by Jamie Pope
It had been more than two months now, but two months after three years didn’t seem like enough time to heal. It didn’t seem like enough time to jump into a new relationship. And if they made love tonight, that’s what it would be. He couldn’t just be her friend. One night wasn’t going to be enough. One hundred nights wouldn’t even begin to satisfy him. He wanted all of her. He wanted the world to know that she was his, but he wasn’t sure she was ready for all of that. So when they got back to their suite, he walked her to her bedroom door, kissed her still-wet cheek and walked away. It physically hurt him to do so, but it seemed like the honorable thing to do.
He had been lying in bed for the past hour now, unable to sleep. He knew it would be impossible tonight because he couldn’t turn off his thoughts of her.
There was a soft knock on his door, but before he could respond Ava walked in. She was in a short, silky white robe, her legs and feet bare. He had been aroused all day, but seeing her walk in, in a state that few got to see her in, turned him on even more.
“Derek?”
“Yeah?”
She sat gingerly at the foot of his bed. “Are you mad at me?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Why would you think I was?”
Uncertainty crossed her face. “You didn’t make love to me. I thought you wanted to.”
“Of course I want to. But I don’t want you to have sex with me because you feel obligated. I want you to be with me because you want me and because it will make you feel good, because you can’t think of any place else you’d rather be.”
“Oh.” She stood and in one move dropped her bathrobe to reveal her naked body. “I guess it’s a good thing that I do feel that way.”
She crawled on to the foot of his bed and ran her palms up his shins. He wanted to reach out to grab her, to pull her on top of him and feel all that beautiful softness, but he was too mesmerized to do anything but watch what she was doing. She bent over and slowly kissed up his legs. He didn’t think he had ever been kissed there or if he had, the other woman’s kisses just didn’t compare with Ava’s. Visually she was a gorgeous, erotic picture. Her round behind pointing proudly in the air, her teardrop-shaped breasts bouncing ever so slightly as she moved along his body. She straddled him, lowering her head toward his chest, her lips brushing over his pounding heart before she pressed a kiss there. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to kiss you all over. Weeks. Months. I used to dream about being here, doing this.”
He couldn’t resist anymore, and he touched her, gently. It was a struggle because he wanted to grab her, roll her over and push deep inside her, but they had waited too long for that kind of sex. He had promised himself he would take his time, make it last all night. So he settled for stroking his hands down her back and arms. “Let me kiss you,” he whispered.
“No.” She removed her lips from him and looked him in the eye. “I get too lost kissing you. Not yet.”
“Maybe I want you to get lost in my kisses.”
“But I’m not ready to give up my turn.” She moved to his stomach, peppering little kisses there. He thought it was sweet until she scraped her teeth across his skin. He nearly jumped at the sensation, but he liked it. He liked it even more when she ran her tongue over that spot to soothe it.
He didn’t need foreplay with her. He was instantly hard the moment she came into his sight, but she was working hard to make him feel good. Did she know that he hadn’t had a truly bad day since she walked into his life?
She hooked her fingers into the waistband of his boxer briefs and began to pull them down. He lifted his hips to assist her. She took them off and flung them behind her, gifting him with a sassy grin. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that. I’ve lost two pairs of underwear because of you.”
“One pair is in my bedroom. If you come back, I’ll be sure to give them to you.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.” She rested her head on his thigh, her breath tickling his erection. She simply touched it at first, running her fingers lightly over it, causing it to twitch. He sucked in a breath. Her touch was nearly too much to bear.
“Ava, don’t play with me. I’m not going to last if you do.”
“I have faith in you.” She ran her lips up his shaft, stopping periodically to kiss it, but it wasn’t those sweet little kisses from before. These were hotter, wetter kisses that were causing him to groan with a mixture of pain and pleasure.
“Ava...”
“Yes?” she asked before opening her warm, wet mouth and enclosing him inside. He nearly bucked off the bed, but she held firm and began to move her mouth on him.
She had an odd combination of sexy confidence and sweet innocence that he found alluring and that he couldn’t take his eyes off.
“Let me touch you.” He reached for her, pulling her up so that their bodies were aligned. He cupped her breast in his hand, stroking his thumb across her nipple until it was a rock-hard point.
“It’s my turn to kiss you all over,” he said just before he took her mouth. She moaned and wrapped her arms around him, pushing her breasts against him. He ran his hand down her side, loving the way she felt, the way her waist dipped in, the way her hip gently curved out. And then there was her behind, which seemed to be made for his hand. He deepened the kiss as he pulled her on top of him. He needed to feel her soft weight. He felt grounded with her. Like he could be himself, not the man everyone else expected him to be. Perfect son, perfect nephew, perfect mayor. She was the only person who never expected anything from him, and he appreciated her for that.
She broke the kiss and pulled away. “Where are the condoms?”
“In the nightstand. I didn’t get to kiss you all over yet.”
