Ava swallowed hard as she looked up at him, feeling at once both safe and threatened by his nearness, as if she needed to be worried that, having spilt his own blood and that of the one he'd conquered, her champion might feel he had the right to demand something more from her - something infinitely more personal - than he ever had before.
His pupils were dilated - but she didn't know if fighting did that to a man or not. No other man had done what he'd done for her; she'd never been into volatile guys, so she had little experience with must have inevitably been something of a testosterone high.
"Well, I'm glad for your sake that you didn't - and mine, because I'd be reduced to selling my body on the street to make your bail."
Before she knew she found herself crashing up against him, the throbbing mound of his passion impossible to ignore even though the thick layers of fabric she'd wrapped herself in.
"Don't ever joke about that," he scolded fiercely.
Ava gave him a quizzical look, deliberately trying not to succumb to either the fear or the passion that quickly flared to life within her, coursing through her veins like a strange combination of ice water and liquid flame that were battling for supremacy over her body.
"I'm just trying to be funny. To -"
"This is not a funny situation, Ava."
She swallowed hard, her eyes dropping from his to the cracked linoleum on the floor. "I know that, Oakley - it was my situation originally, remember?"
Thinking about how vulnerable and scared she must've been then only made every jealous, possessive tendency he owned - the ones he'd never really acknowledged in conjunction with her until tonight - riot just that much more fervently within him. "And I've made it mine now," he bent down so that his lips were next to her ear, still not really touching her anywhere except for one hard arm around her waist, and rasped, "I'll never let him touch you - hell, I'll never let him so much as lay eyes on you - again, much less a finger."
The very adult, Alpha male way he said those words had her gasping and jerking her head up to meet his eyes, instinctively trying to reel back away from the intensity of what she saw there, but Oakley wouldn't allow it.
Instead he simply began to contract his arm, plastering her even more tightly to him.
Ava brought her hands up to his shoulders to push him away, but they never quite got to that because he distracted her with his next question.
"And do you know why?"
Was that really her Oakley's voice? Just the timbre of it made her want to lie down naked in front of him in complete submission. Not trusting herself to speak at that moment, she shook her head, her eyes locked on his.
His free hand came up to bury itself in her hair, delving deeply to cradle her skull in his palm. "Because you're mine. You've always been mine, since I was four and you were three and I coaxed you to come into the shallow end of your parents' pool when no one else could. Since I was nine and you were eight and Perri Ellis didn't invite you to her birthday party, so I didn't go either and we spent the day building a tree house. Since I was sixteen and you were fifteen and I taught you how to drive a stick."
She cried out when he lifted her, forcing her to part her legs to clasp him as he walked with her into her bedroom, her robe spit around them, her nightgown crumpled up around her waist in deference to her need to part her thighs in order to cling to him.
He moved with her as if she weighed nothing, one arm supporting her under her bottom, the other around her back until he reached the end of her bed, where he held her close but allowed her to put her feet down. They landed on top of his size fourteen gunboats, reminding them both of the times when she had danced with him as a little girl at weddings. He hadn't minded then and he didn't now, stopping her wordlessly when she would have moved away by simply holding her in place.
She was a couple inches taller now because of him, her mouth just that much closer to his as it began to descend towards her.
All she could think of was that Oakley was going to kiss her - really kiss her!
And then he was, and it was gentler, more tender than she might have thought, although she could feel the strength coursing through him where her hands rested on his upper arms. She didn't feel afraid. It was Oakley, after all.
Her Oakley.
She whimpered softly as he deepened the kiss, his bold tongue slipping into her mouth, plundering, exploring, teasing hers to do the same to his, and groaning when she did.
As much as he didn't want to, Oakley knew he had to pull back a little. He certainly didn't want to make her feel like Jack had. She was so lost in the kiss, though, that he had to put his hands on her hips and push her carefully away from him to break it.
He loved the way she blushed when she realized just how involved she'd been, but he didn't like the look that came over her face - one of surprised embarrassment.
"Oh, Oakley, I'm sorry - I didn't mean to -"
"Stahp," he said in a way that he hoped would make her smile, and he was rewarded by a very tentative one. Oakley reached out to take both of her hands in his. "I want you, Ava. Very, very badly. So much that I can almost - but not really - understand how Jack lost his head with you, and I've wanted you for much, much longer than he has."
Her eyes widened in shock. "You have?"
