Illicit Affairs by Holly Dixon

Eleven

Never hadAva felt so utterly powerless.

Her feet thudded against the loose stone chipping paving the way to their family’s stables. This was her happy place, the one place growing up that she would come to whenever her parents were having screaming matches and tossing expensive china at each other.

It was a small shelter for their remaining two horses, a hut made from weathered oak planks with a sloping corrugated iron roof that made even the briefest of summer showers sound like a hail of bullets. Straw covered the floor, golden hues rivalling Ava’s hair as half-empty hay nets hung limply along the walls alongside buckets of water for the horses.

Ava ran into the wooden hut, slamming the creaking door behind her, the rusted iron hook on the door clattering loudly against the hut and spooking the horses.

“Shit,” Ava sighed, looking up at a large black horse that huffed disapprovingly down at her from behind his gate. “Sorry, old boy, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she soothed, running her palm down the silken snout of her father’s horse, smiling at the tickling of silver whiskers across his warm nose as she carefully pressed her forehead against his and closed her eyes.

Just a few brief moments and already her heart rate was calming down, put at ease as the sun dipped across the hills and burnt-orange light crept between the slits of wood holding up the stables. However, all that burst from her as the black beauty huffed and pulled away from her as the stable’s doors were ripped open, the sunset flooding in and blinding her.

“Suzy?” Ava asked with her hand shielding her eyes. It was always her youngest sibling who would find her here.

“Guess again.”

Ugh, not this wanker.

“What the hell do you want, Nate?” Ava sneered as her boss entered the stables, the amber glow cutting around his powerful silhouette.

Nate felt a shiver of pleasure run through his body as he heard his name against her scarlet lips. Of all the hues of autumn, her hair was the most divine as the sunset caught it and sent molten gold carelessly flowing down her shoulders. A golden goddess in her purest of forms.

“Oh, we’re on a first-name basis now, are we?” He smirked, stepping towards her bratty demeanour as she crossed her arms and exaggerated her cleavage through the unbuttoned V-neck of her shirt.

“Well, for starters, we’re not at work so I’ll address you however the hell I want, and besides that, you’re the one who started calling me Ava instead of ‘Ms. Archer’,” she mocked his American accent and quoted the title with her fingers, much to Nate’s amusement.

“Are you always such a brat?” Nate laughed, a hearty sound that caught Ava off guard as she peered up at his handsome face and felt something defrost inside her—but then she remembered this was the arsehole who was laying off her best friend.

“Are you always such an egotistical knob?” she fired back, taking an assertive step towards him but shrunk in his bold shadow as he challenged her by taking a step towards her also, the pair coming to a standoff in the middle of the stables.

Nate steadily trained his gaze down on her, impressed by her backbone, if not amused at how adorable she was when she was feisty. Surely, she knew he could flip her tiny body on its ass with one lift of his finger? She likely did know that, which just made him admire her more.

“You should really watch that mouth of yours, Ms. Archer.”

“Oh, yeah?” she challenged with a defiant rise of her chin, meeting his death stare head-on.

“Yes. It’ll get you in trouble one day,” Nate replied, taking a step towards her, and forcing her to take a half step back.

“Well, it’s a good thing I like trouble then, isn’t it?” Ava sassed, dropping her arms by her sides and straightening her spine as she took a step forward, insisting that he take a step back, but he remained firm in place.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a serious attitude problem, Ava?” he ridiculed, growing tired of her smart mouth as he began pressing forward, making her retreat backwards despite her provoking expression.

“Has anyone ever told you what they say about a woman with an attitude, Nate?” she challenged with a coy smile, taking small steps back as her boss closed in on her like a lion closing in on its prey, but she refused to back down, a lioness asserting its position in the pride.

“Enlighten me,” Nate prompted, stopping when Ava’s back pressed up against a wooden support beam holding up the small hut. If she felt intimidated by his presence, she certainly did not show it.

“A fierce man can handle a fierce woman. A fragile man will say she has an attitude,” Ava stated, her hands tucked behind her back casually as she leaned her head against the beam and stared up at Nate from beneath the canopy of her dark lashes.

Nate watched her carefully, his eyebrows raised in surprise at her statement. This woman wasn’t like the rest, he could feel it in his bones as he stared down into her passionate eyes, the sun behind them both now setting on the horizon of her oceans.

“Is that what you want, Ava?” he teased despite his serious expression as he pressed his knuckles to the wooden structure above her head, his arms outstretched above him. “A fierce man?”

Ava’s heart began fluttering again just like it did that night in the office when he leant over her. She was starting to suspect that it was his proximity to her that had that type of effect on her cardiovascular system, that and his heady aroma that did a number on her hormones.

