Chapter Eight

Not that he forgot about her entirely. That wasn't in his nature. He just needed to recharge his batteries a little before round two.

Although he was awake in the middle of the night, Kurt did not awaken Ava. Instead, quiet as a mouse, he turned on the light on his bedside table—the one that was barely one candlepower and did something that he knew she would consider creepy, and honestly, so did he. But he couldn't help himself.

She was lying on her back, mostly on her side of the bed, and he just watched her. He'd done that with Maureen at first, too, unable to believe that she was actually his. But then Hannah-Bananah had come along, and things had gotten hectic. And he'd done his share of midnight feedings and changings and rocking her when she was sick, and there was less time for reflecting on the wonder of Mo being his and more time actually sleeping—and even then, it was never enough.

But he wouldn't trade a nanosecond of it. Not for anything in the world.

Kurt's eyes filled with tears that, surprisingly, remained unshed.

He certainly hoped that Mo would be okay with what he was doing.

Hell, he snorted softly. She would have taken him to task for waiting so long, he knew. She wouldn't have been at all happy with him about that—or his adverse reactions to babies, either, especially when he used to be so good with them—his or anyone else's. When she wasn't feeling well, little Hannah didn't want anyone but Daddy singing her to sleep.

And boy was he glad that he'd done that. He thanked God for each and every sleepless night.

Kurt deliberately turned his thoughts away from sadder things and concentrated his attention on Ava again, unable to believe that she was with him, either. He wasn't at all sure that, if his little girl had survived, he would be able to become involved with a woman who fell apart at the mere thought of a baby.

She shivered once, curling in on herself on her side, and he reached out and pulled the covers up and over her. He hoped that she would confide in him someday about what had happened between her and that fuckwit boyfriend who had struck such fear into her heart that he wanted to pound the asshole's face in every time she got that achingly scared look.

But he also couldn't let her see that impulse, because he knew that she would immediately think that she was the one he was furious with, even though that could never, ever be.

He'd seen enough victims of domestic abuse to know that that was probably what it was. Something along those lines, anyway. He was glad she'd gotten away from him, and he wished he could make it all better for her.

Kurt found it interesting that she still liked to be spanked, though—boy, did she like it!

Just as he was having that thought, Ava rolled over again then sat up on the side of the bed for a long moment.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yes, thanks," she muttered sleepily as she got up and headed to the bathroom.

When she returned, he was waiting for her, sitting right where she had sat.

"Move. Wanna go back to sleep," she murmured, eyes still closed.

But he didn't give her a choice. Kurt picked her up and laid her down next to him in the bed.

"Is your bottom still sore?" he whispered.

There was little else he could have said to her that was more designed to wake her up. "Yes."

"I owe you a zillion orgasms," he informed her, and she giggled, still a bit sleepily.

"No, you don't. I don't believe in keeping score."

"Spoken by a person for whom they don't make numbers that go high enough to count how many you can have in one session."

She snorted at that. "Allow me to introduce you to the concept of quality over quantity, Lieutenant Gilmore."

"Oh, I'm 'Lieutenant' now, am I?" His voice went down at least an octave before he said, "I much prefer 'Sir', from you, Ava Penelope LaValley."

"Still not my middle—holy fuck!"

Big men like him shouldn't giggle, but he did, enough that he actually had to move his mouth from the very delicate spot it had very suddenly been occupying. "That was a lovely response."

"You're welcome."

As his mouth found her clit again, two fingers did the same thing a little bit down from there, filling her up almost as much as he did otherwise.

But his cock couldn't rotate or seek and find that very particular spot.

She went rigid, and Kurt stopped everything.

"Did I hurt you?"

"No, no—definitely not hurt."

"Ahh." He chuckled evilly. "Then I found exactly what I was looking for."

He had, and that, coupled with what his mouth was doing, very nearly drove her out of her mind. When he reached beneath her to cup and squeeze a still stinging cheek, Ava came so hard, she clung to him in the aftermath like a limpet, encouraging him to come up and hold her rather than worrying about giving her any more.

"Hold me, please," she begged.

"Of course, sweetie." Strong arms found their way around her, keeping her close against him as he arranged the blankets over them. "Everything okay?"

"Yes." She nodded. "Just intense. Very, very intense."

"Are you still contracting?"

More nodding.

"Are you sure you don't want more?" If he had an infinite capacity, he'd never get out of bed.

In answer, she took his hand and put it down between her legs.

He could feel how hard she was spasming.

"Still coming, sort of," she added.

