Touch & Go (9 page)

This was bold like Ava had never done bold before.

She'd shamelessly lured Sam up to her apartment, flaunted her wares for everything they were worth, and then dropped to her knees like she was worshiping at the altar of dreams come true.

He was wearing the tool belt. A frequent flier as her fantasies went.

Sam made it look so hot. Every time she'd seen him wearing one, all she could think was how perfectly it suited him. Because he was a guy who got it done, whether it was fixing what was broken or building beauty and function where there hadn't been any before. He was strong. Capable.

And now here she was, sliding her palms against the soft denim covering his thighs, working his zipper under the durable leather and solid buckle slung across his hips. Coaxing his engorged shaft free from the vee she'd made of his fly beneath.

Sam groaned, the sound falling somewhere between agony and pleasure, and driving Ava's state of arousal off the charts.

“This is your fantasy?” he croaked, as if he couldn't believe it.

Peering up from where she knelt in front of him, she saw the hands that had been loosely hooked at the top of the door frame were now gripping it tight. She might have been the one on her knees, but in that moment, Sam was at her mercy as much as she was at his.

“You wanted to know what I've thought about? Where my imagination veered off course?” She wet her lips and all that rigid length pulsed against her fingertips. “This is it. I see this belt, the way the leather pouches hang at either side of your fly, almost framing the one thing I'm not supposed to want. It's hot. Gives a girl ideas.”

“Ideas?”

“Like wondering what it would be like getting my mouth around you while you're wearing it.”

He swore and Ava smiled, liking the rough sound of it.

Wrapping her hand around him as far as her fingers would reach, she stroked up and down, bringing the bulbous head into alignment with her lips.

She took him into her mouth. Tasted the salty-sweet flavor of velvet-wrapped steel on her tongue. Felt the stretch of her lips as she opened wider and wider, wanting as much of him as she could manage.

He was too big for any serious stunt work, not that Ava knew all that much about it. Just what she'd read in
Cosmo
and, giggling with Maggie, from other such reliable sources. Head was one of those things that had never really done it for her. At least not in the contexts it had presented itself before. She'd tried it out a few times, mostly to see how it worked more than anything else. But after a few goes she'd realized it was an intimacy deeper than she'd been interested in with the men she'd been with.

But Sam was different.

With Sam, depth of intimacy was the foundation of their relationship. With Sam, she'd salivated at the idea of feeling him filling her mouth, reaching the back of her throat, giving her the taste of his release on her tongue.

Liquid heat churned in her belly at the thought, making her ache for more.

She rubbed her tongue against the underside of his shaft and felt his groan rumble through her like an earthquake.

She strained to take more of him—

“Ava, you shouldn't…”

—take him deeper—

“Oh, sweet…
fuuuuck
…your mouth…”

—suck him harder—

“Better even…than I imagined.”

She gasped around him as need shafted through her hard and intense, making her hips rock in time with each pull of her mouth. She clutched at his belt with one hand as the other fumbled down her body in desperate search for the spot she needed to touch.

She didn't even know what to call the garbled sound Sam made from above her, but the way his cock thickened even more in her mouth and his hips hardened their pace told her he'd seen her cupping herself, rubbing over her thin shorts.

“Inside,” he grit out through clenched teeth, pumping into her mouth as he gripped her hair with one hand. “Finger yourself.”

Another shuddering lance of pleasure at Sam's erotic words and, hollowing her cheeks, she sucked, sliding into her shorts and panties.

Looking up from where she worked him, Ava stared at the hardened lines of Sam's face, watching him as he watched her. Sliding her fingers through the slickness of her sex, she brought herself closer. Sucked him deeper. As far as he could go.

“Ava, baby…I want to see you make yourself come.” His breath was ragged, his voice raw. “Do it. Do it for me.”

And that was it. She shattered. Pulling Sam along with her.

Sam wasn't sure how he'd managed to stay standing. How he hadn't blown his load the second he'd seen those perfect red lips stretch around his cock, sliding up and down his length as that sweet little tongue stroked him.

Jesus,
he was still half hard, still groaning at the way Ava continued to suckle and lave him, and already he'd replayed the hottest fucking sexual experience of his life at least three times. This was nuts.

Nothing affected him like this.

Nothing.

But
damn,
Ava was turning him inside out. And he fucking loved it.

This friends-with-benefits thing was unbelievable. It wasn't going to last. He knew it couldn't. Wouldn't want it to. But for the while it did, he was going to make sure Ava enjoyed it even more than he did.

Releasing him, she leaned back, licked her swollen lips, and peered up at him, eyes heavy with arousal.
Jesus,
that look.

