Avery (Random Romance)

by Charlotte McConaghy

  She wriggled harder, trying to get one of her knees into my groin, but I held her still, allowing a slow smile to come to my lips. ‘Admit it, Ave. Admit you want me.’

  ‘Never,’ she snarled. One of her hands came free and she hit me hard across the cheek. I grabbed her and held her even harder, a breath of laughter escaping my lips. We stared at each other, unable to look away, and then I saw a very faint curve to her lips. I couldn’t stand it anymore – I had to kiss her. She struggled one last time, but once my lips found hers her whole body melted into softness, and her mouth lost all its hard edges. She kissed me back, hungry and desperate, and then she rolled me onto my back, pinning me down exactly as I had just done to her.

  ‘Even now, you’re still fighting me,’ I grinned. She smiled carelessly, something wild and untamed in her.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ she murmured, her breath hot on my lips, sending shivers of desire through my whole body, ‘You just think I’m fighting, but I’ve already won.’ And then she bit my lip, drawing blood. I laughed as she began to undress me.

  Ava

  His hands were burning me. My skin sizzled to the touch, so hot, everything inside me was way too hot. Dizzy, I stumbled out of the bed and pressed my palms and face flat against the cool glass of the window – it was like ice against my skin, impossibly sharp. I felt him move behind me – I could feel the very way he took up a room, inhabited every inch of space. His bare chest was like fire against my back, his lips felt like they were shattering bones as they ducked to my neck. My ragged breaths made condensation on the window as he moved his big, rough hands around to trace my shoulders and breasts and stomach. And when he leant around to find my mouth with his, the taste of him, the feel of him, it was all too much, too much sensation and feeling and pleasure, and I didn’t think my body would be able to handle it.

  ‘Ambrose,’ I gasped desperately.

  My pulse was a racing pegasis, heavy hoof-beats and fluttering wings. I could feel him trembling behind me, could feel what I was doing to him, to his body and his heartbeat – the same as he was doing to mine. His fingers slipped down until they were stroking me and moving inside me, and my head spun, heat spreading. Colours burst to life in my mind, spreading my veins and my bones. His touch was blue and red and lightning silver. It was so sharp and so smooth I felt cracked from the inside and pulled in every single direction.

  ‘I have to …’ he groaned, his mouth hot against my ear. ‘Ava. I have to have you –now.’

  I was lifted off the floor and twisted in his arms like I was a toy, a doll, so small and light I would float out of this room and fly away if he was not anchoring me with the heat and strength of his body. His chest was beneath my lips; he tasted salty and rough and sweet, and my fingernails were digging into the skin of his shoulders. I could feel his teeth nipping at my ear and my neck and then I was being pressed against the dresser and my legs lifted and went around his hips.

  With trembling fingers, I traced his lips and found his eyes. He looked feverish, dazed, utterly out of control. It caused something to lurch in my chest – something skipped and hammered and tightened.

  I gasped and felt his hands clench desperately. His mouth ducked down to my breast, taking the nipple between his teeth. I jerked against him in surprise, but he was already moving down, mouth gliding over my stomach and hands holding me too tight and tongue slipping inside me. Sounds left me in ragged gasps, and my body arched against the sensation, moving to a will of its own.

  ‘Ambrose, I—’ It was too much. But he kept going, and the feel of it built inside me, growing hot and sharp and making every part of me ache to have him deeper. With my hands in his hair, I yanked his head up. ‘Now,’ I demanded and he kissed me on the mouth, hard and fast and I couldn’t breathe – I was liquid in his hands, I’d do anything or be anything for him. I only breathed for him, and his hands on my thighs, and I couldn’t help but moan as he pressed himself inside me, moving deep, holding me so tight, eyes searching and finding all the pieces of me I thought were lost.

  I covered his mouth with mine, head spinning – his lips and his tongue and his teeth. I couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t get enough. ‘More,’ I whispered, and he moved deeper and harder and faster and everything else was lost and I was drowning in an ocean of him but it still wasn’t enough.

