“Fifty thousand dollars.” The words tumble out of my mouth without a second thought.
The entire gymnasium gasps at once, including Ava. She turns big, round eyes on me, and they’re filled with so much emotion that it plucks at the strings of my heart.
Silence settles over the crowd, and Principal Franks’ jaw is hanging so far open she could catch flies in it. “Uh, are there any other bids?” she finally manages.
I ignore Jordan’s and Tiffany’s disdainful looks over being dethroned. Blondie is giving me the evil eye too. Not sure what her problem is, other than she never grew past the high school mean-girl phase.
“Going, once, twice, three times. Sold for fifty thousand dollars to the gentleman in the vest!” Principal Franks shouts so fast, like she’s afraid I might change my mind. “Sir, can we get your name?”
“Uh.” I clear my throat. “Dex Moore.”
The crowd buzzes with whispers and murmurs.
I discard our punch cups onto the refreshments table and take Ava’s hand. I tug her through the crowd to meet Principal Franks as she walks off the stage, and the DJ cranks up another tune.
“Ms. Franks, I don’t need a new website. I’ve already got the best site and the best designer in the state working for my company.” I nod at Ava. “So I’m donating the package to the school.”
Principal Franks pumps my hand like I’ve just handed her a gold mine. I guess fifty grand in cash and a free website is like striking gold for a public school in a small town. There’s never enough money to provide everything the kids need.
“Ava, it’s clear you’ve made your mark on the world,” Principal Franks says.
Those words blow me away. Ava has made her mark. On me.
“And you’ve obviously made very wise decisions in your career and your personal associations. You’re both very generous, and you look like a couple who is very much in love.”
Chapter Twelve
Ava and I are completely alone in a gymnasium full of people. Principal Franks has moved on, and the music is so loud I can barely think.
Ava leans in close, and her lips brush across my ear. “Is it true?”
“Is what true?” I pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about. But I so fucking do. She wants to know if her old principal’s deduction is spot on. She’s asking me if I’m in love with her. I don’t want to answer the question. I’m not sure I can admit the truth to myself.
This is where Ava would typically give me an eye roll as big as a skyscraper. Or tap her knuckles gently against my head.
She doesn’t do either this time. Instead, she stares up at me, chewing her bottom lip with anticipation.
“Of course I love you,” I say, and her breath hitches.
Shit, I can’t do this. I can’t lead her on, so I quickly add, “I love you and Leo both. And Oz too, even though he’s an ass sometimes.” My joke doesn’t hit home, and she steps back. She looks up at me with misty eyes and a quivering lip. It’s like someone has taken a laser, inserted it into my chest, and carved out my heart because I’m sure it’s not beating anymore.
I reach for her hand, but she backs away and rushes from the gym.
I go after her. When I step through the gym doors, the tap of her heels echoes through the empty hallway. I follow the sound down the hall and turn right just as she crashes through the front door of the school.
I lengthen my strides to catch up. When I finally reach her, she’s leaning against the hood of my Porsche, breathing heavily.
The parking lot is dotted with trees, and my car is parked under one of them. Not all of the autumn leaves have fallen, so the streetlights filter through to dance over Ava. I approach slowly so she won’t run away from me again.
“Ava, I’m in a tough spot here. What do you want me to say?” My lungs tighten so much I can hardly breathe.
“I want you to tell me the truth, Dex. Why did you bid such an obscene amount on a website you don’t need, then donate it back to a school you didn’t attend?” Her arms are wrapped around her center, and she’s shivering because she left her coat inside.
I don’t have a jacket to offer her this time, so I step into her and wrap her in my arms. She fists my vest in both hands.
“Because I can afford it, and the school needs it.” I’m being a douche for avoiding the whole truth. I know it. Ava knows it. The fucking street lamp knows it, so I fess up. “And because I couldn’t let those asshat classmates of yours take advantage of your hard work. They didn’t deserve you back in high school, and they certainly don’t deserve you now.”
That’s the truth. Mostly.
