by Fiona Quinn
One side of her mouth quirked into a smiling question.
“Twitter doesn’t come close to doing you justice. Doing your sense of humor justice.” He laced his fingers with hers and led her forward. “Twitter funny is nothing like real-life Avery funny.”
Avery got the sense that he was trying to shift his thoughts to something gentlemanly. She couldn’t say she appreciated it. There was a time for being a gentleman, and there was a time to drop a girl’s panties. Right now she would rather he rip her clothes off.
She was warm and tingling. She had a desperate need to feel his weight between her legs. To have him sliding in and out of her, bringing her relief.
Avery stepped farther into the room.
A king sized bed. A table with two chairs to the side by the window. A lowboy with its coffee pot, sitting opposite the bed.
He stood there behind her. Their fingers laced. He seemed to be waiting for a signal, maybe to see where she wanted to settle in.
Avery turned and reached for his other hand and laced those fingers, too.
She leaned back against the wall, and slowly lifted her chin as she closed her eyes.
Rowan’s lips found hers with a nip and a lick that had her opening her mouth for his tongue to play. This wasn’t the soft kisses from the bar earlier. This was hunger.
Rowan dragged her hands up the wall and pinned them over her head, holding her there as his body pressed into her. She could feel the strength of his chest and thighs.
She completely trusted him.
It was heady stuff to have someone so smart and handsome look at her the way Rowan had looked at her from the moment their eyes had caught. Oh, there he is, she’d thought in the bar and had raced into his arms like she’d always been there, like that was her place in this world. And that’s how this felt. Perfectly right.
Lost.
She was lost in their kiss.
Couldn’t get enough of this kiss.
He released her hands and swept her up in his arms, he took the three steps to the bed where he laid her down.
Yes! she thought. Now!
But he stopped, stood, and took a step back. She could see in his eyes, he was wrestling with himself. Avery imagined that he thought he was moving too fast. When for her, it wasn’t nearly fast enough. Her gaze skimmed his body, stopping on the bulge in his jeans where his hard-on pressed against his zipper.
A flood of hormones swirled through her veins.
Avery curled her legs under her as she came to kneeling on the bed. There was nothing coy about the look she was sending him. She had tucked her chin and looked at him with smoldering eyes. She reached down and slowly, slowly unbuttoned her blouse.
Rowan’s body tensed as he watched her. He stepped to the end of the bed to watch her, settling his hips against the low boy.
Slipping her silk blouse from one shoulder, then the other, her breasts rounded out of a frame of violet lace. She let the blouse fall to the side, then swept her hands under her breasts, lifting them and pressing them together, stroking her thumbs along the tops, down around her hardened nipples.
Rowan curled his fingers into the edge of the low boy and licked his lips.
Avery reached behind her as she unbuttoned her skirt, unzipped the zipper, and pulled it over her head. She was wearing silky panties in the same deep purple and stockings held in place around her legs by lacey elastic.
She glided higher in the bed, and lay back on the pillows, letting her long curls form a halo around her head. “Your turn,” she said.
A slow smile slid across Rowan’s face. He unbuttoned one cuff, then the other.
Avery desperately wanted to reach into her panties and bring herself some relief. Watching him slowly unbutton his shirt, seeing the strength of his pecks, the washer board ridges on his abdomen, she was drunk on desire.
He tugged the tail of his shirt from his jeans and cast it aside.
The lights were dim, but they didn’t hide the bruises that ran up and down his side.
He’d been in the accident.
The bruise on his face hadn’t looked so bad, Avery hoped this wasn’t going to cause him pain. And she hoped it didn’t stop him from making love to her. Because right now she was feeling frantic to get him inside her.
Rowan moved to the end of the bed, popping the top of his jeans, dragging down the zipper. His cock bulged out.
Avery reached out her hands welcoming him into her arms. But he crawled onto the bed and stopped.
Kneeling at her feet, he reached for her ankle, dragging her toward him.
