by Dixon
“Fineeee… I’ll let you milk that excuse a couple more times,” he warned, pointing a finger in her face before winking. “Let the Yank show the Brit how to properly make pancakes, eh?”
Forty-Three
“No, I kid you not, she ended up in a wheelie-bin drunk as a skunk singing ‘Proud Mary’ at the top of her lungs and demanding that I push her!” Ava laughed, running her finger along her watering lash line as she sat at the dining table with not a single bite left of the best pancakes she had ever eaten.
“But why in the hell was she is the trash in the first place?!” Nate chortled, sipping on his coffee as they spent the last hour reminiscing about her late best friend.
“Who knows, but Sam claimed that because the bin had wheels, I had to help the ‘big wheels keep on turning’!”
Grief came in waves that, to begin with, were so strong they swept you away with the tide. They came at such random moments, replacing any semblance of normality with tears that set fire to your soul. However, in time, those waves soon lessen and eventually allow the happy memories to flood in instead. In time, the pain and sadness, the anger and despair, is soon replaced by waves of smiles and warmth, those funny and sweet things that were said. And one day, you wake up no longer crippled by the sting of loss but remember it as a single missing puzzle piece from your soul.
Nate could see that Ava was trying hard to allow the joy back into her life. He had never met a woman so strong and was forever dazzled by her willpower.
“I should probably tidy all of this up now,” Nate said with a groan as he rolled his neck and stood, making his way over to the mess left behind in the kitchen.
“Oh no! I’ll get that, you sit down!” Ava insisted, getting up from her seat and standing upon her weak leg which refused to take her weight as she went tumbling with a squeal.
“Whoa there!” Nate rushed over and only just managed to catch her as his arm snaked around her waist and pulled her to safety. “You alright?”
This is why you need your damn walking aid.
With her back swooped down low, Ava peered up at him with damsel’s eyes and felt her heart wake up from a month of slumber. It was as though her body was trying to remind her of the effects that this painstakingly gorgeous man had on her.
Every wall she had wrapped around herself for the past few weeks began crumbling to ash as her heart screamed out for the love of her life. With her arm around his neck, she pulled herself towards his lips and whined with relief as their mouths mated and his arms cinched her body tight against his chest, finally reuniting their hearts. It was as though he had the power to breathe life back into her as she parted her lips and tasted home.
Nate hadn’t realised just how starved he was until her lips were against his. He poured all the love in his heart into this kiss, willing it to heal and take all of her pain away. Both of his arms squeezed her tiny waist as though he were terrified to ever let this woman go again before carefully picking her up into a bridal lift and carrying her towards the sofa. He laid her down delicately, never once interrupting the kiss as he hovered over her and planted a trail of adoration down the side of her neck.
Shivers ran down Ava’s spine like waves of pleasure trickling inside her body as her soul finally accepted the light back in. She whined softly as his fingertips ran up under her dress, bringing their bodies closer touch by touch. The only frustrating thing was how weak her thigh was, feeling heavy and awkwardly wrapped in the unflattering cast. Her good leg wrapped easily around his side as her other failed miserably. However, as if he somehow knew of her struggle, his palm found her thigh and glided up to her knee. She wanted to scream at the hard fabric blocking his touch until she felt him bring her leg slowly up to his side and hold it there for her. Moans escaped from her lips, her back arching for more as she felt him press down between her legs.
“Take this off,” Ava whimpered, fingers tugging at the hem of his white cotton tee. When he obliged, she didn’t waste a second as her lips brushed across his collarbone and down over each pectoral, lavishing his flesh with kisses. There was a time, not so long ago, that she thought she’d never get this again so made sure to worship every inch of him in this moment.
There was something different about her and Nate couldn’t figure out what. Each brush of her lips on his chest, every caress of her fingertips on his sides, the way she held him close, it was softer and less demanding than before. She was savouring this. Savouring him.