  ‘Ava,’ he uttered, his shaking hands holding my face. I looked at him and was shocked to see that his eyes were completely, blazingly, impossibly gold. I’d never seen eyes so gold, never imagined there could be a shade this colour in the world. I felt the atmosphere change, felt everything change. This was his I love you. This was a thousand I love yous. It was his forever and it was more gold than I had ever known, more of every colour, more than I would ever know what to do with.

  I held his eyes with as much strength as I could manage as I felt my body shatter into a thousand pieces, bursting and exploding and filling with light. It was life bursting back into my soul. It was life and pleasure and touch and so much need I realised I truly had been dying, I had been wasting and now I could breathe because his lungs were working twice as hard, and they were giving me air, just as his heart was beating strong enough for the both of us. It was the beginning of something I didn’t know how I would ever face, or if I’d ever be ready for. The beginning of something that marked the greatest betrayal a Kayan man or woman had ever committed.

  But who in this world had ever loved the way Ambrose of Pirenti did? Who had ever loved with such fire? Such courage?

  Ambrose held me very tightly, and I could feel that his heart wasn’t slowing, just as mine wasn’t either. Searching my face with eyes blue once more, he said, in a voice broken under a great weight and shocked by what had passed between us, ‘You’re going to destroy me, Ava of Orion.’

  My hands found his face and I whispered, ‘I’m here. I’m right here, and I’m staying.’

  Closing his eyes, he rested his forehead against mine and breathed me in, and he held me while he whispered things in my ear, secret and nonsensical things, savage and perfect and frightened things, and all the while I did – I stayed with him, I stayed and stayed and stayed, but deep inside me was a dark place that didn’t know how long I would ever be able to stay.

  We spent the night with words and touches. He said words like here? And like this? And other times he said no, let me show you, or this way, sweetheart, or tell me when, so that I would always be talking and telling him how I felt, and so that I would never disappear into guilt, as he somehow instinctively knew I might.

  Slowly, under his touches, I felt my half-walker body find its way to whole. I gasped and trembled in a way I never had before, not even with Avery, and my ghost heart found a way to start beating again.

  He was everything I’d thought he could never be – sweet and tender. And when he whispered, I adore you, I gave him all of myself, just for the night.

  Ambrose

  As the sun sank again and the moon rose into the sky, she lay in my arms, her fingers gently tracing the Marks over my heart. Her eyes were purple as she stared at them, and she was biting her lip. I looked down at her fingers on my tattoos.

  ‘Regret is a dangerous thing,’ I murmured.

  She met my eyes, moved her fingers to touch my lips, and then traced them along the line of my scar. ‘Ambrose,’ she murmured.

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Would you still … desire me if I wanted to be a boy again?’

  I thought of the last hours from within the stunned, dreamlike haze I’d been in all night. It didn’t make sense, what she’d done to me. It was too big, too impossible, for a man who’d been contained in a very small box for his entire life. But the vulnerability in that question, in her face and voice and eyes, made me think of the night in the jungle when I’d held her hand as she wept. ‘You know,’ I said softly, ‘I kind of miss Avery. Tell him he can join me again whenever he feels like it.’

  The purple of her eyes paled into a beautiful, clear lilac as she s
miled. ‘You said before that I wear armour, and that I’m never going to take it off. But, Ambrose, if you asked, I’d take it off for you.’

  I breathed out, feeling too many things at once. She was seriously starting to undo me. ‘I know,’ I said, ‘but, Ava, girl, what you need to understand about me is that I’d never ask.’

  She nodded, smiling that same smile that had first made me fall in love with her. ‘I do. I think that’s why my eyes turn gold when I look at you.’

  Later, much later, I found my voice again. ‘I told you, Ave. I told you that you could be sweet.’

  A day and a night we stayed in bed together. We barely slept, instead spending every waking hour talking or making love. When she finally drifted off, I spent hours staring at the ceiling and trying to work out what I was going to do. We’d changed things, the two of us. And now we seemed to have backed ourselves into a corner with no way out except by breaking something. I had choices to make. Big ones.