Oakley's smile was tense but revealing. "Since before I really knew what to do with you. It's always been you, Ava. You've always been mine, and, as far as I'm concerned, you always will be."
He barely allowed himself to begin to hope that she might feel the same way when her arms looped around his neck and she turned that shy smile of hers on him, effortlessly melting all of his important bits - heart and brain included. "But why did it take a guy beating me up for you to tell me that?"
He shrugged and she clearly felt the leashed power contained in those muscled shoulders. "You've seemed to be quite happy the way we were. You always refer to me as your big brother, so I never thought you wanted anything more from me."
Now that it was coming down to it, down to brass tacks, down to confessing how she really felt about him after all these years of pining for him from afar, she wasn't sure she could do it. Ava withdrew her arms from around him to hug herself, her eyes unfocused and filling with tears.
But he wasn't about to let her withdraw from him when he'd just bared his heart to her. He wanted her eyes on his, and made it so. "Ava, honey, what is it? You can tell me? Do you not fancy me, is that it?"
He held his breath, knowing that every iota of his happiness hung on what she said right here, right now.
Tears spilled down her cheeks and each one nearly killed him as badly as the ones Jack had inspired in her earlier that night. He never could bear to see her cry.
"Don't be such a dolt, Oakley. I've wanted you since before I knew what to do with you, too. Only as soon as you discovered what to do with girls, you left me in the dust, and you've never looked back."
"What?" He was genuinely confused.
Ava's voice rose as she warmed to her subject. "You're a flirt. You're a womanizer. I don't think I've ever seen you with the same girl two nights in a row."
His eyes were wide as he stared down at her.
Her chin sank to her chest and she practically mumbled her next words, though, not really wanting to confess them. "I knew - I knew early on that I couldn't handle that. That -" tears flooded into her eyes, clogging her throat yet again that night, "if I - if we - made love, I'd never be able to deal with seeing you with another woman afterwards." Fat tears fell onto both her robe and his hand as it lay on its lapel as she choked out the last sentence in a strangled whisper. "I knew it would just gut me."
"So you protected yourself," Oakley's now ravaged heart dropped into his stomach because he understood immediately what she was saying. "From me."
"I had to. I - I had to," she finished lamely, trying to struggle out of his hold, stepping off of him to put her slipper socked feet on the floor.
She didn't get any further than that, though, and she belated stopped wiggling against him because she could still feel him swelling almost into her.
Oakley was torn - he knew that, having heard what she'd just said, he should let her go. But he was having a hard time getting his body to agree to move past the part of her confession where she'd as much as agreed that she'd wanted him, too - from way back.
His ability to be faithful had never really been tested, because he'd - consciously or unconsciously - never chosen a woman that he wanted to spend more than a few hours with before moving on to the next one. No one else had ever held his attention as she had - for going on decades now.
But there'd rarely been a day when they didn't speak in all that time they'd known each other, no matter what was going on in their lives, and they'd never so much as fought, really, since they'd outgrown childish bickering, and although they'd each had other friends, they was never anyone he felt closer to on this planet than Ava. They were disgustingly compatible and they loved each other deeply - that was a large part of how and why they had ended up sharing a flat in the first place.
If that wasn't proof of his continued fidelity, then nothing was.
Oakley bent down to nuzzle her neck, taking her small hand and placing it the prominent bulge in his shorts. "I want you, Ava. And I can promise you that I have never, ever wanted any woman as much as I want you. I ache with it. I've ached for you for years. All of those others were poor substitutes for the one I truly wanted."
She wished he wasn't so close. She wished his hot breath and his even hotter words weren't worming their way into her brain and beyond that to her susceptible body, curling around nipples that were already straining for his touch, for his tongue, then heading straight south to flick their tail against her clit to settle heavily within her, ratcheting up the tremendous ache she already felt to agonizing proportions.
How could she possibly even consider turning him down? her body whispered.
How could she possibly even consider taking him up on his offer?! her mind yelled back.
But when he cupped her cheeks between those big palms of his, thumbs wiping away the last of her tears, lips settling onto hers with infinite gentleness, although she could feel his muscles trembling with his effort at holding himself back for her, her mind had to concede total and utter defeat.
At first he merely teased her, nipping and nibbling, pressing teasing kisses to the side of her lips, taunting her with what he knew she wanted.
"Oakley! If you're going to kiss me, then fucking kiss me, already!"
