“What is it?”
She told him about her meeting with the medical director. “I was seriously thinking about looking for another position but I decided to hold off until after I bought a co-op.”
“Congratulations! We’re going to have to celebrate your promotion. What are you doing tonight?”
“I’ll probably go home and do the happy dance.”
“What do you think about doing the happy dance at my place? We can cook outdoors and dance under the stars.”
“I like the sound of that. Would you mind if we have a sleepover?”
“Now you’re talking! What time should I pick you up?”
“Is seven too late?”
“No, it’s perfect. I’ll see you at seven.”
“Seven it is.” Ava disconnected the call, stunned that she’d asked Kyle if she could sleep at his house.
As she aged she’d become more assertive and her attitude was more in-your-face. The truth was she liked Kyle Chatham—liked everything about him, and she didn’t want a sleepover as much as she wanted to sleep with him. She’d dated Will for several months before she’d shared his bed, and it had proven absolutely nothing. Things she should’ve noticed when they were dating she’d ignored until it was too late. She didn’t blame Will as much as she blamed herself because, as a trained therapist, she should’ve been aware of the nuances that clearly demonstrated her ex-lover’s emotional instability.
She would date Kyle, sleep over at his house and, if their relationship became more intimate, then she intended to enjoy it until either of them decided it was over. Ava wasn’t looking for marriage and neither was Kyle, so it would be a win-win for both.
Tina, who’d forwarded all agency calls to the answering service, stood at the door to the conference room handing each staff member an updated table of organization. After she’d typed the memo and given it to Ava to check for wording, she was instructed to update the organizational chart with the new positions and titles. Her title had been changed from secretary to the medical director to executive assistant.
Ava nodded to Tina when the last employee filed into the room and spotted the buffet table set with trays of fresh fruit, freshly baked breads, sushi, cheese and various salads. She met the medical director’s gaze before smiling at those seated around the table.
“I called this meeting to apprise everyone of several administrative changes. Effective immediately I will assume the title and responsibility of executive director and Debra Nelson will become social-work supervisor. Our interns will take on an increased caseload with a commensurate stipend.
“Dr. Mitchell’s hospital affiliation will not permit her to give New Lincoln Family Center as many hours as she would like, so she will be available only twelve hours each week. For those who have clients on meds Debra will meet with you to schedule a time to meet with Dr. Mitchell for follow-ups.
“Dr. Mitchell asked the board to reapportion her salary to staff, so that translates into seeing a bit more in your biweekly paychecks. I will carry a smaller caseload, and I’m going to need your utmost cooperation when dealing with our funding sources. Both city and state are threatening to cut our funding, so I’m going to have to devise ways to do some fundraising. I’ve never been very good at begging, which means I’m going to have to step up to the plate and learn to put pride aside and ask. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. As in the past, my door is always open. Are there any questions?”
“Will you still be on the on-call schedule?” asked the agency’s only male social worker.
Ava shook her head. “No. If anyone would like to earn a little more comp time, then let me know.” The agency couldn’t afford to pay overtime, but offered compensatory time instead at time and a half.
Debra raised her hand. “I don’t mind being on-call.”
“Any one else want to come off the on-call schedule?” Ava asked. No hands went up. “I guess that settles it. Tina will give everyone a revised on-call list. Dr. Mitchell, would you like to say something to the staff?”
All eyes were trained on the medical director. “No, thank you. You’ve said it all.”
Ava smiled. “I have one more thing to say: let’s eat!”
* * *
When Kyle stepped out of the elevator he found Ava standing outside her apartment waiting for him. After sharing the morning and afternoon with his parents, he had stopped along Tarrytown’s business district to buy something to commemorate her promotion. He had gone from store to store until he stopped in a jewelry shop to buy a gold wishbone necklace. It was personal, but a heart pendant would’ve been too personal at this time in their relationship.
“What are you hiding behind your back?” she asked with his approach.
