~ Ares

I don’t usually sleep through the night. I toss and turn like a motherfucker, business ideas and nightmares swirling around my head until I’m forced to get up for a night cap. To add insult to injury, Laura had been creeping into my dreams lately, which made sleep even less inviting. It was a godsend to get a good seven hours of sleep after being with Ava—better rest than I’d had in a good long while.

When I woke, I was groggy and disoriented. I slept so deeply that, for a good five minutes, I wasn’t even sure where I was. When a small, warm body shifted against me, I frowned slightly. After a good night’s sleep, I hardly wanted to deal with an unwanted houseguest.

And then I caught sight of a few blonde tendrils draped across my chest.

Everything came rushing back.

Last night... Ava let me have her last night—let me be her first. I took her to my bed to touch her and taste her until she was a puddle of sensation among the sheets.

Fucking Christ, the way she looked at me. The way she raised those big, needy green eyes to stare at me as I tasted her. The way she trembled as if she couldn’t decide if she wanted to watch or just to feel. Every time she came apart against my tongue it was a trial to keep from just pounding into her to satisfy my aching cock.

For once, it wasn’t all about me. It was about her. Making her come until she quivered beneath me and begged for succor. Once I absorbed myself in making that beautiful body mine, I was drugged with it. I drank up every moan, gasp, and cry like my lifeblood.

Even now, I could still feel her shaking—I could feel how tight and hot and glorious she was when I slid inside her.

And there it was. Somehow, I’d miraculously manage to avoid a painful case of morning wood until I actually woke up, but having Ava right next to me, and memories of the previous night filling my mind, was one hell of an aphrodisiac. I shifted slightly to look down at her, tucked into the crook of my arm and still fast asleep.

Fucking God, she was gorgeous. Her neck and chest were pockmarked with my kisses from the night before, those lovely lips of hers parted as she breathed deeply against my side. Cornsilk hair spilled over both her and the mattress, and I ran my hand through it indulgently.

She was mine. Mine. I’d been her first and if I’d fucked over any man that came after me, I was glad.

I wanted her again. I suppose I’d known that the moment I woke next to her. It would take so little for me to slide her onto her back; to kiss and tease and ease her into wanting me again. If I had my way I’d spend all morning in bed with her, and if she were anyone else, I would have.

But this was Ava. Ava who had trusted me enough to give me her first time. The woman I had fallen into conversation with about some of the darkest shit in my life with little reservation, simply because I had seen no judgment in her gaze.

Fuck, had that thrown me for a loop. I had every intention of bringing her back to my penthouse and seducing her—but that had all changed at the sight of her so prettily seated on my sofa with her glass of honeyed whiskey. How many times had I faced women in the exact same position? Women who fixed me with bedroom eyes and hearts so full of fucking greed I could practically see them salivating.

But not Ava. She was nervous, tucked into herself; gazing around the penthouse as if she had never seen something so lavish. She didn’t come from the world of facades and faces put on just to make a quick dollar. She was genuinely shocked, discovering all of this for the first time. She wasn’t conniving and she had no hidden agenda.

Despite myself, I opened up to her. Maybe it was the alcohol or maybe it was because she just looked damned gorgeous in that dress of hers, but I talked. I spoke with Ava like I spoke to relatively few people, like I might have spoken to my grandfather if he were still alive.

And when I showed her my painting, the look on her face.

It was a whim, really, a stupid goddamned impulse that I began to regret the moment I led her down the hall. No one cared that I painted—there was little creativity involved in what I did now. It was all numbers, figures, and projections and I was perfectly fine with that. But sometimes, I needed an outlet—and for me, that outlet was painting on canvas.

I stroked gently over Ava’s plush lower lip, my own mouth turning up slightly at the corners. She had liked it. More than that, her eyes lit up when she saw the damned thing. When I told her I painted it, you could have picked up her jaw from the fucking floor. I liked surprising Ava—catching her off guard was quickly turning into my favorite hobby.

All at once, I frowned, remembering.

This wasn’t the first time I’d felt this way.

