by Julie Kriss
Fifteen
Ava
* * *
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I said.
Dane’s voice was a growl in my ear. “Yes, we should.”
“I promised myself I’d be good,” I said. “What if my brother finds out?”
“He won’t find out.”
“You don’t know that.” I looked around. “He could have someone watching us do this. Right now.”
“That would be weird,” Dane said. “Aidan has always been intense, but he’s never been weird.”
I sighed and leaned back, tilting my head back and pushing my sunglasses up on my nose. The sun had passed its zenith and was starting to wane as the afternoon went on, but it was still warm. I felt it like a touch on my bare skin. “This is very, very bad,” I said.
There was a soft splash, and then Dane was there, his big, bare presence right next to me. His hair was tied back in its usual knot, and he had sunglasses on. He was floating on an inflated mat like mine, but because he was so big and muscled, he had sunk closer to the water. The light refracted on the surface of the pool, making patterns on his gorgeous chest.
“Ava,” he said, “you need to relax.”
I felt briefly bad, but then I was transfixed by his chest again, and I was too distracted to feel guilty. “I’m supposed to be working,” I said, still looking at his chest from behind my sunglasses and trying to remind myself. “Aidan is paying me. Tower VC is paying me. I’m on company time.”
“And I own a quarter of Tower VC,” Dane said. “Which means you work for me.”
“I do not work for you,” I said, because I couldn’t let his ego get away with that.
“Fine. You work for me twenty-five percent of the time of this assignment. I’m counting today in my twenty-five percent.”
I pressed my lips together. Damn, it was hard to work for a bona fide genius. “So in your twenty-five percent, you wanted me to go shopping and then lounge in your pool?”
“Yes.” He scratched his chin, looking up at the sky. “Though when I offered to take you bathing suit shopping, I didn’t think you’d pick Target.”
I smiled. He’d suggested we spend the day at the rooftop pool in his building, but I hadn’t brought a bathing suit on this trip. Dane had told me we’d buy a bathing suit wherever I wanted. I’d picked Target. Then I’d taken great pleasure in taking Dane there, making him shop with me, and making him pay a whole twenty dollars at the checkout for the tankini I bought.
I had to give him points, because he’d done it without complaining. And now we were floating in the giant rooftop pool in his building, alone, the Chicago skyline spread out around us. The city I hated was almost beautiful from this high up. We’d been here all afternoon, and I didn’t want to leave.
“Part of being a stylist,” I explained, “is knowing when to spend money and when to jump on a bargain.” I gestured to my black-and-red bathing suit. “This was a bargain.”
It was hard to tell behind the sunglasses, but I was pretty sure Dane took a good look at my tankini, top to bottom. “I know how to shop for bargains,” he said. “I grew up as poor as you, remember?”
I did remember. “Baked beans,” I said. “One can is lunch and dinner! The best way to eat on a budget.”
“Canned tuna,” Dane said. “Green’s Market sold it cheap by the case once the expiry date had passed. It was worth the risk of food poisoning.”
I laughed. “That’s disgusting.”
“I know. I can’t even look at canned tuna now. Can’t smell it. The memories are too bad.”
I laughed again, and we were quiet for a second, because here we were, on a rooftop pool in one of the most expensive buildings in Chicago. Dane had come such a long way from that kid with glasses whose parents were never home, who ate canned tuna while he taught himself to program.
“Why are we the only ones here?” I asked him as we floated to the deep end, then started to circle back.
“Because I told the concierge I wanted the pool to myself for the afternoon.”
“And he made it happen, just like that?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
I looked him over again, trying to be discreet about it. Dane was wearing black swim trunks, and he had that nice, thin line of hair leading from his belly button down into the waistband. What a perfect line of hair that was. His stomach was tight with muscle, too. He had a light smattering of brown hair on his chest—not too much, not too little. I knew a lot of men who waxed their chests. It looked better for photographs that way, but I’d always found it disconcerting in real life. Probably because I subconsciously compared most male chests to Dane’s.