The smile he gave her was full of undisguised, unfettered lust, and just for a split second Ava had to wonder what it was she'd unleashed in him by saying that, and then he was kissing her and absolutely nothing else mattered but that he continue to do so. Her head was tucked back into his shoulder as he lifted her just slightly, but more than enough to set her feet to dangling against his calves as his eager lips and tongue devoured hers, demanding she respond in kind.
Ava did so with no hesitation whatsoever - allowing herself the freedom - at last - to respond to him as she'd wanted to for more years than she cared to remember.
As much as he adored kissing her, Oakley was well past the necking stage. He wanted more of her - all of her. Eventually he hoped that he could get to the point where they could spend hours doing nothing but snogging, but that was not in the cards for this evening. He was to wound up to be able to indulge in the niceties for very long, as much as he also fully intended to be careful not to frighten her. He wanted her beneath him. He wanted to be pumping himself into her, to make her acknowledge - both verbally and non-verbally - to whom she belonged.
He put her down with every gentleness, then reached for the lapel of her robe, startled when she, too, reached for it, with both hands, trying to wrestle it away from him.
He caught her eye, and although her pupils were still huge, there was that edge of fear in them, too, that he had hoped had been put to rest, at least for the evening. Then his stomach hit the tops of the shoes she'd just been standing on when he realized the reason why she didn't want him to open her robe.
"Just let me turn out the -" she said, trying to lean towards the lamp on her nightstand.
As hard as it was to say to her - and it was horrible - Oakley stood his ground, whispering softly, "No," as he began to peel the thick material from her body, brushing her hands away as if they were just so much lint until she was standing before him naked and the true extent of what that bastard had done to her was revealed to him. She didn't just have marks on her neck and the side of her jaw. He had been so incensed when he saw them that he'd forgotten to ask if there were more.
And Ava had known better than to volunteer that there were - a lot more.
Oakley held her hands out, away from her body as he studied her, his teeth clenched fit to break them, that warning tic back in his jaw.
There were clear handprints all over her - her upper arm, the side of one breast, the curve of her waist and the inside of one thigh. He resolutely forced her to turn around for him, revealing more of them on her upper back as well as wrapping around her hips. And that wasn't taking into consideration the occasional purple contusions that could have been fingers - or a fist - marring her creamy pink skin in various places.
All Ava heard, with her back to him as fingers delicately drifted - touching but not really - was an animalistic cry of pure, unadulterated rage. He let loose her fingers and turned away from her to stalk towards the door.
"Oakley, no, please don't go!"
She'd made it to this point without really losing it, but if he walked out that door again, knowing what he now did, she had no illusions about the idea that he'd ever be back. Not for years and years, if then. Considering what Jack'd done to her, she didn't much care what happened to the bastard, but she certainly did care what happened to Oakley.
He stopped at her tiny, sobbed plea and turned just in time to see her crumple to the ground, her arms still stretched out towards him, as if to stop him merely by strength of a will that had been sorely tested this evening.
Although he'd intended to descend on Jack like the wrath of God yet again, this time with even more murderous intent, the sight of her stopped him in his tracks.
"Please, don't leave me."
She hadn't said anything like that to him since she was an afraid of the dark seven year old. The plaintive note in her hushed plea pulled on every heartstring he owned - ninety-nine percent of which were attached directly to her anyway. In two long strides he was next to her, scooping her up into his arms and carrying her to her bed, tucking her under then lying on top of the covers next to her, trying to be gallant, although his body was giving him hell for it.
And so was she, determinedly pushing him off the bed, then lifting the covers to invite him to cuddle her closer than he could from above them.
The sobering sight of the reminders Jack had left on her body had him practically taking a step back. "I - I don't think I can, Ava. I don't trust myself not to -"
Ava took a deep breath, tears still brimming in her eyes. "Oakley, at this moment I'm not at all above begging -"
Seconds later, she was in his arms, although he was still fully clothed, hugging her very tight. "Oh, I'm not hurting you, am I?" he asked belatedly, letting go.
"No, you're not, and if you do, I'll tell you," she promised, snuggling up against his chest. "You make me feel safe, Oakley, when no one else could."
Damn, she felt better in his arms like this than he could ever have imagined, and what she'd just said to him made his chest swell with pride.
Then she began to pluck at his shirt. "Wouldn't you feel better with this off? It kind of . . . itches me."
"Well, we can't have that, now, can we?" he agreed, sitting up to pull it off over his head.
"While you're at it . . . " she drawled.
