4. Adrian

Chapter 4

Adrian

T he sky had only barely begun to lighten to a dark blue when I stirred awake at my usual time.

Jersey City's streetlights were still lit across the Hudson and provided the only light through the long window at the back of the bedroom. Ava—or Lily —slept soundlessly beside me as I slowly hauled myself up until my back could lean against the headboard.

Opening the little drawer on the bedside table, I pulled out my spare reading glasses and put them on before reaching for my phone.

A handful of work emails littered my home screen, along with one text from my son's nanny. Lucas is in bed. Assuming you're out for the night.

A pang of guilt hit me. The good thing about having a live-in nanny for my eight-year-old was that I didn't need to worry about someone being there if I wasn't, but I still hadn't been there. He knew I'd been on a date last night due to our no-lying policy, but I really didn't want him questioning if I was there when he woke up. I'd never stayed out all night before, unless it was for work reasons, and those he understood. But this? I couldn't imagine trying to explain it to him.

I still had at least an hour and a half, but I needed to get going fairly soon.

And that meant the true ending of whatever the hell this was.

Gently, I moved the strands of auburn hair that had fallen from her bun out of her face, dragging my fingers along her skin. Why did it have to be her?

If she was anyone else, anyone other than David's daughter, I might have genuinely considered seeing her again. That wasn't something I did, but whatever the fuck last night was seemed worth the trouble that repeating the interaction would normally bring. But not when that trouble was David.

Her eyes fluttered open in the darkness, and there was that pang of guilt this time, but it wasn't for leaving my son overnight.

"Is it morning?" she mumbled, her arm reaching across my hips and practically hugging my thighs.

"It's just after five," I sighed.

"Why are you up?" Her eyes opened, and she turned her head to look up at me sleepily in the darkness, a little smile pulling her lips up. "You look cute in glasses."

I chuckled. "I've got a meeting at seven," I lied, dragging my thumb across her cheek, back and forth. "I need to leave soon so I can go home and change."

Her smile faded almost instantly as she lifted herself up onto one elbow. My hand fell from her as the blankets pooled around her waist, her bare upper body looking fucking sinful in the low light. I had half a mind to take her again right now—my concealed morning wood would have certainly come in useful for the first time in years if I had. But I didn't want to risk turning up after Lucas woke, and I cursed my body's clock for not running slightly earlier.

"If it's any consolation, I don't particularly want to go," I offered.

Her hand hesitated before reaching out to me, hooking around the very edge of my jaw and under my ear, pulling me down toward her. "Then stay," Ava whispered. "Tell them you're sick."

I let my hand drift to her waist and wrap around it, stopping her pull in its tracks as I lifted her up to me instead. She practically crawled into my lap beneath the sheets, her completely bare form slotting against mine so easily as she settled in astride me. "Fuck," I groaned as she pressed her warmth against the underside of my straining cock.

Her lips found mine in the low light. She kissed me slowly, exhaustedly, as if it took everything in her to be awake at this hour, and I just wanted to stay, wanted to stay like this even if it amounted to nothing, wanted to stay like this with her body on mine, wanted to talk to her for hours upon hours and forget that anything existed outside of this godforsaken room.

I wanted to take her again. But I couldn't, and this had to be the end.

"You are a temptation ," I rasped, pulling my lips from hers and tightening my hold around her waist.

She giggled softly, her mouth moving to my jaw, my neck, my collarbones. "Is it working?"

I pressed a single kiss against the top of her head. "I'm so sorry, but no."

Dejected and defeated, she leaned back, putting a bit of space between us even as her hips stayed in place. I could feel the dampness of her pooling against the underside of my length, and fuck , I just wanted to be inside of her again. "You genuinely have to go?"

I slipped my glasses off and deposited them back into the little drawer. "I do."

She pressed her lips together as the reality began to dawn on her. For a moment, I hoped she knew who I was, hoped she understood that this was the inevitable end to what we had done. I hoped she didn't have lingering hope. But then she spoke, and the gears in my head suddenly stopped. "Do you want my number?"

What?

I had known there was a minuscule chance that I was wrong about who she was up until the moment I'd seen the back of her right arm last night. Even in the low light, the small port wine stain birthmark across the skin was evident and solidified every suspicion I'd had. I'd seen it a handful of times back in Boston. The possibility of her not knowing who I was seemed even more implausible. I looked almost exactly the same as I had back then. Had she genuinely forgotten what I looked like?

I picked my phone back up from my nightstand and unlocked it, hiding the lock screen's image of Lucas from her, before passing it across the short distance between us. "Yeah," I said.

I watched in confusion as she stared unmoving at the phone for a few seconds before glancing at me, typing in a number, and saving it as Lily .

"What time is it?" I asked, but just as the words left my lips, she turned off the screen. On instinct, she hit the button again to answer my question—but Lucas's grinning face in front of the Statue of Liberty filled the screen, and if I tried to reach for the phone, my attempt to conceal my concern would be glaringly obvious. Fuck.

She stared at the phone.

"Lily?" I swallowed.

"It's almost six."

