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I should say no. I should get up and drag her out. I should fire her now that I have what I want, and never see her again. But my brain is still stuck on her mouth wrapped around my cock, and all I manage is, “For now.”
Ava barely waits until I’ve finished before her lips press to mine. Plump and pretty even in feeling.
“I still hate you.” Her malty breath trails over my tongue and down my throat.
“I still own you.” Licking across her lips, I cup her face with both hands, pulling her up onto her knees.
Kneeling on the ground beside me, she’s a contained ball of fire, and fuck if I don’t want to break her open right here, right now, until she’s an out-of-control, blazing inferno.
My heart drums along to her breathy groan as her mouth opens for me. She’s all aged oak and smoked wood with the most delicate hint of her. Sweet and sassy and soft.
The urge to devour her is irresistible as I taste and breathe her in. With her nails raking across my jaw, I could be putty in her hands. Or a million versions of myself that I have never been.
Ava’s all breathless and shaky when I pull away. Glittering eyes widen on mine, and when I lick the residue of her from my lips, her thumb sweeps across them, parking itself right in the middle.
We sit in the silence with the city twinkling around us for longer than I can bear. The need to fuck and the urge to soothe is too much. And truce or not, emotions and feelings are further than we can go. I can only be me. This version. The man on top.
Grabbing the bottle, I stand, the loss of her contact far too palpable for my liking.
“He won’t answer my calls.”
The waver in her voice makes me pause, and the sight of her at my feet is more satisfying than any liquor or workout or…
Stop, I tell myself before things get more complicated than they need to be.
Reaching down, I grasp Ava’s hand and pull her to her feet. Before the silence engulfs us again, I say the one thing that will douse whatever this is. “I’m an asshole. He’s an asshole. We’re all assholes.”
As I predicted, she pulls back with a snarl. “My father is not an asshole.”
“Yeah, he is.” Heading back to the drink cart by my desk, I place the bottle of whisky back. When I turn, she’s right there, so close that I can feel her potent heat.
“No.”
“Yes,” I snap at her.
Ava takes a step back. My desk at her ass blocks her escape.
“It’s what it takes to be who we are. Mice can’t fight lions.”
“Sometimes they do,” she retorts with a growl.
“In fairy tales perhaps. But not in boardrooms. You ever think that’s why he picked Marshall over you?” Her hand flies through the air, and I only just manage to catch it in mine before it greets my face. “You’re soft, Ava. You believe in peace and harmony and kumbayas. But that’s not how this world works.”
“I hate you so much.”
“Because I’m right.”
“You ruined everything.” She fists the unbuttoned collar of my shirt.
“You came to me. You left your family and came here. Did you think that you were going to get special treatment?” Her audible swallow is all the answer I get. “I’m not that guy, and you’re not that woman. You’re better. You deserve to be at the top, but you need to wise up on what that entails.”
Pulling away from her, I give her space to walk away. There’s no hesitation. She slips her heels back on and grabs her things from the coffee table with a stumble or two. It takes a lot more of me than I’m prepared to admit to resist the urge to sweep her up and take her home myself. And although the place feels like it magnifies with every step she takes away from me, I hold my ground.
Before Ava makes it out of the door, I tell her and myself, “Truce is over.”
There’s no place for feelings in business. After all, isn’t that what I just preached to her?
Chapter 6