Nate slowly peeled her knitted dress over her head before running his lips down her bare chest. As his lips glided over each of her pink buds, it wasn’t solely to give pleasure, although the sweet noises leaving her lips were welcomed. He too wanted to savour her.
This was uncharted territory for Ava. Her body was on fire but in ways it never had been.
Everything she felt for Nate was smouldering inside the furnace of her heart that pumped molten emotion around her body. She burned for him. For the first time, she experienced pleasure through emotion more than she did through feeling.
As their clothes came off and they embraced one another as two bare embers, there was a moment of lull, a single moment where they stared into one another’s eyes, sharing a type of intimacy that eclipsed their flesh and bone.
“God, I’ve missed you,” Nate whispered against her jaw before his nose skimmed up against the peak of hers and their eyes met once more.
“Nate…I…” Ava swallowed the bundle of flames in her throat, trying to suppress the fire into the pits of her heart that could no longer contain the magnitude of it. “I love you.”
He stared into her eyes, failing to hide the surprise on his face as those three words that he had longed to hear finally reached into his heart and made it whole.
“I love you so damn much,” he rushed his words, choosing to show rather than tell as his lips crashed down against hers and his hands fisted her hair to bring her closer.
Ava wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, feeling like he was pushing her towards supernova as their kiss grew hotter. Their bodies naturally found one another as her lips spread against his, swallowing each other’s moans as his manhood filled her silky walls in one effortless tilt of their hips.
Nate growled into her mouth, his body and soul aching for her as he rolled slowly in and out of her. She felt incredible, sheathing his length, and connecting him to the deepest parts of her.
With the backs of his fingers trailing across her cheek, they found their way down and around her neck, squeezing the sides as he brought her attention back to him. He loved it when her eyes scrunched with pleasure like that, loved the way her jaw descended as he angled himself right at that spot that made her putty in his hands, and loved the way her wild eyes watched him as if awaiting instruction.
“Say it again,” he demanded breathlessly despite only having just begun.
“I love you,” she moaned, back arched as she brushed her lips against his. “Make me yours, Nate.”
A deep animalistic growl left his lips as his self-control faded and he felt his primal urges resurface, desiring nothing more than to grant her wish. With his hands in her hair again, and without any warning, his hips suddenly jolted into her with sharp movements that made her yelp and mewl for more as her nails scored down his back.
“Fuck,” he ground out against the delightful pain as he tilted his head back before peering down and summoning her attention once more. “I need to feel you now.”
Ava didn’t know what he had meant until his hand appeared between her legs, fingers twirling around her bundle of nerves and making her see stars as she begged for more.
“Mmhh!” she whined as everything pulsed and ached for him, her body trembling with pleasure and struggling to hold back the flood of euphoria. Her back arched high until her stomach pressed against his, her neck craning back as she closed her eyes and felt herself become weightless, like a balloon filling with helium, ready to burst at any moment.
Nate felt her on the bri
nk of an orgasm, the way she clamped him and made his dick beg for release. No woman held the level of power over him like Ava did. He couldn’t hold back any longer, dangling over the edge with his body feeling overloaded with emotion, sensation, and love for her.
“Open your eyes,” he all but begged her and the moment her beautiful sapphires opened, creased with pleasure and full to the brim with adoration, his body finally betrayed him as he groaned loudly and yelled her name. It was like her body was in sync with his, her orgasm wrecking him as she spasmed around his manhood and brought on his warm silken spurts to bathe her insides.
For such a short-lasting moment of physical intimacy, the high they both felt was endless.
Ava had foolishly always lived her life under the presumption that duration qualified for good sex, but nothing could ever come close to what she just experienced moments ago with Nate.
Their bodies glistened in the morning sun with sensual sweat, Nate lying atop Ava as his hips undulated lazily with his face nestled into her shoulder. He wanted to freeze time and hit replay, specifically to the moment she confessed her love for him. Reaching up, he stared down at her with a lovesick grin, palming her cherub face.
“Mine,” Nate affirmed, drowning in her oceans as she nodded her head.
“Yours.”