Kyle extended his right hand. “Congratulations.”
Ava’s smile was dazzling. “They’re beautiful.” He’d given her a bouquet of snowy white roses, tulips and lilies. It was the second time Kyle had given her flowers. “We can leave as soon as I put these in water.”
“Bring them with you.”
“But I can’t enjoy them if they’re at your house.”
Kyle angled his head, kissing the end of her nose. “Then you’ll just have to come over every day to see them.”
“Sleeping at your house every day is tantamount to living together, and that’s something I’ve promised myself that I’ll never do again.”
His eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Sharing a bed is living together. Have I asked you to share my bed, Ava?”
“No.”
His frown disappeared as quickly as it had formed. “Do you want us to sleep together?”
Her jaw dropped. “What kind of question is that?”
“It’s a very direct question. Do you or don’t you?”
Ava stomped her foot as she’d done as a child when things didn’t go her way. “Why are you putting me on the spot?”
Kyle cradled her face in his hands. “I’m not putting you on the spot, darling. I just need answers from you. You’ve granted me ten wishes, and I want every wish to be the same.”
She blinked once. “What wish is that?”
The skin around Kyle’s eyes crinkled attractively when he gave her that smile that made her heart do a flip-flop. “I want to make love to you again and again, over and over.”
“Why me, Kyle?”
“Why not you, Ava?”
“Please don’t answer my question with another question.”
“I want to make love to you because you are beautiful and crazy sexy. I don’t think you realize just how sexy you are.”
“There are a lot of sexy women in the world,” Ava argued softly.
“That’s true, but they don’t appeal to me.”
“And I do?”
“Yes, baby. Yes, you do.”
“What if I won’t sleep with you? Would you still want to see me?”
Kyle inhaled, held his breath for as long as he could before exhaling. He silently cursed the men in her past who had made her so distrustful. “I would continue to see you even if you never let me make love to you.”
“Won’t that make you a little frustrated?”
He gave her the smile parents usually reserved for their children. “I’m certain I’d be more than a little frustrated, but there are ways to get rid of the frustration other than sleeping with a woman.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“Hell, yeah, I would. And it wouldn’t be the first time, Ava.”
Ava drew in a breath and closed her eyes. “I thought my life was wonderful until you came along. If you’d left me on that corner I wouldn’t be going through what I’m feeling now.”
“And what is that, Ava?”
She opened her eyes as a hint of a smile flitted over her lips. “I want you, Kyle, and it doesn’t matter that over a week ago I didn’t know you existed. Every time we’re together a certain area of my body goes completely haywire.”
Kyle took a step. “Which
area?” he whispered in her ear.
“The one between my legs,” she whispered back.
Reaching for her free hand, he placed it on his groin. The hardness and heat under the denim roared like the heat from a furnace. “It’s the same with me.”
Ava groaned aloud. “Don’t tease me, Kyle.”
He increased the pressure on her wrist. “What do you want?”
“Do you really want to know?” she teased.
“Yes, baby, I want to know.”
Going on tiptoe, she pressed her mouth to his ear. “Make love to me.”
CHAPTER 10
Bending slightly, Kyle swept Ava up into his arms. He knew her agreeing to sleep with him was a decision that hadn’t come easily for her. What she’d said was true. A little over a week ago neither had known the other one existed, but time meant nothing because he would’ve felt the same if they’d been together a month, a year.
Despite her outward bravado, Kyle detected a vulnerability in Ava that surfaced when he least expected it. And he suspected it’d begun with her overbearing, controlling father. The first man in her life should’ve been the one to nurture and protect her and her mother. Then there was the corrections officer who’d made her an unofficial prisoner, forcing her to concoct a plan to escape him.
Kyle didn’t know if he was in love with Ava, but whatever he was feeling, it came very close to that peculiar emotion. He’d always told himself that he would consider marrying a woman if she complemented him. Ava Warrick complemented him.
“I have protection on me.”
“I’m on the pill.”