Yeah, and make that more than half hard. Not a problem. The sooner he bounced back, the sooner he could get inside her again. It wasn't going to be long at all.

Helping Ava from the floor, he took it to the next step and scooped her into his arms. Grinning when she let out a little shriek and looped her arms around his neck.

“So I'm debating whether to have this tool belt bronzed and mounted on the wall, or try my luck at wearing it all day, every day.”

Ava's laughter hit him in all the right places, making him tighten his hold, pulling her closer.

“Well, my vote would be for the all-day, every-day option. But maybe that's just me being greedy.”

Sam wanted to ask her where she'd learned to do what she'd just done, but then he realized with a start that he didn't want to know.

His brows pulled together.

He
really
didn't want to know.

Shaking it off, Sam headed for the bedroom. “I liked your fantasy, Ava. But maybe the next one should be more about you than me.”

Rubbing her forehead against his shoulder, she sighed. “If you don't think that was about me, you're crazy.”

Sam nodded. “Fair enough.”

Gently, he set her on the bed, then pulled off her tank top so he could see the upthrust peaks of her breasts. Those sexy boy shorts went next and when Ava reached for his shirt, he pulled out of range. Sam pushed her knees apart and yanked her to the edge of the bed.

Ava's eyes were wide, and her breath caught as he palmed the center of her chest and urged her back to rest on her elbows.

When he had her where he wanted her, he caught one slender thigh and hooked it over his shoulder. “Then you know this is about me too.”

Cupping her sweet ass in his palms, he set his mouth to her sex and kissed her long and hard and deep.

“Sam!”

Yeah, and that was just the kind of firm stroke to his ego that kept him from being a total liar.

It was hours later. Or maybe days. Minutes? Weeks? Ava didn't know and she didn't care either. All that mattered was that Sam was in her bed. His big body draped over hers in the single instant of relief he granted himself before pushing back up onto his arms and taking all that decadent heat and weight away. Before they ceased to be one and returned to two. Before they were another night closer to the inevitable end of something Ava never wanted to give up.

There it was.

Sam rolled off her, dropping a kiss at her temple, her lips, one breast and then the other. Essentially following the reverse path that had brought them together, until he'd backed off the bed and crossed to her bathroom to lose the condom and clean up. A minute later, he was flopping back beside her and she was cuddling close. Resting her head against the spot beneath the shoulder she'd claimed as her own too many years ago to count. Only this was so much better. Because instead of having all the clothes between them, instead of having to curb those rebel impulses when her fingers started inching to roam over him, they were skin to skin, and not only were her hands free to roam, but Sam's hands were moving over her as well.

“Sorry you missed out on your sleepover with Maggie tonight. I know how much you like them.”

He was right. She loved sleepovers, and since Maggie and Tyler had gotten together, her go-to girlfriend for the overnights hadn't been available much. But she didn't regret manipulating Maggie into going back to the bed she shared with her fiancé.

“There'll be other sleepovers,” she said, with a little smile. “But my needs tonight…they were
pressing
.”

He chuckled, then pulled her more completely against him. Ava let her knee drape over his thigh, her arm snake across his chest.

“Been a while since we had a sleepover ourselves.”

Ava stiffened, but Sam's warm hand smoothing circles around her hip had her relaxing back into the moment.

“It has. But as I recall, you were the one who decided we'd gotten too old for them.” She was teasing him. Mostly.

On her most rational level, she knew Sam had been right. That couch cuddling was different from bed cuddling. Still, she'd hated giving up any piece of the connection…the relationship they'd shared.

Sam's grin was amused more than contrite. He'd known he made the right decision, didn't doubt it.

“Maybe now we're old enough we could try it again. Just, you know, while we're…working things out.”

She raised a brow. “Burning through our fantasy file?”

“Yeah.”

She wasn't sure.

If she thought going down on Sam was more intimate than straight sex, it was nothing compared to spending the night. And a part of her already knew she was treading on dangerous ground where the defense of her heart was concerned.

But the temptation…

It was a mistake.

But then, what was one more?

Ava was a restless sleeper.

She'd wake with her limbs cast to the farthest reaches of the bed, caught in a tangle of sheets and strewn-about pillows, half her bedding on the floor and at least one corner of a fitted sheet caught on her elbow or ankle or ear.

But waking up with Sam was different. Different from waking up alone, different from waking up with anyone else, and heck, it was even different from waking up with him the last time it happened. Waking up with Sam was like waking up wrapped in a warm blanket of contentment and satisfaction. She wasn't searching for anything or trying to throw anyone off, she was just there. Peacefully snug within the warm confines of arms she never wanted to leave.

