I flicked on the pot lighting in my kitchen. It cast soft beams into the darkness.

I was grateful I still had the apartment for another month before I had to decide what to do with it.

“What are you doing?” Ava demanded when she emerged from the washroom. She was silhouetted in the light.

I shut the freezer door. “Getting ice for your hand.” I held up a bag of peas.

She crossed to me with a familiar look in her eyes. One I’d imagined a hundred times in the last month.

My gaze fell to her lips.

“We should talk,” I started. That was what I’d wanted this weekend. To talk to her, to have a shot at working this out so I could stop being so fucking miserable.

Ava nodded. “We should talk.” But her expression was saying something else. She reached me and took the bag out of my hand, dropping it on the floor without losing eye contact.

“You don’t want to,” I guessed.

“It’s four am, Nate,” she whispered, and her voice sent heat down my spine. “Just tell me one thing. Did you come back for me?”

I nodded silently.

She made a sound in her throat. “Good. We can talk about the rest later.”

Ava pulled my mouth down to hers. I didn’t put up a fight.

I’d gone weeks without her. The first week was spent second-guessing my decision. The next was spent throwing myself into work, reminding myself why I was in Minneapolis. Hoping it would keep me from lying awake at night, which I did, and forgetting Alexis’s words, which I didn’t. The third week was spent wondering if the silence meant she’d found someone else. I’d finally given in and called Alexis, sweating bullets while I waited for her to tell me what I needed to hear.

“Dammit, Suit, I missed you.” Ava gasped between kisses. My hands ran over her body, feeling her breasts through her top, smoothing down her sides to her ass through the skirt, and it felt like coming home in more ways than one. Nothing had ever felt as good, as right, as she did.

“Call me Nate,” I muttered.

“What?” Ava pulled back, dazed. Her eyes were shining.

I brushed my thumb possessively over her lower lip. “I’m in love with you and I want you to call me by my name when you look at me like that.”

She melted. “Done.”

I wanted to show her. Not just with my words, but with my body. To worship her so she was without an instant of doubt that she was what I needed. Wanted. I hoisted her up on the counter and pushed her back so she was lying down, bunched her skirt up around her waist and breathed in her smell.

Fuck, it’d been too long. Our chemistry had always been off the charts, but it wasn’t just that. It hurt not to talk to her, touch her, love her. Her crazy mouth. Her passion. Her caring.

I licked a long line through her panties and she moaned. Then I pulled the scrap of fabric to the side and tasted her. It was all I could do not to devour her.

Ava’s hands fisted in my hair as she bucked to meet my mouth, letting out a long moan. My tongue never relented, stroking then sucking. My fingers slid into her wet heat and I groaned at the feel of her.

I lifted my head for a moment to look at her. I wiped my mouth on my shirtsleeve but never stopped stroking. “It’s been torture, being away from you,” I murmured. “It feels like every second of every day I’m thinking about you.”

“Nate, I should have listened. You’re too important to me to—” I fused my mouth on her until she cried out as she came.

It wasn’t enough. I had four weeks to forget.

I pulled her off the counter, supporting her as she landed on shaky legs.

“Bedroom.” Ava looked up at me, eyes wide and knowing.

“Yes.”

We tripped backward toward the room and she got her hands on me, undoing my belt and my pants and reaching inside. I hissed out a breath through my teeth.

“Fuck, kitten.”

“Too far, Nate. Screw the bedroom.”

The best words in the English language.

She pushed me down and followed me to the carpet. I rolled over so she was under me, then worked off my pants and shorts.

“Dammit, did you get bigger?” she muttered.

I fought a grin as I buried myself in her.

Then there was no room for jokes. I couldn’t hold back and we were sprinting, panting, for the end.

* * *

An hour after I broke her out of jail, Ava and I lay on the carpet. My arm was around her and I gazed into her green eyes.

How the hell did I leave this girl?

“That was …” I groaned.

“Mhmm,” she purred in response, curling tighter into me. “Can you say it?”

My brain was still rebooting. “Say what?”

“You know.” She hit me.

“That I love you? I don’t know. You didn’t say it back.” I squinted at her.

“Try me again,” she insisted.

“I love you, Ava. I’m in love with you.”

“I love you,” she whispered. Damn if my heart didn’t explode hearing her say the words.

“Steals-your-breath, strips-you-bare, indie-makeout love?” I teased.

“Fuck yeah.”

I groaned and stroked a hand down her hair, breathing her in. “I missed you so damn much. I could barely work.”

She pressed her lips to my chest. “Lex and Jordan were ready to put me down. I think they thought I’d never recover.”

“Well, I’m glad to be back.”

Ava pushed off me to look down into my eyes. “When you told me about the move, and that you didn’t tell your dad, I was afraid it meant I was losing you. I didn’t trust you. Or trust us.”

“I know. And you were right. I should’ve said no, or talked to you about it. It was stupid and unfair to assume you’d just go along with it. But I guess I never had anything that meant that much to me before and I didn’t know what to do with it. I wanted to protect you. And us.”

“So what happens now?”

I knew what she meant. “I have a lead on a job.” My fingers stroked her arm. I couldn’t stop touching her in case she vanished again. “Ty has an in with a firm here. They know my father and aren’t his biggest fans. They’re willing to take a chance on me. I’m trying them out.”

Ava frowned. “Do you really want to do that? What about your dad’s campaign?”

I shook my head. “I won’t say anything against him. And if he asks me, I’ll even speak for him. But I don’t want to practice at Townsend Price. It’s too much like being under his thumb. I want to make a difference and do it in my own name. And I can do that, while being a lawyer.”

“I’m so glad.”

“I have to go to Minneapolis next week.” She stiffened and my arms tightened around her. “Just to tie up some loose ends. I’ll be back next weekend for good. We should take a holiday. Get away from the drama. Just you and me.”

Ava sighed as she traced circles on my chest. “Damn, that sounds perfect. Once the lawsuit is gone.”

I groaned. I’d all but forgotten about it with everything else.

“Our court date is next week,” Ava reminded me. “If this takes a while to decide, we could be spending as much in legal fees. I wish you could just represent us, Nate.”

I shook my head. “I wish I could too. But there’s got to be something I can do.”