“Honey, what he’d think is that you want him as much as he wants you and that you’re not afraid to let him know. It’ll also shock the shit out of him in an ‘I’m so hard I could explode in my pants’ kind of way.” Eyeing Ava’s clenched expression, she let out a growl. “You aren’t going to do it, are you? Ugh, just go ahead and say something like ‘thinking of you’ or some other PG stuff.”
Ava grabbed her cell phone before she could change her mind. It was just a text message. She and Mac had had sex. Honest-to-goodness, real sex. A text message was nothing. She needed to be comfortable joking around with him. This was the kind of thing that women in relationships did all the time, wasn’t it? Suzy had admitted to doing it with Gray. Mac had a great sense of humor; he would love something like this. With Suzy looking on in approval, she typed out the message word for word as her friend repeated it and then hit SEND. There, it was done. No turning back now.
She really, really hoped that Mac was a lover of sexting.
* * *
Mac was in the middle of a staff meeting with Dom, Gage, and five of their employees when his phone chimed to alert him to a new text. When Gage started going through some new reporting procedures with the other men, Mac picked up his phone, surprised to see that it was from Ava. He smiled as he clicked on it, hoping that she wanted to see him tonight. He was still trying to honor his plan to let her control the pace of their relationship until she was more comfortable, but damn, he missed her already. His eyes almost bugged out of his head when he read—I know you’re busy today, but can you add one thing to your to-do list? Me.
“Fuck me.” Mac had no idea that he had uttered those words aloud until all heads at the table swiveled his way.
Gage looked at him in question before giving him a sarcastic grin. “Something you wanted to add?”
“Um—no. All good here,” he grumbled in reply. Shifting uneasily in his chair, he tried to alleviate the ache in his crotch where his cock was now pushing painfully against his zipper. He didn’t think he’d ever had a problem with fighting wood during a meeting with the guys before and it was damn disconcerting. Even Dom was giving him a funny look. Thank God there was no way that they could see what was happening to him under the table.
As if it hadn’t done enough damage the first time, he looked at the text message again, needing to make sure that he had read it correctly. Yeah, shit, there was no mistaking what she had said. He desperately wanted to run from the room, go straight upstairs, rip her panties off, and fuck her on the top of her well-organized desk. Instead, with a none-too-steady hand, he texted back My house tonight, eight. His hand hovered over the SEND button before deciding on a little payback. He added two words before hitting SEND—No panties.
The rest of the meeting passed by in a blur. He was grateful that he had been the first to speak and had finished the items on his agenda before Ava’s text. As it was, he was so scattered that both Gage and Dom had gone from looking curious to downright concerned. Wanting to avoid the questions that he knew would be coming, he’d gathered his stuff and left early for his next appointment. At moments like this he hated the fact that the men he worked with were like a bunch of nosy, gossiping women.
Chapter Sixteen
Suzy was already wearing a green string bikini when Ava arrived at her house after work. She handed Ava a black bikini that looked similar in style. “Er . . . do you have anything else—like maybe a one-piece?”
Suzy shook her head, before pushing her toward a bathroom off the hallway. “No, of course not. If I did, I wouldn’t let you wear it. Mac doesn’t want to see you dressed like his mother. You’ve got a banging body; you need to show it off.”
Ava knew it was futile to argue. Instead she took the swimsuit and quickly changed. She looked at herself in the mirror and decided that even though it looked okay, she’d never felt so exposed in her whole life. Was anyone ever really comfortable in a swimsuit on the beach in front of dozens of people? Ugh! “Do you have a shirt or something I can put over this?” she yelled back through the door.
“No,” Suzy yelled back. “Come on out, we’ve got to go. And don’t put your clothes back on over that suit!”
Ava gaped at the door, wondering how the other woman had known that she was considering doing exactly that. Grumbling under her breath, she picked her clothing up and walked out the door. She came to an abrupt halt when she spotted Gray standing in the living room grabbing what looked like a handful of Suzy’s butt.
Ava had started to edge backward, trying to make her escape before being spotted, when Gray’s eyes landed on her. He smiled at her apologetically before swatting his wife’s ass lightly and saying,“behave yourself, minx. You are embarrassing your partner in crime.” Suzy spun around, narrowing her eyes as she saw Ava clutching her discarded clothing to her chest. She noticed that Gray still kept a possessive arm wrapped around Suzy’s waist, seeming to want to be in constant contact with some part of her. They were the sexiest couple that Ava had ever seen.