by Dixon
However, that moment came crumbling down when Sam pulled her close and yelled into her ear, “Prince Charming is staring at your arse…wanna show him what he’s missing?” Nate.
Ava didn’t know what possessed her, whether it was the lies Nate told her or seeing him move on to another woman so quickly after confessing his false feelings for her, but suddenly her inner freak let loose as she pushed Sam back just enough to flick her sunny hair and sumptuous hips in unison.
“Snoop Doggy Dogg it!” Sam cheered.
“You what?” Ava squinted and momentarily paused.
“Drop it like it’s hotttt…” Sam sang, making Ava scrunch up her nose further before Sam hollered, “Will you just bloody slut drop already!”
Tipping her head back and laughing, Ava parted her knees as much as her tight dress would allow and did Snoop Dogg proud by dropping into the provocative dance pose. She pushed her peach out, rolling her body in a sensual wave as she straightened and stood back up.
“Mission accomplished, lass—six o’clock incoming!” Sam slowly backed away from her with a sniggering expression.
The moment Ava felt strong hands grip her hips from behind, her stomach flip-flopped. His hands pulled her bum up against his hard front, encouraging her movements to grind against his hipbones as her arms laced their way up and around his neck.
Intoxicated or not, as his fingertips brushed down the sides of her thighs, her legs couldn’t wait to hear what his hands had to say.
“Taylor, get your damn hands off of her!” Nate’s voice boomed across the dance floor, shattering the moment like a rock being tossed at a window as people gasped and turned towards the commotion.
Ava’s stomach tightened into a ball of nerves as she snapped around to the origin of his voice—not behind her as she had expected but next to her. It wasn’t a second later that Peter was ripped off her as she spun around to see Nate growling at him like a territorial wolf.
“What the bloody hell, mate?” Peter gawked at Nate like he had lost his mind.
“You touch her again—”
“What are you doing?!” Ava interrupted Nate with little blue dots for eyes. She watched as his stare cut to hers, a fleeting look slicing across his honey orbs before he reluctantly looked away.
“Uh…can someone explain to me what is going on?” Sam chimed in, swaying slightly on her feet in her drunken state.
“This is a work event. I won’t have my employees conducting themselves in such a debased way.” Although Nate’s words were professional, his heavy breathing and that wild look in his eyes was anything but. He looked animalistic.
“Oh, but it’s okay for you to flirt with little miss red over there?” Ava snapped, her hand flying off to the side and nearly slapping someone in the face.
“What?” Nate squinted, his head snapping around him to try to locate whoever she was talking about. “Ava, I wasn’t flirting with—”
“Err…is there something going between you two?” Peter cut in, his face creased in confusion, making Ava’s and Sam’s eyes widen in sync at the accusation.
Ava tried to make her tongue connect behind her teeth, to push the vocalisation out of her lips, but it felt like her tongue had turned to sandpaper and was stuck to the roof of her mouth.
“Don’t be absurd!” Nate cut across the silence, his voice the epitome of authority as it shut down any of Peter’s speculations.
However, if there was one person who could see right through Ava, it was her friend. Sam was squinting at Ava’s guilty face before her jaw dropped, realisation causing her hand to clamp over her gasping mouth.
Ava stared at that look in Sam’s eyes, that betrayed look furrowing across her brows that made Ava’s stomach sink low. She didn’t feel sick because she had been caught, but rather that she had lied to her best friend.
“Sam…” she began, but her friend shook her head and parted her lips in shock. Ava peered around her between the confused expression on Peter’s face and some of the bystanders around her before the naked shame finally snapped inside of her.
If ever she wanted her Cinderella moment, it was now.
Ava bolted from the dance floor, bumping shoulders with people who hollered offence at her as she did. She had to get out of here, her world spinning out of control as her terrible sin likely spread like wildfire and would soon reach her father. It felt like her life was crumbling—her career, the networks she had built, her reputation, her womanhood, the trust she had with her father, and her friendship with Sam.
Panting after running out of the ballroom and down the hallway, she reached the elevators and jabbed the button. She was grateful to hold the key to her quick escape—the hotel room Peter had given her access to. At least no one would find her there, drowning herself in the minibar before all hell broke loose the next day and she’d have to face the horrible reality.
Stepping into the elevator, she peered up at hearing feet pounding against the carpeted flooring.
“Ava, wait!” Nate boomed, his voice echoing down the hallway as he pumped his legs faster into an all-out sprint.
Panic tightened Ava’s stomach as she punched at the button and sighed in relief as the doors pinged closed and the elevator began ascending. She slumped her back against the wall, ready to burst into angry floods of tears when suddenly the doors sprung open at the next floor and a hand slammed against the metal to keep them open.
Her mouth fell open with a gasp as Nate stood hunched over, his shoulders rising and falling heavily as he huffed for breath and the curls of his hair dangled in front of his eyes.
Thirty
His black tailored jacket hung open over his white shirt with dark buttons, a red pocket square tucked into the chest piece as Nate pushed his way into the elevator beside her.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ava pushed off of the wall and went to move past him, but he had other ideas as his arm hooked her waist and swept her back inside. “Have you lost your damn mind, Brooks?!”