“Later. I can’t be without you any longer.” She pulled a condom out of the box and ripped open the wrapper with her teeth. It was funny and sexy and told him that she wasn’t doing this for him, or to forget about Max. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.
“Give it to me.” He reached for the condom, but she shook her hands and slid her body down his. She cupped his sack, stroked her hand over his painful erection and did the sexiest thing he had ever been fortunate enough to experience. She slid the condom on with her mouth, all while looking up at him.
“Damn it, Ava.”
She just smiled at him and straddled him once again. “Do you feel that, Derek?” She ran his fingers over her folds so he could feel her wetness. “I’ve never wanted another man as much as I want you.” She gave him a mischievous and incredibly sexy smile. “This better be good, because if it’s not, I might hurt you.”
He laughed, but his laughter faded away as she rose over him and sank all the way down on him. He let out a stream of incoherent words. She was tight and hot, and it was going to take everything in his power to last. She began to move, her hips rocking in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. He forced his eyes to stay open so that he could take in every expression that crossed her face.
She was heavenly to look at, breasts pointed out, head back, eyes closed, mouth open, moans escaping her.
He couldn’t just lay there and let her work. He grabbed her arms and pulled her down until her mouth met his. He licked across her lips, begging for entrance, and she allowed it, sucking his tongue deep into her mouth. He grabbed her hips, guiding her down on him. Their pace grew faster, nearly out of control. She broke first and squeezed so tightly around him that it spurred on his own climax. She lay slumped on top of him, her body slightly damp from all the exertion.
“That was great, Mayor Patrick.” She sat up. He was still inside her, and the movement made him stir to life again. “That was in the top three sexual experiences of my life.” She patted his chest and climbed off him. “I’ll be sure to tell all my friends about you.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her back into bed. “Don’t be funny ri
ght now.” He hugged her close to him, and she relaxed into his embrace.
“I’m feeling things,” she admitted. “A lot of things and I’m not sure how to handle it.”
“Is regret one of them?”
“No.”
“Then we’re good.” He kissed her forehead. “You’re not allowed to leave this bed tonight.”
“I’m not. It’s storming out. I feel safer here with you.”
“You really don’t like thunderstorms, do you?”
“No. Only Elias knows how much they really bother me. He’ll come stay with me if he knows a really bad one is coming and I’ll be alone. He switches his shift every time a tropical storm enters the forecast.”
“Were you always afraid?”
“No. But I got locked outside of the house during a very bad storm when I was eight. The thunder and wind were so loud that my family didn’t hear me knocking. We had an old shed that I took shelter in. I remember it shaking every time it thundered. I was freezing and dripping wet, and I couldn’t feel my fingers. I just knew I was going to die that day. But my father came out and found me. I didn’t know how he knew I was there, but he opened the shed door and picked me up and took me inside. He wrapped me in a blanket and let me cry for the next two hours. And ever since then, I haven’t liked the rain because it reminds me of when I was the most terrified.”
He kissed her forehead again. “You should have moved to the desert. Florida is not the best place for you.”
“My family is here.”
“Where is your mother? I’ve only met her once. I thought she might have come up to support you during this time.”
“I asked her not to come. Being on Hideaway Island makes her incredibly sad. It was a few days after Carlos closed on his house here that my father died. My mother will never remarry. She’ll never date again because in her heart she is eternally married to my father.”
“It’s a sad thing to mourn someone for the rest of your life.”
“Yes, but it’s a beautiful thing, too. To know that someone loved you that much.” She sighed, and he could hear the heavy sadness in her voice. That wasn’t his intention tonight. Tonight he only wanted her to be happy. “She spends most of her time in Costa Rica now. Carlos bought her and her sisters a huge house. There’s four of them and my grandmother. All widowed or divorced. They are hysterical together. Like a bunch of beautiful, bickering peacocks. My mother needs to be with them. They were the reason she got out of bed again after my father died. My sadness wouldn’t have been good for her.”
“I understand.”
“Now it’s your turn to tell me something about yourself.”
“What do you want to know? You know almost everything about me.”
“I want to know about all the women before me.”
“We’ve just made love and you want to talk about other women? It’s weird.”
“I know. I’m still feeling too many things. I need to think about something else.”
He sighed, realizing he would do nearly anything to make her happy. “What do you want to know?”
“Humor me. Do you have a type?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“Am I it?”
“No.”
“I’m not sure if I should be offended by that or not.” Thunder sounded around them, and she pushed herself closer to him. He rubbed her back in slow circles, trying to soothe away her fear. “Keep talking to me.”
“I’ve dated older women.”
“Mommy issues?”
“No! They weren’t much older than me. Maybe ten years at the most. For the past six years, I’ve only dated divorcées who already had their children and wanted no part of marriage.”
“You don’t want to get married one day?”
“I didn’t. Marriage wasn’t something I saw for myself. Falling in love seemed terrible.” He realized that he was speaking in the past tense.
Didn’t.
Wasn’t.
