9. Ava

Chapter 9

Ava

I needed air, desperately.

Pushing through the crowd, I made my way to the opposite side of the room from where my father was schmoozing someone into buying stocks. I scanned the wall, looking for any sign of an exit, but I only saw the glowing neon exit sign that definitely wasn't meant to be used by attendees.

Fuck it.

I pushed the door open and slipped through into a service hallway.

I felt like I couldn't breathe, felt like I was going to overheat and pass out. The way he'd spoken to me, the way he'd held me, it was intoxicating and maddening. My body had responded in ways I wasn't even sure it could in front of that many people, and if I was being truly honest with myself about it, I almost hoped he was following me.

But that would be insane. Almost as insane as the amount of money he'd spent on three minutes with me, almost as insane as my father's impromptu decision to fucking auction me off, almost as insane as how much I wanted to admit right there on the dance floor how many times I'd touched myself to the idea of him and then how many times I'd done it to the memory.

And to know that he knew who I was that night…

I might actually lose my mind.

The sound of the exit opening behind me as I pushed my way through another door sent my pulse skyrocketing, and I had to tell myself that it was just an employee, just someone pushing a cart or a keg being brought in.

Another door, another exit from me, and the cold autumn air hit me like a fucking brick to the face. Finally.

The balcony was fairly large with a little makeshift garden on it and a golden fence locking it in, looking out over a somewhat quiet back road. The sounds of the city invaded me, but I was growing used to that, and for a moment, I could block them out.

What the fuck was I doing?

Reality sank in like a stone in water. I'd slept with a man nearly twice my age, one whom I'd been dreaming of since I was an inappropriate age. I'd pretended to be someone I wasn't. I'd begged him to stay. I'd let him touch me in ways I'd never even considered asking to be touched.

I'd known what that would do to me, and I'd let it happen anyway.

I pressed the bottoms of my palms into my eyes, the pressure calming me just slightly, and tried to breathe through it. Emily was right—I shouldn't have avoided this for as long as I had. I should have gone to that fucking restaurant and done the interview instead of chickening out. I shouldn't have let it build like this.

The sound of the door slamming open made me jump, and even though I knew I'd find the combination of my worst nightmares and best dreams staring at me, I couldn't resist the pull.

"Stop fucking avoiding me, Ava."

He didn't even pause, didn't give me a moment to compose myself. He walked across the balcony toward me in his stupidly attractive black tux, pushing the salt and pepper hair that had fallen in his face out of the way. I didn't know what to do. Didn't know what I wanted to do, other than fling myself off the fucking edge of the building.

The distance closed before I could come up with a better idea.

His mouth crashed into mine, demanding my attention, and I didn't want to do anything other than let him. Hands grasped either side of my face, and God, I felt dizzy, felt like I was back in a stupid teenage dream where I could control what he said to me and shape the scene like a painter in action.

But this wasn't a dream, and it wasn't a work of art. It was real life, and neither of us was in full control of the other.

"Fuck," he rasped, lifting his lips just an inch from mine. "Your father is going to kill me."

"Please don't tell him," I whispered.

The laugh that came from him was filled with disbelief and a hint of irritation. "If I wanted to die, Ava, there are plenty of better ways to do it than offering myself to David Riley on a silver platter."

His lips met mine again, and this time I sunk into it, my body reacting before my brain. I fisted the front of his suit jacket in my palm, keeping him tethered to me as his mouth explored mine, the taste of red wine lingering on his tongue.

But my hands weren't the only ones that roamed.

He held me behind the neck again, but his other wandered freely over the front of the corseted satin I'd put on hours before. It dipped down to the slit in my dress, hooking behind my upper thigh and lifting it up, up, up onto his hip.

I was losing it again .

His lips wandered, kissing the side of my jaw, my neck, the soft spot beneath my ear where he'd pressed in with his fingers before. He nipped at the skin before soothing it with his tongue, and every thought ceased. There was only me, him, and an ache beginning to grow between my thighs.

"Please," I breathed, pulling on the front of his jacket. "Please."

"What are you begging for, Ava?"

Fuck, the way he said my name when his voice sounded like that was exactly how I'd imagined it. No more Lily. "Touch me."

The air that loosed from his chest almost seemed pained as he let his fingers slide up my thigh and over the curve of my rear, gripping the little strap of the seamless underwear I'd picked out for this dress. He pulled, and they shifted down. The second he lowered my leg enough to have them drop, I kicked them off my heeled feet. "I'm not going to touch you," he rasped.

