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My apartment was a wreck, but I didn’t care anymore.
I don’t think either of us knew what to say the entire car ride from my dad’s office to my apartment in the West Village. He’d invited me to spend a few nights with him as we’d descended in the elevator, offered me a spare bedroom if I didn’t want to jump into things just yet. But he wanted me to stay around him and Lucas for a few days, wanted for us to tell him together—and I was on board for that. I just needed to grab some things from home, and he was more than willing to come along.
I didn’t consider that he hadn’t been over to my place at all until I unlocked the door and let him in.
I’d managed to clean up in the last week or so, so it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been—but abandoned paint palettes were flung about on nearly every surface, the dishes needed doing, the couch was littered with work papers, and the canvas that sat on my easel only had a blue wash painted over it before I’d given up.
I wasn't necessarily self-conscious as he stepped inside and looked around at the paintings that hung on the exposed brickand wood, but I found myself following his gaze, wondering what he thought of the things I’d made.
But then he was turning back to me as I shut the door, crossing the small bit of space he’d left for me, his eyes locked on mine as he descended. One hand found my waist, pulling me gently but firmly against him, the other on my cheek — and before I could even register what was happening, his lips were on mine.
I couldn’t help but gasp against him from the abruptness of it. We hadn’t spoken about what this would mean exactly, hadn’t decided on a full course of action. But for a moment, as I sank into him, it didn’t matter. His kiss wasn’t hesitant or questioning—it was filled with everything we hadn’t said, everything we’d been holding back for weeks. The desperation, the depression, the longing, the relief. It was enough for now.
My fingers slipped around the sides of his neck, holding him to me as I kissed him back. The air in my lungs felt like the first real breath I’d had in far too long, and God, I’d missed him. I’d missed him too much to function.
He pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against mine, and despite me straining my neck up toward him, he didn’t bow to it. His hands didn’t leave my body, though, and as he breathed against me, he kept me close with an almost unwillingness to let me go. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his eyes closing. “For all of it, Ava. I’m so sorry.”
For the first time in what felt like forever, the ache in my chest eased, the weight of the last three weeks slowly lifting.
I believed it. He was here. And somehow, despite the chaos, we were going to be okay.
“It’s okay,” I said softly.
He pressed a kiss against my cheek, my nose, my top lip. “I missed you. Every fucking second, I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” I breathed. “And for what it’s worth, I feel the same.”
His eyes fluttered open, searching between mine, his mouth parting as his fingers dug into my skin.
Does he need clarification? “I love y?—”
He kissed me again, harder this time, demanding enough to push me back into the wooden door. Just before my head collided with it, the hand on my cheek slipped around the back of my head, cushioning the impact as his tongue pressed between my lips, forcing mine apart.
The urgency in his body language doubled as he slipped between my teeth.
I tried to meet him where he was, but the intensity he brought was nearly unmatchable. I slipped my hands beneath the edges of his jacket and pushed them toward his shoulders, but mine was already pooling in my elbows with his hands beneath my oversized top.
I loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt, but my leggings were already halfway down my thighs and my jacket abandoned on the floor, the edges of my top firmly in his hands as he lifted it up and over my head.
I tried for his belt, but my bra was gone, my brand new maternity underwear the only thing still clinging to my body in the right place.
He kissed my jaw, my neck, my collarbones for quick little stints, but he couldn’t keep himself long from my mouth. I kicked off my shoes as he kissed me again, his hand knotting in my bun and gripping onto it, pulling down and forcing my chin up. His lips trailed down over my chin, down the front of my neck, savoring me, devouring me.
“Get these off,” he mumbled against my skin as he hooked his fingers on the seam of my underwear, “or so help me God, I will tear them off of you, love.”
“But…you’re basically still dressed…”
His hands grabbed for mine abruptly and moved them to the sides of the fabric along my hipbones, his teeth sinking in just slightly on the top of my breast in warning. “Off, Ava.”
I swallowed and pushed them down my thighs, letting them fall between my ankles before kicking them off along with the pooled nylon of my leggings. The moment they were gone, his arms hooked underneath my rear, lifting me gently and forcing my thighs around his hips.
“How are your nipples?” he asked, his voice gruff as he spun us around and took the few steps into the kitchen.
“Sensitive.” I exhaled a squeak as he gently lowered me the half an inch it took for the counter to absorb my weight. “But not painful.”
“Thank God.”
His mouth closed around my right nipple as he leaned me back on the counter, one hand gripped around my waist and the other on the higher kitchen island behind me for stability. Between us, my little bump protruded, and seeing him there with his body on mine and not a care in the world regarding my own changing my body made my chest ache in the best way imaginable.