But he didn’t feel like that anymore. If being with Ava was anything at all what it was like to be married, then he could see himself there. In fact, it would be hard to imagine life alone after being with her.
“But your grandmother was deeply in love with your grandfather. And then there are your aunts. They married incredible men.”
“Then there’s my parents. I’m a bastard, born to a mistress that my father didn’t even bother trying to hide. They raged at each other. He would scream. She would smash things. They were the definition of dysfunction, and I didn’t want that. If love could make you act like that, I wanted to avoid it. So I avoided women like you. Beautiful, young ones with hopes of marriage in their eyes and biological clocks that were ticking. And because I’ll never forget my father cursing my mother for trying to get him stuck. Stuck with her and an extra kid that he never wanted.”
“I’m sorry.” She cupped his face and kissed him softly on the lips.
“It’s true, though. That’s why she got pregnant, and if I were my father I might feel the same way. Stuck with a child I didn’t want. Stuck co-parenting with a woman I didn’t love that much in the first place.”
“I hate that your parents did that to you. I hate that they made you see love in such an ugly way.”
“I’m fine now,” he said truthfully. He was fine because he had met her. It was like some heavy gate had lifted, and now where there had been nothing, there was a lifetime of possibilities.
He kissed her lips lightly and then moved down to her chest, his lips brushing over the curve of her breast. “It’s my turn to kiss you all over.”
“Good.” She gave a dreamy sigh. “Because I won’t be happy unless you make love to me all night.”
* * *
Ava looked up at Derek that next afternoon. They were standing on her front porch back on Hideaway Island after lingering in bed all that morning. She had missed the island immediately when the ferry set sail, but now that they were back she was feeling a little sad. Their first night was over. They could never relive it or redo it. Freezing time wasn’t an option. They could only move forward and she knew moving forward would mean she would have to make decisions. Big ones. Part of her wished that she could just stay on this island inside its comforting protective bubble forever, but she knew that could never be.
“I have to go into city hall for a few hours to get some work done,” he said to her as he wrapped his arms around her waist.
“I thought you worked mostly from home.”
“I do, but I won’t be able to get a damn thing done knowing that you’re within walking distance.”
She had lost count of how many times they had made love. Delicious sleepy sex, fast, hot, explosive sex. Comfortable sex, as if they had known each other’s bodies for years. She had never been with anyone like that. It was like he had stripped away all these layers she was unaware of and all that was left was a raw, goopy mess that was more vulnerable than ever before.
“Can I come over when I’m done? I’ll bring dinner. Or I can take you out. Wherever you want to go. Even that fancy place that requires men to wear ties and suit jackets.”
“You really must be impressed with my bedroom skills if you’re willing to wear a tie again.”
He brushed a kiss across her lips. “I’m impressed with you period. But I do have to admit that what you did to me in the shower this morning made me go blind for a few minutes.”
She laughed, and he held her a little closer. She found that she didn’t want him to go. They had spent the last twenty-four hours together, but she still wanted more. It was slightly troubling. “I wouldn’t make you wear a tie two days in a row. Let’s stay in. I can cook for you.”
“Not tonight.” He kissed her again. “Relax for the rest of the day. I’m feeling the need to spoil
you, but I’m not sure how.”
“You being you is enough for me.”
He looked at her for a long moment, and he looked at her so tenderly that she wasn’t sure her heart could take it. “I have to go.” He stepped away from her. “If I kiss you again, I won’t be able to stop.”
“Go to work, Derek.”
He nodded and walked off her porch just as her sister-in-law’s car pulled into her driveway.
“Hello, Derek,” Virginia said happily as she took her daughter out of the car.
“Hey!” He walked over to her and lifted Bria out of her arms. “Hello, little one. You’re getting gorgeous like your mama.”
“She looks like her father, and you know it.”
“But she has your eyes, and you have the kind of eyes a man could get lost in.”
“Oh, smooth. Very, very smooth,” Virginia said. Ava could tell she was flattered.
“Have a nice visit with your aunt.” He gave Bria a little kiss on her cheek and handed her back to Virginia.
“That man,” Virginia said as soon as he had pulled away. “I came here to talk about him.” She reached into her diaper bag, pulled out a page from the newspaper and handed it to Ava.
There was a long article about the event last night, including photographs. There was one of Derek onstage looking so handsome in his tux. There was one with him and his father with the governor of Florida. But the biggest picture there was of him and her. It was a close-up of them, their foreheads pressed together. His eyes were closed. Hers were open, and she was looking at him with a mix of love and awe and pride.
Her stomach clenched. Even if she couldn’t admit it to herself, her feelings for him were written all over her face, and now the whole world could see it.
“I’ve never seen you look more beautiful,” Virginia said softly.
“This isn’t good,” Ava moaned.
“No. It’s amazing. Derek is a wonderful man.”
“Two months ago I was ready to spend the rest of my life with another man. It’s just too soon to fall in love again.”
“So you admit you’re in love with him?”