The CEO(47)

So totally worth it.

And that’s all she ever really wanted, right? Had she ever really imagined anything more than a fantasy fuck with Callum? She had a vision for her work, always had, and it had driven her. But she’d never had a vision for her love life because the man she loved was someone else’s. So instead, she imagined a future filled with vague notions that she might one day meet a great guy and they might get a puppy. Perhaps they would share the rent in a slightly bigger apartment in Bondi. Sunday morning brunch. That’s what she’d imagined a decent relationship would hinge on. A smashing Sunday morning brunch. It’s what couples did, right?

How would she know?

‘You all right?’ Callum pulled her closer and put his lips to her hair.

Ava sighed and wiped the tears from her eyes. There would be more, she knew it. ‘Callum? When you called me from Singapore you said we needed to talk. I think this is the time, don’t you?’

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he murmured.

‘Do you really?’

‘Yeah, I do. You’re thinking that this is complicated.’

‘Sex is never complicated,’ she said on a sigh. ‘It’s what comes after that is complicated.’

‘So we had great, uncomplicated sex,’ he said and kissed her hair again.

‘“Great” does not even begin to cover what we just did.’

‘Hot?’

‘Sizzling, and you know it. The kind of sizzling that makes a girl forget her name.’

Callum peeled back the sheet covering them and moved on top of her. It was the sheer weight of him that squeezed the air from her lungs. When she spread her legs apart, it was only to bear his weight more comfortably. And when she slipped her arms around his neck, it was for safety.

‘Your name is Ava Gibson and you just had hot, uncomplicated sex with me.’ That smile cut her in two.

‘How could I forget?’ And she could feel that he was hard again. She wanted—no, needed—to come again and she pushed herself against him, wrapping her legs tight around him, moving her hands down to squeeze his perfectly formed butt.

Callum dipped his head and planted a trail of soft kisses down her neck, across her chin and then he kissed her mouth. Demanding, urging, his tongue dancing with hers. He broke the lip lock for a moment to reach for another condom, and when he was back and protected, she was so ready and wet that he plunged into her, his breath hot on her lips, his bottom lip between her teeth, her hands pushing and urging him deeper and deeper. When he came, the tension left his body in a guttural groan and she held him, feeling his chest rise and fall, loving the way his face slipped into her neck, her flowing hair all around them.

She found her breath but when he rolled off her and moved in close, his fingers finding her clitoris, so wet, so ready, he made her come again and this time she really did think she was going to die from lack of oxygen.

When he kissed her after, and searched her face, she closed her eyes against what she was feeling for this man. For how impossible it was.

‘Ava? What we just did? What we do to each other? That’s not complicated.’

She averted her gaze from him.

‘Look at me.’

She wanted to be brave enough for this, to be strong enough to own what she had to do. She opened her eyes. ‘What?’

‘I know what you’re thinking.’

She exhaled slowly. ‘Good for you. My brain is a bubble of mush right about now, and I can barely remember my own name. But let’s just say that if I was thinking, it would be along the lines of ‘You’re the bastard who cheated on Lulu and I’m the awful sister who has betrayed her by sleeping with you.’

He tensed. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘There is absolutely nowhere for this to go. What were we thinking, Callum?’

‘Wait a minute? What?’ Callum moved off her.

And then her tears flowed. She didn’t care. She couldn’t hide them. ‘We’re horrible people, both of us. Don’t you see? We’ve both cheated on her.’

He looked incredulous. ‘You don’t know, do you?’

‘Know what?’

Callum slowly sat up, dropped his legs over the edge of the bed. His strong back was to her, flexing as he rubbed a hand over his hair. Everything about him was beautiful, masculine, tender and loving, which made Ava feel even more dreadful and bereft.

‘You think it was me? You really think I could be that cruel? And yet,’ he looked at her, studying her, with something in his eyes that looked like hurt. ‘You’re here with me in my bed.’

‘I …’ She stopped. What had he just said? ‘Wasn’t it?’