Chapter 18: Ava - Reckless Love

I wake with a start, a cool sweat coating my skin, and a thick, muscular arm drags my naked body close.

“You okay, baby?” Stephen’s deep voice murmurs into my ear. “Bad dream?”

“Yeah,” I say, breathing out the word and snuggling deeper into his embrace, getting as much skin-to-skin contact as I can. “I dreamt you didn’t love me anymore.”

“Sounds impossible.” He presses his lips to the curve of my neck. “You know you’ve been mine in every lifetime we’ve had before this one, and you’ll be mine in all the ones that come after.”

“You mean that? What about this life?”

“Definitely mine.” He slides his hand over my hip and then draws my leg over his, opening me to his touch. “And I’m going to claim what’s mine right now.”

“You really should,” I say with a contented sigh.

“I’m going to make you forget that dream and any thoughts of a life that isn’t this one.”

“Yes,” I moan as his fingers trail lightly along my inner thigh, dipping close and then retreating. “Don’t tease me. Take me.”

“Let’s see if you’re ready for me,” he says, and he dips his fingers in. The groan he releases only fuels my desire more. He takes his soaked fingers and slides them into his mouth. “Every time,” he says. “Every time, you’re so wet for me. You taste so good, and later, I’m going to get my fill.” Over my shoulder, I catch sight of his wicked grin. “After I fill you.”

No one has ever loved me so completely, as though everything about me—even the unsavory parts—is delicious.

He rolls me so he’s poised above me. I cup his cheek with my palm, and our gazes are locked.

“Who else makes you feel this way?”

“No one,” I say.

He backs off and widens my legs. “Look at how beautiful you are,” he says. “I could look at you all day. This pretty pussy is just waiting for me to make it purr.”

“I like my cats a little bigger,” I say, wiggling underneath him. “Make it roar.”

“As you wish,” he says with a strained chuckle.

When he slides in, I’m overwhelmed by the stretch, how full I feel, as though we didn’t just do this a few hours ago. As though it’s been years since anyone claimed me this completely.

“Can you handle it, baby?”

“It’s so good,” I say as he eases in even deeper. I clutch his ass, making us as tight as I possibly can. Something inside me wants to be so close that I can’t remember where I begin and he ends. “Never stop.”

One of his large hands cradles my ass, while his other settles under my head. Instead of moving fast and hard like I’m expecting, he’s slow and tender. He takes his time, like I’m some precious prize he can’t believe he’s won.

The coil inside me starts to tighten, and I try to change our pace, try to push myself closer to the edge. The feeling I’m seeking is just out of reach, and I’m so close the sweetness of my orgasm makes my mouth water in anticipation. I need it.

“Stephen,” I plead.

“Who else makes you feel this way? Makes you want this badly?”

“Only you,” I say. “Just you.”

He draws back, and the sweet, tender version of Stephen is gone. In his place is a stone-faced man I barely recognize, a smattering of small scars across his cheek.

“Guess you should have thought about that before you told me you could get this feeling anywhere.”

I wake up with a gasp, sitting up in bed. Beside me, Raul mutters and then reaches for me. “Come here,” he rasps.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I say, scrambling out of bed and heading for the en suite, my heart pounding an uneven rhythm. While I pad across the wooden floor, I run my hands through my tangled hair.

The mix of past and present in my dream has turned my brain to a pile of mush. At the bathroom sink, I stare at myself in the mirror. My eyes are dilated. It’s been so long since I’ve seen myself in this state that I don’t truly recognize the person staring back. The old Ava who’s been dormant for a long time is reemerging, and I can’t ignore her anymore.

As quietly as possible, I tug on a set of sweats in the walk-in closet. I tiptoe toward the door to my bedroom, and I take one last look at Raul, asleep again.

The last dream wore out whatever brakes I’ve been applying. I’m tired of pretending that the grinding and squealing noises in my life mean I can stop the inevitable.

I can’t.

So I’m going to steer my runaway car exactly where it needs to go.

* * *

I knock once before the door to Stephen’s apartment is thrown open. He holds the top of the door, shirtless, with only dark-gray boxers on. He’s so tall and broad and strong looking that my mouth goes dry.

“Ava, I told you this can’t happen.” His rumpled appearance, as though he woke from a dead sleep, softens the harshness of his tone.

A thrill shoots down my spine at my name. Has a name ever sounded so sweet, so earned?