“What I want…” she began, peeling her back away from the wooden beam and closing the distance between their bodies while Nate remained grounded in his position. Her eyes stayed focused on his whisky-coloured orbs, feeling the heat of his stare tingle down the back of her neck, her breath turning shallow as she edged forward until her thighs pressed against his. It was like her body was betraying her despite her mind being set. Yielding slightly, she took a step back before continuing, “Is for you to not lay off my best friend.”

Nate was lost in her presence, the woman blonde from root to tip, born to bring more golden sunshine into this world, and it showed too, it showed in those soulful blue eyes as bright as any orchid, clear as any glacier yet so very warm too. Under the ambient lighting, her hair wasn’t so creamy up close as it was far away. It was streaked with warm tones of honey and butterscotch, the warmth complementing her pale skin rather than washing her out. Ava was the essence of summer, a rare beauty with lips like the most exotic of roses.

“Consider it done,” Nate settled affirmatively, causing Ava to scrunch her nose up in confusion before he explained, “If I knew Ms. Eastley was your friend, I would have arranged another position for her sooner.”

“Why didn’t you say that earlier?!” Ava gasped, humbled by Nate’s sudden generosity.

“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s a bit hard to get a word in edgeways with yourself.” He chuckled, a deep sound that reverberated in his chest, as his hand lowered from above her head and gently pinched at her chin, his thumb hovering over her lower lip. “The trouble this mouth stirs…”

Ava felt her blood simmer in her veins from his touch, her tongue wanting nothing more than to taste the salt upon his fingertips. It was clear to her, in that moment, that lust was coiling around her bones, making her feel weak and melting her self-control down into a puddle of hormones.

“You should do something about that then,” Ava breathed hotly, her lips moving and skimming past his pad, watching as Nate’s eyes flicked back up to meet her own and squinted at her in surprised contemplation.

“Should I?” he asked in a low tone, asking more himself than Ava despite her nodding her head slowly and staring directly at his mouth. Flames licked up Nate’s thighs at her daring and provocative conduct, his heart driving the blood in his veins away from his brain and clouding his judgement in a haze of lust. He wanted her. Nate Brooks wanted her like nothing else in this world, his desire making him feel starved for connection.

With his head in the gutter and his primal urges dominating his actions, his delicate grip on her chin lowered, fingertips brushing down the side of her sweet-scented neck, his thumb gliding down her throat before squeezing just enough to register her excitement from the pulse kicking against his palm.

“Yes…” Her answer was delayed, her brain feeling starved as the blood swirled below her naval and made her ache, that steady pulse growing stronger and stronger. She had never felt such desire until feeling his grip on her throat, but she wasn’t rolling over like a submissive kitty for him. Her hands slowly found their way to Nate’s hips, her fingertips feeling along the rim of his belt before climbing up the buttons on his shirt with shallow humid breaths filling the small space between their bodies.

The pair came to an impasse as Ava’s hand wrapped around Nate’s thick neck, showing she wasn’t a kitten to be played with as she pushed against his hand and purred close to his mouth, “…sir.”

Nate’s hand fisted tightly against the wooden strut above Ava’s head as she tested his dominance and control. He’d fuck her in this hut right here, right now, just to make a point. He didn’t give a shit if someone walked in. He couldn’t care less about the repercussions of his immoral impulses.

“Say that again,” Nate dared, the bump in his throat feeling crushed against Ava’s hand as he pushed forward, his head tilting as he dipped down to her eye level.

“Make me, sir.”

Fuck,Nate thought as his hips twitched like a car riding its clutch. Her voice was so low it practically snarled at him, making his nails bite into the heel of his palm.

She was a firecracker and he just lit her damn fuse.

Their lips were practically on each other’s, exchanging sultry breath, and yet neither made the first move, in a deadlock for power as they stared into each other’s bruised and battered souls.

“Hello…?” Suzy’s voice suddenly came from outside the stables making the pair of them jolt away from each other. Ava’s petite sister walked into the stables, too naive to sense the electrically charged atmosphere as she beamed, saying, “Oh, good I found you! Mr. Brooks, your driver is here.”

“Thank you,” Nate said in a composed manner to Little Archer, despite his body pulsing as though he were running a marathon. “And please, call me Nate.” His eyes slid down to Ava at his side. “I’ll see you on Monday, Ava.” He didn’t give Ava a chance to respond as he nodded at Suzy and walked out of the stables, eager to leave before his prominent arousal was spotted bulging through his tight denims.

The sexiest thing a woman could do to a man was crawl, and here was Ava Archer who had now crawled inside his imagination and made it run wild.