Unavoidable Chance (8 page)

“Put the tops of your feet on my thighs,” he demands.

I immediately put the tops of my feet on his thighs, he wraps his hands around my spike heels and stills himself deep inside, as he comes with a deep rumbling groan.

I give him all of my weight as his hands rub up and down my back. He lifts up his chest so he can look into my eyes. He pulls my lips to his giving me a warm, slow kiss, then says, “Don’t be too mad at Gus.” I have no words to say to that, then he continues, “I should get going. He said he was going to come back to your office in thirty minutes. We wouldn’t want to give good ol’ Gus a heart attack or anything.”

I get off his lap; he stands and removes the condom then puts it in the trash under my desk. He grabs our clothes by the window and puts his on. He walks back over to the couch and holds my shirt open for me as I stand up. I slip my arms in and turn around. He buttons the bottom three buttons, then runs his hand along the opening exposing my cleavage with a smile. He hands me my skirt, but keeps my panties in his hand. He brings them to his nose, then puts them in his pocket. My mouth hangs open as I hear the ding of the elevator. I quickly put my skirt on as Jax tucks in his t-shirt and puts on his shoes.

“Pure sunshine,” he says with a smile. “Oh, and there was a secret ingredient in the ketchup you seemed to enjoy so much at dinner, too.” With that infuriating statement he leaves my office, but not before he turns around and winks at me.

I hear him talking to Gus, then another ding as he gets on the elevator. I see my bra still sitting on the floor. I rush over, scoop it up, and shove it in my briefcase just as Gus knocks on the door and pokes his head in.

“Goodnight, Ms. Ava,” he says with a smile.

“Goodnight, Gus,” I reply, flattening my hair. He eyes the pillows and the backs of the couch still all over my office and smiles again at me. I button up one more button on my shirt, and I know for a fact that good ol’ Gus knows exactly what Jax and I were doing in here.

I shove a few things in my briefcase, then head down to my car. That’s when my mind starts to argue with itself. Not because I just left a huge mess on my desk, which normally would drive me up the wall, but the fact that I just had sex…in my office…with Jax.

Not just sex, but hot, earth shattering, sexy as hell, I orgasmed three freaking times, sex…in my office…with Jax.

Was it a one-time thing?

Did I want it to be a one-time thing?

Oh, my God, I just had sex with Jax!

And, oh, my God again, I left the condom in my trashcan in my office. I hurry back up and grab the trashcan. I hurry back down to my car and put it in the passenger seat, and then I groan. Why in the hell did I take the whole can? I could have just taken the bag.

And what the hell secret ingredient was in that ketchup?

Jax

There were several texts on my phone asking if I was alright. I left the restaurant in a hurry and didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I text back Parker and tell him I’m fine and ask him if he needs me to come back in to close the restaurant. He said no, that everything was under control. I tell him to not worry about any of the receipts or the bank bag that I’ll come in early and take care of everything. I look at the clock and sigh. The girls will already be in bed asleep. I toss my phone on the seat next to me, deciding to look at the rest of the texts when I get home. I pull out Ava’s panties from my front pocket and smile. Of course, they’re yellow. Just like her sunshine scent, I’m sure her favorite color is yellow.

The house is dark when I pull up. I hit the garage door opener and pull my beast into the garage. I shove Ava’s panties back in my front pocket and grab my cell phone off the seat. I enter the house through the garage door into the kitchen, and place my phone and keys on the bar top. I head to the fridge while I smile to myself, and think about what just happened. Ava is simply amazing. She lit on fire from the first second I touched her. When I walked into her office and saw what she was doing, I never envied someone else’s fingers so much before in my life. I take out a beer and twist off the cap, then toss it into the trash and take a giant swig.

“Where were you tonight?” Quinn’s voice asks. I swallow the mouthful of beer hard and remove the bottle from my lips.

“Shit, Quinn, you scared the living hell out of me! Why are you sitting in the kitchen in the dark?” I ask, and flip on the kitchen lights, then wipe the dribble of beer off my chin.

