for seven figures. She had remained on the case after she and Xander had gone their separate ways. She wasn’t the type of person to let her personal feelings get in the way of her professional life.

  Lidia had told him that she was dating a professional surfer. He thought back to the man she had struck up a conversation with on their way home from New York. He was happy for her. She deserved someone that would love her and treat her better than he ever would.

  During the evenings they were apart, Ava took the time to study as much as she could. The bar exam was coming quickly, and in a few short weeks, she would be sitting for it. She felt prepared, but a small bit of self-doubt would creep in when she got too confident. She spent several hours on the phone trading questions with David. He was to sit for the exam soon, too. He was one of the few people that knew of her relationship with Xander and would often ask how it was going.

  She told him that they were abstaining from sex and it was making her crazy to be so close to him and not be able to make love. He told her he would be a stand in if she needed it. She knew it was a joke, but deep down she couldn’t help feeling that he was hurt that she hadn’t chosen him.

  The next week, she and Xander were able to spend early evenings together again. Pre-trial motions on the corporate case had started, and both he and Jacob were in court for most of the day. She looked forward to seeing him at her place. They were back to the same old routine. Her lip had healed, and most of the bruise on her neck had turned shades of yellow and green but it no longer hurt. She was able to hide it with makeup and went back to wearing more provocative clothing.

  The game of cat and mouse continued. At the end of the week, he would be moving back to the apartment he occupied when they last dated. The cleaning service just had to scour and steam clean the place from top to bottom now that the painters were gone.

  On Friday, he would be leaving work early, so he would move his clothing and personal effects into his apartment. She would join him after she finished work, anticipating finally being able to sleep in the same bed after so many months. Xander had little to move since the apartment was fully furnished.

  His clothing, linens, and personal effects were neatly packed in a rented SUV. He had ordered a brand new mattress for his bed since he didn’t relish sleeping on one that someone else had used. The mattress company delivered a new king-sized mattress mid-afternoon, so he only really needed to unpack clothing.

  He also put clean sheets on the bed, and his soft, thick blue striped comforter before Ava walked in the door at six. She was anxious to be alone in his place with him and not have to be separated. She used the keycard he had given her and kicked off her heels in the entry way. Remembering that he hated when she left her shoes out, she neatly placed them in the closet with her coat.

  She heard the shower in his bathroom running, and entered the steamy room still fully clothed. She called his name, and he pushed the steam frosted glass door open. She looked him up and down. It had been several months since she saw his naked body and she felt her panties start to dampen.

  “Can I join you?”

  “I would rather you not because you know where that will lead.”

&n
bsp; Ava ignored him and started to unbutton her blouse then remove her bra. Xander had closed the door but wiped away the condensation with his hand to watch her. She pulled off her skirt and except for her thong she was naked. He kept shaking his head no up until the time she hooked her panties in each thumb and slid them off her hips. She pushed them down until they dropped to her feet and stepped out of them.

  His resolve was wearing thin as she stood there naked, and with the water droplets he couldn’t quite be sure, but it looked like she had a tattoo. Her hands cupped her breasts, and he finally gave in, he pushed the glass door open for her to enter. She joined him and noticed the effect her lack of clothing was having on his cock. He was semi-rigid. But rather than touch him she took the washcloth from him and put a generous amount of body wash on it. She worked it into her skin, leaving thick circles of foam on her body.

  He took the washcloth from her hand and turned her to work on her back, slowly he washed her upper back and then her buttocks. He kneeled to wash the back of her legs, and she turned to him. He started to wash up her front. First her feet, then legs and then gently soaped her pubic area. She thrust her hips into his face, but he ignored the invitation. It was then that he could get a clear look at the tattoo just below her bikini line. He pushed the soap away and looked closely at it.

  “Ava, when did you get this?”

  “A few months ago. It was when I was doing everything wrong.”

  He examined the lavender rose and found both sets of initials in the folds of the petals.

  “My initials and yours?”

  “Yes. No matter how much you hurt me, I still loved you. I wanted something to connect us forever even if we never got back together.”

  Xander stood up and pulled her to him, kissing her passionately. Without saying another word, he took a dollop of shampoo and slowly worked it into her hair and let it wash out in soapy puddles at their feet. He made no move to touch her sexually even though he wanted to in the worst way. She reached out for him, but he pushed her hand away. If she touched him, he would ravage her against the wall. He turned off the shower and wrapped her in one of the large white fluffy towels from the rack. She said nothing to him as she stepped out of the shower and dried herself. He did the same.