So he’d stitched his heart and closed it off to everyone, especially Ava. It was the only way he could hear her name or see her face without dying. And it was exactly why he had sex with no emotion. Sexual passion numbed his senses. But he would never allow true passion, true connection.
He’d known—until tonight—he could never have her in any sense of the word. The finality had been the only thing holding him together, allowing him sanity. When she—seemingly on a whim—changed her mind and opened the possibility to him she ripped away another quarter of his heart.
She had hurt him so deeply, that in a sick way, though he loved her, he wanted to hurt her. He wanted her to feel the pain, the longing for something she could never have. And if he had gone to her, he would have hurt her, physically and emotionally. His emotions had been so raw in that moment. The thought terrified him, because in hurting her he would have ultimately hurt himself.
He was also terrified because if he went to her, if he took her physically, there would be nothing left of him. She would have his entire heart, his mind, his soul. But she would never give hers to him and he would die when she retreated, like she always did. He would die of nothingness.
Keen put a twenty on the bar and headed back toward the apartment. The bartender shook his head after him. His pace was quicker and more frantic than when he’d left.
Ava was everything to him. She always had been and always would be. There was nothing he could do to change that. It had been fated long ago.
If he could have her—even just once—he didn’t need his heart.
23
A va woke in confusion. Unusually bright morning light seeped in through her puffy lids. Shit. She’d just cried herself to sleep and wasn’t ready to face the day or Keen, if he’d come back. His dismissal had been complete, and too earned for her conscious mind to handle.
Noise from someone in her room brought her head from beneath her pillow. Peeking out, she swallowed hard. She blinked past the harsh overhead light into Keen’s harsher stare.
Keen stood bare-chested beside her bed. His eyes locked intently on hers, his expression schooled. His shirt and shoes lay discarded on the floor. He held her gaze for a long minute, then his hands moved to the belt and button of his pants.
From her lips a soft question touched the air. “What are you doing?”
“You wanted me to touch you. I’m getting ready to touch you.” With those raspy words he shoved his pants, boxers and all, to the ground and stood in front of her, naked and beautiful.
“Look at me, Ava. All of me.” His voice was hot and demanding.
If she tried she couldn’t tear her gaze away from his, but his body… Uncertainty and innocence kept her gaze transfixed on his. His command bolstered her confidence and she shifted her gaze over his body.
Muscles, taut with tension, covered his entire frame. Thick arms and a chest she longed to reach out and touch, skin to skin, taunted her. His abdomen was lean; the rippled V above the arch of his hips pointed her eyes toward his erection, which took over her every thought as she watched it thicken still and rise pulsing at his belly button. Its color darkened with the flow of blood.
Stout legs propelled him forward. He stopped at the edge of the bed, reached down, grabbed a handful of covers, and flung them to the ground. She propped up on one elbow. He pushed her onto her back and slid his fingers into the collar of her pajamas. His finger made the first electric contact with her bare skin. The simple touch was enough.
“Keen.”
One by one he unfastened each button in measured pace. She watched in wide eyed wonder.
When all of the buttons were undone he gave a throaty command. “Take it off. All of it.”
The sound itself caressed her skin and seeped deep inside, shocking her core. Ava sat and faced him. Boldly, she opened her top and slid it off her arms onto the floor. She shifted to her knees on the bed in front of him and slid her pants off as well. For the second time that day she was naked in front of him, aroused and ready to be taken.
He touched her under the chin and raised her gaze to meet his. “Once I touch you I’m not going to stop.”
Her heart soared and her body hummed. She whimpered. “I don’t want you to stop.”
“You’re going to moan and beg and call my name.”
“Yes,” she agreed breathlessly.
Her chest heaved against his words as they aroused her further. They warmed her skin to a simmering blaze. His words were true. She had already begged him and was willing to beg all the more for his touch, his love.