“What?” Dane said when I was silent for too long.
“I’m just thinking,” I said, looking away to cover up my ogling.
“About what?”
I blinked up at the sky, where clouds were moving over the sun. The words bubbled up out of me, though to be honest they’d been hovering on the edge of my mind since I’d gotten off the plane in Chicago. “Do you think I should visit my mother while I’m here?”
If he was surprised by the change of topic, he didn’t show it. “No,” he said. “I don’t think you should.”
“Really?” I frowned. “It’s something a good daughter would do.”
“According to who?” His voice was hard.
I glanced at him in surprise. “According to everyone, I guess. Everyone thinks you should be nice to your mother.”
Dane pushed up his sunglasses and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Not everyone has your mother, Ava. She’s bad for you. Even when she wasn’t sick, she was the shittiest parent I’ve ever seen. And I had shitty parents myself.”
I watched his face, the tightness in his jaw as he spoke. I was always so steeped in my own misery when I talked about my mother, I’d never paid close attention to Dane. “You don’t like her,” I said.
“Of course I don’t like her.” Now he was tense, trying to keep his voice calm. “Do you know how many times you came over to our apartment with tears in your eyes? You never wanted to talk about it, but I always knew. The days you came over looking sad, the days you were quiet except to call yourself fat or ugly—I knew those were the days she’d done something new. Told you that you were stupid, or to stop whining, or that you were in her way. You used to do your homework at the library until they closed every night because you didn’t want to go home. Remember the time you asked her to go to a parent-teacher meeting because the teacher had asked for it? She laughed in your face and said You must be joking. You looked like she’d hit you. I was fucking furious. I still am.”
My jaw had dropped during this speech, and my heart had sped up. I remembered the parent-teacher incident, though I’d suppressed it until now. I remembered telling Aidan about it at the time. Had Dane been in the room? I must not have noticed if he was.
“I didn’t…” I tried to make the words form. “I didn’t talk about any of that.”
“No, you didn’t,” Dane said. “I may have been an antisocial nerd and a virgin, but when a girl comes over to your apartment with tears in her eyes, you fucking notice. At least, I did. She did it to you over and over again. So no, I don’t think you need to visit her, even though she’s sick. And I think that anyone who wants to judge you for it can fuck off.”
He slid off his floating chair and into the water, graceful for a guy so big. In two strokes he was at the edge of the pool. I watched him pull up onto the tiled deck, his arms flexing, the muscles moving in his back. I stayed where I was, in the water, still in shock.
He’d seen. Dane had seen everything.
I’d felt so alone as a teenager. I’d taken every insult, every harsh comment, to heart in silence, by myself. I hadn’t talked to a teacher or a guidance counselor or a therapist. I’d just kept all of my hurt inside, because I’d felt I’d deserved it.
But now that I thought back on it, I realized I hadn’t been completely alone. Aidan had left hom
e when I was eleven and he was fifteen—he’d gotten the apartment with the other guys and he’d made it clear I was always welcome there. It wasn’t the usual attitude of a fifteen-year-old boy and his friends toward his little sister, but none of us had questioned it. I’d always known I could go to Aidan when things at home got too much for me, and so I had. And Aidan and his friends had taken me in.
But even as I’d spent time at the apartment, I’d never actually talked about what went on with my mother at home. Her absences, her casual insults, her offhand comments that I was too fat or my hair looked stupid. She’d told me more than once that I should probably get a boyfriend and marry him, because God knew I’d never get a good job. And most of all, when we were home in our small apartment I was supposed to go to my room and be quiet. Never make any noise, and never ask her for anything, because by having me she’d already given more than enough and I didn’t deserve her attention. I sure as hell didn’t deserve her love, no matter how much I followed her rules.
I hadn’t talked about any of that with Aidan’s friends, but Dane knew. He’d seen it. Because he’d been watching me.