Oakley stopped in mid-act of throwing his shirt towards the her vanity chair and looked back at her. "But Ava -"
"Please, Oakley? I don't want to be the only naked one in bed. It makes me feel just that much more . . . vulnerable."
She really couldn't have said anything that was any more calculated to get him to accede to her request.
When he turned back to her - fully nude - to gather her into his arms for the first time they were both going to be like that - he did so gingerly until she melted herself against him with a sigh, allowing him to curl a leg around her to pull her even closer as he rubbed her back soothingly.
But Ava could feel how taut and tense he was, and she knew that she was the reason why.
So she leaned just a bit back in the darkened room and said, "Would you hit the light for me - the lowest setting?"
"Sure -" he did so immediately, asking, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, but I want to look at you."
Damned if that wasn't a bright red blush staining his cheeks. From Oakley! It made her smile that he could still even do that.
Ava slowly pulled the covers away from him, revealing the strong, broad shoulders she'd always admired so, tanned, well muscled arms, nicely delineated pecs and six pack, not to mention the V lines that made her want to trace them with her hands and tongue, as well as the light but definitely there happy trail that led to a truly breathtaking cock that bobbed and strained and blindly sought her warmth.
"You are bloody fuckin' gorgeous," she whispered prayerfully.
His crooked finger found her chin, tipping her lips up and onto his. "I could say the same thing about you."
She gave a kind of Gallic shrug. "I'm not really at my best, you know, because of the bruises -"
"You're bloody fucking tremendously gorgeous," he rhapsodized, kissing her deeply again. "I hate the bruises because I cannot bear to think of the pain and fear he put you through. But I adore every bit of you - I always have."
Ava smiled broadly, and Oakley's heart swelled painfully in his chest that he was able to make her do that after such a horrid experience. She began to scootch down in the bed, and he knew where she was headed, but he tugged her back up.
"We can get to that eventually, if you want to, but I've a hair trigger around you."
To his great surprise, she leaned over and kissed him, her fingers buried in his hair as she held his mouth to hers.
"Oakley, make love to me, please," she whispered. "Help me forget him."
She was already halfway there, truth be told. Being this close to him, being intimate with him in any way at all, had her mind reeling and she could barely remember her own name.
Clamping mercilessly down on his own desires, he put hers first after indulging himself in the age old ritual of kissing each and every one of those tender spots, which also served as an excuse for him to get to know the rest of her body.
He ended up with her on her tummy, kissing the last dark evidence at the very bottom of her back, where it blended into her behind, which he leaned over and nibbled a bit less than gently, thoroughly enjoying her indignant squeal as he did so, rolling onto her back to get away from his teeth and not thinking that that would land his mouth very close to another, even more intimate part of her.
Oakley lay on his side, his mouth at hip level to her, one hand reaching down to tickle its way up the insides of calves that were together but trembling as he touch them, as those fingertips were drawn up over her knees to the juncture of her thighs, never having pressed any kind of strength advantage to open her when he certainly could have as he lay his fingers over that which he coveted the most.
"All right?" he asked, his voice much lower than usual.
"Yes, Oakely, God . . . " Those legs began to move restlessly, as if they couldn't quite come to the decision to separate from each other themselves.
He moved down a bit to kneel on the end of the bed, slowly taking possession of first one foot - to which he pressed a kiss on the instep before placing a hand on the bed beside her and positioning her knee over his elbow, then doing the same to her other foot until she was lying spread delectably before him as he lowered his head to kiss the very top of her nude outer lips.
"Christ, Ava, I'm about to cum in my pants at the sight of you!" Instead, he buried his face in that which was so deliciously displayed to him, slowly, deliberately learning every nook and cranny of her with his tongue first as she moved sensuously beneath his ministrations, panting and sighing and mewling.
But he had yet to spend any time concentrating on the areas where she most wanted him!
"Oakely," Ava breathed. "Oakely, please!" Her fingers buried themselves in his hair, trying to use it to guide him to do what she wanted, but he wouldn't allow it, pulling back until he could suckle at her fingertips.
"Is this what you want, baby?" he asked, introducing first one, then a second finger into her quickly, once he realized just how sopping wet she was. She arched her back and moaned, leaving his hair to bunch the bedclothes into her hands and pull at them in a rhythm that was synchronized to the way his fingers were fucking her.
As he reached a hand up to tweak a nipple that his mouth had left viciously swollen and damp, he finally placed his open, wet mouth over her southern peak, lapping furiously at her from the start and rewarded immediately by an agonized cry from her as she arched her hips, legs still trembling but for an entirely different reason.