“That was pretty great.” Her soft words feather across my cheeks.
“What’s the story with Tiffany and her band of merry asshats?” I can guess, but I want to know what Ava is thinking.
She shrugs. “Brendan…”
“Asshat Number Two.”
She snorts. “That’s the one. Well, I’d never been on a date, and he asked me out. He was popular, you know? And so I said yes, but then I found out he just wanted me to help him pass biology.” Her voice shakes with humiliation, and I want to protect her the same way Leo does. “So I canceled the date, but he told everyone that he stood me up because I was a nobody. And now they don’t even remember me. That’s how insignificant I was back then.”
“Ava, the last thing you could ever be is insignificant.” I press a kiss into her hair.
“I’m so glad I never went out with Brendan. Right before I moved, he was arrested for mooning old ladies from the front on a dare.”
“So he’s a perv?” I ask.
Ava shrugs. “Either that or just stupid. I mean, who takes a dare like that in a town this size? Did he think they wouldn’t recognize him? His grandmother lived in the nursing home where he flashed those little old ladies.” Ava’s snorting laughter gets louder. “And he didn’t wear a mask to cover his face.”
“Jesus, what a dumbass.” I laugh along with her.
“Thank you for what you did in there.” She nods toward the gym. “It was so sweet, and it made me feel so special.”
And that answers the rest of her question. The one truth I can’t bring myself to fully form into words because of what it might cost her. “You are special to me, Ava. Don’t you know that by now?”
She slides her flattened hand up my chest, and the bracelets I gave her jingle. “Sometimes I’m more sure of it than anything in the world.” Her voice quivers, but she levels those intense blue eyes at me. The street light glints off of them. Her other hand slips under my vest and caresses my abs. They tense and release under her touch.
“Ava.” Her name rushes out on a heated breath.
“And then we get close…like this, and you pull away.”
She slips two fingers between the buttons of my dress shirt, and I hiss out a breath that’s part pleasure and part torture.
“I can’t pretend not to have feelings for you anymore, Dex. I want to know the truth about how you really feel about me.” Her clever fingers free a button from its hole, and she slips her whole hand inside my shirt.
I grind my teeth into dust, trying to hold on to my sanity. I don’t think I can resist this pull between us much longer. I want her so fucking much. Right here. Right now.
I realize my grip on her has tightened, and one hand has dropped so far south I should be speaking a foreign language.
“No more avoiding the subject.” Her stubborn determination—you know, the one I claim to love so much—isn’t so loveable at the moment because it’s backing me into a corner.
Her hand slides dangerously low on my bare abs. My mind blanks, but my dick stands at attention and gives her a twenty-one gun salute. It’s totally not fair for her to ask me these kinds of questions with her hand on the move and about to breach the hot zone. I try to speak, but I’m so turned on that it comes out sort of like a grunt.
“I want to know how you really feel about me, Dex.” Her hand drops to my dick, an
d she cups me.
I come apart at the fucking seams.
My hands glide down the outside of her thighs until my fingertips find the hem of her dress. She draws in a sharp breath and holds it while my searching hands inch up her bare legs to cup her ass.
The panty gods have chosen to smile on me, because she’s wearing a thong.
I groan, and devour those sexy red lips with mine. They part and I don’t just slip through. I invade her with a hot, hungry tongue. She squeaks when my palms close around the cheeks of her ass and I lift her onto the hood of my car.
My hands are still cupped under her ass, and I position her on the edge of my car. “This is how I feel about you.” I step between her legs and hold her against my aching dick. She lets out a muffled scream against my shoulder when I grind my hard-on against her pussy. My pants and the thin layer of lace between us aren’t enough of a barrier to mask the heat where we connect.
“Tell me more,” she rasps out, her face buried in the crook of my neck.
“I’ve wanted to fuck you for two long years,” I say as I grind another sexy gasp out of her. “I want to fuck you every way possible.” Every time I drop the F-bomb, she arches into me, and her pussy gets hotter against my dick. “Fast, slow, hard, soft.” My words get dirtier with each sentence, and Ava gets more turned on.
