Mother, Please! - By Brenda Novak & Jill Shalvis & Alison Kent Page 0,84
his eyes as she slipped free and, laughing, headed for the living room.
All he could do was follow. And so he did.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AVERY PUTTERED from the kitchen to the dining table and back, certain she’d never manage to get everything as perfect as she needed to and wondering why she even felt the need.
Impressing David or her mother was hardly necessary, but this Leslie who was coming…if he truly was a he and was more to her mother than a friend, well, a good first impression just seemed worth the effort.
Since Monday evening and the bug David had put in her ear about Suzannah being more than a widowed mother, Avery hadn’t stopped processing all the possible clues she’d missed that her mother had moved on with her life.
She supposed it was a good thing one of them had. She’d obviously failed to. She was thirty-three years old and still lived at home, she mused with a bit of a laugh, as she opened the oven to peer at the bubbling lasagna.
Yes, she had her own place, but it was still in the house she’d grown up in. Until confronted with both her mother and David’s subtle finger-pointing that she was having issues getting beyond the past, she’d never even considered why she was so comfortable living where she did.
Now it was growing too obvious. She did fear stepping outside of her safe boundaries. When she had, the results had not been what she’d expected, or what she’d wanted to have to live the rest of her life facing down. Like the chance she’d taken with Johnny that had cost David so dearly.
Yet if she hadn’t been so stupidly reckless that long-ago night, she might not be here now, anticipating David’s arrival even more than that of her mother and Leslie. What had begun as a horrific disaster might just possibly have very positive and long-term consequences.
And if that wasn’t a reason to move out of the past into the present, she didn’t know what was.
Speaking of the present…dinner was five minutes from being ready, which barely gave her time to make a quick trip to her vanity and touch up her makeup and hair.
But the doorbell rang before she made it across the living room to the apartment’s short hallway. She ran her ring fingers beneath both eyes to clear away smudges, finger-combed her bangs and fluffed up her hair.
A deep breath, a wide smile, butterflies on the back burner and she pulled open the door.
David stepped inside and quickly shoved it closed behind him. “Are they here yet?”
She shook her head. “They should be here any min—”
Taking hold of her shoulders, he spun her around and backed her into the door. His eyes glittered sharply, the heat in them enough to sizzle her panties right off. “I never thought tonight would get here. I’m sick of middle-of-the-night phone calls and catching you coming and going.”
“I thought you enjoyed passing me on the staircase,” she teased, drawing a shallow breath and prepared to say more. But then his mouth came down, driving away all her intentions of keeping her feelings in check. As it was, she couldn’t manage her growing arousal or get enough of his mouth.
He pressed his body to hers; she wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him as close as she could. He fit in ways she’d never known a man had of aligning and settling into a woman. His mouth explored hers deftly yet gently.
He made clear how much he wanted her with the sounds that rolled from his belly to his throat and with all the ways he touched her, his hands moving from her shoulders to her ribs, and then around to her belly where he hesitated before sliding his palms upward to rest beneath her breasts.
It wasn’t enough. She wanted so much more. She adored the show of respect but right now, what she wanted from him was the clothes-ripping, table-throwing, promised wild ride into oblivion—
A knock on the door sent David into reverse. He’d backed five feet across the living room before she’d even taken a step. The startled animal expression on his face had her giggling like a school-girl.
And then she did her best to keep her own face straight as she took another deep breath and opened the door.
DAVID ONCE AGAIN found himself sitting opposite Avery at her dining room table.
This time, however, her reserve wasn’t about avoiding her conflicted feelings for him—which he didn’t think were