And he was angry on my behalf. He always had been. And I’d never known.
We’d never talked about my mother when we were together. We’d hardly talked at all during that crazy winter. We’d been far too busy doing other things, and he knew I didn’t want to talk about my mother. Not one word, not ever. He’d respected that.
Dane was drying himself off, running the towel over his strong legs. Without looking at me, he ran it lightly over his stomach, his chest. He sat down on one of the pool chairs and ran the towel over his face, putting his elbows on his knees. Then he dropped the towel and put his head in his hands.
I slid off my floating mat and swam to the edge of the pool, putting my hands on the tile to pull myself up.
“I should have done something,” Dane said. “All those times you were holding back tears. Maybe I couldn’t have fixed it, but I could have fucking said something. That you looked nice. That you didn’t deserve that. Something.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” I said, taking off my sunglasses and putting them on the table. The clouds had covered the sun now, and the breeze blew cool. I was lying a little; it would have mattered to me, in those awful years with my mother, to hear something nice. But in the scheme of things, it wouldn’t have made me feel any better. “I wouldn’t have listened,” I said. I grabbed my own towel and ran it over myself, feeling the sensation on my skin along with the cooler air.
Dane dropped looked up at me, dropping his hands to dangle between his knees. “You didn’t deserve how she treated you,” he said, “and you did look nice. Just so you know.”
I knew exactly what I wanted in that moment. Me, the woman who changed her clothes and her hair color on a whim. The woman whose confidence went from high to nonexistent in the space of a breath. In that perfect moment, everything was so clear. I knew what I wanted, and I knew, deep down, that I was going to get it.
I walked over to Dane and swung a leg over his thighs. I lowered myself into his lap, feeling the heat of his body against me. “You’re very sweet,” I said.
His eyes had gone dark as I pressed all the way down against him, only the thin fabric of our bathing suits between us. “I’m not sweet,” he said in a growl.
I tangled my hands in his long, soft hair. “Liar,” I said, and kissed him.
There wasn’t even a breath of hesitation. He kissed me back, bringing his muscled arms up around me, his hand to the back of my neck. His beard rasped against my skin as he opened my mouth, and I felt that rasp in a shiver all the way down my body, between my legs. I’d been reliving that kiss from a few nights ago, the feeling of Dane’s weight on top of me, my legs wrapped around him. Before that, it had been years since I’d kissed this man. I remembered every second of the last time we were together, even though Dane had probably forgotten it.
I was hot now, waves of fever traveling over my skin beneath my bathing suit, despite the breeze. Dane broke the kiss and lowered his mouth to my neck, tasting the skin there as I exhaled and arched into him. His big hands deftly untied the string at the back of my neck and my tankini top was undone. He pulled the damp fabric down and cupped my breasts, moaning softly against my skin.
I closed my eyes. Dane’s touch was warm, his skin rough and gentle at the same time. He knew exactly what I liked. He squeezed me softly, briefly, and then he let his thumbs travel slowly over my nipples, making them ache. He moved them back over my nipples again, and then again, his touch feather-light. I felt the answering pulse between my legs, and for a minute I wondered if I could come from this alone.
“So fucking beautiful,” he growled. He’d always been a lover of my breasts, the president of their fan club. He liked to give them plenty of attention, returning to them over and over until I was nearly begging him. He knew how much I loved it, and he loved it too. He knew that I didn’t like to be handled rough, but that I liked to be stroked. Keeping his hands where I liked them, he kissed back up my neck and took my mouth again.
I sighed into him, my body like hot wax in his hands, and for a long moment I let him do whatever he wanted, let him use his teeth and his tongue and his hands to drive me wild. But I already knew what I wanted. I broke the kiss and rose off his lap, then pushed his knees apart and knelt between them.
Dane made a choked sound in his throat, and he said my name, but I didn’t let him hesitate. I pulled down the waist of his swim shorts and took out his cock, which was hard and hot in my hands. First I ran my fingers over it, my touch light as I smoothed over the skin. Then I wrapped my hand around it and gave it a gentle squeeze, making him growl.