Carefully, I extricated my arm from beneath Ava’s sleeping form, rolling over to sit on the opposite edge of the bed.

When I first met Laura... all I wanted to do was make her smile and hear her laugh. I would have done anything to make her happy… anything in the entire goddamned world.

And where the hell had that gotten me?

For the moment, just the barest moment, I’d forgotten what Laura did. How she’d destroyed me. That was dangerous. If I forgot, that meant opening myself up to vulnerability again; and I’d be damned if I would go through that hell one more time.

No.

Ava was sweet. She was innocent and kind, intelligent and ambitious. But she wasn’t enough to make me forget myself. No woman was. Ava and I had great chemistry in the bedroom—perhaps more than Laura and I ever had. But that just meant that I’d have to take advantage of it as much as I could. I would have her whenever I could; hear her sweet moans; revel in her begging me to sate her need but, that was all. Anything else was dangerous, for both my company and myself.

With a long exhale, I glanced over my shoulder at her slumbering form, wincing as my cock twitched. For now, I’d let her sleep. She had to be exhausted, and after last night, she deserved a good fucking lie in.

I needed to tend to my demons.

In a punishment of sorts, I put myself through a grueling workout. When I bought and remodeled the penthouse I sank a good thirty thousand into the gym, and I used it every day. I lifted weights until my muscles were screaming and I was sure I was going to have issues lifting a pen the next day, but the burn was better than thinking about the blonde goddess in my bed.

After a long, hot shower, I almost felt normal again. While I listened to the bevy of messages that had come in overnight, I made breakfast for both Ava and myself. Despite the fact that the penthouse was more than big enough for ten people, I lived alone with no in-house staff. Once or twice a month I called in someone to do a deep cleaning, but I preferred solitude to being waited on hand and foot. After all, I wasn’t born into money.

When I was in the middle of combining ingredients for an omelet, Ava shuffled into the kitchen. She was absolutely adorable, her eyes still half-lidded from sleep, hair pulled into a messy bun atop her head and wearing, my shirt; and nothing else, I strongly suspected.

My dick twitched at the same time my heart stuttered at the sight of her yawning as she made her way slowly across the length of the kitchen.

“What time is it?” she murmured tiredly, leaning against the counter.

I actively fought the smile that threatened. She was cute as fuck and it was a danger to my health. “Close to nine in the morning. I’m making breakfast if you’re hungry.”

“Starving.”

So was I. Less for food, more for her. I knew that if I didn’t make up an excuse to get away, I’d end up making a fool of myself. As Ava slid into one of the stools at the kitchen island, I cleared my throat. “I’ve got an emergency client meeting to get to in a bit. So, I’m going to take my breakfast on the run.” I didn’t dare look back to see her expression. Whatever she felt, it would have had far too profound an effect on me at that particular moment. I needed to be out and about. Being in close proximity to Ava ratcheted my already ridiculous sex drive through the roof—and beyond that, it made me acutely uncomfortable. There was a decided lack of control that festered and turned my stomach slightly—and I needed an escape route.

“Ok.” Her answer came, tentative and accepting. “Should I get ready to leave when you do?”

In the past decade or so I hadn’t given a lot of thought to kicking a woman out of my house when I was tired of her. They may curse me seven ways to Sunday, but I didn't give a flying fuck. When I wanted my privacy, I wanted my privacy. Where Ava was concerned, however, I felt like a gigantic asshole for even suggesting she leave.

“Take your time. You can just turn the lock when you’re ready to go. I’m not worried about it.” This was wrong. I should have said something more. Fuck, she’d just given me her virginity the previous night and now I was telling her to lock up when she left. Don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord fucking split you.

I was beginning to see the truth in some of those trashy tabloids.

“Ok. Sounds good.” Ava’s tone was falsely cheerful, and I swallowed the urge to reassure her. She’d been beautiful last night—a fucking goddess. There was nothing I wanted more than to take her to bed and show her just how much I appreciated her giving herself to me.

But all that would have to wait until I was sure I wasn’t going to divulge something I shouldn’t give something I’d sworn never to give again.