CHAPTER 1
AVA
Itoss and turn in bed, knowing on some level I’m asleep, knowing that this is a dream I shouldwantto wake from because this memory is from eleven months ago. Michael’s strong hands are smoothing down my body, his amber-gold eyes fixed on me as if I’m the only woman he’ll ever want, ever need.
He’s a stranger, but when he touches me, my body responds to him like we were made for each other.Don’t be such a cliché…But the cynical voice can’t win when he lifts me up and presses his powerful grip against my ass, drives forward with his hips, and lays the hard ridge of his bulge against the achingly thin fabric of my tights.
His kisses are more passionate than I have ever experienced, pure heat and blazing fire. He slides his other hand between us, palming the wetness there, groaning as he presses the heel of his palm against my electrified nub.
Then he leans back, stares deeply at me, into me. “This is the first time in years, Ava, I’m not someplace else. I’m right here. With you. Only with you.”
Wake up,I silently scream.You know how this ends.
But the dream traps me, perhaps because I want to be trapped.
He spins to the bed, lays me down, and tears off my tights like they’ve offended him. Cool air hits my skin before his warm lips find me. He kisses up my thighs, gripping my hips like he never wants to let go. When his mouth finds my sex, I gasp, pushing my hips against him.
I’ve never felt anything like this.
He licks and worships until I’m shaking all over. Then he stands, tearing off his stylish shirt to reveal a body carved from marble, muscles straining beneath tight skin. His teeth flash as he drags down his pants and briefs.
His manhood springs free. So big I almost think I won’t be able to take it. A string of precome spills from his trembling tip and lands on my leg. He climbs over me, corded arms braced on either side of my head.
“Nowhere else exists,” he groans, kissing my neck softly. But I can feel my body shiver, a volcano ready to erupt.
I want to speak, to say words that get him as fired up as he’s getting me. But all that comes out is a long, drawn-out moan. I smooth my hands down his strong back, dig my fingernails in until they bend and threaten to snap.
“Don’t worry,” he says firmly. “I’ll go slow. For as long as I can.”
He reaches down, guides his thickness to my entrance, and caresses it up and down my folds, spreading my slickness. Before that magical, beautiful night, I was never confident in the bedroom.
But with Michael, I reach down, stroke him, then guide him inside of me.
I nod, urge him on, slide down his length as he parts my walls and sends electric tension humming through every inch of me. His hips go flush against me, his length buried to the hilt, both of us joined.
“I want to stay here forever,” he growls in my ear. “And I don’t care how cheesy that sounds.”
I know the feeling. Burying my face in his neck, I wrap my arms around him. I breathe in his scent, savoring the feeling of being stretched, coveted, and worshipped.
He growls and leans back so he can look at me. I rock my hips, feeling like his prize.
He thrusts his hips, sliding all the way out, letting me panic at his absence, then sliding in, and out, and in, and out, and?—
I bolt upright in the here and now, gasping. It’s not eleven months ago. Michael isn’t here. It’s just me alone in my small apartment, the sheets soaked with sweat and… well, the obvious. I chew my lip, feeling the desperate ache between my legs.
When I woke, and Michael was gone, when I discovered he’d fled in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye, when I learned that all his talk about me making him feel grounded and present and all that crap was, well,crap… when that happened, I made a promise to myself.I will not touch myself over that night.
And tonight, I fail.
I slide my hand between my legs and press down on my clit, buck my hips, and close my eyes, remembering how consumed heseemed with me. The veins stood out in his neck and shoulders as he came, his distinctive eyes burning like wildfire.
“I need you to come on my dick,” he groans.
My hand moves impatiently between my legs, whimpers escaping me even as I try to silence them, as if not making noise will make this any less of a self-betrayal.
This is always the moment that gets me: his wildness, his devotion.
The orgasm shatters me. I squeeze my legs around my hand, grinding fast, remembering how his gaze moved between our joined bodies, from my breasts to my face, on repeat, like he didn’t know which turned him on more.