She’s trembling in my arms and keeps her face nestled against my neck and shoulder. I circle my hips again and crush her against my prick.
“Oh, Dex.” She grabs my shoulders to steady herself, and her nails curl into my flesh with just enough sting to turn me on even more.
I think I hear the crunch of gravel, but I can’t be sure. Ava’s heavy breathing and cries of ecstasy drown out everything else in my world. I still and listen just in case, look over a shoulder, but no one is there.
So I turn my lips back to her ear and keep whispering the filthiest things. I’m all in now, and there’s no going back. “I’m so fucking glad no one else has made that hot little pussy of yours come, because I’m going to be the first. You’re going to come so hard and so many times you’ll lose count.”
She’s whimpering now as I slide a hand between her legs and rub. Her panties are hot and moist, and she shivers so hard at my touch that she’s practically convulsing in my arms.
I don’t kiss her. I don’t pull back to look into her eyes. I keep my lips next to her ear, softly grazing across it so that my heated breath and the wisps of her hair tickle her skin. It works because another tremble racks through her hot body.
The strip of lace covering her pussy grows wetter with each stroke. “Do you want me to fuck you, Ava?” I’ll give in to my lust for her just this once. Just for this weekend. And live on the memory of sharing her first real orgasm for the rest of my life.
“Yes.” She swallows. “Yes, please.”
I chuckle against her throat and bite into the soft flesh there just enough for it to sting.
She hisses in a breath.
“I like it when you beg,” I murmur, and nip at her earlobe. “At your birthday party, you begged me to take you to the reunion. You have no idea how badly I wanted to bend you over and take you the way you need to be taken right there on the balcony.”
“That…” She’s panting so hard, she’s half delirious. “That would’ve been lovely.”
“Lovely?” I say with a mocking laugh. “Sweetheart, lovely isn’t the word you’re going to use when we’re done, I guarantee it.”
“What word will I use?”
“‘Big’ comes to mind.” I chuckle.
Her hands slide to my belt and go to work on the buckle like she can’t wait to get started.
Uneasiness coasts through me. Fucking Ava is one thing. Fucking her in public where anyone can catch us in the act is another. I look over my shoulder again, but we’re still alone.
When she has my pants open, I push her hands aside. “Not yet, Rookie.” Goddamn, I don’t know if I can last when she finally touches me.
“I don’t want to be a rookie anymore.” She looks up at me with big eyes. They’re so open and honest, and I know she’s not talking about the reason I gave her that name so many years ago. She’s talking about finding that elusive orgasm that she’s never had the pleasure of experiencing.
I trace her jawline with the pad of my thumb. “Tonight’s your last night as a rookie,” I promise. “At least when it comes to orgasms.”
“What if I can’t?” she asks, fear lacing her words.
I place a finger under her chin and lift her gaze to mine. “You’re not the problem.” I drop a hot, wet, openmouthed kiss on her and then gaze deep into her eyes. “The problem is you’ve yet to sleep with a guy who knows what he’s doing between the sheets.”
She swallows hard. “If you’re trying to convince me that you’re the guy who knows how to fuck me the right way, it’s not necessary. You pretty much had me at ‘big.’” She wraps her legs around my hips and locks her ankles to my ass.
I dip two fingers inside her panties and smooth them along her slick entrance. Her uncontrollable shimmy sets my already tingling skin on fire.
“I bet you taste so fucking good.” I keep the dirty talk going. She thinks the F-bomb is sexy, so I drop it a few more times. “Do you want me to fuck you with my tongue, Ava?” Works like a charm.
“Yes.” Her head falls back, and her long lashes brush the creamy skin under her eyes.
“And my cock?” I tease her.
“God, yes.” Her eyes are still closed.
Her sex is soaking my fingertips as I keep stroking her heated pussy. I uncurl one of her hands from my shoulder and place it on the hood.
