Perfectly Able

by Suzannah Daniels

  When I walked into the cramped conference room at the title company, Ava sat alone with her back to me, golden curls cascading over her shoulders. I wanted nothing more than to twist those long strands of silk between my fingers and pull her head back, so that her lips were mine for the claiming.

  Instead, I opted to walk up behind her and kiss her on the cheek, partly because I hadn’t spoken to her in two days and I didn’t want her to think I was being an ass and partly because I couldn’t help myself.

  “Hello, sweet Ava,” I whispered in her ear as I pulled out the seat beside her and sat down.

  “Hi, Ridge.” She didn’t look me in the eyes, opting instead to shuffle the papers in her hands. I noted how sexy she looked in her dark suit, which contrasted sharply with her golden hair and the soft pink collar of her shirt. Perhaps she was aggravated with me, although I didn’t pick up any traces of that in her voice.

  “Is your leg better?” I asked, hoping that it was and realizing that if I hadn’t been so caught up in my memories of her having an orgasm at the touch of my hand, I would’ve, and should’ve, asked her that question sooner.

  “A little. Other than swimming, I probably won’t do too much more training between now and the triathlon. I have an appointment with my prosthetist to check whether my legs need any adjustments.”

  “Good. You’ll be ready to kick some serious ass during the triathlon.”

  She smiled and I realized how much I liked the professional look on her. She looked smart and sexy, and if I didn’t change my thought process, I was going to have a difficult time hiding my appreciation.

  Another woman walked into the conference room, carrying a stack of papers, followed by the gentleman who owned the house I was about to purchase and his real estate agent.

  After a good thirty minutes or more of signing papers, I was officially a homeowner, and sliding my very own home’s keys in my pocket felt damn good.

  Ava walked me to my car and held her hand out to me. “Well, congratulations,” she said, her hair blowing in the cool October wind. “One more thing you can mark off your list.”

  A grin broke across my face, and I rubbed my fingertips across my forehead. “You have no idea how long it took me to get to this point.”

  “I do this for a living. I do, actually, realize how difficult it is to build up credit and save for a down payment. I’m not at that point yet, which is one of the reasons that I’m not a homeowner. Marking that off your list is quite an accomplishment, and you should be proud. Some people live their entire lives not knowing what it feels like to own their own place.”

  I longed to reach out and catch the strand of hair blowing across her face and tuck it behind her ear, but I knew that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop there. I’d want to be with her, whether it was inviting her to a café for a cup of coffee or inviting her back to my place. Either way, I kept my fingertips shoved in my pockets, far away from her soft skin and her silky hair, far away from the one person that was difficult for me to resist.

  “Well, thanks for your help, Ava. If I hear of anyone in need of an agent, I’ll send ‘em your way.”

  “Thanks, Ridge.”

  “Guess I’d better get going.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do with moving and all. Guess I’ll see you around.”

  I watched her walk away. She had a hint of a limp, and I knew that her leg was still bothering her. In an attempt to force her out of my mind, I got in my car and headed for home, my new home. Mason and Kel were going to meet me there with the moving truck that we’d loaded this morning.

  As I pulled into my driveway, I felt vindicated against all the people who’d ever been assholes about my list. I’d been tormented countless times about my rigidity regarding my goals. While many of my friends drank their money away every weekend, I’d taken a more conservative approach, opting to drink a beer or two as opposed to buying expensive shots and mixed drinks. Many times I’d volunteer to be the designated driver, not drinking at all. Saving money wasn’t the only reason I did it. My personality forced me to be responsible, and hell, someone had to make sure all my drunken friends made it home in one piece.

  When I got out of the car, I spotted Mason and Kel sitting on the front porch waiting for me.

  “It’s about damn time,” Mason grumbled.

  I put the key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door, taking a step back as I motioned them in.

  “Here, I got you a housewarming gift.” Mason shoved a bottle of tequila, a container of salt, and a bag of limes toward me. “Don’t want you to get boring now that you’re not living with me anymore.”

  I chuckled, taking the items. “Unlike you, I don’t have to imbibe alcohol to be interesting.”

  “Oh, yes, you do,” Mason countered.

  “Hell, with a friend like you…,” I muttered walking in behind him.

  As I sat the items down on the granite countertop, Kelsey and Mason were checking out the rest of the house. When they met back in the living room, Kelsey saw the pool through the windows.

  She squealed. “I am going to spend my entire summer over here!”

  “No, you’re not.” I shook my head.

  Mason grinned. “Dude, we can have some serious parties out there.”

  Kelsey burst through the French doors that led outside and left them open. “This is so nice!”

  I couldn’t keep the smile from my face as my sister ran excitedly around the pool, dipping her fingertips in it.

  “It’s pretty warm, Ridge!” she exclaimed.

  As she came back into the living room, she asked, “When’s Ava coming over?”

  “She’s not.”

  Kel’s brow furrowed as she looked at me in surprise. “I thought she’d follow you over here.”

  “I’m sure she has other things to do, Kel. And so do we. Those boxes aren’t going to carry themselves in.”