Forty-Four
Nate stared up at Ava in awe, their heavy breathing slowly returning to normal after several more sessions of lovemaking that morning. His mouth stroked against hers, a grin on his face as he tried to grab her lip between his teeth.
“Wait right there—I need to pee!” Ava beamed down at Nate, sprawled across his bare body as she awkwardly clambered to her feet, scolding any help he attempted to offer her. Walking was a struggle when half her leg was wrapped in white stone, but she was adamant that it wouldn’t hinder her ability to walk without aid. If athletes could sprint on prosthetic limbs, then she could walk with hers in plaster.
“If you ain’t gonna use your crutches at least use the walking aid,” Nate sighed, running his hand through his messy dark locks, the roots saturated with sweat as he lazily turned onto his side to admire Ava’s beauty—even if she was comically hobbling about the living room without any clothes on.
“Don’t need itttt!” she said in singsong, clumsily staggering her way towards her bathroom.
“Whatever you say, hop-a-long!” Nate chirped, rolling onto his back with his hands cradling his head as he grinned from ear-to-ear up at the ceiling. He couldn’t remember a time where he’d felt such peace, as though the sun pouring through the window was filling his soul and bringing him a euphoric high. Ava changed his perspective on things and sweetened everything bitter in life. The rain was no longer depressing, it was cleansing, and the wind was no longer cold, it was refreshing. She made him feel overflowing with bright and warm sunshine.
Eyes closed, he listened to the birdsong outside before a shrill buzzing interrupted his moment of bliss as his cell darted across the coffee table causing him to squint at the caller ID that pulled a dark cloud over his soul.
“So, I was thinking we could maybe try going for a walk to—” Ava cut short as she wandered back into an empty living room and frowned, fastening her dressing gown around her. “Nate?” She heard chatter coming from the balcony extending from her kitchen as she padded as quietly as she could towards the white curtains blowing gently in the wintery breeze.
“Whoa, look just slow down, your padre? You mean your dad?” Nate spoke in hushed tones on the phone, stood shirtless upon the balcony as a pair of loose jogger bottoms hung from his defined hips. “Oh, Nat, I’m so sorry…”
Ava’s stomach sunk upon realising who he was talking to. For the past few weeks, she had been drowning so much in her mourning that she had completely forgotten about the other woman. This morning, without a second thought, she greedily grabbed on to the first chance of happiness as a way of respite from that dark place inside of her, but now she realised she was simply swinging from one high to the next low.
There was a point in her life, not so long ago, that she felt like she had everything, that she held all the puzzle pieces to a complete jigsaw. She had her best friend, a blooming career, wealth, and good health, and in her blinded state, she had a passion that consumed her with love.
Now she had nothing.
Her friend was gone, her father had dismissed her as his assistant, her health was in tatters, and the love she experienced was all just a dream, rendering her puzzle in pieces on the ground.
How foolish of me, she thought. How foolish to think that things were that simple and that the one good thing left in my life was mine to keep.
“Of course, Nat! I’ll get the next flight out—shit, wait, no, I…I can’t. I’ve got this…this work thing I—” Nate clamped his mouth shut as his wife screeched down the phone at him, the cell phone held away from his ears as she did. “I’ll figure something out…”
Ava didn’t know what bothered her more: the fact he was lying to his wife calling her a “work thing” or the fact that he was leaving her to go back to his wife. It twisted like a hot knife in her gut making her want to erupt at Nate but the feeling faded quickly. She didn’t have the capacity to feel anger right now, her body tired of feeling emotion and wanting to switch them off. Then it loomed on her that this whole time she had thought of his wife as “the other woman” when in fact she was the other woman.
She was the homewrecker, the adulterer, the slut… not Natalia Brooks.
