Imperfections (34 page)

"Cat, I've wanted to do this to you all fucking day!"

"Mmm…Hmm."

She wraps her legs around my waist when I lift her up and step out of the elevator. My teeth graze the side of her neck. She opens her eyes and gleefully squeals, jumping down.

"Oh my God, Nick!"

"I told you the day wasn't over yet. Surprise." I put my hands around her stomach with her back against me. My living room is covered in Christmas decorations from top to bottom and everything except for the Christmas tree is decorated.

"How did you do this?"

She tries to wiggle out of my arms but I hold on to her waist from behind.

"I made a few calls while we were out."

"I didn't see you make any calls."

"When I went to the bathroom."

"That's what took you so long. I thought you fell into the toilet."

"No." I chuckle, resting my chin on top of her head.

"You did all of this for me?"

"Yes."

"It's so nice. A Christmas winter wonderland, thank you."

I turn her around and give her a kiss on her lips.

"But it's not finished, Nick. Why isn't the tree decorated?"

"I told them to save the best for last. That's for us to decorate and if you want you can change these decorations," I say, looking around the room.

"No! They're perfect. You are definitely going to get some tonight."

"Oh, I already knew that," I say, kissing her earlobe.

"Did you?"

"Yeah, that wasn't a question in my mind."

She playfully slaps my arm, smiling. "Get your ass over here and let's decorate my tree."

Letting her drag me I say, "Yes, ma'am."

When we're finished and I help her put the star on top of the tree, we stand back looking at it. "What do you think?"

"Nick, it's pretty. I love it."

"Good, now come here, I've never had sex under a Christmas tree." I pull her down on top of me on the couch, her legs between mine. Just when things are starting to get good, her phone rings. I groan loudly at the interruption.

"Let it ring, they'll call back when we're finished."

"Nick, I can't, I have to get it."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do, let me just see who's calling."

She gets her coat off the arm of the couch and looks at her phone. "It's Ava."

"Great, let it go to voice mail, you can call her back later."

"No."

"You did not just do that?" I say annoyed, watching her put the phone to her ears, looking at me apologetically.

"Hey, Ava, what's up?"

"Nothing."

I sit up between Nick's legs and lie back in his arms. His arousal presses into my back. I know he's not happy I answered but I'll make it up to him later. Besides, Ava sounds like she needs to talk, she doesn't sound like her usual self. She's always there for me in my time of need, which is a lot lately. The least I can do is make sure she's fine.

"Are you sure? You don't sound like yourself."

"I don't know. You know those times when you don't feel like yourself?"

Nick puts his hands up my shirt and rubs the palms of his hands over my nipples making me tingle. I gasp and try to push his hands away with one hand.

"Tell her you'll call her back," he tells me in my ear.

I mouth, "No," to him and try to make my voice sound normal with him kissing my neck.

"Aha!" I shake my head up and down like she can see me. It's a good thing she can't.

"Cat, are you all right?"

"Yes," I say to Ava, trying to get up but Nick squeezes my nipples between his fingers. I bite my lip at the jolt I feel to my core, making it hard for me to sound normal.

"Are you sure? You sound like you're out of breath."

"She is, you're interrupting, Ava."

My eyes fly open wide and I slap him on the arm. "Nick!"

He mimics my expression. "What? She is."

I jump out of his lap to the other end of the couch.

"Cat, is that Nick? Did you go out with him again?"

"Yes and no."

"Explain yourself, young lady."

No sense in trying to lie to her she's going to find out anyway. I might need her to be my alibi. "I didn't go home last night. I'm spending the weekend here." Ava doesn't say anything; she's as silent as a mouse. Nick gets up and gets a drink. I call her name three times before she answers me. "Ava, answer me."

"I think I blacked out for a second…I'm stunned. Did I hear you right? You said you're spending the weekend with Nick at his house?"

"That's what I said."

"I only said you should have dinner, you took it to the next level. Damn, one touch from him and you decide to drop your draws and become his sex slave, huh!"

"Ava—"

"No, no, no, don't even deny it, he has you turned out, you're his personal trick."

"Ava, I'm hanging up!"

She's laughing uncontrollably, exasperating me further.

"Ha haaaa! Cat, you know I'm only playing with you. I'm happy you're enjoying yourself so much. He convinced you to stay?"

"Why do you assume it was his idea for me to stay?"

"Cat, please, it's me you're talking to, you didn't want to be alone in the same room with him yesterday. I know it took a lot of convincing on his part for you to stay."

"Not as much as you think."

"I hear that, yes, I do. Is that why you were so out of breath? Girl, you are changing before my eyes, a little love in the afternoon, I love it."

"There is no love in the afternoon."

Nick yells from across the room where he's texting on his phone, "Get off the phone, Ava, so she can actually get some love in the afternoon!"

"Woo, I here that! Y'all about to put it down!"

"Will you two stop it? Incorrigible, both of you."

"Darling, what the hell are you doing still talking to me? You have an impatient hot man waiting to rip your clothes off, throw you down on the floor full force with his bare hands and make sweet love to you."

"The things that come out of your mouth."