  I opened the garage, and Mason backed the truck into the driveway. We unloaded everything into the garage, and what had once been a completely cleared double garage was now littered with boxes. On the plus side, I didn’t have an abundance of things. Most of the furniture at our apartment belonged to Mason. On the down side, I was going to have to go shopping.

  He helped me carry my bedroom furniture into the master suite while I sent Kelsey to the store to buy me a few groceries and some paper products.

  When she got back, she put the groceries up.

  “Come on, Kel,” Mason called. “I’ve got to take that moving truck back and get to work. You coming to Spanky’s tonight?”

  “I don’t know. Brandy’s supposed to pick me up at your apartment. I’ll see what she wants to do.” Kel looked at her phone. “Crap.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I’m supposed to call Mom and see if she wants me to bring something home to eat, but my battery’s dead. Can I use your phone?”

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and handed it to her.

  “Hey, Mason,” I said, while he waited on Kel, “thanks for helping me, man.”

  “You got it. Just make sure I get my invitation to that kickass Halloween party we’ve talked about.”

  “It’s a week from this Saturday. You’re gonna mix a few drinks for us, aren’t you?”

  “What’s a Halloween party without some nice, strong Long Island Iced Teas for the ladies?” he asked, grinning as he rubbed his fingers across his close-cropped beard.

  “Here,” Kelsey interrupted, handing me back my phone.

  I slid it in my pocket.

  “You ready?” Mason asked her.

  “Yep.” She turned to me. “See you later, Ridge.”

  “Thanks for helping.”

  She shot me a grin. “That’s what little sisters are for.”

  After they left, I grabbed my suits, which I had left on the hangers wrapped in the plastic from the dry cleaners, and hung them in my closet. I unpacked boxes of my clothes and carefully folded them and placed th
em in my drawers.

  I unpacked my toiletries and the few ratty towels and washcloths I owned. Pulling out my phone, I began a list of all the things that I’d need to buy starting with new towels and washcloths.

  As I neatly lined up my toiletry items under the sink in the master bathroom, the doorbell rang.

  I checked my appearance in the mirror, expecting to make a first impression with some of my new neighbors.

  Quickly walking to the front door, I swung it open.

  “Ava.”

  “Hey, Ridge.”

  It took me a moment to catch up with my manners, and I opened the door wider. “Come in.”

  She had changed into jeans and an orange sweater, and her hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail.

  “I got here as quickly as I could. Is everything okay?”

  I looked around as if someone was going to pop out of thin air and explain to me what I was missing. “Um, everything’s fine.”

  “It is?”

  I nodded. “It is.”

  “Oh, the way I read your text, I thought something might be wrong. I wasn’t sure if maybe something was wrong with the house or you were upset about something.”

  I placed my hands on her shoulders. “Okay, hold up. I’m lost. I didn’t send you a text.”

  “Yes, you did.” Then a look of comprehension crossed her face. “Oh, unless you accidentally sent me a text that you’d meant for someone else. It just said to come over as quickly as I could, but maybe I wasn’t the person that you wanted to come over. Oh, I’m so sorry. I should’ve called first. I should’ve known something wasn’t quite right. I could’ve saved us both a lot of embarrassment.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, my hands dropping back to my sides. “I haven’t sent anyone a text. Maybe you got a text from someone that you thought was me.”

  She pulled out her phone. “Maybe I just looked at it wrong.” She scrolled through her text messages and held her phone up, so that I could see the message. “Isn’t this your number?”

  I took the phone from her and looked at it. “That’s strange.”

  After reading the message again, I double-checked the phone number. “Dammit,” I muttered as a revelation hit me.

  “What is it?” she asked, shifting her feet, the noise audible against the hardwood floor.

  “That little brat has done it to me again. Can I seriously be that stupid?”

  “Kelsey?” Ava asked as she realized whom I was talking about.

  “The one and only.”

  To my surprise, she burst out laughing. “And I thought London was bad.”

  “She borrowed my phone when she was here, claiming that she had to call our mom and that her phone was dead. I’m sorry that she’s dragged you into this. If you want, I’ll hold her down while you use my slingshot to pelt her with marshmallows. Damn,” I said, looking around the room, “the only problem is that I’m not sure where my slingshot is at the moment.”

  “Well, while I’m here, why don’t I help you unpack?”

  “You should be resting your leg.”

  “I’m fine, Ridge. I can sit and rest if I need to, and helping you unpack isn’t anywhere near as stressful as running.”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “Okay, then.”

  Ava helped me unpack the rest of my clothes and a few boxes of miscellaneous items. I was putting the sheets on my bed when I heard her holler from the living room.

  “I found the slingshot!”

  Grinning, I walked down the hall into the living room, where she was aiming at me. “That was the last present my dad gave me,” I said as I remembered unwrapping it for my birthday.

  Ava looked at the slingshot with a whole new level of appreciation. “I guess it means a lot to you.”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  “Did he teach you how to shoot it?”

