Chapter 21
“Enjoy the rest of your evening, Mr. Baine,” the restaurant doorman tells me as I slide into the back of my private limousine behind Avery.
At nine o’clock it’s early to be calling it a night, but after spending several hours at the opening ceremony of the recreation center and all of the press hoopla that entailed, I craved a quiet meal with Avery somewhere far away from chattering crowds and flashing cameras. The little hole-in-the-wall, cash-only Italian place in the East Village isn’t much to look at, but the home-style cooking has been bringing people back for more than a hundred years.
“That. Was. Amazing,” she says once we settle into the car and Patrick pulls away from the curb. “Hands-down the best spaghetti and meatballs I’ve ever had. And the chocolate cannoli was insane!”
I smile and take her hand in mine. “I remember you enjoy authentic Italian food, so I thought you might like this place.”
“I loved it.” She cuddles against me on the wide leather seat. “Today has been incredible.”
“I’m glad you were with me at the ceremony,” I tell her, draping my arm around her and smoothing my fingers over the soft skin of her arm. “I wouldn’t have wanted to share the day with anyone else.”
“I wouldn’t have missed for anything, Nick. Watching you up there in front of the press and hundreds of kids and their parents, telling them about your vision for the center and what you hope it brings to the community is something I’ll never forget.”
And I’ll never forget looking into the crowd and seeing her there in the front row, her face full of encouragement and excitement . . . and pride. For me. Even after everything I put her through a year ago.
Especially after the things I’ve done more recently than that.
It’s going to take me a while to purge my shame for my behavior the night we came back from the hospital together. That she’s agreed to give me another chance is nothing short of a miracle, but then, that’s what Avery has been for me from the start.
A miracle I never expected.
The angel I’ll do anything to deserve.
She shifts beside me, scooting up and pivoting to face me. “The name you gave the arts center in the building tonight—I didn’t realize you were going to dedicate it after your mom.”
I nod. “The Elizabeth Xavier Center.”
“It’s such a fitting tribute to her, Nick. The entire recreation center is really something special. Can you believe all of the creative classes are completely booked up already?”
I blow out a sigh, running a hand over my jaw. “I wasn’t expecting that, no.”
“That just speaks to the need you’re filling in the community. Maybe you should consider expanding.”
I chuckle because her mind evidently works similarly to mine. “I texted Lily before we left for the restaurant to schedule a staff meeting to discuss using this center as a model for other areas of the city.”
“Why stop there? Every city in the country could use a gathering place like the one you’ve created. Take your concept national.”
I stare at her, struck silent by the depth of my feelings for this woman. I have the faith of corporate giants and people worth many hundreds of millions of dollars, but the belief I see in Avery’s face is the one that renders me speechless. It reaches into me, to a place only she has been able to touch.
Christ, her belief in me goes beyond humbling. It staggers me.
It also gives me a strength unlike anything else before in my life.
She makes me believe I can do anything. Be anything.
Overcome anything.
“It’s been my dream all along to make this work in a big community and then one day take it wider. I don’t mean for money or recognition. I’ve got enough of one and couldn’t care less about the other. I want to do it for the kids who need a place like that. For the ones who don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Kids like you,” she says quietly, tenderly.
“Yeah. For kids like me.”
Her fingers find my hand, the one riddled with ugly scars. Her touch is light, her fingertips following the ghosts of the jagged lacerations.
Usually when I look at my scars—when I so much as think of them—my head fills with all the memories of that night, and the horrors that preceded it. My father’s raging voice, the accusations that exploded out of me, all them finally too immense for me to carry any longer. His vicious denials.
His utter repudiation of me, his son.
“You’re a good man, Dominic Baine.”
“No. I’m not. But I want to be. For you.”
“You’re the only man I want. The only one I love.”
She draws me to her mouth and kisses me. It’s unhurried and sweet, yet I can taste the need in it too. When she draws back, her eyes are heavy-lidded and dusky in the dim glow of the limousine interior and the blur of city lights that streak by on the other side of the windows.
“So, on a proper date scale of one to ten, how am I doing?”
She laughs softly, happiness beaming in her face. “Off the charts.”
I grunt in acknowledgment. “If you’re referring to this afternoon before we left for the ribbon-cutting, I agree.”
Her grin flashes. “Well, it was definitely a good start.”
“Are you suggesting you’re not finished with me, Ms. Ross?”
“Oh, I’m more than suggesting.”
“Is that right?” My brows rise, along with another part of my anatomy that’s already gotten a good head start. I glance up at the rearview mirror where my longtime driver’s eyes remain dutifully focused on the evening traffic. “Patrick, how fast can you get us to the Park Place building?”
He chuckles. “I’ll do my best, sir.”
Avery sits up, tilting her face to whisper in my ear. “Who said anything about waiting until we get home?”