She blinked too quickly as she passed it back to me, her eyes averted to the pillows and sheets beside her. Slowly, she removed herself from my lap, shifting until she sat cross legged on the comforter.

The heaviness hung in the air as I slowly slipped from the sheets, grabbed my boxers, and pulled them on. I couldn't hide the erection, not as the sky was slowly beginning to lighten along with the room. "I can call you a cab," I offered. "Or you're welcome to go back to sleep and go home later."

Her eyes met mine. "You're not worried I'll steal something?"

I pursed my lips. "No, I'm not. Unless you know how to sail."

She shook her head. "I'd probably just crash and sink and drown."

I couldn't stop the snort that left my nose despite the tension in the air. "Then I'm definitely not worried. Take as much booze as you want."

Her lips twitched in the corners, but a smile didn't sprout like I thought it would.

I leaned across the bed, half out of guilt and half because I just wanted to touch her again, and cupped her cheek. "I'll call," I lied. But the next words were far too true. "I genuinely had an incredible time with you."

Her teeth scraped against her lower lip, but she reached up and kissed me gently but far too quickly. I didn't want to assume that she knew that I was lying, but it felt like it, and I couldn't shake the feeling that as much as both of us needed this to be the end, it somehow wouldn't be.

We couldn't avoid each other forever.

————

The absurdity of having to sit in a cab for twenty minutes just to end up roughly where I'd started last night wasn't lost on me. But as I stepped out of the elevator into my private entry area and unlocked the door to my penthouse, the morning light was only just beginning to crest over the horizon, painting the main foyer and mostly gray living room in sharp oranges and pinks. Lucas would be up any minute, if he wasn't already.

I tried to walk as quietly as I could as I crossed the expanse of the house, listening intently for any signs of stirring as I went up the stairs to the second floor. Lucas's room was silent as I passed it, and that meant I had enough time to make it to my room, change into pajamas, and get back to him before he woke naturally or his alarm went off.

But even as I went about my motions, I couldn't stop thinking about Ava.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd connected with someone so easily, even if it was over something so commonplace as art. I avoided finding meaningful connections when it came to dating, and walking into new relationships without trying hadn't been an issue since I'd reentered the dating pool last year. However, it felt almost as if I hadn't just walked into this situation but instead run , and as I tried to turn back, a mile-long brick wall had been erected between me and where I'd come from.

Maybe it was because I already knew her. Maybe it was because she was off-limits.

Maybe I was just going fucking insane.

No matter what it was, she was living in my brain now, filling up every empty space. I kept getting flashes of her laughing at the museum, the way her face had gone bright red when she'd nearly knocked over the cheap figurines, the way she'd looked sprawled out on my fucking bed back on the sailboat.

I hadn't even gotten to taste her.

Idiot.

Slipping from my bedroom in an oversized shirt and plaid pajama bottoms, I walked barefoot down the hall back to Lucas's room. I shooed the memory from my mind of how fucking beautiful Ava looked when her eyes had gone wide as my hand had locked around her throat and gently pushed the door open.

Lucas slept peacefully in his bed, his scruffy black hair a mess on his pillows. The moment I shut the door behind me, though, he stirred, rolled over away from the door, and pulled his blankets up over his head.

"Rise and shine," I chuckled, hitting the button beside the light switch. The black-out-blinds on his window slowly began to retreat, letting in the soft morning light and filling the space with life as he groaned. "If you get up, I'll make bacon."

The blankets slowly retreated as he lifted his head, just his squinted eyes poking out over the sheets. "Bacon?" Lucas asked, blinking the sleep away.

"Bacon."

In a flash, he threw the sheets off, revealing his mismatched dinosaur pajamas and getting up off the mattress.

I chuckled as I crossed the space, tucking him into my side. "That was easier than I expected."

He shrugged. "Maybe you should bribe me with bacon more often."

————

I wasn't sure if it was the lack of sleep or the stress of my day at work, but as I sat at my desk in my office on the forty-fourth floor and watched the sun creep toward the horizon, I couldn't help but stare at the number Ava had put in my phone under the name Lily.

She had to have known. Unless she'd somehow suffered a terrible accident and lost her memory without her father mentioning it, I couldn't imagine a scenario where she didn't realize who I was.

Why the fuck had she given me her number?

Some absurd part of me wanted to believe it was because she knew and didn't care. But I knew better than that—knew she would have been just as concerned about her father's reaction as I was.

The memory of burying myself inside of her as she relaxed around my cock took hold of me, and fuck it, so did my curiosity.

I tapped the little icon of a phone next to her number and brought my cell to my ear.

It didn't even ring.

The number you have dialed is not in use.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Well, that made an upsetting amount of sense.

I deleted the contact and put my things away as I prepped myself for going roughly thirty floors up to the comfort of my home. It was for the best, realistically—I didn't need to be getting myself into situations like this, not when I had Lucas to worry about. I had to be cagey when it came to seeing other people, and last night had easily been my biggest slip-up in that regard.

I could stuff the memories down. I could bury her in my mind and never dig her out. I'd done it before with far more troublesome baggage, and I could do it again.