I don’t wait for an invitation; I squeeze past him and into his sparsely furnished apartment. The space is big and open with a kitchen and living room. Behind a partial wall, I catch sight of what appears to be the end of a bed. He leaves the door open, letting in bugs and the night air.

“I made a mistake,” I say. “I never should have married him.”

Stephen scoffs and rubs his face. “I’m not doing this with you, Ava.”

“I’m telling you I made a mistake. I just—I made so many mistakes.”

“You got what you wanted,” he says. “You wanted a rich man, and you got a rich man.”

“I didn’t… Yes, I said that.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t mean it. Don’t try to rewrite history.”

“I’m not! I’m admitting I said it. But I said a lot of things—I still say a lot of things—and I don’t always mean them.”

He barks out a harsh laugh. “You think that helps your case? If that’s your argument, how do I trust anything you say?”

“You know me.”

“I used to know you. Or… I knew some version of you.”

“That’s harsh, Stephen. You knew me better than anyone.”

“Maybe. But I don’t know you at all now.”

We stare at each other, frustration clear in his expression that I can only assume is mirrored in mine. He might want to minimize eight years and countless experiences together, but I can’t. I won’t. I’m done pretending that none of it mattered.

“What did you expect to have happen when you showed up here in the middle of the night? A repeat of that cycle you and I were in for years? If you need a good fuck, you’ll have to find it elsewhere.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He scans me from head to toe, and his lips twist into a cruel smile. “I know exactly what an unsatisfied woman looks like.”

“You’ve seen a lot of them, have you?”

“Not leaving my bed. But coming to me from someone else’s bed? You bet.”

The urge to slap the smug look off his face is almost uncontrollable. As much as we fought and fucked before, we never laid hands on each other in anger. But I’ve also never seen that look on his face before—like what I feel, who I am doesn’t matter. Like I could be anyone.

As warped as it is, I can’t stomach any thoughts of him satisfying someone else. Before, when we were off and on all the time, I didn’t like him sleeping with other people, but I always knew I was the one he really wanted. That I could get him back. That we’d always find our way back to each other.

But we’re so far apart in this moment, physically and emotionally. He doesn’t even feel like the same person.

“I can’t believe you’re throwing other women in my face.”

“Me?” He widens his eyes and presses his palm to his chest. “Ava, be so fucking for real. You’re married to someone else. You stood up in front of all of Bellerive society, and you picked him. You picked him.” He shakes his head, and his disgust is clear. “You had his fucking kid. I would have…” He swallows. “I wanted… The things I would have done…”

“You don’t understand,” I say, and I try to reach for him, but he sidesteps me. “If you’d stayed, I never would have married him.”

He crosses the room to stand in front of the partial wall, as far from me as he can get without putting the entire length of the apartment between us. “Go home. Get the fuck out and go home.”

“If you’d stayed, I never would have married him,” I say again, sure that’s the key to cracking him, to whatever is sitting between us.

“You said no to me, Ava. When I suggested marriage, you laughed in my face. Whether I stayed or not, I would have kept on being your dirty little secret.”

“You were never—”

“I was!”

“You didn’t want people to know either. Does that make me your dirty little secret?”

“Yes,” he says. “Which is how I know we never would have worked out. That’s the reality. The core truth that you don’t want to see. We are not the same people, and even if we were, we were doomed from the start.”

“No,” I say, flashing my hand. “No. I don’t accept that.” I stare at him, trying to see the man I know is in there. “You have no idea how I felt when you left,” I whisper, and the memory of those months after he disappeared seeps back in, causing my shoulders to slump. Never in my life did I think it was possible to be that low. “Maybe things wouldn’t have changed right away between us, but they would have changed eventually. That’s my truth. That’s what I know.”

“Would that have been before or after you married Raul fucking Santos?” He glares at me from across the room.

“Fuck you, Stephen. I told you I wouldn’t have married him if you’d stayed.”

“Forgive me for thinking that’s just another one of those things you say that you don’t mean.”

A tiny gasp of indignation escapes me. Even when we used to fight, Stephen was never mean.

“Go home,” he says again. “I’m not letting you blow up your life because you need a good, hard fuck.” He comes toward me, ushering me to the door with a hand on the small of my back. Each of his fingers burns through the sweatshirt I’m wearing. “Go buy a hot tub,” he says, “I hear the jets work even better than a man.”

Then he gives me one last little shove outside before he shuts the door in my face, snapping the lock back into place.

I stare at the closed door, broken and bewildered. What the hell just happened?

