Mother, Please! - By Brenda Novak & Jill Shalvis & Alison Kent Page 0,90
though he toned down the sound from the were-wolf howl he felt like letting go.
“Here’s the reality, Avery. My reality,” he said once he stood in front of her. “I love you. I want you. But I don’t want a one-night stand. Or a cheap roll in the hay.” God, what a liar! At this point his body was ready for either of those.
He stepped closer; she backed toward the door. “What I want is for you to come to me because you want me. Not because you’re all revved up and need what I can give you. And not because you feel you owe me, or think sleeping with me will be a twisted way to make amends for the past.”
“I didn’t say—”
He cut her off ruthlessly. “I want you to come to me because I’m the only man you want. The only man you need. If that’s the case, then I’ll be at my place. I think you know where it is.”
CHAPTER NINE
BY THE TIME Avery knocked on David’s door, her palms were slick with sweat. This was the first trip she’d made to the third floor since he’d lived here. She couldn’t name another time in her life when she’d ever been this nervous.
Not even that night beneath the bleachers when she’d narrowly escaped certain rape.
He was right. None of that mattered now. All that mattered was climbing the staircase without falling on her backside and letting David know how she had spent the past fifteen years holding on to the past because that was where she could find him.
God, how she loved him. She hadn’t carried a torch all this time, no. But the kindling for this fire had been laid so very long ago when he’d put his life on the line to save her from a harm that could’ve been irreparable. Now she was ready to strike the match.
The climb seemed to take forever. She supposed the fact that she was trying to keep David from hearing her had a lot to do with her snail’s pace. And not wanting him to hear her was really dumb since she was coming up with the intent of crawling into his bed.
Ugh, but this love business was so confusing.
Finally she was there, and she took a deep breath before she knocked once, twice, figuring if he was already asleep she didn’t want to wake him and two knocks should be enough even if she hadn’t knocked hard and maybe she should just forget it and go back—
The door opened. David stood there wearing ragged gray sweat shorts and a faded navy T-shirt with a Penn State logo. The shirt barely stretched over his chest or his biceps and the only thing she could think to say was, “When did you go to Penn State?”
He laughed cautiously, stepping back and gesturing her inside. She entered, watching as his expression ran the gamut from relief to pleasure to an emotion much more intense. One that seemed to mirror her own sense of her heart being unable to contain all she felt.
“I didn’t go to Penn State. I went to University of Texas in El Paso.” He could have gone to Harvard. To MIT. To any of several bastions of higher education.
“David, here’s the thing,” she said quickly, turning to face him without taking in a single detail of his apartment, knowing she had to get this out before she lost her nerve and scurried back downstairs. She felt so much safer when on the second floor than she did facing him now.
“The thing?” he echoed, closing the door while his gaze remained on her face.
“Yes. The thing.” She twisted her hands at her waist. “It’s killing me that I never lifted a single finger to intervene when things for you started going so badly downhill—”
And that was all she got out because he was there and his arms were around her and his mouth was there seeking out hers. The force of his kiss left her unable to breathe. He wrapped himself around her until she wasn’t sure a shadow could squeeze between their bodies.
She wasn’t truly aware that her feet had left the floor until she felt the back of her knees hit the edge of his sofa seconds before he followed her down to the cushions. His weight above her felt simply like another part of herself, and she pulled him down to cover her.
He shifted to the side; she urged him back, loving the bulk