"Are you close?" Oakley took a reluctant second away from her to ask.
"Fuck me, yes!" she practically screamed at him. "Don't stop! Please, Oakely, don't - stop!"
"Oh, but I don't want you to cum just yet, Ava."
Eyes that had long since been shut as they'd glazed over with mindless passion opened starkly as she jackknifed herself up suddenly. If he had been wearing lapels, she would have grabbed them, but barring that, she latched onto his shoulders instead.
"I want to cum. Now."
How did she manage to sound like a seven year old demanding an ice cream when he was just about to fuck her?
"I ache so bad, Oakley - "
He could tell. She was rocking her hips against him mindlessly, her eyes feverish with desire, face flushed with it. But he did now exactly what he did then, wondering if it would work, saying firmly, "Ava, you have to do it my way, but I promise you, you'll get what you want. Now let go of me."
She pouted, but released his arms, and he caught her hands immediately reaching down to take care of matters herself.
"No, darlin', that's what I'm here for."
He positioned her over him where he sat on his knees, placing himself at her gushing opening, intending to take her slowly because she was so small and he had just barely enough mind left that he knew he needed to take care not to hurt her.
But she took the choice out of his hands entirely, sinking down on him - full length - when he would have advanced slowly into her, and ripping a guttural moan from the both of their lips at the same time.
"Fuck me, Ava! I - I wanted to go slow -"
"No, Oakley, fuck me - hard! Now!" Her fists beat a demanding rhythm on his chest, and he made the decision to lift her onto her back and place her beneath him or he'd lose control of the situation entirely, in more ways than one.
As he continued to take her exactly as he knew she wanted, that he could see that she needed, Oakley levered himself up enough that he could reach between them to tap that little nub with his thumb as his cock banged into the sweet spot within her at the same time, and seconds later, much sooner than he had expected, she threw her head back and screamed his name.
The hand that had been worrying a nipple practically slapped itself over her mouth instead, lest some twat call the cops on them. Damn, she was loud - and he loved it - but he was going to have to find a remote place to love her some time so that he could drink in every horny sound she made and revel in it, instead of worrying about there being a constable banging on their door while they were banging.
And it didn't die out much as he continued to fuck her, leaving his thumb there, rubbing against her with each tremendous thrust, sending her to peak after uncontrollable peak until all of that clenching of her already incredibly tight pussy around him set him off and he had to clench his teeth together with an amazing force of will because he wanted to scream from it, too.
More than anything, he wanted to cry out her name at that mind-erasing moment, but he settled for whispering it into her ear as he collapsed onto the pillow next to her, hips still bucking although he had long since emptied himself within her.
When he went to lift himself off her, he found his breath caught at the sight of her. Somehow she looked even more delicate and fragile beneath the heavy load that was him. He scrambled to her side, taking her with him. She put up no resistance - was so rag-doll limp that he worried. She hadn't said a word since she'd shouted his name to the Heavens.
"Ava?"
One eye opened, unfocused and blurry and clearly not happy at having been disturbed. "Yeah?"
He found himself unable to do much other than grin down at her like an idiot. "Just wanted to make sure I hadn't killed you."
A small answering smile spread across her infinitely kissable lips. "It was close, but not quite."
Then she reached down and covered him with her hand, and he started at the unexpected contact, immediately beginning to rise within her small fingers.
"Wanna try again?"
"In a few," he said.
She pouted prettily.
They were quiet for a few long moments.
"I meant what I said, Oakley."
"Which time?"
That got him a swat. "That I'm grateful for what you did." She paused for a second, "And for what you didn't just go do."
"Well," he said philosophically, "I take care of what's mine."
Ava snorted. "I'm yours, huh?"
"Abso-fucking-lutely, girl."
"And where on me does it say that, exactly?"
His eyebrow rose and she knew she shouldn't have been such a smart ass; she'd given him an idea and that was rarely a good thing.
He tipped her onto her tummy, writing with his finger at the small of her back, "We'll get you a tattoo. 'Property of' right here," then he moved to her left cheek, "'O-a-k' here, then 'l-e-y' here."
"Not fucking likely," she snorted, trying to roll back over,
But instead she found herself brought back against him, her bottom to his front, and thoroughly impaled at the same time. As he began to move within her, Oakley whispered into her ear, "I take care of what's mine, bug, and you are most definitely mine."