Ava stares at me like a deer in headlights. A wince crosses her features, and I shake my head once, as if to reassure her she hasn’t done anything wrong.
“I should have told you.”
“You would have,” she states, sounding so sure.
“He’s not a secret,” I defend.
“No, he’s not.”
I blow out a breath and drop my eyes. My dad isn’t a secret, but I feel shame as if I made his death into one. Sure, it’s not anything I spew out to a lot of people, but that’s not because I’m trying to hide it from them. I just like my privacy.
But Ava? Ava isn’t just anyone, and I should have told her before she found out from someone else.
“Can we talk in my room?” I ask.
She reaches toward me and grabs my hands from where they lie clenched together on my lap. I stand. “Of course we can.”
We head upstairs to my room in silence, and as soon as we walk inside, I shut the door and lock it incase someone tries to come in and be snoopy while Ava looks around. She hasn’t had a chance to be in here yet with how busy today has been.
“It’s very you,” she says softly.
I turn my back to the door and glance around the room. “It’s cluttered. Mom refuses to let me pack up some of my stuff.”
Ava steps up to the shelf above my dresser that’s sagging with trophies, ribbons, and photos. She lifts a finger and brushes the bottom edge of a frame housing a photo of my father and me when I was in co-ed hockey.
“You look like him.”
My throat swells. “We used to get that all the time. I still do. Gracie is Mom’s carbon copy, and I’m his.”
“I’m so sorry, Oakley.”
I look at her and let the love in her eyes fall over me. I’m greedy for more of it, and before I can register what I’m doing, I’m scooping her into my arms and bringing us to my bed. She settles on my lap once I sit with my back to the bed frame. I tighten my hold on her.
“Tell me about him,” she whispers.
“His name was Jamie,” I blurt out. Ava gently squeezes my shoulder.
“Is,” Ava murmurs. I meet her gaze, confused. “His name is Jamie. He never left. Not really,” she explains. It’s a simple statement, yet the words make my head spin.
I’m suddenly hyperaware of how fast and hard my heart is thumping against my rib cage as I stare into her eyes. Emotion overwhelms me.
It’s now that I know the words are there on the tip of my tongue.
I love you.
It shouldn’t be this hard to let them slip past my lips, to tell her that what we have isn’t something that can be forgotten once I’m drafted. To ensure that she knows this is a forever type of thing for me. I’m never letting her go. Not now, not ever.
But instead of doing exactly that, I swallow the words, keeping them for another time.
“He was my hero,” I whisper before taking a deep breath. “He was a contractor for a small construction company in town. His job came in handy whenever there was work to do around the house, which happened often. Mom would make him tear down almost every wall in the house just to paint the new ones every ugly colour you can think of. She always felt like the house needed a change, but I never heard him complain. Not once.”
Ava chuckles and brushes her nose along mine. “It sounds like he loved her a lot.”
I let myself smile at her comment. “Even as a kid, I could feel the love radiating off of them. Once he was gone, though, that’s when I realized how much they loved each other. He was her whole world, and she was his.” My eyes burn, but I swallow back the tears and speak again.
“Mom struggled. It was hard watching her hurt the way she did. I would wake up in the middle of the night and hear her crying in their room. After the first few nights, I started getting up when I heard her cry. I would just hug her until she eventually fell asleep.”
“What happened to him?” she asks softly, so damn softly.
“He was hit by a drunk driver when I was nine. The paramedics said he died at the scene. The driver was just a stupid teenager who should have called someone for a ride home from a party and wound up running a red light.”
It’s not until Ava wipes her thumb beneath my eyes that I realize tears are streaming down my cheeks. I try to get them to stop falling, but when I feel the tightening in my throat, I know it’s too late. My shoulders drop, and Ava threads her fingers in the hair at the back of my head and pulls me toward her, pressing my face to her chest.
The tears only fall faster as every ache and pain that I’ve shoved down over the years comes tearing through me.