  I smiled at the memory. “Yeah, we went in the back yard and knocked over some aluminum cans. I bet it took me thirty minutes to actually hit one, but he stood right there with me until I finally got the hang of it.”

  Ava pulled her pink gun out of her purse. “That’s the way my dad was when he taught my sisters and me how to shoot.”

  “All of the Nottingham girls know how to use that?” I asked, amused.

  “Oh, yeah. My dad’s a cop, and it’s mandatory in our house. On top of teaching us how to shoot, he buys us all the gun of our choice on our twenty-first birthday and pays for a class so that we can get our permits to carry it. London will be twenty-one soon, and she’s already picked a gun that’s decked out in pink camouflage. Daisy hates pink, though, so I think she’s going with zebra print.”

  “Remind me not to mess with y’all.”

  She tucked her pink weapon back in her purse. “If you’re scared of my gun, I can shoot you with your slingshot, instead. Got any marshmallows?”

  “No, but I can add it to my list.”

  “Your list?” she asked, her hands dropping to her sides as she gaped at me. “Seriously, Ridge?”

  “That way I don’t get to the store and forget half of the stuff I wanted only to have to turn around when I get home and go back and get the stuff I forgot. It’s a simple variation of working smarter, not harder. It saves gas and the ozone layer because I’ll make fewer trips to the store, and….”

  “Oh, all right,” she snapped between clenched teeth, her tone playful. “Forget I said anything.”

  I laughed. “Now you have some inkling of what life is like with an engineer. Engineers like things to be precise, calculated.”

  “Planned?” she asked.

  “Unless there’s a damn good reason to be spontaneous.”

  “It’s getting dark outside,” she whispered.

  I glanced out the windows. “So it is.”

  Ava watched me, a look of indecision flittering across her features. “I can think of at least one damn good reason to be spontaneous.”

  I inched toward her. “Can you?”

  She licked her lips and nodded.

  “And what would that be?”

  “You have a pool.”

  I glanced out the French doors. “I do.”

  “We could go swimming.”

  “You don’t have a bathing suit,” I reminded her.

  She never looked away from my eyes. “I don’t need one.”

  There was no way in hell I’d be able to resist an invitation like that. Not from Ava. “I’ll meet you poolside.” She turned and walked toward the pool, while I closed all the blinds in the house and locked everything up. I grabbed two of my ratty towels, thinking that since I had a pool, I would need to add beach towels to my list. As I walked by the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room, I picked up my housewarming gifts from Mason and the only kitchen knife that I owned.

  Since I had no patio furniture, Ava was sitting on the concrete, removing her prosthesis. I laid everything down beside her and took a seat.

  “Since we’re being spontaneous, want to do real body shots?” I asked.

  She nodded and pulled her sweater off, moonlight glistening off the swell of her breasts.

  I closed my eyes, any resolve of trying to stay away from her totally gone. Ava intrigued me, and list or no list, I wanted to be near her.

  Motioning for her to lie down flat, she obeyed, and I grabbed a folded towel and put it under her head. Straddling her body, I kissed her gently. “You’re so damn beautiful,” I whispered, my fingertips outlining her jawline. I trailed kisses along her neck, down to her collarbone, and lower to the plump breasts that were straining to be released from her bra. My palm gently squeezed her breast while my lips grazed her flesh. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was erratic. I sat up, her legs pinned between mine, and pulled her lacy bra down until her breast sprang free. Rubbing her nipple with my fingertips, I quickly bent over her and took her taut nipple in my mouth, while simultaneously freeing her other breast. Ava was voluptuous and my palms were filled with her breasts. I scooted down
, allowing my kisses to trail along her flat abdomen until I reached the edge of her jeans and unbuttoned them. After I pulled the zipper down, I gave a firm tug, pulling them below her hips and exposing her panties.

  After removing her pants, I sliced the lime. She lay quietly, watching my every move with wide eyes. I licked a trail along her abdomen and sprinkled it with salt.

  “You ready for a body shot?” I asked.

  She licked her lips and nodded. I poured a shot of tequila in the hollow of her throat.

  Positioning myself over her body, I sensually licked the salt from her abdomen, enjoying the way her muscles clenched as my tongue licked the cool surface of her skin. I moved to her breasts, taking a nipple in my mouth and sucking it before I licked my way higher to the pool of tequila at the base of her throat. I sucked it up and my warm tongue flicked over the hollow as I trailed kisses over her neck. Rising up higher, I took the lime from her mouth, bit into it, sucked the juice, and then discarded it. I pulled her bra lower, gazing at her full breasts in the moonlight. Unable to resist the urge to touch them, my fingers skimmed the silky flesh, and I took her nipple in my mouth, loving the way its hardened tip felt against my tongue.

  I broke away and pulled her into a seated position as one hand circled her back and released her bra. I flung the scrap of black fabric to the side and dropped my lips to hers, teasing with my tongue until she opened to me. A soft moan escaped her throat, and I hardened in response.

  She broke away from me. “It’s my turn,” she whispered.