He didn’t answer her as his finger jabbed the up button, his hand pulling at the black bowtie strangling his neck and popping a button on his collar so he could catch his breath after sprinting up a flight of stairs.
“I’ve let you walk away from me more than once. I ain’t letting you do it again.” Nate took shallow breaths, his eyes squinting as sweat glistened upon his creased brow.
“You can’t hold me here against my will!”
“Wanna bet?” he challenged, stepping closer to her but stopping short as the walls of the elevator changed. As they ascended, London’s skyline came into view, the city lights dotted around in a bokeh haze against the glass.
That was when it dawned on Nate: elevators and heights, his two biggest fears.
“Are you okay?” Ava frowned, watching him take a step back as though he were wounded, his hand gripping the metal railing for support.
“Yeah,” he ground out through his teeth as his hands attempted to bend the rail. “I just hate elevators…and heights.” His face grew paler, adrenaline coursing through his veins like ice, making him light-headed. The fight or flight kicked in, making him feel like a caged bull stuck inside this metal deathtrap. However, then his worst nightmare unfolded as the elevator stopped short and made a whirring powering-down noise that made his stomach sink. He breathed out as though he had been punched in the gut, his first instinct to reach for Ava, but then he saw what she was doing… Her finger was pressed against the red button on the control panel. “What are you doing?!”
“What? You clearly wanted to talk so let’s talk.” Ava shrugged, feigning innocence.
“Yeah, not in here!” Nate’s voice cracked in panic, and he felt as though if he tried to step towards her right now that his jelly legs would surely collapse.
“Oh, look, you can see Big Ben!” she chirped, peering out the window.
“Ava, stop.” Nate gawked at her, having no idea why she was being so twisted, his heart thudding inside his throat as h
e clenched his eyes shut and panted for the air they were running out of in this confined metal coffin.
“What? Is it not fun being held against your will, Nathaniel?” Her voice was sweeter than sugar but colder than ice.
“Okay, you’ve made your fucking point!” he said, reluctantly opening his eyes and nodding towards the control panel, pleading with her to release him from this hell.
However, she made no attempt to move, crossing her arms as she rested her back against the glass.
“Why did you do that?” she asked with a cold and detached voice. “Making such a godawful scene and putting me in a position that could ruin everything for me?”
She seriously wanted to do this right now?
His legs were beginning to shake as the blood left his limbs and a cold clamminess spread across his body. “He had his hands all over your body!” he said after sucking in a deep breath to try to rationalise the anxiety flooding his system.
“We were dancing, Nate!”
“You were provoking me!” he barked back at her, his voice rattling the tin can they were suspended in. “You weren’t just dancing, you were making a fucking point!”
“I thought he was you!” Ava blurted, throwing her hands in the air and shrugging her shoulders.
“Oh, like hell ya did!” he seethed, channelling his fear into anger as the veins pulsed at his temples and bulged upon his neck. He could see himself in the reflection of the glass, looking unhinged with his bowtie hanging loosely around his neck, his dark hair curlier from the dampness of sweat clinging to his scalp.
“And what about you, hm? It’s alright for you to provoke me when flirting with a woman who is half your age?”
“That woman is running the pop-up casino to raise money for charity! I was making a fucking donation, Ava!” Nate attempted to push himself off of the railing but faltered when his knees trembled. “Why the hell would ya even care if I did flirt with her? You made it clear you wanted nothing to do with me!”
“Th-that’s not the fucking point!” Ava screeched, her nails clawing through her hair as her blue orbs sliced into him and she quickly fumbled to steer the conversation back on track. “I could ask you the same bloody question; why the hell would you care if I flirt with or even fuck Peter? Why would that even matter to you—you’re married!”
“Because I don’t fucking love my wife, I love you!” Nate erupted, the words bursting from his mouth as though they had been pressurised beneath the surface for weeks, his fist rattling the glass cage as he struck the window.
It took a lot to render Ava speechless. She wasn’t one to bite her tongue in a heavy conversation, but Nate had just obliterated all rational thoughts from her mind and left her with fewer words than a mime artist.
She stared at him slumped against the glass and gripping the rail behind him, barely recognisable from that day in the office where they first met. His dishevelled demeanour now revealed the vulnerability he did well to hide behind his masquerade of dominance and cool resolve. Somehow, she had reduced his iron fortress into transparent and fragile glass, a mirror that reflected her own vulnerability.
Ava always pushed herself away from what made her uncomfortable, her biggest fear being that of loneliness. She realised early in life when watching loneliness cripple her father that in order to conquer her fear, she simply had to embrace it, and from that moment on, she never let anyone get close enough to use her weakness against her.
Now her mind was fighting a losing battle between her head and heart as not one ounce of her didn’t believe the rawness of his confession. The only part she struggled to trust was his marriage; his description of it felt farfetched and immoral. Why would anyone stay trapped in a union that didn’t make them happy? Money could only buy you so much joy, it was something she knew well.