Kyle and Ava, who’d spoken in unison, shared a smile.
“I’m not carrying any STDs,” Kyle said.
Ava flashed a smile. “Neither am I.”
He dropped a kiss on her hair. “That means we should have a good ol’ time sleeping together.”
I hope you’re right, she mused. It’d been a long time since she’d had sex, and she was looking forward to experiencing why she’d been born female. Kyle carried her through the foyer and into the living room, where she placed the bouquet of flowers on a side table next to the staircase.
Her arms tightened around his strong neck as he carried her up the stairs and down the hall to her bedroom. She’d drawn the drapes at the windows, and there was still enough light coming through the sheers to create the perfect mood for what was to come.
Kyle walked to the bed, lowering Ava onto the crisp floral sheets. His body followed hers down. He sat on the side of the mattress and removed her sandals. His gaze never wavered when he lowered the zipper on her jeans. Sliding a hand under her buttocks, he eased the pants off and down her hips. The heat and the scent of her perfumed skin wafted into his nostrils.
Lowering his head, he pressed his mouth to her flat belly over the waistband of a rose-pink bikini panty. The skin on her belly was the same color and as flawless as her face.
“Nice,” he crooned, placing tiny kisses around her belly button. “Nice, sweet and very, very sexy.”
Even if she’d never felt sexy, Ava did at that moment. She felt sexy and desirable. Nothing mattered except the man in her bed. Just when she’d given up trying to meet someone with whom she could have a normal relationship, she’d run into Kyle Chatham. What she found so ironic was that she had literally run into him.
Since her breakup with Will she’d found herself alienated from the friends they’d cultivated as a couple. When she’d left D.C. to attend school in New York, she’d left her childhood friends, and when she broke up with Will she’d left her new friends without a trace because she couldn’t count on them not to tell Will where she lived. The only person she could now call friend was Karen Anderson.
After they’d graduated, Karen had moved in with one of her professors. The brilliant man was twice her age and had come from old money. They lived together for years, then, without warning, he asked her to marry him. They married quietly, and less than year later he passed away, leaving her everything, including a collection of art pieces that were currently on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Ava exhaled audibly when Kyle’s fingers went to the buttons on her shirt. One by one he undid the buttons, baring her chest to his rapacious gaze. “Do you always wear matching bras and panties?”
Her chocolate-brown lace demi-bra trimmed in rose-pink lace matched her panties. “I usually buy them as sets. Don’t your undershirts match your boxers?”
“No. All of my undershirts are white and my boxer briefs are different colors.”
Her hands slipped under the hem of his shirt, searching under the waistband to his jeans. “What color boxer briefs are you wearing tonight?”
Kyle’s hands were equally busy as he divested Ava of her blouse, then reached around her back to unhook her bra. “You’re going to find out in a few…” His words trailed off when he stared, complete surprise freezing his features, at her breasts. A lump rose in his throat, making swallowing painful.
Ava saw his stunned expression. “What’s the matter?” Her query was a whisper. When he didn’t answer she followed the direction of his gaze. “Yes, Kyle, they are mine.”
Her clothes artfully disguised her full breasts. Even when wearing a revealing neckline she made certain to buy garments with built-in bras. Her chest and hips had been as slim as a boy’s for years until she began taking contraceptives. Not only had the pill offset her menstrual dilemma, but its properties had helped to fill out her body.
“They are perfect. You are perfect,” he said reverently. Kyle found Ava’s body as perfect as the rest of her. What he hadn’t known when her car collided with his was that he had to date a lot of women in order to find the right one. His hands trailed up her inner thighs, and within seconds her panties joined her bra, jeans and blouse at the foot of the bed.
Kyle’s eyes darkened as he moved over her, and Ava felt the pressing need of his hardness against her. He wanted her and she needed him with an intensity that took her beyond herself and all that was real. If Kyle found her different from the other women he’d known, then it was the same with her.