“You didn’t answer my question. And by the look on your face, my unanswered question pisses me right the fuck off. I called the restaurant looking for you. I texted you and I called several times. Sky needed you.”

My smile ends in an eighth of a second thinking my daughter needed me, and I was off doing, well I know what I was off doing.

“What’s wrong with Sky?” I ask concerned, setting the beer on the counter. I head in the direction of her room, but Quinn stops me.

“She’s fine now. She had a stomachache and she wanted her daddy. But her daddy was… nowhere to be found. Parker said you tore out of there after some woman.”

Parker and I will have words later about telling my sister shit like that. But for now, I’m concerned about Sky. She gets a lot of stomachaches and I usually attribute them to her poor eating habits. She likes to eat a lot of junk and it usually results in a stomachache. I’ve taken her to the doctor more times than I care to admit. Messing around with abdominal pains doesn’t fly with me. I’m sure it has more to do with the way Scarlett died than anything, but each stomachache Sky has sends me on high alert.

“So, where were you?” Quinn asks again, this time in a tone that didn’t deserve an answer. And really, I don’t have to answer to my sister in my own God damned house.

I give her a stern look and make my way to Sky’s room. I open the cracked door and see her sleeping peacefully. I sit on the edge of her bed and pull her hair out of her face. I smile at my little princess; I bring her covers up to her shoulders, lean in, give her a kiss on the forehead, then head down the hall to my own room.

I take one step into my room, and I’m instantly hit with the cold and emptiness. It’s empty of love, and it’s filled with my dreams from a time in my past that I’d like to forget. It’s filled with thoughts of a life short lived when I crawl into bed, and dreams of pain and sights of what war does to mankind in my subconscious when I drift off to sleep. It’s suffocating.

When I remove my foot from the room and place it back in the hallway, the weight on my chest lifts instantly. I hang my head in the doorway and wish I could crawl in bed at the end of a long day like most normal people, and have that feeling of relaxation and drift off in a peaceful sleep. I’m thankful I can survive on very little sleep, because otherwise I’d be a train wreck.

I head down to the basement to my home gym, drop and do pushups until sweat pools on the floor under my face, and until the burning in my muscles overtakes the fire in my brain. Lifting weights, or punching a punching bag, always clears my thoughts and leaves me exhausted. I jump in the downstairs shower, hang my head in the pouring water, and let it wash away my thoughts, but Ava enters my mind. A small smile forms on my face as water pours down my head. I can still feel her soft warm body on mine, so willing and eager to obey my every command. Every time I look into her eyes, I can see her thoughts scatter in a million different directions, thinking and processing her every move, every thought, and every action. She’s calculated and precise. But for me she opened up and let it all go and just lived in the moment.

I stay in the shower until it runs ice cold. My muscles scream as I climb each step upstairs. My hand lightly trails across each of the girls’ bedroom doors before I reach my own. Too tired to allow any thoughts in my brain, I climb into bed and almost instantly fall asleep.

The next morning I wake up early and head down to the kitchen to make the girls breakfast before I head into the restaurant. As I make scrambled eggs, I try to think of something I can get for Ava. We really just met and I can’t go all out, but I want her to know I’m thinking about her and that last night wasn’t just a one-time thing to me. Her sunshine scent brings a smile to my face and then it hits me. My flower delivery guy always has amazing flowers for the restaurant centerpieces. I’ll ask him what he has that’s yellow. She’ll love that, I’m sure.

“I’m still not talking to you. But seriously, you’re making your kids breakfast and by the look on your face, which looks similar to the one last night, you should be ashamed of yourself,” Quinn says, opening the cupboard getting out her favorite coffee cup.

“Seriously, what crawled up your ass?” I ask.

“Ooh, Daddy, you said ass,” Sky chastises in a singsong voice, as she walks into the kitchen and takes her seat at the bar top.

“Sky, don’t say ass,” I tell her, looking at her with my serious face.

“I was just repeating what you said, Daddy,” she says innocently.

“You still don’t repeat it, got it?”