Off came her first high heel. Her second.
She moaned and closed her eyes.
He pulled her a little further down until she had a leg on either side of him. He caressed her calf with the silky stocking. His fingers danced along the top where the lace stopped and her skin was ultrasensitive. Rowan smiled knowingly, lasciviously, when her body shuddered.
He bent and licked along the top of her stocking then curled his fingers into the top of the band and slowly dragged the stocking down to her ankle. He let his thumbnail graze over her instep as he pulled it off and watched as her muscles tensed.
She was so sensitive, so turned on, that she was growing a little panicky, angry even, that he was down there smiling when she just wanted him in her.
He lifted her foot to his lips and kissed her just below the ankle, working his way up to her knee. When he got to her thigh, his kisses turned to little licks. The higher up he moved, the more she wriggled, her eyes squeezed shut, her fingers tangled in her hair.
He stopped when he reached the top, just shy of her panties.
She lifted her head and looked at him. She growled her displeasure that he’d stopped, and dropped her head back down, frustrated.
That made Rowan chuckle.
“Patience,” he said.
He removed the stocking from her other leg in similar fashion, but this time, when he licked up her thigh, Avery was grinding her hips at him. Rowan blew warm air over the moist trail he’d laid.
He kissed her belly, her neck, her lips. His weight was on his elbows as he hovered over her.
“Avery,” he said.
She opened her eyes.
“What are we doing?”
She blinked. Hopefully they were going to fuck each other’s brains out. What did he mean what were they doing?
“I need to know what you want to happen here. You, all splayed out in front of me like this. It’s probably good if I check in.”
She rested her hands on his biceps. “Responsible even.”
“What do you want me to do? When do you want me to stop?”
“Stop after we’ve orgasmed. Maybe after we’ve orgasmed a few times.”
His smile. She wanted to live in the light of that smile.
He looked toward the bathroom and back to her.
“Is that okay?” she asked as she wrapped her legs around him, squeezing his hips between her thighs.
“More than okay.”
“Now it’s your turn.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “Why don’t you tell me what you want me to do?”
He pushed back to his heels and held his chin as he studied her. “Are you wet for me, Avery?” He lifted his brow and waited for her answer.
“Desperately so.”
He nodded. “All right then.” He reached up and drew her panties down her legs. “I want to watch you play with yourself. I need to get a condom from the other room, and I want to make sure you’ll keep yourself nice and warm for me while I’m gone.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rowan
Thursday Morning
New York City
The room was just bright enough to see the form and shape of the furnishings. Rowan couldn’t remember sleeping so deeply or so well. Thunder rumbled. Rain pattered hypnotically against the window.
He’d come awake at five, the way he always did, and had lain there for the past fifteen minutes reveling in the mo
ment.
Avery’s breath tickled his chest. Her little sighs brought a smile to his lips. He loved the warmth and weight of her thigh as she tangled her legs with his.
And though he didn’t want to break the spell, he’d promised Avery that he’d have her back to her hotel by six.
Rowan combed his fingers through her hair to wake her.
Tipping back her head, Avery blinked her lashes open, and smiled before she moved her hand to his throbbing dick. She turned her face toward the clock. “I wish you’d woken me sooner.”
He pressed a kiss into her hair. “You needed some sleep. I promise to make up for it tonight.”
Without an ounce of modesty, Avery climbed from under the covers and made her way to the bathroom. “Is it okay if I shower first?”
Rowan’s phone buzzed. “Yes,” he said, seeing that Lisa was on the screen. “I need to take this.”
The door clicked shut.
“Lisa?”
“I’m at your house,” she said.
“What do you mean you’re at my house. I’m in New York.”
“Yeah, I get that. The alarm company called me when Jodie didn’t answer. I’m standing here with the DCPD.”
“Wait. What? I’m sorry. I just woke up. The DCPD?”
“When your alarm goes off, your company calls Jodie first.”