"Really? Without even being touched? Damn, I'm good!" he boasted, and she burst out laughing, which he was sorry to realize broke the spell she'd been under.

But he loved to hear her laugh almost as much as he loved making her come, so it was a bit of a tradeoff.

And she got a big kick out of that one. Almost too big a kick.

"All right, all right. It's not that funny!" he complained, pretending to sound put out.

"Yes, it is!" she could barely get out, watching him look just that much more disgruntled.

"Well! I never!"

That sent her into further gales of laughter. "I know—that's why I'm laughing!"

She thought he might be sore about her teasing him, but he could definitely take a joke, even at his own expense.

When she'd recovered, literally wiping tears from her eyes, he gathered her to him again and said, "So, tell me more about what just happened to you, please? I'd love to be able to make you do that again, preferably on command."

They talked for a little while in very soft tones, cozy and warm and inherently intimate in the middle of the night, then he insisted that they go back to sleep. He had plans in the morning, and he knew he had to take her back to get April by ten.

***

She awoke when he slipped into her, saying her name softly as he did so, sort of.

"Ava Louise, wake up. Ava Beatrice, wake up. Ava Gertrude—"

So, when she came to consciousness, she was already laughing and aroused—two not bad states in which to awaken.

As he began to move within her, Kurt grinned down at her. "Three strikes, huh?"

Dear God, how could he think like that at a time like this? She could barely remember her first name, much less her middle!

"Y-yes! Now shut up and fuck me!"

"You're a demanding little hussy, aren't you?" he asked rhetorically as he reached down between them to find that bud of hers, setting her to moaning with frightening ease as soon as the edge of his fingertip slipped over it.

"Please, Kurt!" she begged.

Full stop, even at his own expense. "Please, who?"

"Sir! Please, Sir! Please," she added for good measure.

But he stayed still, buried deep within her as he looked down at her.

"Move! Please!" Ava was filled to overflowing, all of her nerve endings firing, but the friction she needed was sorely missing!

All of a sudden, he began to fuck her as he watched her face intently, varying his thrusts radically—sometimes slow and powerful, sometimes fast and heady. She didn't care, as long as he kept doing it! Him, just lying like that, still possessing her but frustratingly so, was enough to make her lose her mind. And his fingers were definitely working on that goal, too.

When his mouth caught a nipple, suckling demandingly, she soared into the stratosphere, taking him with her as he surged heavily into her, yelling loudly as he came while she moaned in unison with him, clenching him until he was utterly and completely dry.

Ava expected him to collapse on top of her, but instead, he moved off her, reached into his nightstand drawer and withdrew a vibrator.

As he stretched himself out beside her, he whispered, as if he worried she might think that it was left over from his marriage, "It's brand new. I want to find out exactly how many orgasms you can have, my dear."

With that, he applied that evil instrument between her legs, keeping them open by the mere presence of his own holding back the nearest of them as he whispered filthy things into her ear about what he wanted to—was going to—do to her.

It was a reasonably good sided vibrator, and it covered every bit of her clit and then some. It was quite powerful, too, enough that she was nearly forced to peak as soon as it came in contact with her still swollen and aching nub.

He'd dipped the broad head into some of her own slick, so that when he just barely moved it over her, it glided nicely, allowing her absolutely no relief from the raw, just this side of painful stimulation.

Ava felt him kiss the side of her head then park his lips at her ear. "I just want you to let go and come for me as many times as you can. And if I think—at any time—that that's not what you're doing, I'm going to flip you over and paddle your backside until it's a fiery, sore red. Then I'm going to flip you back over and I'm going to press the vibrator against your clit again."

He kissed her ear very tenderly, in direct contrast to the demanding way he was using that thing between her legs.

"I think inspections are in order for you down the line, honey. Where, say, every week, on a Sunday night, I sit in that same chair I sat in to spank your little bottom…"

There was literally no way to stop what was happening to her, and that thought, mixed with everything else he was doing to her—in particular, the way he was talking to her—made her explode so violently that she screamed.

And he just grinned and continued to move the vibrator over her in exactly the same slow, relentless fashion.

When she quieted, Kurt continued telling her how she was going to have to strip for him, while he watched her, then present herself to him when she was naked, putting her hands behind her head as he walked around and touched her at will.

The second one was almost stronger than the first—but still slightly different.

They were all different, in intensity and just the way they hit her or built up in her, some fast, some slow.

But the vibrator between her legs and his mouth at her ear were constants, until she was a trembling, shuddering mass of nerve endings, begging him to stop.

