Mother, Please! - By Brenda Novak & Jill Shalvis & Alison Kent Page 0,89
to him. Damn, but why hadn’t he seen that?
He moved his hand from her hair to the back of her neck where he began to massage. “Avery?”
She stiffened. Her gaze slid away. This time he wasn’t going to let her go until he said what he needed to say.
“It was my choice that night. My choice, to go after Johnny. I could’ve gone for help.”
She frowned, looked back at him, softly asked, “Why didn’t you? You wouldn’t have been hurt. Or suspended. You could’ve stayed in Tatem.”
“You think Johnny wouldn’t have gone after what he’d wanted if I’d ran?” He tried to keep the emotion from his voice, but his words came out strangled. “Do you think I could’ve lived with myself if I’d been too late getting back?”
“But I went with him—”
“No,” he said, cutting her off as tears welled in her eyes. “It was not your fault, do you hear me? Nothing that happened that night was your fault.”
“But if I hadn’t gone. If I’d told him no.” She closed her eyes, bowed her head. “I should have told him no.”
He wasn’t going to argue that. But he wasn’t going to let her accept responsibility for what he’d had to do. “Avery, you need to let it go. It’s been over and done now for fifteen years. Hell, I’m the one whose life was upended and I’ve gotten over it.”
“Have you?” she asked, moving her far hand to his chest and resting it there in the center where his heart had started to thud.
“Sure.” He tossed off the answer, sure of nothing but the way her touch was causing his blood to stir. “Why would you think I hadn’t?”
“Because you’re here. In Tatem. A tiny dot on only the most thorough road atlas.” She offered him a sadly wry smile. “Not a lot to see and do here. Even Mom and Leslie had to go to Alpine, for God’s sake, to have a decent night out.”
“I didn’t come back because I was looking for a decent night out.” He moved one hand to cup the back of her head, the other to cover hers on his chest. He watched her eyes widen, felt his own heartbeat thunder into their hands.
This was it. A moment fifteen years and ten months in coming. “I came back for you.”
For a moment, he thought she believed him, then the sad tinge to her smile deepened. “I don’t know why you would.”
He wanted to growl with frustration. “Are you still thinking I was serious? That day in your kitchen when I told you you’d ruined my life?”
She shrugged, twisted her mouth into a grimace. “No. I know you weren’t serious. But I’ve wondered so long about how things might’ve been. It’s strange, but that moment and all the ‘what ifs’ that followed have been hard to let go.”
“The ‘what ifs’ don’t matter, Avery. Nothing matters but here and now.”
“Give me time?” she asked so hesitantly that his aggravation stirred.
Time was one thing he wasn’t going to let her have.
“I can’t,” he said, before he pulled her toward him and ground his mouth to hers.
He poured all that he was feeling—the irritation and the desire—into the kiss, giving no quarter as he demanded she respond. He was desperate for her to respond.
And finally she did, tossing off her reticence, her hesitation, the uncertainty of her mood as she matched each stroke of his tongue, scooting around until she straddled his lap and wrapped his neck in her arms.
He’d never known a woman so mercurial yet so free with her passion when stirred. Tiny whimpers spilled from her mouth to his, and he felt the vibration of the sound all through her body.
He spread his legs and she shimmied even closer, then released him, her arms moving from around his neck to her blouse’s first button. Her eyes went glassy with desire.
It took the strength of Atlas for David to stop her from undressing and offering him heaven.
“Avery, wait.”
Her expression grew cold. “I’m beginning to think you’re a tease, David Marks. How many times now have you stopped me from jumping your bones?”
“Trust me,” he said with a less-than-steady growl. “You jumping my bones is the stuff of fantasies.”
“So…what, then?” She backed off his lap, got to her feet and looked down. “The reality’s too much for you?”
He managed to work himself up to a standing position without his erection snapping in half. Stifling a groan wasn’t as easy. And so he didn’t even try,