What the hell? I always sleep with the blinds closed.
He sat up, realizing he wasn't in his bedroom. And he wasn't wearing any clothes. The previous night flooded back to him. Coming to the building to work and keep his mind off Ava. His anger, then relief. The desk.
We defiled my grandfather's antique desk.
He glanced at the wrinkled papers littering the floor around the desk. His clothes lay in a crumpled heap. The one thing missing?
Ava.
He walked over to the desk and pulled on his clothes, glancing around the room for any trace of Ava. Was their night of passion a dream? No, he was sure it happened. It had to have happened. He picked up the strewn papers and put them back on the desk, then returned to the couch where his phone and headphones sat on the floor beside it. He bent down to retrieve the items, glimpsing something red underneath the couch. His fingers closed around silky material.
Ava's red thong.
It wasn't a dream. Which meant Ava left him, dick out for anyone to find.
She. Left. Him.
He fisted the panties, swallowing down his hurt that she would leave him after the night they shared without so much as a goodbye. He wouldn't let her get away again. Shoving the thong in his pocket, resolve built inside him.
It was time to catch a Birdie.
Chapter 24
The Reckoning
Ava woke up achy in places she wasn’t used to. She couldn’t bring herself to regret the moment she shared with Owen last night, but she had some regrets about where they shared their moment. Her back and hips ached from laying on the rigid surface of the desk. She glanced down at her thigh, pulling back her sleep shorts to reveal the hickey underneath. He’d left his mark.
Her mind turned to the new information she’d learned last night. Owen was renovating the Agatha Building, now Birdie’s Bed and Breakfast, exactly how she’d imagined it all those years ago. He’d bought the building. Their building.
Maybe she shouldn’t have left him the way she had last night. But he’d looked so peaceful, and she couldn’t tell Summer she’d been fucking her brother and wouldn’t need a ride home. She wasn’t sure how Summer would receive the news about her hooking up with Owen. Instead of confessing where she’d been, she stuck with her story of needing air and had gone for a long walk around the lake beforereturning to the bar. So what if Summer eyed her mussed hair and untucked shirt with raised eyebrows? Until she talked to Owen, it didn’t feel right to inform Summer. It might get her hopes up, or she might be pissed.
Either way, Ava’s mouth was zipped until she had more time to process the fact she’d had sex with Owen on his grandfather’s antique desk, and he’d made her come three times.
Not that she was counting.
The knot in her lower back didn’t help matters.
Ava checked her phone, relief and anticipation warring inside her, to find there were no missed notifications from Owen. She padded downstairs for coffee, hoping the early hour meant her brothers wouldn’t be awake yet.
That hope deflated on seeing Lucas at the dining table fiddling with something. As she walked by, the skunky smell took her by surprise. She stopped short to get a closer look. “Uh Lucas. What’s going on here?”
Lucas stopped fiddling with the grinder and looked at her. “Truce? For now?” Lucas asked her.
Their fight was still unresolved, but she could admit she was in no mood to continue bickering with her brothers this morning. Not after the heavy revelations and intimacy she’d shared with Owen that weighed on her mind.
“Yeah, ok. Truce. But our discussion isn’t over.”
“Agreed.”
“Care to explain what you’re doing?”
“Went through Dad’s office some more last night. Came across his weed stash tucked in the back of his desk drawer.”
Her mind flashed briefly to how Owen had lifted her over the desk, spread her legs apart, and kissed up and down her body like he was memorizing every inch of her.
“Earth to Ava.” Lucas waved a hand in front of her face to get her attention.
Ava jolted to reality, embarrassed by where her mind wandered. “Huh?”