Her hands hung loose by her side. Keen grabbed them and brought them up, his deep eyes studying their lines and creases before he buried his face in them. He breathed in deeply and raked one palm down the side of his face, nuzzling it as though it were his lifeblood. Her other palm he ran over his thick lips. Each texture was different and exhilarating under her hand. One rough and hard. The other wet and pliant. Both warm man. When he got to her fingertips he bit them, and then licked away the exquisite pain.
He freed her hands and moved his to her flushed face. His thumb traced the arch of her brow, and the bridge of her nose, and the wet pout of her lips. His knuckles brushed her cheeks and the length of her neck.
While she pressed into his touch Ava’s hands scoured his body, molding to the topography of his arms, chest, and stomach. When she took the length of him in her hands, her mouth watered.
“You did this last night? Stroked yourself like this?” She fisted his girth and pulled the silky skin to the tip.
A fierce growl broke from his lips. “Not so tight.”
Ava repeated the motion once more, but loosened her hold.
In quick motion, one hand tangled into her hair at the base of her neck while his other hand latched hold of her bare ass. He pulled her off the bed to meet him. Her hands instinctively released his cock and wrapped around his body. Her legs twined his hips. He held her so tightly, so possessively, she might meld right to him.
The contact of sex on sex shocked a buck out of her and he groaned deep in his throat. When her mouth fell open from surprise he inhaled her gasp with his mouth.
His hands twisted in her hair. He bombarded her lips, her mouth, her tongue with his. He raked his teeth over her lips, biting and nipping. Over and over their tongues caressed, battled, and mated like he couldn’t taste her enough.
Ava’s body took control. She began to grind her slick sex against his dick. He abandoned her mouth to lean back and watch her work.
She didn’t disappoint. There was nothing timid or shy about the woman she became in his arms. Ava rubbed herself up and down his length, teasing them both at the tip.
He whirled around, took two steps, and plastered her against the wall, his body dominating hers. His hands rubbed over her bottom to the core of her femininity. His touch was gentle and driving. The perfect pressure against her slick folds.
A wave of pleasure, raw and overpowering, threatened to bury her alive. Ava stopped rocking. She pulled close to his face, locking in a gaze so deep and full of meaning she could have drowned in it. She pulled him closer still and feasted on his mouth with the same enthusiasm as he had consumed hers. His hands abandoned her sex and cupped her face. His hardness stood in stark contrast to her supple skin.
He broke the kiss, strode forward, and tossed her onto the bed. Quickly he followed and covered her with his massive body. Her hair splayed out on the sheet and he nuzzled it. “My God, you have the most intoxicating scent.”
He burrowed into her neck and repeated the ritual, then kissed his way to the other side. He moved to her breasts for an eternity, tasting and tempting. He moved slowly over her body, reveling in her milky skin. The curves she’d deemed average to boyish now seemed sensuous and alluring under his spell.
Ava’s heart jumped at the way he savored her in this moment of abandon, of intimacy.
When he turned her onto her stomach to rove her back, her butt and legs, she panted. “Ple
ase, Keen. Now. I can’t wait.”
He ignored her pleas and continued on, licking and tasting her flesh. The trail his mouth forged stoked the fire inside her to raging.
“Keen, now,” she begged again.
Finally, he answered her plea by rolling her to face him again. He spread her knees wide and rested her thighs across his. She was open to him. Vulnerable. Ready.
“Ava, I want you to look. Watch us come together.”
She watched as he pulled her up to meet him. The head of his plump cock positioned at her entrance. He prodded her wet opening. He stroked and tantalized her. His fingers grazed her scars with maddening care.
“Keen, please. God, please.”
He sank his head in an inch and froze, dead still.
“Ava?”
She didn’t answer, except for wiggling her hips trying to fit him into place. But he stilled her advance.
“Ava,” he said again more desperately. “Tell me.”
She looked at him with love and honesty in her eyes. “I already told you. I’ve never been with anyone. I’ve never had sex with anyone.”