She concentrated on the steady rise and fall of his chest against her back. The even beating of his heart. The loose spread of his fingers across her middle.

Sam was content too. Sleeping easy.

No nightmares, at least not the kind he used to have.

The kind where he'd thrash in his sleep. Groan. And wrestle the demons he hadn't wanted anyone to know were real.

She remembered the night she discovered what he was living with.

The three of them had been running around her house all day. They always played at her house because Sam had told them his dad worked strange hours and he slept a lot during the day. Looking back, both were probably true, especially if strange hours meant very few and often weeks or months in between.

But he'd warned them not to come to his place because he didn't want them to wake his old man up.

Ford had had an easier time with it than Ava, who was curious by nature and wanted to know everything there was about the guy she secretly planned to marry. She wanted to know why he didn't have a phone and where his mom was and when she was coming back. And she wanted to know why after being at her house from morning until dusk for weeks at a time, every now and then, Sam would disappear for a few days. But every time she made the decision to check things out, she'd get as far as the bridge where the pavement ended and the dirt path picked up, where the woods took over and you couldn't quite see Sam's house beyond the bend in the road.

She'd think about how it would feel if Sam got mad at her—if he got in trouble because she'd woken his dad up when he was supposed to ask his friends not to come over—and she'd stop. Maybe she'd known there was more going on over there. Maybe it had just been that scary.

But that night, Sam had left his sweatshirt in their yard. Something he never did. While he was a kid who liked to get into everything, he was always careful about his clothes. Probably because he didn't have that many, though she'd tried not to notice.

So even though it was dark and raining and her parents had told her Sam would get it when he came over the next morning, she didn't want him to not have it. She didn't want him to get in trouble or worry it was lost. So she waited until she'd been tucked in and then snuck out with Sam's sweatshirt zipped up beneath her red raincoat.

She made it to the bridge and stopped. It was dark, but the trees were already starting to drop their leaves and the house lights just showed through. She'd been driven by purpose when she opened her bedroom window to the rain, but now it was fear keeping her from taking that next step.

Sam never said his dad was mean or bad, or that there was something wrong at his house. But on some level she must have known there was more than a man who needed his sleep there. Still, as far as she'd come, she wasn't going to quit. She'd just leave the sweatshirt on his front porch so it would be there in the morning. If he needed it.

One step. Another and another.

Then, above the rush of the river and the wind ripping through the trees, the rain hammering the ground around her, she heard it.

Shouting. Threats. Sam's name and a string of curses that had her clutching her hands together in nine-year-old shock.

That couldn't be his dad.

She knew she should have left. That she was a little girl and the man bellowing into the night wasn't right. He was staggering from one end of the porch to the other, stumbling and waving his arms around. His face was twisted into a deep snarl as he yelled to Sam like he knew he was out there in the storm. Like he was waiting to get his hands on him. Like he wanted to hurt him.

Ava was almost at the edge of the trees where a flooded dirt drive ran up to the side of the house. Maybe Sam was in trouble because of his sweatshirt. Maybe if she took it up to that man—

A cold hand grabbed her wrist, and she let out a terrified cry. But then Sam was in front of her, rain slicking his hair down to his forehead, his T-shirt stuck to a body that was shaking from cold and wet. He looked back over his shoulder, fear in his eyes and a split in his lip that hadn't been there when he left her house. The man on the porch hadn't stopped his rant. He didn't know they were there.

Ava's eyes filled with tears and she unzipped her raincoat and with shaking hands, offered Sam his sweatshirt. “You left this.”

“You have to go home, Ava.”

She looked past him at a man who looked more like a monster than the father of the boy in front of her. Sam pulled on his sweatshirt, but he was still shaking. “Come on, I'll take you.”

“What about you?” she asked, because he was freezing out there.

He shook his head, pulling her back the way she'd come. Telling her he'd be fine, but her parents would worry if they saw she was gone.

He was right. But all she could think was that Sam needed help. If he'd had a dry place to go, he would have been there. If his house were safe, he would have gone inside.

“Okay, Sam.” And then she was the one pulling him, running back to her house. To the safest, driest, warmest place she could take him.

They crawled into her bedroom window and Ava ran to her closet for a spare blanket. Sam kept looking out the window like he knew he had to go back, but Ava wasn't going to let him.

“We should get my dad,” she told him.

He jumped up, his eyes darting around anxiously.

“No way. You can't. He'll tell the cops and they'll take me away. And I need to stay. My mom is coming back for me. She promised. She just needed to get back on her feet and then she's coming. And if I'm not there—” Sam's eyes were so sad, Ava started to cry herself. “I've been waiting for her. You can't tell your parents.”