Rowan scrubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah, since I’m almost always out of town. You’re—”
“Second on the list.”
“I’m sorry about that. Thank you for going over so early. Is everything okay there?”
“Not so much. The alarm was set to silent mode, apparently it was already signaling the alarm service, but you know, they don’t call the police right away they call—”
“The people on my list.”
“By the time I got over here, the PD was in here.”
“Sorry, no coffee in me yet. How did the PD get there before you did?”
“One of your neighbors took their dog for a walk. The dog was off lead, and he ran across your yard and into your open front door. The neighbor followed to catch their dog, and called the cops.”
“But why?”
“It looks like Jodie’s pretty angry.”
“What?” Rowan came to his feet. Jodie had eaten everything out of his fridge, had taken the cat, and doxxed him on Twitter. Those were things he could imagine Jodie doing, breaking into his house made no sense. “Jodie gave me back my key. Jodie wasn’t in my house. What are you seeing? Why do you think it’s her?”
“Your drawers are emptied out. Your cushions slashed. It looks like someone was looking for something, and they were shaking your house hard. Or they were trying to make a point of how pissed off they were.”
“But Jodie?”
“I’m going to send you some photos.”
After a moment, Rowen heard pings as his texts dropped. He opened them and couldn’t wrap his brain around what he was seeing. Along the walls in his hall, blue spray paint spelled out a bunch of cuss words.
“Well Dr. Kennedy, you know the human brain pretty well. Is it at all possible it was Jodie?”
“I suppose… She cusses like a sailor, but this is a stretch of my imagination. I’d never imagine her doing something like this.”
“It is kind of a coincidence that you had some squad of idiots trying to ambush you, and then have this happen. Your car’s not here, so I guess even the lowest common denominator could tell you weren’t home.”
“I told Jodie I was going out of town on Tuesday. Look, I can’t come home right now. As a matter of fact, I was going to call you later today and ask you to come up here. I need you to talk to Avery.”
“About what?”
…
“About Windsor Shreveport? About Taylor Knapp?”
…
“Well, damn. All right, let’s start here. What should I do about your house? Should I tell the DCPD about Jodie? Do you want her picked up for questioning?”
The water in the shower turned off.
“No. No. Let’s keep that between us. I’ll need a police report for the insurance. Other than that, just lock the house up and try to find out who my neighbor was with the dog, so I can send them some doggy biscuits or something. I’ll work on figuring this out later.”
“All done,” Avery called as she left the bathroom.
“Is that Avery?” Lisa asked.
“Yes.”
“In your room at five in the morning?” Lisa laughed. “No wonder you don’t seem to give a shit that your ex is a psycho and destroyed almost everything you own. I bet you’re too mellow from last night’s workout.”
“Lisa—” There was a warning in his voice.
“Okay, real quick then. I can’t make it up there today. I can come tomorrow.”
“Hey, Avery. Lisa’s on the phone.”
“At five in the morning?”
“We were in the military together, old habits die hard. She says she’s coming up to New York tomorrow, is there time in your schedule that we can meet her for drinks or something?”
“That’s my last night in town.” She paused. “Sure. I have to be at the convention during the day.” She was wrapped in a towel that barely covered from breast to thigh as she leaned against the wall. “But I can do what I want at night.”
When she winked at him, Rowan’s mind went blank as his blood rushed southward, and his dick stiffened with a raging hard-on.
There he stood, naked in his hotel room with work—Lisa on the phone at his ear as she stood in his house that was probably wrecked by his ex, Jodie—while sexy-as-hell Avery stood licking her lips as she looked at his dick.
It was one of the more bizarre moments of his life.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Avery
Thursday Noon
New York City
When she checked her phone, she had four calls from Lola. Lola was probably frantic because Avery hadn’t called to give her any details about Rowan, and more importantly, assure her that Rowan wasn’t some serial killer who had her tied up in a slum warehouse outside the city.