The man before her look crippled, not from sadness or fear, but from the very thing that Ava had avoided her whole life. Nate was crippled by the loneliness he had made for himself.
Call it weakness, call it primal urges, desire, lust, or downright drunken intoxication, but married or not, Ava didn’t just want Nathaniel Brooks, she needed him. She needed him to fill the void of loneliness that only made itself known when he walked into her life.
Ava’s guard didn’t drop, it crumbled like a detonating building as she crossed the line and dived into sin. Her hands grasped the face of a married man and let go of her morals as her lips greedily stole his.
Nate blinked, his brain taking a second to register what was happening. All fear dissolved from his body through the kiss as his hands wrapped around the only thing that gave him strength. Kissing her was like a butterfly landing on your shoulder or a small bird eating out of your palm.
As she stretched up and looped her arms around his neck, his own wrapped around her body and brought her close to him as though trying to knit her soul into his. He no longer cared for his fears, feeling infinite in this moment with her as he pressed Ava against the glass window and allowed his heart to speak its truth through the kiss.
They knew right from wrong, but the problem now was that as their lips moulded together…wrong suddenly felt so incredibly right.
Thirty-One
One minute they were inside the elevator and the next, Ava’s body was pressed up against the hotel room door in the hallway. She swore her breath had turned to steam as Nate’s frenzied hands ran across her body, his lips seeking any exposed piece of flesh on her.
The door clicked open as they tumbled into the suite like a hurricane of passion, tangled in one another and uncaring of the objects they knocked over on their way.
Nate heard his suit jacket drop in a puddled heap behind him before feeling her hands claw and rip apart the buttons on his crisp linen shirt, exposing his bare chest to the kiss of cool air. He attacked her neck in a series of devouring wet kisses, his teeth grazing her skin primally. Suddenly, his neck was yanked forward as she tugged upon either side of his loosened bow tie and brought their mouths together again, his groans muffled by her fleshy explorer delving in and out of his eager mouth.
Truly, he couldn’t get enough of her, the kiss growing intense and making him burn hotter and hotter until he was sure he would reach supernova. He struggled out of his shirt before tossing it aside, his mouth never daring to leave hers, becoming intoxicated upon the opulent champagne staining her tongue.
Her back pressed against the wall-length mirror, a fog of condensation silhouetted around her, goosebumps rising upon her milky flesh as she clenched her legs together like pressed flowers, her thighs like a rosebud waiting to bloom.
Nate gripped the hem of her satin dress and rolled it slowly up over her curves before discarding it, puddles of white, black, and red on the floor.
“You’re so goddamn beautiful…” His heavy brows creased together as though he were trying to decipher a piece of art, his honey eyes drinking in her red lace bra and panties adorning her snowy bodice. Red really was this woman’s colour, contrasting against her skin a shade of moonlight, her tresses like fields of barley, black rings around those sapphire eyes, and lips painted crimson. She brought the colour to life; danger, passion, fire, power…love.
His mouth meticulously covered her chest in adoring kisses, feeding off every little gasp and whine she made for him. He skimmed his nose down her supple cleavage before his teeth yanked apart the clasp between her perfect tits, freeing them from the red lace holding them hostage.
With her hands tangled in his dark tufts, she guided his mouth to the destination they both shared as his teeth sunk upon her pert pink bud and sucked the moans straight out of her.
He had never tasted flesh so sweet, his fingernails brushing down the ridges on her sides as he lowered while trailing his lips down her smooth tummy, his stubble tickling her flesh.
Ava was convinced he was stealing her air, which made no sense since oxygen was required to start a fire and right now there was so much heat surging inside her chest, she felt as though she were a
bout to implode.
Her lashes unfurled as she peered down to see him staring intently up at her while his lips ghosted down over the top of her thigh. She could barely keep herself upright as he delicately lifted and draped her leg over his shoulder, the anticipation crashing through her, and yet, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his, waiting for him to unravel the last thread of decency she possessed.
Nate’s large hands grasped her thick curves, tugging her towards him as his nose skimmed up the lace covering her flower, her sweet and earthy scent making him sigh in relief before his tongue ground against her most fragile and quaking part.
“Agh…” she moaned, tipping her head back with her fingers twisting in his unruly mop. He breathed against her slit and sent liquid fire pouring down her thighs, weakening her stance as her back squeaked down the mirror.
With a sharp intake through her teeth, Ava found both of her legs suddenly draped over his shoulders as he lifted her hips, straightening himself and pushing her up against the glass. She gripped his hair tightly, mewling like a kitten in catnip as she stared down at his tongue snaking in past her panties and wrecking her saturated arousal.
The moment her icing coated his tongue, Nate’s arms surrounded her lower back as he groaned loudly into her pussy, feasting on her like she was a banquet for one and keeping her tight body held up against the mirror with ease.
Seconds that could have been hours passed before Nate finally lowered her body, now glistening with sensual sweat, down his front, her legs securing around his waist as he carried her through his spacious penthouse suite. He laid her down upon the large bed as though she were made from crystal, delicately removing her panties along with her strappy high heels.