From the expression of shock and pain on his face her words had nearly knocked him on his ass. Ava hadn’t only denied him all those years ago. No, she had been denying herself forever. For all these years she had been hiding, but not from him and not from her father. She had been hiding herself from the world.
“Ava, I can’t stop,” he gritted.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Please don’t. You can’t. I want this. I want you.”
He eased himself in inch by inch while she watched. When he was firmly in her entrance he plunged the last of his sex deep inside her with a quick thrust. She cried out a gasp of pain and awe. He collected her into his arms. Quiet and still, he stayed firmly embedded inside her. He kissed her face and licked away her tears.
Slowly, he withdrew and thrust back inside. Pleasure marbled with pain at the invasion. Over and over she shouted, begging for more. His strokes became longer and deeper. Her cries turned to moans. Her hands on his shoulders anchored her body to his. The pressure of the orgasm building inside her was like none she’d ever experienced before. It was a tangible force looming over her with certainty.
When he lifted her butt to gain better access, the fuller contact bombarded her senses. She was washed over by a climax so ferocious it robbed her of breath. Sounds emanated from her mouth, loud and primal.
Around him, her inner muscles clenched and his control unleashed. Three more solid thrusts and he spilled himself into her.
Satisfaction unlike any she’d ever known made her limp. Keen collapsed on top of her. They lay face to face and drumming heart to drumming heart. He rolled her on top of him and settled her head into the crook of his shoulder, holding her close with one arm and caressing her hair, shoulders, and face with the other.
His soothing touch, the body contact, the post-orgasmic high lulled her lids.
A chirping tone woke them only an hour later. In an attempt to hide from the still-blinding bedroom light Ava nuzzled her face under Keen’s neck. The sating scent of male warmth she inhaled sprang forth new ideas. Shifting up, her teeth scraped the sensitive skin of his jaw. Her tongue drew on his lobe and trapped it in between her lips.
His loins stirred and he grew hard inside her. Of all the ways to wake up, this was far and away the best ever.
“Yes.”
She rocked on him and worked a deep groan out of his throat. Levering up, she looked into his eyes. A blue so pure it cleansed hurtful memories stared back at her in wonder. The phone’s chirping silenced.
His hand cradled the back of her neck as his smiling lips kissed a path from her temple down to her mouth. After feasting there, he pushed her back, his blue eyes challenging her to finish what she’d started.
Her desperate hands ran over his body. A thick neck led to broad shoulders and a hard chest. Her hands dug in there, using his muscles for leverage while she rode him. She moved her hips in rhythm to her own need. His hands slid up her thighs and settled on her hips, helping keep time. When his hands raised to stroke her breasts and pinch her nipples, her pleasure peaked. Head thrown back in abandon she panted, rode out her climax, and worked him through his own.
Hot, wet cum seeped out of her body. Her heart stuttered. Shit. Shit. Double shit. They hadn’t used protection. She wasn’t some naive barely-teenager. Condoms. The pill. The shot. An IUD. Birth control. Ava knew about all the options, probably more so than any other woman her age, most of whom were trying to grow their little families.
Odd as it was, but since she’d never used any of them she found them deeply fascinating. But apparently not more fascinating than Keen’s naked body.
He pulled out of her for the first time in hours and she was caught by a sense of loss, until he pulled her close and nuzzled his cheek to hers. For Ava, the need to cement things between them was suddenly overwhelming. She couldn’t imagine living one day without Keen in her life. He couldn’t leave, not without her. Or he could stay with her. But life without him was no longer an option. She just hoped she hadn’t put the cart before the horse, as her mother used to say to her, Ford, and Nathan.
His eyes were closed and his jaw was set. The rhythm of his breath steadied. She leaned in and kissed the tip of his nose. The corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly.
“Keen, I—”
The chirp of the phone cut her off. He shifted to reach the phone. Ava threw her arms around him, trying desperately to keep him anchored to her, to finish the words she’d started to say.