“I’m here. You don’t have to bottle this up anymore,” Ava whispers, continuing to run her fingers through my hair in a soothing motion.
My body shakes as I let out gentle sobs, finally giving in to all the built-up emotions that I’ve held in for so long. We sit there in silence for a while as I let it go, until the last of my tears run free and I can breathe properly again.
“I want to show you something,” I say, pulling back from her and wiping at my wet face. In one swift motion, I reach behind my head and pull my shirt over my head, dropping it on the bed beside us.
Ava’s lips part as she stares down at my bare torso, desire sparking in her eyes before she’s blinking it back. “You’re stripping.”
A smile tugs at my mouth. “Let me turn around.”
She scootches off my lap, and I give her my back, showing her the ink etched deep in my skin. Her fingers start to trace the tattoo, and I shudder.
“I got it for my dad. You’re now the only person besides Mom and Gray that know the meaning behind it.”
Ava sucks in a breath and kisses my right shoulder and then my left.
“I remember being so pumped the day my mom agreed to sign off on me getting it. It was my sixteenth birthday, and after two years of nagging every day for her to let me get the damn thing, she finally caved.
“The tattoo artist and I had spent hours redrawing the design until I decided it was good enough. I’ll never forget Mom’s face when I showed her. Her eyes welled up the second they landed on the paper.”
The tattoo is a scene of sorts—a memory. It’s set in the middle of winter, with piles of fluffy, white snow and tall, bare trees sitting along the bank of a frozen lake. A young boy dressed in full hockey gear is winding up his hockey stick, ready to shoot the puck into the nearby net. Hutton is written across the back of the boy’s jersey, above the number eleven. My dad’s lucky number and now mine.
Yet the most meaningful part of the tattoo is the cross hidden between the trees and behind the snowbank. It’s hidden because written on the cross is the date my father passed away.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It is,” I agree.
“You know he’s proud of you, right?” Ava murmurs.
Is he? I like to think so. I’ve tried to be the best man I can, not wanting to let him down. All I can do now is hope he’s happy with what he sees.
Turning back around, I hover my face a breath from Ava’s and slide a hand around the back of her neck, palming her nape. I tilt her head back and kiss her so suddenly I’m swallowing her gasp of surprise.
It doesn’t take her long to snap back, and once she does, her hot palms crash against my bare chest as she starts to explore the hard-earned muscles and ridges there. Nails scratch along the trail of hair leading below my jeans, and I groan at the pleasure that sparks.
“You mean so much to me,” I breathe against her wet, swollen lips. With steady hands, I grab her hips and pull her back to my lap, chomping on my lower lip when her core slides along the growing bulge in my pants.
“You mean the world to me,” she sighs, her head lolling forward, forehead hitting my chest. A shiver shakes her body. “God, that feels good.”
I slowly guide her back and forth over me, and she whimpers, making me throb and seep precum into my boxers. “I’m so hard for you, Ava. So fucking hard.”
“I’m ready.” She moves her head, and I drop my eyes, finding her staring up at me. The air is charged around us, our desire so thick and heavy it’s hard to breathe.
I swallow my groan. “I didn’t tell you about my dad to sleep with you, baby.”
She holds my face in her hands and drifts her thumbs over my cheekbones. “I know. I’m ready because I love you.”
That’s all it takes. The dam holding me back from devouring her comes crashing down, and I flounder with the new emotions humming in my veins.
She moans when I take her mouth and part her lips with my tongue, taking and taking from her.
“I love you too,” I rasp, dragging my lips over her chin and to the underside of her jaw. “I want to show you how much.” Thrusting up against her, I suck at the pulsing skin of her throat and move my hands up her sides, beneath her shirt. She’s covered in goosebumps.
“Yes—do that, please.”
In one quick motion, I toss her back on the bed and crawl over her. She parts her legs for me, and I settle between them, grinning down at her in appreciation.