What? No, please ? —

"I'm going to fucking taste you."

His hands left me in an instant, and before I could process his words, he was lowering to his knees on the dirty cement floor in front of me.

My fucking heart stopped.

Fingers pushed the sides of my dress apart and up to my hips, and I couldn't bring myself to care about the potential onlookers from the next building over, couldn't bring myself to care about the chill in the air. All I knew was that he was looking up at me from the goddamn ground, one arm hooking around the inside of my thigh and lifting it onto his shoulder.

His mouth took me immediately.

A soft hum vibrated against my most sensitive spot, and I could barely breathe. His tongue lashed against me, dragging, berating, attacking where I was desperate for him to, but the ache didn't calm this time. It only built, angrier and angrier, needing more, demanding more.

But he knew how to work my body too well.

Two fingers slipped inside of me as he sucked my clit between stilled teeth, his tongue drawing far too much from me. I covered my mouth to keep in what I could only imagine were too-loud moans, using my other to hold onto his hair for dear life.

Bright blue eyes flicked up to mine, and oh my God, he was going to make me lose my mind.

Another finger entered as his mouth continued, another little hum making me see more stars than were visible in the light-polluted sky above. As if by some kind of magic, he was already pulling me too quickly toward a release, one that I couldn't hold back from, and all I could do was let him take me there, let him destroy me again .

"Fuck, I…I…"

"Come," he said, and that last little bit of vibration from the word was enough to make me break, was enough to make my knees buckle, and my fingers tighten in his hair, was enough to have me putting my weight on him in the hopes that I wouldn't go all the way down to the ground.

But he wasn't done with me.

He raised from the ground as his fingers slipped out, one hand holding my waist to keep me upright as the other worked frantically at his belt. The clanking of it rang through the air, and his damp mouth met mine, the taste of red wine and me coating my tongue.

"Put your arms around my neck," he ordered, breaking just enough from my lips to get the words out. I followed what he said, and a second later, he was lifting me, directing my legs up around his waist with his hand. He pressed forward into the wall, letting it take some of my weight.

But then there was warmth at my opening again, but it wasn't nearly as small as a finger.

"One more time," he rasped, pulling back just an inch to meet my gaze. "You're you, and I'm me. Do you understand?"

One more time. My head was too foggy to process the reality of that, but I nodded anyway.

Not nearly as slowly as the last time, but just as gently, he pressed into me, splitting me practically in two. Little bursts of pain blinked into existence before dying out just as quickly.

"Fuck," I hissed, gripping onto the back of his head and keeping him close to me.

A hand slipped between us, and he found my overly sensitive clit, just softly brushing his fingers against it enough to take the edge off. I relaxed around him, and a second later, he was fully inside of me, filling me in a way I'd ached to know for the last week and a half. "That's it, love."

"Ah—" The sound cut off from my gasp as he readjusted, hitting a spot inside of me that made my bones turn to mush. "Please don't leave. Fuck , please."

" Don't leave ?" he parroted.

I shook my head, words fully lost on my tongue as I tried to figure out a way to articulate the phrase I don't ever want to be empty again without sounding like a mad woman. "Just fuck me, Adrian," I breathed instead.

His answering, breathy chuckle was all the confirmation that I needed.

Slowly, achingly, he slid himself so far out that I thought he might actually leave—but then he was slamming in, punishingly, demandingly, leaving me gasping for air that didn't feel like it was quite enough inside of my lungs. Over and over and over.

"God, yes ," he groaned, his nails digging into the flesh of my thigh so hard that I could feel the little half-moon indents forming. He gave me a little more pressure on my clit to compensate, and the pain morphed into pleasure, setting fire to my veins. "You're too fucking perfect."

His mouth met my neck, teeth sinking into the soft, sensitive flesh there, and I couldn't bite back the sounds I made, couldn't cover them with my hand. They'd be drowned out by the honking of cars, and the boom of the bass from music pouring out of a club nearby anyway, but something about it felt exposing in a way I wasn't quite used to.

But Goddammit, it was exhilarating.

Every shift in his hips came with an echoing grunt from the crook of my neck, and every gentle caress of his fingers between my thighs pulled mirroring sounds from me. I wanted more from him, wanted my dress off and his chest bare, but every time I tried to push his suit jacket further than his elbows, he resisted. I couldn't quite tell if it was a reluctance to take this further than it already was out in the city air, or if he just truly didn't want to remove his hands from me long enough to shrug it off.