The toast in the toaster pops up, breaking the tension between me and my sister. I take some eggs out for Sky and put them on a plate, then sprinkle on some cheddar cheese. I already have black beans in the bottom of three bowls; I divide the rest of the scrambled eggs and place them on top of the beans, and then top each with sliced avocado and a dollop of salsa.  A pinch of salt and pepper, and there you have the perfect black bean breakfast bowl. I butter the toast and give Sky her plain breakfast, then place Quinn’s in front of her with a little more force than necessary, and a stern
knock the fucking attitude off
look. Hope already has her fork in her hand eagerly waiting for her bowl. I place hers in front of her and give her a smile. I stand on the other side of the bar and quickly eat mine.

I put my bowl in the sink and kiss the girls on the head. Quinn rolls her eyes at me as I grab my keys and walk into the garage.

At the restaurant, I tie up all the loose ends from last night as I hear the flower guy come in through the back door. I head out of my office with a smile and meet him in the kitchen as he’s placing the flowers in the walk-in refrigerator.

“Morning, John. Do you have something that’s yellow that I can give to someone really special?” He looks up from his delivery with a huge smile on his face. He’s been with me from day one, and he knows all about my wife and pretty much everything there is to know about me. I see him almost on a daily, and he’s the type of guy you just feel comfortable talking to.

“What kind of special person?” he questions with one eye squinting.

I can’t help the smile on my face as I think about Ava. “Not just special, someone real special,” I reply.

“It needs to be yellow?” he asks.

“No, not needs, it
has
to be yellow,” I reply.

Now he has a smile on his face. His smile turns into a look that says,
I know the perfect thing
, and then he says, “I know the perfect thing. I just got in a shipment of Cymbidium Orchids. They’re yellow with a deep pink lip,” he starts to say.

Ava and her perfectly formed, soft, pink lips drift through my brain, and I think of those perfect pink lips wrapping around something else as John continues to talk.

“The Cymbidium Orchid, or yellow orchids in general, means new beginnings. Does that sound about right?” he asks.

“That sounds perfect!” I turn around and write a note on a piece of paper, and hand it to John along with her work address. “Do you think you can have it delivered today?”

“For you, I can make that happen,” he says with a smile. He finishes unloading the delivery, pats the piece of paper in his front pocket, points at me with another smile, then leaves.

Chapter 6

Ava

Armed with my complicated coffee, my briefcase, and my trashcan, I exit the elevator and hope no one sees me carrying a freaking trashcan. A now empty trashcan, I might add. I pass Reagan, who is on the phone, and thank God she ignores me as I rush into my office.

I place the trashcan next to my desk and my briefcase on top of my once again messy desk, then look around my office. I feel my cheeks warm as I see the disheveled couch. I take a sip of coffee and look out my windows at the amazing morning Seattle skyline.

Then I see it.

You can totally see where I had my cheek smooshed on the glass. I rush to my door and quickly close it. Then I run in my en suite bathroom and take out window cleaner and a roll of paper towel from underneath the sink. I rush back over on my tip toes of my crystal covered, four-inch, signature red leather soul Christian Louboutin peep-toe heels, because everyone who wears four-inch heels knows you have to run on your tip toes, then I frantically spray the glass. I then wipe it with the paper towel in a furious up and down scrubbing motion. I take a step back and take another sip of my coffee.

Then I notice more.

On either side of where I just cleaned, I see clear as day handprints on the glass. Seriously, if someone from outside looked up at my window, they would totally know exactly what the person who occupies this office had done on these windows. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could see the outline of my nipples, too.

I roll my eyes and take another sip of my coffee, then set it on my desk as I savor it in my mouth. I spray a big circle on the glass and clean the handprints and any other telltale signs that could remain. Just as I finish, Reagan comes in my office and rather loudly says, “What are you doing? Do you need help with that?”

And just like that I spray my entire mouth full of coffee on the now clean window, as the words from last night that started it all ring out in my office once again.
Do you need help with that
?

“Shit, Reagan, you scared the crap out of me!”

“Here, let me get that,” she says, taking the spray bottle out of my hand. Then she cleans up the coffee dripping from mouth level down the entire window. “That was Mr. Foley on the phone I was just talking to. He wants a meeting with you this morning before you head into court.”