"I know. I can't help myself."

"I know that. I'm not getting off this phone until I know what's wrong with you."

"You don't want to hear my issues right now, go enjoy yourself."

"I'm not going until I find out why you don't sound like the Ava I know. I mean it, you're going to ruin my weekend if you don't tell me."

I hear her sigh. Nick leaves the kitchen and goes into his office. This way I don't have to leave the room to talk to Ava.

"It's your brother."

"My brother? Chris?"

"Remember the night I had to drive him home from the club?"

"Yes, I couldn't believe he agreed to get into a car alone with you."

"Me either."

"Are you sure you didn't have to club him over the head with your super human rush of adrenaline by the mere thought of having your way with him and dragging him into the car?"

We both laugh at the mental picture that conjures up.

"I am not that bad. Am I?"

"Yes. I've never seen you come on so aggressively toward a man like you do with Chris; I've never seen you work so hard to get a man's attention."

"You make me sound desperate and unattractive."

"You! You could never be unattractive. Remember the time in college you dragged me to that frat party when I came to visit you?" I hear the dreamy sound in her voice.

"Oh yeah, at Derek's fraternity house."

I see I have to bring her back down, give her a reminder of who he was.

Ava's ex her freshman year in college. I never met a bigger asshole in a better looking package.

"Six two, blond hair, dark green eyes and chiseled from head to toe. The star of my wet dreams the first two months of my freshman year."

I roll my eyes up to the ceiling and continue to listen to her.

"Until I met him and my dreams became a reality. My Ken come to life."

"Yeah, straight from the dream house, until he turned into Mr. Potato head," I remind her, insulting Mr. Potato head at the same time.

"I got so drunk I threw up on myself. Not my best moment."

"No. We couldn't find Derek so you had to walk back to your dorm room in your pink- and-black lace corset bra."

"When we opened the door there he was, butt naked under my big-ass cunt roommate. She's lucky I didn't cut her and rip all of her fake-ass bleach blond hair out."

"It was funny as hell the way you whaled on her. The shock on Derek's face when you almost stabbed him with the letter opener was priceless. He didn't count on you getting violent."

"He got lucky."

"You're lucky they didn't press charges," I say, thinking back. "I never noticed it before, you have a violent streak."

"Much like my cousin, it's only when I feel deeply passionate about something. It's never directed toward those who aren't deserving of it."

"You and your cousin, Lord help me." They are a family of brawlers. I would not like to be the unlucky person on the receiving end of Ava or Nick's bad temper. She interrupts my thoughts when she says,

"She didn't even look better than me."

I've heard this before and I was thinking the same thing. "She didn't look better than you."

"If you're going to cheat, the person you're cheating with should look better than the person you're with, that would make sense." She reasons.

"Would that have made you feel better about him cheating on you? It wouldn't make me feel better."

"It wouldn't make me feel better but then I could understand it more. He didn't even take a step down; he dropped down through the basement floor, like a sack of rotten potatoes. She wasn't even smarter than me…she didn't even have that going for her."

"That goes to show you it doesn't matter what you look like or how smart and capable you are. If a man is going to cheat on you, he's going to cheat no matter what you have or don't have. There's no accounting for taste."

"Why are we talking about Derek and that piece of street trash? She probably looks like a dried up sun-kissed California raisin now."

"Ava, the point I was trying to make about that night is, you had vomit all over you in nothing but a bra and jeans and guys were still trying to talk to you. You were fighting and wreaking havoc in that dorm room like a raven-haired, blue-eyed devil and you still looked like you were doing an ad campaign for a couture fashion shoot."

"I was a little out of control."

"Kicking over chairs and breaking up anything made of glass that wasn't yours. No one would have known the southern beauty pageant girl had that in her. The point is, you're Ava Alexander and you don't take shit from anyone. You don't run men down, they come to you willingly."

"I am kind of badass when I need to be." She muses more to herself.

"That's right!"

"Your brother and I almost had sex."

"What?! I have to hold on tight to the phone so it doesn't drop out of my hand. "When did this happen? Is everyone having sex with each other?"

"Not everyone. We were getting all hot and heavy in my car that night then in mid-kiss he stops and jumps out the car like he was being eaten alive by a crocodile down in a bayou. I thought he would try to call me but he hasn't."

Nick comes back, sitting behind me on the couch and runs his tongue behind the edge of my earlobe. I'm trying my best to concentrate on what Ava is saying to me. "Maybe you should call him and find out what happened."

"I'm going to take your other advice."

"You're going to stop chasing him."

"I didn't say that. I'm not going to be so aggressive in my approach to getting Chris."

Nick kisses me on the corner of my mouth with a loud smacking sound. I try to shush him away while listening to Ava. He gets out from behind me so fast I fall back on the couch with the phone still to my ear. Straddling me with his knees in the couch he tickles me until I start laughing uncontrollably. "Nick! Stop, please!" I shriek with him pinning both of my hands above my head.

"That's what I've been trying to hear all day." He grabs the phone and I try to recover with him pinning my hands above my head. He puts it on speaker. "Ava, get off the damn phone so I can give your friend something to talk about."