Then I jog to my car, chest heaving with a terrible combination of frustration and absolute despair. Climbing into the driver’s seat, I flex my hands on the steering wheel, fighting tears.

Stephen doesn’t understand. He’s as sure that I’m lying as I am that I’m telling the truth. He wasn’t here. He doesn’t know.

The misery that almost sank me back then settles lightly on my shoulders, and I rest my forehead on the steering wheel, shoulders shaking with the sob I’ve been trying to repress.

I’m so tired of pretending, but I’m not even sure I realized I was pretending until Stephen came back.

My life is such a mess, and I don’t know how to fix it. I thought coming here might make something click that’s felt out of place, but instead, I just feel more adrift, completely untethered.

Given all these old feelings for Stephen that have been stirred to the surface, staying with Raul seems out of the question.

I take a deep breath and try to recenter myself. My emotions are running wild.

Yesterday, I would have said I could save my marriage, that with enough work, there was something worth saving, even though we’ve never had a loving relationship.

Maybe without Stephen being back in Bellerive, that might be true. Maybe I could have forced myself to go on pretending. But every time I catch even so much as a glimpse of Stephen, my life feels misshapen, ill-fitting… wrong.

So fucking wrong.

I need to call my cousin, Caitlin, who’s a divorce attorney. I can’t stay in my marriage.

Could leaving Raul actually make me more miserable than this moment right now? I don’t want to consider how.

* * *

By the time I get back home, the sun is rising, and I’m emotionally and physically exhausted. After I left Stephen’s, I should have come straight to the house, but my head felt cloudy, and I needed thinking time. Driving aimlessly for hours has made me tired, and I’m not sure my decision making is any clearer.

“You’re home,” Raul says when I wander into the kitchen.

I stop in my tracks, surprised he’s already awake. He’s an early riser, but it’s literally sunrise.

He leans back against the kitchen counter, and he takes a sip of his coffee. Silence rests heavy between us, and I’m sure he’s worked something out, but I’m not sure what that is. I’m not an early riser or one to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night. My mind scrambles for a reason that’ll make sense that isn’t the truth.

“You’ve been different since that family dinner party weeks ago. Do you know that? Restless. So I think it’s important I remind you of a few things.” He reaches behind him and then tosses a manilla envelope onto the kitchen island. “Infidelity, according to the marriage contract you signed, means I get full control of Reckless, and I get primary custody of our son.”

“I’m not—”

“Landon told me you’d been to see Stephen Foster’s parents at his house yesterday. Rather cozy, isn’t it?”

“His parents are disabled. Going to see them doesn’t mean—”

“I’ve left a note for the maid to gather up all those useless romance novels you’ve started littering the house with again. You need to live in this reality. Get your head out of the clouds. The bored housewife who’s tempted by the blue-collar worker isn’t a role you’re allowed to play. There are very real consequences to stepping out of line in our marriage.”

I grit my teeth and stare at him. My heart is thrumming with rage, but I also know that if Stephen’s reaction to my visit had been even slightly different, I’d be guilty of everything he’s accusing me of. I’d have ruined every good thing in my life. And for what? It’s possible Stephen actually hates me even if he would’ve fucked me.

“When you found out you were pregnant and the DNA test confirmed he was mine, we agreed to create a stable life for Landon. The privileged, no-rules life you’d been leading had to come to an end. I never hid my expectations. You got your company, and I got what I wanted. There is no greener grass than what I provide for you and Landon in this marriage.”

I rub my face and then cup my cheeks, not even sure what to say. Anger and exhaustion are at war, and if I let either win, I’ll say something that’ll likely make things worse.

“Stephen Foster can never give you everything you need, and even if he could, you’d have to give up everything else you love to get it.” He takes a long sip of his coffee, and we stare at each other across the distance. “This is your only warning in terms of the loyalty I expect in all aspects of our life together. You’re not stupid. You’ll make the right choice, just like you did when you found out you were pregnant.” He puts his cup in the sink and then he approaches me. His hand lands on my hip, and then he breathes into my hair before placing a kiss on my temple. “Don’t let our son down.”

What Raul doesn’t know, has never known, is that I made those deals, agreed to those terms because the one person I’d want to break them for had vanished.

Stephen’s the reason I went into my marriage with so much certainty, and he’s also the reason it’s unravelling now.

For better or worse, Stephen Foster is my greatest temptation.

And to survive, I’ll have to pretend none of that is true.