Pushing into a sitting position, she undid the buttons on Kyle’s shirt, baring a smooth, dark brown, broad chest and rock-hard abs. She heard him catch his breath when she unsnapped his jeans. Going on her knees, she pressed light kisses over his pectorals and lower. “They’re black,” Ava whispered. Her hands were as busy as her mouth when they slipped into his boxer briefs to find him fully erect. “Is this all you?” she whispered again. His erection was enormous.
Kyle chuckled softly. “Yes.”
Ava took her time undressing her soon-to-be lover until he lay as naked as she. At last she went into his embrace, the curves of her body fitting into the hard contours of his like puzzle pieces. Resting her leg over Kyle’s thigh, she tilted her chin as his head came down.
A deep feeling of peace seeped into her as she savored the velvet warmth of his kiss. Parting her lips, Ava swallowed his breath. She felt the pulsing length of his heavy penis against her thigh, the rapid beating of his heart against her breasts, the slow, drugging kisses that left her shaking like a fragile leaf in the wind.
It’d been years since she’d shared her bed, and although she wanted Kyle inside her she was willing to wait. There was a dreamy intimacy to their kisses and touching that was as satisfying as penetration.
Kyle pulled Ava closer as he took full possession of her mouth. He wanted her so badly that he forced himself to go slowly. He wanted to kiss her—all over. He wanted to taste every inch of her body from head to toe in an attempt to imprint her in his heart and brain. And if he were truly honest with himself he would’ve acknowledged that he was falling in love with Ava Warrick.
Splaying his hand over her thigh, he caressed her hip in a slow up-and-down motion. Skin to skin, heart to heart, they’d become one. He hadn’t entered Ava, yet he felt the sweet satisfaction that followed a climax.
“Kyle?”
“Yes,
baby?” He felt her trembling under his sensual ministration. Ava’s answer was to grasp his hand and place it between her thighs, coating his fingers with the moisture from her rising desire.
Ava felt hot, cold, then hot again. She’d been celibate too long for any prolonged period of foreplay. “I can’t wait any longer.”
Kyle heard and felt her desperation, her plea overlapping groans of erotic pleasure. He had wanted to take her within minutes of seeing her naked, fast, hard, deep but he was mindful of how long it’d been since a man had made love to her.
Pressing her down to the mattress, he eased her legs apart with his knee and entered her slowly, pushing into her hot wetness and praying he wouldn’t spill his passion on the sheet before he was fully sheathed inside her.
For what seemed to be minutes, yet in reality was seconds, Ava held her breath. She was aware each time Kyle pushed, pulled back and then pushed again, his erection disappearing inch by delicious inch inside her until she felt him touch her womb. He set a rhythm she followed easily. Then, without warning, it changed, slowing, stopping before starting up again. Each time she felt the familiar flutters signal that she was going to climax, Kyle pulled her back. He did it again and again.
And when he didn’t pull her back, when he let her go over the precipice, she bared her throat and screamed his name, rising to meet him in uncontrolled passion that surged through her body and left her gasping and trembling. The warmth of Kyle’s body, the clean scent of his skin, had become an aphrodisiac with the power to pull Ava into an undertow of pure ecstasy.
Kyle’s hands explored her thighs, hips and the firm roundness of her breasts. He tried concentrating on everything else to keep from releasing his passion because he wanted it to go on and on until he collapsed from sheer exhaustion. Ava’s body was hot, tight and he fitted so snugly inside her it was as if they’d been created for each other. The ache of his sexual hunger for her surprised him in its intensity; his whole being was flooded with love and desire for the woman writhing under him.
Ava’s legs circled his waist and he cupped her hips to bring her even closer. Holding her captive, he quickened his thrusts as her breath came in long, surrendering moans of satisfaction. Burying his face on the pillow under her head, he bellowed out his own release. He lay motionless, savoring the pulsing aftermath of his climax as Ava’s rapidly pumping heart kept tempo with his own.
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