He must have seen the panic in her eyes. His smile doubled. He tossed her onto her back and leaned over. “We’ll talk when there aren’t any interruptions. Trust me—I’ve waited long enough for you to tell me you love me. I can wait a minute more.”
When he rolled over to grab the boisterous phone she smacked his bare butt. Arrogant prick.
Keen answered the phone with a smirk.
“I’m not on any birth control,” she blurted. And I love you. She kept that part to herself for now. Why? She had no idea. Maybe she wanted to see how he’d react to that two-by-four between the eyes.
He cupped her face and something played in his clear eyes.
After only a moment the smirk fell away. He stiffened. A stony expression clouded their joy as he listened intently to the person on the other end of the phone. The expression wiped the smile from Ava’s face. He covered the mouthpiece with a hand.
“Go get cleaned up. It’s Coghlan. Abbott’s been stabbed.”
24
K een pointed his hand in the direction of downtown. The button-down stretched across his ample chest. “This is going to sound damn heartless, but let’s bypass the hospital and go to headquarters.”
“What?” Ava leaned forward and swiveled her entire body toward Keen, pressing her seatbelt to its limits.
“We’ll only be in the way at the hospital. We can help Lara more by swimming through files until we find the missing piece of the puzzle. Complete the puzzle. Catch Rory Coghlan.”
Ava understood the need to take action, to do something, anything, to help. When one of your own was down it hurt. It hurt more when it was someone you knew and respected like hell, in spite of their prickly demeanor.
“Your plan is logical, but we need to go to the hospital. Sure, all the files, timelines, and databases aren’t there, but the evidence of his changing patterns is. I need to talk to Winslow.”
“You need to assuage your guilt.”
“That’s only part of it.”
She couldn't pinpoint a singular reason, but she felt pulled to the hospital. Maybe the argument she’d had with Abbott earlier in the day spawned the tiny droplets of guilt pooling in the back of her brain. Maybe the fact that their roles could have easily been reversed bridged a connection to the woman whose life hung in the balance. Maybe finely tuned instinct told her there were no answers in files, but in the violence of the man haunting her.
“When I talked to Winslow they were just getting her on the gurney. Text him. See where they’re taking her.”
Ava dialed.
“Gray.” His greeting was reedy, far weaker than the tank of a man he was.
“What hospital?”
“Inova Fairfax.”
Ava mouthed the location to Keen. “Bring everything you have on this case inside. We’ll be there in twenty.”
“Judging by the slug’s pace of these EMT’s you’ll fucking beat us there.” A bit of the strength flowed through the phone in impotent frustration.
“They’re stabilizing her for transport.” Ava balked at her clinical response, and then added, “Abbott’s a bruiser. No way will she let a simpering daddy’s boy get the best of her. She’ll fight.”
“Yeah. I just hope it isn’t…”
“We’ll be there soon,” Ava said. Like their arrival would somehow save Lara Abbott’s life.
Nope. If anything, Ava’s presence would send her into V-tach.
Winslow disconnected.
Keen’s hand centered her chest and pushed. “For the love… Would you please sit back? Your seatbelt won’t work if you’ve already got your face in the windshield.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hmm, I like the sound of that.” Keen removed his hand from her chest, but she swore it left a sizzling burn under her shirt.
Absentmindedly he rubbed his palm on the charcoal-grey leg of his slacks. He concentrated on the road. The buildings shrank then dwindled. Conversely the trees grew then multiplied. Sixteen minutes later they parked outside the emergency room entrance and headed for the door.
Pouty red lips and massive breasts greeted them. If the woman said, “This is a stick up,” Ava would raise her hands in the air. Betty Boop’s weapons looked that deadly. Instead, she said, “Can I help you, handsome?”
Ava quaffed her surely frizzed hair. “Well, thank you.”
Ms. Boop, or Boobs as it were, covered her mouth.
“I’m looking for an FBI agent just brought in or on her way. Lara Abbott,” Ava said.
Painted Walls Page 20