This cock was familiar to me. I was the first girl to see it, to touch and taste it, to learn what it liked. I hadn’t seen Dane’s cock in years, and right now I’d never been more possessive of anything in my life. This had been mine once, and now it was mine again. I stroked it, feeling the muscles of his thighs go hard, watching the flex of his stomach. He was breathing hard. A few simple touches, and I knew he was already close.
That ninety-pound ballerina can go to hell, I thought, and I leaned in and took him in my mouth.
Dane flinched, trying to keep control, but his hips lifted off the chair, pushing him further into me. He exhaled, hard, and I ran my tongue over him, getting familiar with the contours of him again. I let my jaw relax, let him fill my mouth. I moved down an inch, then slowly back up again.
“Jesus, Ava,” I heard him rasp, his voice harsh with control. “That is so fucking good. Don’t stop. Do not fucking stop.”
I didn’t stop, but I didn’t speed up, either. As virgins, we’d both had the instinct to go fast, to get to the finish as quickly as possible. We’d done it fast any number of times, but we’d had to teach ourselves—and each other—to go slow. We’d almost been good at it by the end, and I wasn’t about to let him off the hook now. Right in this moment, kneeling between his knees, I owned him. We were going to go at my pace.
He acceded to my rhythm, and then we were in perfect sync, Dane and me. We moved without thinking. I knew that I had him crazy with pleasure, that he was all mine, and he knew it too. His breath grew harsher and his thighs flexed. He didn’t have to tell me he was close, because I already knew.
He said my name again, his voice ragged, right before he came. I swallowed everything, and when it was over I pushed the waistband of his shorts up again. I stayed between his knees, my elbows on his thighs, as he collapsed back in the chair. I took a long moment to drink in the gorgeous sight of post-orgasm Dane Scotland: hair mussed, eyes dark, muscled chest rising and falling as he caught his breath.
Then I smiled up at him. “Now tell me. Who has the unfair advantage?”
Sixteen
Dane
* * *
The video call interrupted me as I was hard at work, bent over my laptop. I blinked and looked around me, realizing that it was already three in the a
fternoon. Outside, rain had started coming down, running down the windows. How did it get so late?
I answered the call, which was from the concierge downstairs. “Mr. Scotland, you have a delivery.” He said a French word which I recognized as the name of the suit company.
My suits from a few days ago were here. “You can send them up,” I said, adding, “Is anyone with them?”
“Anyone besides the delivery person? No, sir.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
I thanked him and hung up. It was afternoon, I hadn’t seen Ava since yesterday at the pool, she hadn’t called or texted me. She hadn’t come by to help deliver her precious clothes, then make me put them on. I hadn’t heard anything from her at all.
I picked up my phone, scanning it in case I’d missed something. I should have texted or called her, but I’d gotten sucked into work. I texted her now. My suits are here. Where are you?
The app said she read it, but she didn’t reply. Before I could think that through, there was a knock at my door and I let the delivery guy in. When all of the expensive, custom-tailored suits, shirts, dress pants, and ties were delivered, and I had given the guy a tip and let him out again, there was still no answer to my text.
Shit. What had I done?
That was my first thought: that I’d fucked something up somewhere. That session at the pool had been intense. I’d pretty much blanked out with pleasure for most of it. Had I said something to hurt her feelings? Or worse, to freak her out? I thought back, sorting through everything. That brought back the image burned into my brain: Ava pushing my knees apart, kneeling between them, smiling up at me as she yanked down the waist of my swim shorts.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and paced into the kitchen, opening the fridge and slamming it shut again. That blow job had been fucking amazing, it had definitely been Ava’s idea, and I hadn’t said or done anything stupid. Actually, I’d had to refrain from babbling adoring praise at her when it was finished, then offering to do anything she wanted—anything at all.
