Page 47 of Ava
“Yes.”
“Why did they fall forward?”
“The SEAL team I had been working with found me, and killed them before they entered the bunker the men were holding me captive in.”
They remained silent for several minutes, then Justin adjusted his position, and studied her. “I have no right to ask, but did they rape you?”
“No, though they were discussing it. That’s what they were talking about when I woke up from the first waterboarding.” Ava shook her head and settled back on the couch. “I know I’m making this sound like it took all of fifteen minutes, but I was held captive and tortured for twelve hours before I was rescued. Like I said, this happened two years ago, but I was medically discharged only ten months ago. I spent several weeks in the hospital, then I had the recovery time, and physical therapy.”
“For?”
“That blade that cut the artery in my leg was rusty, and even though it was glowing red hot, I developed a blood infection. I had to have several transfusions, and then after having the leg immobile for weeks, the physical therapy was to get the muscles working again. The scars on my upper thigh aren’t pretty.”
“But, they mean you’re a survivor.” Justin said the only thing that made tears prick her eyes. Ducking her head, she refused to look at him. When he moved closer and gathered her in his arms, she wrapped her arms around him, and held on for dear life. For the first time since her mother’s passing, she felt safe and secure in someone else’s arms.I could get used to this, she thought.
She lifted her head to smile at him and sucked in her breath at his expression. His eyes shone bright, and without saying a word, he picked her up and put her on his lap, making sure her legs straddled his. He slowly lifted his hands to bury in her hair on either side of her face, giving her plenty of time to bat his hands away, or to move. She did neither. Instead, she moaned and leaned in toward him. As soon as their lips touched, they jerked apart, then came back together in a frenzy. Ava buried her hands in his hair, as Justin continued to do the same with hers.
With the position of her body over his, she felt his growing erection, and smiled against his lips as they both devoured one another. Unable to resist, she began to ride him, and he broke off the kiss and stared at her in shock.
Before either of them could go any further, they heard an alarm go off, and they froze in their shock.
“What the hell?” Ava leaned in and whispered close to his mouth. Taking the opportunity to kiss him again.
“I think it might be Uncle Chip’s alarm.”
“Shit,” Ava said as she scrambled off Justin’s lap, and threw herself on the other side of the couch. She tried to pick up her can of soda, but found her hand shaking too much. Just as a door opened above them, Justin leaned over, placed his chin on her knees and grinned.
“This isn’t over.”
“Whatever,” Ava mumbled as she finally got her hand steady enough to drink from her can of soda, but inside, her stomach muscles were doing a happy dance, and her girly parts were wide awake and screaming that they should run upstairs, and finish what they had started.
She looked up when she sensed someone come down the stairs, and nodded and called out. “Morning, Mr. Boswell.”
“Please, call me Chip,” the older man said, and it didn’t seem to faze him when he saw the two of them on the sofa.
“Coffee’s already on,” Justin called out as he picked up his cup to take a sip. Ten minutes later, with Chip at the dining-room table, Peggy came down the stairs, and made it to the coffee pot before the others from downstairs started coming up. Chip looked at Justin and smirked.
“I know I’m not your father, son, but may I make a suggestion?”
Justin braced himself for a lecture about him putting the moves on Ava, but his uncle’s next words shocked him. “What?”
“Since the meeting at nine will be here, may I suggest that you clean up these plans for Morgan’s office?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll get right on that.” He jumped to his feet and did just that. When he stood there with the papers in his hand looking around. Ava laughed and told him to take them to one of the offices and put them on a shelf. He did that, then came out, grabbed his cup, and headed back downstairs to dress for the day. As he disappeared down the stairs, he heard one of his brothers ask their aunt a question.
“Aunt Peggy?” Alex, the quietest of them all turned to her after filling his coffee cup and studied her.
“What is it Alex?”
“Can you teach me how to cook? I hate doing the cleanup.” At his comment, she frowned, then the others told her how they worked over at the ranch. It was if the people who cooked, didn’t have to clean up.
“You don’t know how to cook?”
“I thought I did, but Wyatt said my eggs were too runny, and my bacon was either too raw, or too crumbly, whatever that means.”
Peggy grinned, and began giving him step-by-step instructions on how to make bacon and eggs. Since they were all going to be there for a meeting at nine, Wyatt had told Alex not to bother with the morning chores, and to spend the time with his family. Alex thought it was the perfect opportunity to learn how to cook, since Wyatt said that they didn’t have to come over to the ranch for meals if they didn’t want to. By the time the ten of them sat down to eat, Alex had cooked scrambled eggs, bacon, home-fried potatoes, and toast. At one point he looked at Peggy with a frown. “Wouldn’t it be better to just buy the frozen kind of potatoes?”
“I don’t know if it would be better, if you compare the preservatives in them to the all-natural potato, it might be more convenient, but it wouldn’t teach you how to cook.”