Ava retreated towards the living room with her stomach lodged in her throat. The room with high ceilings was shrouded in shadows as the sun hid its head in the dark snow clouds. She felt entirely alone in that moment, like a little boat straying far out into the big black ocean. As her eyes glanced at a picture frame upon the cold fireplace, she released the breath she didn’t remember holding. The picture was taken by Suzy many years ago, a young Ava dressed professionally after her first big day stepping into the working world. Sam was with her in the photo, showering Ava in champagne as they both screamed and laughed. That was the first time in Ava’s life that she felt a sense of completeness, that all the boxes in her life were ticked and yet she had so much still to achieve and look forward to. Now she felt completely lost and had a desperate need to get her life back on track.
Glancing up at the mirror suspended above the mantel, she didn’t recognise her own reflection. Her complexion was washed out, her hair wasn’t quite golden, and dark crescents hung beneath her eyes. Whatever light was inside her was gone.
Closing her eyes, she materialised Sam in that room with her, imagining her friend stood behind with a hand on her shoulder. In her mind was the only place Sam now existed and these little delusions had been Ava’s only saviour this last month.
Ava’s eyes opened as she heard Nate’s slippers scuff against the floor as he stepped in from the snowy balcony and joined her in the living room.
“You need to go back to America.”
“You heard?” he asked, cautiously moving towards her and stopping when she turned around and he saw the grave expression on her face. “Her father passed away suddenly last night, but it’s fine, I can find a way out of atten—”
“No.”
“Excuse me?” Nate’s thick brows pulled into the bridge of his creased nose as he watched her cold eyes slice into him in the dully lit room.
“You need to go home and be with your wife.”
“Not this again… Ava, I told you, Natalia is just my—”
“She is your wife, Nate. It is as simple as that.” She lifted her shoulders with her lips turned inwards at the corners. “Whether you try and make it as black and white as the contract you signed on your wedding day or not, she is still your spouse and I’m…I’m just your mistress. I am anything but yours and you are anything but mine which is why we cannot be together right now. You cannot keep lying to Natalia.”
“What?” Nate said, winded as his hand swept across his face in bewilderment. �
��Did we not just make love moments ago on that couch?”
“We did but—”
“Then where the hell is all of this coming from, Ava?!” Silence befell the room as he watched her avoid his glare. It was ludicrous to backtrack to square one when they had come this far. He began pacing up and down the living as he ranted, “I have told you before and I will tell you this again and again until I am blue in the face. She means nothing to me, and I mean nothing to her. That heartless bitch wouldn’t give two craps if I walked up to her today and confessed where I’ve really been this past month or even that I have spent the last couple of months being madly in love with you because I am nothing but financial gain to that woman!”
“And so, what if she doesn’t care, Nate? Does that make it the right thing to do?” Ava hissed as she angrily limped towards him. “You know what you’re doing to her isn’t fair and I know that you are a better man than that, which is precisely why you need to go home and sort your bloody life out!”
“And I will, Ava! The second I’m back in Manhattan it is over with her and we can start a life together!”
“No.”
“Fucking give me strength!” Nate roared as he threw his hands into the air and sunk down onto the edge of the couch. “You are an impossible woman!” He covered his face with his hands as his neck began to ache, unsure if it was from lying on the couch or the emotional whiplash that this Brit was giving him.
“You need to go home and fix your life. Stop letting people dictate how you live your life. You work to live, not live to work so stop living by other people’s rules and put yourself first, Nate—not your title, not your reputation or even your career.”
“That’s goddamn hypocrisy at its finest when you stand there and dictate what I should do with my life when I am perfectly happy with what is right in front of me right here!”
“I am not saying that we can’t be together. I am saying we can’t be together right now!” This brought on a lull of silence in their debate as Nate’s frown softened ever so slightly and a small flicker of hope glimmered in his honey gems that peered up at her. Ava hobbled over to the sofa and stood in front of him. “Nathaniel, my best friend just died… I don’t have a job to distract myself with, I need to make amends with my father, and I am like this,” she croaked as her hand slapped at her broken leg. “My life is a mess right now and I don’t have any more space for unbalance. I need to be better and do better. It’s what Sam would have wanted me to do.”