She moves my hand onto her thigh, where her skirt rides up just enough for me to skim my fingers into the heat between her legs. Her skin is infinitely soft, burning beneath my fingertips as I slide higher, into the juncture of her thighs. She’s not wearing panties.
Holy fuck.
A shallow gasp races from between her lips when I stroke into the wetness of her bare pussy. My blood pounds, all of it rushing south to my suddenly unbearable erection.
It’s not as if I haven’t been thinking about being inside her all damn day.
She’s wearing a short-sleeved navy dress that somehow manages to look classic and sophisticated while hugging every luscious curve and plunging low enough to showcase the long rope of pearls around her neck.
She caught the eye of every man in viewing distance of her, but her attention never wavered from me. And each moment she spent beside me I felt my chest swell with pride and wonder that this extraordinary, enticing woman is mine.
Now I need to hear her say the words. I need to hear her say them in a pleasured cry of release that leaves no room for doubt.
My free hand hits the privacy screen button without a word of excuse to Patrick.
As soon as we’re sealed off from my driver, Avery attacks my mouth in a searing kiss. We should be sated after the way we came together before leaving for the ceremony this afternoon. But that hard, bone-melting fuck was only a prelude to the desire that erupts between us now.
And thank God for that.
It’s been torture trying to downshift and take things slow with her the past few nights. I never want to see fear in her face when she looks at me. I’ll never cross that line with her again—that much I can promise her. But my need for her is immense.
Today she let me know in no uncertain terms that she wants this too.
Hell, on the bathroom countertop today when she spread herself open to me like an offering laid out on the altar, she demanded no less than everything I had to give her.
Hunger rakes me just to recall it. I see that same erotic invitation in her desire-drenched gaze now. She inches toward the center of the leather seat, her skirt riding high above her naked hips. The string of pearls rolls with the subtle motion of the vehicle. The long strand dips low, creamy baubles sliding against the shadowed cleft of her sex.
“Christ.” The curse wrenches out of me, dark and urgent. “You are so fucking beautiful.”
Her sensual mouth curves at my praise. With her eyes locked on mine, she reaches down, her fingers moving the pearls in a slow caress between her slick folds. She arches beneath her own hand, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip as a soft moan curls up from the back of her throat.
It’s more than I can bear. I descend on her, pushing her thighs wider as my face meets her pussy and I lick into her sweetness. She sucks in a gasp, bucking against me as I tongue her clit. The pearls are warm and sleek against my face, rolling between us with each hungry movement of my head between her legs. I slide my hands beneath her and angle her so that she is completely at my mercy.
“Oh God,” she whispers, her spine undulating in time with my tongue’s lashing.
On a low whimper, she rises up to watch me devour her, unabashed in her enjoyment. Her fingers tunnel into my hair at the back of my head, clutching me against her in fevered demand.
“Fuck,” she gasps as I hold her darkened gaze and continue my onslaught. “Nick . . . oh fuck.”
Small tremors vibrate in the pearls that brush against my mouth as her climax starts to build. When I catch the end of the strand with my tongue and roll it over the hardened bud of her clit, her body shudders, trembling in my hands.
I don’t stop until she’s coming, until her soft, shallow panting becomes a moan and then a cry of uncontainable pleasure.
Only then do I stop long enough to unfasten my belt and zipper enough to take my stiff cock in my hand and guide it to her. I drive in deep, too lost to be gentle. Too consumed with love and desire for this amazing woman to exercise any degree of control.
Her arms wrap around me as I stroke into her tightness, her pussy gripping me like a wet, hot fist.
“You’re mine,” I utter against her mouth.
I hear the plea in my gruff voice and I know she must too. She must feel it in every hammering thrust that takes me to the very limit of what her small, impossibly snug body can accommodate.
And still I can’t get deep enough. I never will, not with her.
“Mine, Avery.”
“Yours,” she says, clutching me as I move inside her. Her beautiful face is slack with pleasure, lips parted on a gasp. “God, Nick, yes . . . only yours.”
She starts coming again and her sharp cries spur me into a desperate rhythm. I plunge hard, furious in my need for release now.
My orgasm erupts in a violent rush, flooding her in hot unrelenting bursts. On a coarse snarl, I lower my head to the curve at the base of her neck and shoulder, my teeth taking hold of her soft sinewy flesh as her sheath milks me. Those tiny contractions strip me of all control. I shudder and jerk atop her, wrung out and utterly owned.
God help me, I’ll never get enough of this—of her.
“Mine,” I whisper harshly.
I don’t care if she knows how badly I need to believe that. I need her to understand it too.
My past has stolen so much from me. The other night it almost took her away too.
Never again.
No matter what I have to do to ensure that.
Even if it means I have to walk through hell itself to keep her.