“I’ve thought about this moment way too much. Fuck, look at you—so beautiful.” It scrapes up my throat. The way her eyes flare at the compliment urges me to push back to my knees and really take her in.
Well-kissed pink lips, flushed skin, and a rapidly rising chest as she tries to catch her breath. What a vision. And it’s all mine.
I swallow heavily and finger the hem of her shirt, slowly pushing it up her stomach, revealing sliver upon sliver of freckled, pale skin. She watches me with laser focus the entire time, and when I stop with the green material bunched beneath her breasts, she just smiles coyly and pushes it up and over them, exposing her black bra and the two nipples trying to poke through the cups.
“Shit,” I hiss. With two hands, I quickly pull the cups down and pull a hard peak into my mouth, nipping at it before flicking away the sting. Ava bucks off the bed and pushes more of her breast into my mouth. I gently bite down on her nipple again before switching sides and giving it the same attention.
“Good, baby?” I release the peak with a pop.
Her fingers find my hair, and she scratches at my scalp. “I need more.”
I hum low in my throat but don’t make her beg. Her jeans are easy to undo, and she lifts her hips to help me pull them down before I toss them to the side. Again, she lets her legs part, but this time, it’s to find her wet and slick, her pretty pussy stuck to the scrap of material keeping me from seeing her bare.
“Jesus Christ. Can I get rid of them? I need to taste you.”
She nods eagerly. “Yes. Please.”
With that, I’m reaching for her panties and pulling them down her legs and flinging them across the room.
I groan at the sight of her. Pink and slick just for me. Licking my lower lip, I palm her thighs and push her knees up toward her, opening her up for me.
“Hold them there, baby.” I release her legs and make a noise of appreciation when she does as I said. Gently, I run my finger over her slit, feeling how wet she is before sinking it deep.
Her pussy grips me so tight my cock jerks, wanting its turn. Ava opens her mouth, but no sound comes out, and for some reason, I need to hear her. That’s what drives me to add a second finger and put my mouth on her, giving her glistening pussy a soft kiss.
“Ah,” she whispers, reaching for me and grabbing my head. I grin and slip my tongue over her, running it over her slit and up to her clit. It’s so swollen I find it instantly, and she cries out. Fuck yes. Much better.
I suck on it, and she bucks up before I pull back and lick my lips. “Not too loud—you don’t want everyone to hear, do you?” She shakes her head, watching me, hungry with desire. “Good girl. Now, let me eat.”
I dive back in, this time flattening my tongue and swiping from top to bottom, drinking her in, desperate for more. With my fingers still inside, I curl them and lightly tap the spongy wall I find.
“Oakley—right there. Right there,” she whimpers, and I press on it harder at the same I bite gently on her clit.
“That’s it. Come for me, baby. Be a good girl and let me taste you,” I growl.
I sound like a wild animal, but it only seems to make me harder.
I’m desperate for her, and I want her to damn well know it.
Like magic, her walls quiver around my fingers. My scalp starts to burn when she pulls at my hair, but it only urges me on. I pull my fingers out as soon as her back curls and replace them with my tongue, fucking her with it as she comes.
I lick her through her orgasm before placing more gentle kisses on her pussy, over her thighs, and up her stomach. Swirling my tongue around her belly button, I memorize the sound of her content sighs.
By the time I’m sucking at her throat, she’s a wiggling mess beneath me. Her hands are all over my body, scratching at my skin and pulling me as close as she can get me. Knowing I make her feel like this does things to me that, if I’m not careful, will go right to my head.
“Get your clothes off,” she urges, lifting her legs and pushing at my jeans with the heels of her feet. I pull back and smirk at the marked skin of her neck. Her eyes go wide. “You didn’t just give me a hickey.”
I start to unbutton my jeans. “I’ve just eaten your pussy and you’re worried about a hickey?”
“Your mom and sister will see a hickey. Nobody has to know you ate me out.”
Standing up, I shove my jeans and boxers down my legs in one go before kicking them off. “I’m about to do a lot more than just lick your pussy, baby.”