But he let me pull at his tie, let me undo a handful of buttons on his crisp white shirt, let me open his vest. It was enough to slip my hand in through a gap in the fabric, and I could feel the rigidity of his muscles, could feel them flex with every movement he made.

We'd done this already, but somehow, it still felt like a fantasy, still felt like I was out cold in bed dreaming of him like I'd done almost every night for the past week and a half and intermittently for years before that. He'd wormed his way inside of my mind, and although I'd gotten him out before, it seemed almost like he'd lodged himself deeper, somewhere I didn't know how to get to.

Somewhere real.

As the post-orgasmic sensitivity faded and I craved more of his touch, I gripped what little skin of his chest that I could and pulled at the hair on the back of his head. "More," I said, my voice barely more than a choked whisper. "More, Adrian."

His chuckle as he gave me more pressure on the place I needed it most, sending a shiver up my spine. "I shouldn't like it when you say my name like that," he said. He lifted his head, his chin tipping up and meeting mine almost in defiance. "And yet… say it again ."

I swallowed down the little hint of anxiety that flared in my throat, and just as I opened my mouth to say his name, he moved his fingers faster, pressed down harder—and the name came out contorted, half-moaned, and half-sobbed.

The rising pleasure in my gut built rapidly at his answering smirk.

"You're the worst," I laughed, and his hips shifted as he readjusted me, lifting me just an inch higher. There wasn't a single part of me that understood what the fuck was happening inside, but he was driving himself into a spot that made my breath catch, and my fingers twitch. My head tipped back onto the cold concrete wall, my vision unfocused, and oh God , yes, that was perfect?—

"Am I?" he challenged, but his words were strained, spat out through clenched teeth and stiffening muscles. The way he gripped me, the way he moved, it told me he was close, and I was right beside him, seconds from falling off the cliff. "I could be far meaner, Ava. I could…"

His fingers abandoned my clit entirely.

"… do that ."

I couldn't breathe, couldn't think straight, not when he'd left me teetering on the fucking edge like that. "No, no, no, please ," I begged, my shaking hand slipping from his shirt and searching for his. Where the fuck was it? "Adrian, I swear to God?—"

The fabric of my dress shifted, and just above where my legs met my hips, a warm pressure bloomed. A strained cry left my throat as the pressure made me feel even fuller, as it intensified the already gluttonous sensation of him hitting that spot inside of me. I'd never felt anything like that.

My orgasm tore through me, unannounced and unexpected, from somewhere far deeper than I'd normally feel it.

I gripped onto him for dear life as he fucked me, my body seizing and relaxing over and over, that pressure remaining in place as he shook. Just when I'd thought he'd lost all control and fully broken, a brush of sensation against my clit ignited me again, just enough to have me digging my fingers into bare skin and cloth as he buried his final moan against the underside of my jaw.

And despite how long he held me like that with our combined warmth dripping down between his polished shoes, despite how much our breaths synced as we tried desperately to regain our oxygen levels, despite how still we were as the breeze off the Hudson whipped through the buildings and blew against our bodies, I couldn't cool off. I couldn't come down from the high.

He'd lit me on fire with that last little touch, and I couldn't seem to put it out.

With shaking hands, he lowered me back to the floor and refastened his slacks, fixed the little flyaways that were sticking up from my hair, cleaned up the smeared lipstick below my lip. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, removing any hint of evidence there, before raking his fingers through the black and speckled gray of his hair.

My feet struggled to find their balance in my heels, and I leaned against the wall for support, my chest heaving with every breath.

I had never, not once in my life, had an orgasm like that. I couldn't wrap my head around it. I wasn't lucky enough to be blessed with the ability to have a release without external stimulation, but that … that was the only way I could classify it.

I didn't want to admit that he might know my own body better than I did. I didn't want to admit that I'd never had someone do that to me and likely never would again. I wasn't even entirely sure how he did it.

But God, I wanted him to do it again. And that couldn't happen.

Using the wall as my only help, I took a step away and toward the door, swallowing down all of the words that I wanted to say to him. I had to go with my gut here if we stood any chance of this fizzling out—something it was clear we both wanted and needed to accomplish.

"I thought you were done avoiding me," he said, his face almost unreadable in the low light of the shadow. His fingers stilled halfway through pushing a button into its hole.

I shook my head. "No," I said. Words and whole sentences flowed through my mind, too many of them being too real, too honest, but I kept those locked behind my teeth and went with the easiest thing to say. "This is exactly why I need to avoid you."