Avery read romance and Lola read Stephen King.
She moved to the corner to call and relieve her friend’s anxiety. And maybe dish a few of the delicious details about just how amazing Rowan was, how they seemed to fit together like a hand in a glove.
She quick dialed. “Hi, Lolly. I had my phone in airplane mode while I was lecturing. Sorry I didn’t call earlier.”
“It’s fine. Well, it’s almost fine. It’ll be fine soon. I’m heading over to the Giant Foods grocery store now.”
A frown crossed Avery’s forehead. “Okay. Um, I don’t think I need anything.”
“Sally didn’t call you?”
Darn it!
Avery made her way toward the next ballroom for her talk. “What’s Mom done now?”
“Ginny went missing for about an hour. The police found her, though.”
Avery pulled her convention schedule out of her pocket and checked. She needed Ballroom C. “Sally called the police, but didn’t call me?”
“No, the police found Ginny all on their own.”
Avery leaned against the wall. Her hand came up to cover her eyes. “Is Mom under arrest?” she whispered into the phone. “What did she do?”
“Not under arrest, no. Giant Foods doesn’t want that kind of publicity.” Laughter danced through Lola’s reply.
Avery felt the blood drain from her face. “What did she do, Lolly?” Avery’s hand moved to her throat. She sank onto a nearby chair.
“Well, the best I can tell from what the very lovely Officer Thibodaux said, is that your mom thinks her babysitters are trying to poison her. She says she hasn’t eaten for days because they’re all trying to kill her, freeze her, and take her social security check.”
“Oh, God.” Avery got up and moved with the press of convention goers, swarming through the hall.
“Apparently, they’re also stealing al
l of your mom’s clothes, because she…” Lola broke off talking. She was laughing too hard to make her words understood.
“Lolly, please. Please. Lolly, stop. What about Mom’s clothes?”
“Well, she isn’t wearing any. She walked into Giant Foods stark naked except for her bedroom slippers and was strolling up and down the aisles putting things in her cart.”
Avery lapsed into stunned silence. She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it.
“Are you there? Are you all right?”
Avery put the phone back to her ear. “Fine. Go on.”
“The manager called the police. The police called an ambulance. Your mom called me. I tried to call Sally. This is sounding a lot like the ‘There Was a Crooked Man’ nursery rhyme. Sally didn’t answer, so I went to your house and let her out of the basement.”
“What? You let Sally out of the basement?”
“She went down to do a load of clothes, and your mom put a chair under the knob. Sally couldn’t get back out. Anyway, after I freed Sally, I gathered up some clothes for your mom, and I’m heading to the store now.”
Avery imagined the grin on Lolly’s face. “I’m glad you’re having fun.”
“Oh, Avery, lighten up. It is what it is. This is what’s going on for your mom. There’s no changing it, so you have to reframe. She’s not upset, so why are you upset? I’ll get her dressed and take her back to your place.”
“Completely naked?”
“No, she had her slippers. Remember? But yes, otherwise she was sporting her birthday suit.”
“I…I have no words,” Avery stammered out. “What am I going to do with her?”
“Look, I’m pulling into the parking lot now. I’m taking her back to Sally and making sure your mom’s okay. I just wanted to ease your mind if you’d gotten any other calls.”
“Lolly, thank you. Thank you for doing this for me. I truly appreciate you.”
“Are you kidding? This is a good time—now if you asked me to change your mom’s diapers at some point—yeah, then you’d owe me.”
“No really. This is beyond the pale. It’s one thing to have this happening in my house. But it’s affecting my neighbors. It’s affecting people who are just trying to go get their bread and toilet paper unmolested at the store. It’s affecting you and your family.” Avery raised her hand and dropped it. “Even Father Pat. And Sally. Can you imagine having her job? I don’t pay her enough. I can’t pay her enough. I’m done.” She shook her head, feeling the full weight of the defeat. “My dad had no idea it was going to be like this.”