Ava tried to argue, certain her parents would be able to help Sam and his mom. And if they couldn't help with his mom, then they could take care of him. They could adopt him. Or not adopt him, because that would be weird when she and Sam got married, but maybe just have him live with them forever. Only Sam wouldn't listen and even though she knew it was wrong, she promised to keep his secret.

On one condition.

“Ava, I can't stay in your room with you.”

But she'd just waved him off and crouched beside her bed. A high canopy with frilly drapes and ties and a dust ruffle that hid the secret fort where she kept her extra stuffed animals and wrote in her diary.

Lifting the ruffle, she showed him the space. There was already a quilt she liked to lie on and her animals had been pushed to the edges. “You can stay here.”

Once he'd given himself over to it—two Gatorades and he wasn't sure how many rubbers later—sleep hit Sam hard. He'd been out, reaching an oblivion he seldom found. And then waking up in Ava's bed, with her tight little body still curved against his?
Man,
it was good. Really good.

And he'd been drifting in that half-awake state of contentment, thinking maybe he'd never get up, when he sensed a change in Ava. The slightest tightening of her breath, a hardening of her muscles.

Knowing she was awake, he urged her to her back so he could look down into her face.

“Morning, beautiful,” he said, sweeping a few stands of dark hair from her forehead.

“Morning.” She snuggled in closer, and their bodies met in an intimate press made all the more so by the lack of sexual intent.

Brushing his thumb over the tiny dip at the corner of her mouth, he asked, “What are you thinking about over there?”

“The first time you slept over.”

The admission caught him off guard, but he supposed it made sense even if he didn't like it. Wrapping his arm around her tighter, he shook his head. “That was a long time ago.”

She let out a quiet sigh, her smile sad and filled with regret. “I should have told someone. I wish I'd told someone.”

Shit.
“Don't put that on yourself. I wouldn't let you.”

She leaned up on her elbow, and as he flopped back on the pillow the novelty of her looking down on him wasn't lost.

“That's bull, Sam. You were ten years old. A kid. And because I didn't tell anyone, you stayed in an abusive house for years when you could have been safe.”

“You know why I wanted to stay. It was my choice, not yours. And besides, I had a safe place. Whenever it got bad, I had somewhere to go.” He had no idea how many nights he'd waited for the lights to go out and then knocked on Ava's window and crawled beneath her bed. Mostly his shitty dad left him alone, but when he was drinking Sam had gotten pretty good at getting out. There'd been times, though, when he hadn't quite been good enough. Times where he'd have to talk Ava down from going to her parents or calling the police herself, but he'd always managed it because the alternative was something he couldn't accept.

He couldn't risk being taken somewhere else.

At first it had been because of his mom. She'd been what he was waiting on, the reason he'd lived in squalor, under the threat of violence, when one word would have been enough to get him pulled. He'd believed his mom that last morning when she'd knelt down beside him, tears streaking her bruised face as she whispered that she'd be back for him. That she loved him and he could count on her to come.

But as the years went by, his reasons for staying changed.

The Meyerses had opened more than their home to him. They'd opened their hearts. And they'd loved him, almost as much as he loved them. After so many years of just surviving, of tiptoeing around the only person left for him, Sam would have taken any punishment, made any sacrifice to protect the family he'd found across the bridge.

But eventually he hadn't had to. He didn't know what did it, whether it was Ava or Ford or if their parents had just seen enough to know he didn't have what he needed. But one night after dinner his freshman year of high school they'd taken him aside while Ava and Ford were cleaning up the dishes. He'd been scared shitless Mr. Meyers had figured out that he stayed in Ava's room and he'd get the wrong idea, thinking Sam had taken advantage of their trust—but instead they'd invited him to stay with them. Take the spare room down in the basement.

They hadn't given him reasons for offering it. They hadn't mentioned how much time he spent there, or the meals he ate, or the way his clothes fit or how his hair looked. They'd just told him the space was available, and that they'd be happy to have him. And when he went into the room that was going to be his, he'd found the bookshelf that Mr. Meyers had let him help build that summer. Mrs. Meyers had wrapped her arms around his shoulders and told him how much she cared about him. And when they closed the door behind them, he'd sat on the bed and cried.

Only now as he lay in bed with their daughter, she was the one with tears leaking from the corners of her big brown eyes. And it killed him, because those tears were for him. Because still, after all these years, she felt guilt over her lack of action when the truth was, she'd been the one to save him. In a thousand different ways, she'd saved his life.

Doing the only thing he could think of, the one thing he'd never been able to do when she'd cried for him before, he kissed her. Long and slow and tender and with everything he had to give.