Her eyes fall to my cock as I grip it in a tight fist and give it a slow pump. There’s a bead of precum on the tip that I spread around with my thumb.
“Let me,” Ava whispers, crawling across the bed. She stares up at me with blazing green eyes, and I curse when her tongue darts out from between her lips and slides across the head. A strangled noise burns my throat when she suddenly takes me in her mouth.
Her tongue dances across the underside as she takes as much of me into her mouth as she can before pulling back, focusing on the tip. When she licks the slit, I bury my hands in her hair, threading it through my fingers and trying not to rip it out as pleasure builds and builds.
“Fuck. Just like that,” I groan, breathless.
Tentatively, her fingers find my balls, cupping and rolling them, and that’s when I pull out of her mouth and toss her back on the bed.
“Later,” I tell her when she blinks at me, confused. Before she can say anything else, I’ve grabbed a condom from my bag and joined her on the bed. “Is this what you want? We only do this if you’re sure.”
She nods. “God, yes. I want this.”
I grin and rip open the foil, settling between her legs before rolling the condom on.
Her eyes meet mine, and they hold, locking together as I line us up and drag my length through her wet flesh, getting it slick before pressing inside. She’s so tight, and I move slowly, not wanting to hurt her. Fuck, the idea of hurting her makes my stomach roll.
“I love you,” I croak when I get halfway before pulling back and pressing in again. This time, I sink deep, bottoming out. Her breath hitches as she stretches around me, her pussy sucking me in like it wants to keep me there forever.
“Are you okay?” I rasp, hating the way she winces when I hold in place, too worried to move.
Ava cups my cheeks and pulls my face to hers before kissing me softly, softer than I was expecting. My eyes flutter shut as I drop to my forearms beside her and trace her jaw with my thumb.
“I love you too,” she breathes. “Now, please move. You’re huge, and I haven’t had sex in a long time. I just needed to adjust; you weren’t hurting me.”
I drop my forehead to hers and watch the pleasure and relief flick across her face as I pull out and thrust back in, rolling my hips before doing it again and again.
Ava’s lips part in a silent cry when I lean back and toss her legs over my shoulders, pressing deeper, moving harder. My jaw aches from how hard I’ve been clenching it, the pleasure too good, too fucking intense.
Somewhere in my mind, I’m reminded that we should be quieter, softer, but I shove it all away. The only thing I can focus on is Ava. On the love in her eyes and the near suffocating feeling of obsession I feel for her.
This isn’t soft or gentle. It’s intense and overwhelmingly intoxicating. She’s giving everything to me, and I’m taking just as much as I’m giving back. This girl is my world, my sun and fucking stars. She has me—all of me—in the palm of her hands, and I don’t think she even realizes it.
“You’re mine, Ava,” I hiss through my teeth. She clenches around me, and a growl rumbles in my chest.
Her eyes are glossy, dazed as she stares at me and grips my bicep. “I’m so yours.
I turn my head and nip at her ankle before dropping my hand between her legs and finding her clit. Her lips part on a moan, and I know she’s close. The sounds that fill the room are obscene, but I’m too far past caring if anyone hears. I need my girl to come.
“Come, Ava.” She fights to keep her eyes open as I flick her clit back and forth. “Milk this cock, baby. Fucking drain me.”
It’s like a trigger. As if I just flicked a switch, she’s clenching around me and crying out so loud I have to cover her mouth with my hand. I’m right there beside her, fucking her through her orgasm before stilling, buried to the hilt.
“I feel like I can’t move,” she wheezes as soon as I pull out and collapse on top of her.
“I’m not that heavy.”
Her laugh is heaven. “Not because of that. Because you just screwed me boneless.”
I kiss all over her chest and neck before finally reaching her pink lips. “Good. Now, let me clean you up, and then get in this bed with me. I’m not letting go of you again today.” If ever.
She softly rubs our noses together. “I like that plan.”
