I bent down to suck her neck as I thrust my hips forward. She was tight, and I was as deep as I could be, and it felt just perfect. I grunted, my lips on her smooth skin, close to the brink. When I came, I wanted her to feel something too. So, I sucked on her neck and moved up to her jaw, finally stopping to bite her lip, tasting her as I broke slowly apart with each final thrust.
In a second, I shuddered against her as I felt the wetness between us. I stayed inside for a few moments, kissing her lips gently this time, and she kissed back with a sigh. I gotout gingerly, taking the condom off and tossing it in the bin next to the bed before I leaned down on the bed, drawing her to me, spent and happy.
We lay in silence for a while, refusing to give in to sleep. I reached for the locket around her soft, glowing neck and held the pendant between my fingers.
“This is mine,” I said, turning it around. “I like that you still have it.”
It had been years since this’d held a picture of us, this heart-shaped little locket, but I wanted to see whose picture took my place.
She nodded, and I didn’t intrude.
“You can open it, you know,” she said, and when I did, there was the tiniest photo of her mom in it.
“Nancy Hale,” I muttered, a faint recollection of the memory coming to me.
I shut the locket, realizing that she probably didn’t want to talk about her mom. But to my surprise, Ava opened the locket herself and looked at it for a long moment, the expression on her face more peaceful than I’d ever seen before.
I wasn’t sure if she was ready to speak about her mom again, but I tried anyway. “Was your mom the inspiration for you to want to work in the restaurant industry too?”
Ava stole a look at me before turning back to her mom’s photograph. “Yes,” she sighed, tracing the small photo with her finger. She turned to me. “Mom always said she wanted me to be self-employed. Have my own business, like she did.”
“Why was it so important to her?”
“Because then no one could take it away,” Ava said with a heavy voice.
I looked up at her, startled by the defeat in her voice. The pained expression on her face was back.
“We don’t need to talk about her,” I said, running my fingers up and down her arms in a way I hoped was soothing for her.
“It hurts to talk about her, darling. But there’s something else too. Something that makes me feel like I’m keeping her alive a little when I talk about her anyway.”
Her body moved as she turned closer to me, and I could see the trouble in her eyes.
“Someday,” I said, “there will be something other than pain when you think about her. I’ve lived through this too. Someday, you will smile when you talk about her. Just keep going, sweetheart. It only gets better.”
She lifted her head and looked at me. With a determined expression, she nodded and spoke. “Mom had a string of bad luck at places she had worked at as a waitress. The first company folded. The second place she worked at had an unethical manager, and she quit rather than work for a sleazeball. The man got so offended that he spread rumors of her sleeping with a colleague when she hadn’t, and she could never find work again. That was in Austin, by the way. It had been the incident that pushed Mom to move back to New York three years ago. Mom had no references, nothing. She had a good savings though and helped pay for my upkeep until she passed away.” I sighed. “I don’t think her regret ever left her though. She always insisted, until her last day, that I never work for anyone but myself.”
I stared deeply at the picture of a smiling woman.
“Well, she might not have liked it if she knew you were going to be working for me,” I said, feeling a hint of bitter regret.
Ava shut the locket and lay back down, snuggling close to me.
“But she doesn’t know the kind of man you grew up to be,” she muttered softly. “You expanded the Lead Capital Group’s business portfolio and acquired the top five companies in the hospitality and tourism industries today. You grew Luxe Hotels to a business that employs ten thousand people around the world. You have the same entrepreneurial spirit that Mom had.”
“You’ve kept track of my career?” I asked in disbelief.
She nodded. “More recently, I have. And I know that none of that really matters to me or Mom. She would’ve liked you just for the way you’ve been helping me in my search for Kyle.” Ava nuzzled my neck, and I pulled her closer. “How did you find it in your heart to be so nice to me?”
“Well, going by how I treated you in the past, it seemed like it was the only way to make amends. That was why I started anyway. But as I got to know you more, I really liked this grown-up version of you too. I wanted to know more about you. To spend more time with you.” I planted kisses on her temple and her cheek. “And I still can’t seem to get enough.”
She traced a finger on my shoulder, keeping her gaze fixed on it when she asked, “But if I ask you a question, will you answer it honestly for me?”
I nodded as the moon shone down on her through the half-drawn curtains on the windows.
She held on to my hand, intertwining our fingers. “Why was it so hard for you to let me into your life in the months after your mom’s death?”
I didn’t want to answer that, so I kissed her. I trailed a line of kisses down her neck and stopped when I reachedher chest. I placed my head on her heart, and I could feel her heart beating fast.