  In the early hours of the next morning Ava stirred slightly. ‘Avery?’ she murmured drowsily, reaching for me in the darkness. It made my heart clench with a simple pain.

  ‘No,’ I murmured heavily. ‘It’s Ambrose.’

  She blinked, and I saw the grief explode, a tidal wave of it. She took a shuddering breath and then burst into violent tears.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I tried quickly, reaching for her, but she shivered and shook her head, overcome with the kind of grief that killed you. ‘What have I done?’ she sobbed, over and over again.

  I didn’t know what to say, what to do. All the pieces of her that I’d thought were rebuilding had shattered apart once more and spread to the ends of the world. She was devastated, and I’d been so arrogant to think I could save her. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t keep her here with me – I wasn’t enough for that.

  I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed as tightly as I could while she unravelled, wracked by violent, painful sobs and whispering his name like a mantra that destroyed me.

  Chapter 13

  Ava

  My first thought, upon feeling his body next to mine, was that Avery’s death had all been a horrible dream, and that he’d been next to me all along. The devastation of realising that this was not so was intense. What came after, however, shocked me even more – it was a kind of overwhelming relief. Those were Ambrose’s arms wrapped around me. It was his breathing I could feel against my body, his heartbeat I could make out, pounding in my ears, and he was every bit a part of me as Avery had been. I rolled over to look at his face – as calm and vulnerable in sleep as it never was when awake. He looked very young. His face was somehow so unfamiliar and yet I had every one of his features committed to heart – the knowledge of which was like a battleaxe smashing through my chest. It seemed impossible that my body could hold all of these feelings without collapsing from the weight of them. This was not the experience of someone who was dying. These were not the feelings of a ghost.

  I slowly untangled myself from his large, warm body and the hands that held me. He made a noise and reached for me, then fell back asleep when his hands found my pillow. I stood next to the bed, staring at him. I wanted to climb back in, to wake him and kiss him and have him hold me like he’d done all night and all the day before. Instead, I focused only on the living, breathing guilt in my stomach – on the word in my mind and heart that wouldn’t stop repeating: Run. Run, run, run.

  I quickly bound up my hair and pulled on the stupid linen dress I felt stupid in. Casting a last look at Ambrose, I snuck out of the room and pressed myself hard and fast down a path I hadn’t explored before. My quick, bare feet pounded over the grass as I drew deeper into the jungle. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I needed sun and air and movement. It was very early in the morning and I didn’t want to think about the lunacy of the night before. I couldn’t. I just wanted to run.

  After about twenty minutes I came to an opening in the canopy of trees and emerged to find myself in a grassy clearing, panting hard. Dizzy, I sank to my knees and almost burst into tears. What was I doing?

  With clear sky above and a stretch of empty grass, I longed for Migliori, but knew he was too far away to feel me through the bond, so I sank onto my back and moved my hands through the grass, feeling the sensations against my skin and finding pictures in the early morning clouds. The sun had not yet risen completely, so it was still chilly; I felt hyper aware of the air against my skin.

  I must have drifted to sleep, because some time later, with the sun much higher in the sky, I opened my eyes to hear a deep voice. ‘Hello, pretty boy.’

  He was standing above me, blotting out the sky. He was blotting out everything, as always.

  I sat up, blinking blearily.

  ‘You ran,’ he muttered. He sprawled onto the ground next to me and we stared up at the clouds.

  ‘I don’t run.’

  He snorted. ‘Right.’

  I flushed and dropped my eyes to the ground. ‘I didn’t go far.’ But I could feel his gaze on me, and I knew he understood exactly what I hadn’t said. I didn’t go far because I’m trapped on this island and I don’t know where else to go.

  Give me wings. Please, just two of them.

  ‘How do you feel?’ he grunted.

  ‘Fine. You?’