“Lean back and enjoy the ride, sweetheart.” She braces herself with both arms behind her, and I sink two fingers into her wet heat.
A deep throaty cry of pleasure rips from her. That drives me on, and I withdraw my fingers, then pump them into her again. Her scream splits the air around us. My hand picks up speed, and she writhes and squirms with each thrust. She’s close. I know she is by the tension rippling through her. I find her throbbing clit with my thumb and circle it while I keep fucking her with my fingers. I slide as deep inside of her as I can and curl my index finger into her pulsing pussy.
Bingo. That thrust and curl move hits her G-spot, and she explodes into a window-shattering orgasm. Her muscles contract and convulse around my fingers, and I massage deep inside of her to prolong the climax. She’s soaring above the clouds, and just so there’s no goddamn mistaking that I can bring her more pleasure with just two fingers than any other man or machine, I curl those two fingers into her G-spot again.
She screams in pleasure and clamps her arms around my shoulders to hang on for dear life while she rides the wave of orgasm that’s cresting at her core. I bury my face in her neck, and pull her close until she descends from the clouds.
I swear I hear the crunch of gravel again and a faint laugh. I still and shelter Ava in my embrace, hoping my broad shoulders will hide her. Of course, it’s a little hard to protect her from embarrassment with her legs clamped around my ass and my unzipped pants drooping like a gangbanger.
There’s nothing but silence in the darkness, so I brush it off as paranoia. And maybe a little guilt. I’ve always known that if I ever opened this door with Ava, I wouldn’t be able to close it again, and that scares the hell out of me.
I zip my pants and buckle my belt. Then I help her down from the hood. “Get in.” I open the car door for her. “I’ll get our coats and be right back.”
Before I can close the door, she fists my vest and pulls me down for a kiss. It’s soft but sensual with tongue. Lots and lots of tongue. I let her take the lead on this one because it’s really fucking nice after what we just shared.
As she deepens the kiss, I mold a palm to her cheek. The kiss goes on for a long time, and our breaths kick up a notch. We’re both getting turned on again.
Finally, I break the kiss before I do her again right here in the parking lot.<
br />
“Thank you,” she says, and I know she’s talking about her first orgasm without double A batteries. Courtesy of yours truly. Fuck the Energizer bunny. That little bastard can piss off.
My nose brushes hers. “We’re not done yet, Rookie.”
Not by a long shot.
Chapter Thirteen
Ava is all over me during the drive back to her house. Swear to God, I have to lock her hand in mine to keep her from giving me a hand job all the way home.
Not that I’d mind. I’m one hundred and fifty percent certain I’d enjoy the hell out of it. My first concern is Ava, though. I want her to be thoroughly satisfied before we start acting out my fantasies.
“Come on.” She leans over the console and kisses my neck. Her hair has escaped from its clip and falls across my chest. “Live dangerously.”
I tug her hand to my lips and feather a kiss along the side of her finger. “Having sex on the hood of my car in the parking lot of your old high school during a school function isn’t dangerous enough for you?”
“No, it’s not, since I didn’t get to return the favor. Yet.”
Christ Almighty, I want to give her full access to the plank of wood in my pants, but we’re just a few minutes from her house. Instead, I slip her fingertip between my lips and suck.
A sharp breath whistles through her lips.
When I pull into the drive and park, she’s already got both of our seatbelts undone and is trying to go down on me. That boldness is what I love about her. The way she tackles everything, holds nothing back like it might be her last chance in life to do so. She’s obviously going to take the same approach to sex.
“Ava,” I say through gritted teeth. I crack the car door, so the inside light flickers to life, but she ignores me. So I wind that beautiful, flowing hair around my hand and tug her mouth up to mine. I lay a deep, demanding kiss on her so she knows I’m in charge. When I finally disentangle my tongue from hers, her baby blues are glazed with so much hunger it knocks the wind from my lungs.
Rookie Moves (A Checkmate Inc. Novel Book 2) Page 8