  ‘Fine.’ There was silence for a moment, until he sat up and stared down at me. ‘What’s going on?’

  I didn’t reply, but I could feel my answer building.

  ‘Tell me the truth – do you regret what happened?’ he asked.

  I couldn’t get any words out.

  He sighed angrily. ‘Answer me, Ava.’

  The guilt that had been flooding my veins since I’d woken made the response easy. ‘Yes, all right?’ I told him softly. ‘Yes.’

  I’d never seen him so hurt – so vulnerable. It was strange on such strong, angular features. I took a deep breath and stood up. He stood too, and it felt oddly formal, facing each other like this. ‘You don’t understand,’ I told him as clearly as I could. ‘It will never lessen, how I feel for him. It will never fade. I’ll never grow tired of him.’

  ‘I know that.’

  I met his eyes. ‘No, you don’t. You will always come second. You will never be my choice. If he walked through those trees right now, I would give you up.’

  I watched him close his eyes. ‘How cruel you are, my love.’

  I nodded. I was cruel. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to push him so hard that he wouldn’t follow me, he’d never follow me anywhere again, because I couldn’t have his eyes on me or his skin against mine and still do what I had to do. I couldn’t have Ambrose, and still avenge Avery. There wasn’t enough space in my heart for both.

  Ambrose walked to me, six foot six of muscle. He encircled my hips and lifted me to the grass beneath him, then took hold of my ankles, and his hands moved up my legs. He lifted the dress, pulling it up over my hips, over my shoulders and my head. He pressed his lips against my collarbone, my breasts, my stomach, along the whole length of me. He kissed my skin, touched my body. He cried; I felt the tears on my legs. He made love to me, right there on the grass.

  Afterwards, he got up, walked to the other side of the clearing and sat down. I watched him, embarrassed and confused as I pulled my clothes back on. I’d hurt him; I kept hurting him. I didn’t know how to stop except by getting away from here.

  Biting my lip, I approached. ‘You knew all along, Ambrose. You knew it would be this way.’

  ‘What?’ he snapped. ‘That I’d always come second to a dead man?’

  I nodded mutely.

  ‘You tell me I’m insensitive,’ Ambrose said, ‘but you’re a million times worse.’

  I blinked, staring at him. ‘Of course I am. I’ve got half a soul.’

  He shook his head. ‘And what a glorious excuse that one is. I’d give anything to see what you were like before he ruined you.’

  I turned away quickly, and after a moment heard him sigh. The sun peeked its
way through the trees, turning the tips of every blade of grass golden.

  ‘I have a question,’ I said after a while, needing to change the subject. ‘You and your brother – are you close?’

  His eyes were hooded. ‘We used to be. Very close.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I don’t know. Since when do you care about my life?’

  I swallowed.

  Ambrose didn’t reply for a long time, then finally muttered. ‘We’re different, that’s all. I can’t fault him for being loyal. It’s just … not really my thing – to not question things. And he doesn’t like that about me.’

  I thought about Thorne, the giant man I’d seen only very briefly in the dungeon. I’d always thought Ambrose was an intimidating sort of man, but compared to his older brother, he might as well have been a fluffy kitten. Thorne had tattoos all over his arms, and I wondered, now, if any of them were Marks.

  ‘What of his wife?’

  ‘What about her?’ Ambrose asked.

  ‘He threw her in the dungeon next to me, after he hit her.’

  ‘What’s your question?’

  ‘Well, I guess I just want to know if she’s … okay.’

  Ambrose hesitated a moment, then sighed and slumped back onto the ground. For a while he just lay there, eyes closed, and I had no idea if he meant to answer me or not. Then I realised that he was thinking about her – about the girl with the red hair and the bottomless eyes.

  ‘Roselyn is … strange,’ he murmured finally.

  I remembered the way she’d counted non-stop instead of sleeping. I remembered the way all the life behind her eyes seemed to vanish when her body no longer interested her.

  ‘People think she’s stupid, but she’s not. Thorne’s the only one who understands that.’