That was when he removed the wand and replaced it with his mouth, pressing three fingers inside her and demanding a last tribute from her.

It took a little longer, but he was patient and she was too exhausted to be able to defend herself against him in any way—not that she really wanted to—and eventually, she creamed all over his hand and screamed at his ceiling, dissolving into a bliss that took over every single aspect of her, until she felt as if there was nothing left.

She tried to curl away from him, but he pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly and smothering her with both delicate kisses and soft, warm praise that kept her from disappearing altogether.

When she'd recovered—some—he brought her into the master bath, and they showered together. Kurt continued his theme of being the caretaker, which was a role he coveted and that he didn't feel in any way compromised his dominant tendencies. In fact, he thoroughly believed that they complimented each other. He couldn't imagine being dominant over someone he didn't also want to take great care of. That was the first and foremost role of any dominant, as far as he was concerned.

He washed himself quickly, spending much more time on getting her most thoroughly cleaned—especially in those places she was most squirmy about. He also washed her hair for her, which put her in such a hypnotic state that she very nearly fell asleep again.

Then he brought her out of the big shower stall and stood her under a heat lamp, which she'd never done before.

"Man, this is a wonderful thing!" she enthused. "No more freezing to death trying to dry myself after a shower when the heat's been down all night!"

"Exactly," he agreed, drying her as completely as he had washed her, much to her eternal embarrassment.

He even dressed her—but only after he'd thrown on jeans and a golf shirt himself.

Ava had never been so lovingly and tenderly cared for. It was wonderful and something she knew she could easily become addicted to.

When they were both dressed, he gave her a long, lingering kiss, saying, "Go sit in the living room, sweetie. I'll get your stuff together and bring it out, then I'll take you out to breakfast."

For once, she did as she was told, and within a few minutes, they were on their way.

It was an excellent meal that Ava adored. She didn't go out to dinner much, and she went out to breakfast even less often, even though it was her favorite meal. They went to a little hole in the wall place and had breakfast burritos that were the size of their heads, stuffed with eggs, sausage, onions, and potatoes, and swimming in red chile, for her, and green, for him.

"There is no way I'm going to be able to eat all this," she declared when it was placed before her, but she surprised herself—and him—by eating all but a small amount of excess tortilla and potato.

"Where did you put all that?" Kurt asked, grinning at her. "You're too small to have eaten all of that!"

She snorted at his description of her as small. "Please! I'm enormous!" she countered.

Kurt didn't much care whether she was serious or kidding when she said that. "Now there you've gone and earned yourself a punishment spanking with that, for lying to me and being critical of yourself."

Her face fell, but he wasn't going to renege.

They reversed the process of collecting April, and he seemed just as detached and distressed as he had before. But he was there. He didn't bolt, even though he looked like he desperately wanted to.

But he did volunteer to take the baby's stuff out to her car, while Ava carried her, and he didn't come near her until April was safely in the carrier in the back seat.

Ava didn't see that there was any advantage to pointing out how awkward this was.

Instead, she lifted herself up onto her tippy toes and kissed him lightly while standing very close to him. "I had a wonderful time. Thank you for taking such great care of me."

It was nice to make him blush for a change. "It was my great pleasure and honor to do that," he growled gruffly.

"I-I think that it—that you—helped me heal a lot."

"I did?"

You would've thought she'd told him that he'd won a billion dollars, judging by the smile on his face.

Ava nodded, and he couldn't help but reach out and haul her into his arms to give her a big, sloppy smooch, the both of them knowing that they were definitely being watched.

"I'll text you tonight, and we'll see about getting together again very soon, Ava Clementine," he promised with a sly wink and a loud crack against her behind.

"Hey! Cut that out!" she protested. "And you're still wrong!"

"There's more where that came from, Ava Ethel!" he called back to her as he got into his truck and waited for her to pull out.

But before he did, her text tone rang, and as she was leaving, he read her message, how mean do you think my parents are?

***

It was four months later, when Ava was thinking about the exact thing she'd been avoiding thinking about for the past few months—the state of her relationship with Kurt.

Overall, it was just as incredibly wonderful as it had been almost from the beginning, well, from when they had started dating, anyway. She discounted their first meeting entirely, now that she knew so much more about him.

But their big conversation after he'd called her by his wife's name while cuddling her in bed hadn't resulted in a lot of overt changes in his behavior.

She had come a long way in learning to trust him and very rarely had any kind of flashback to Jeff any longer, no matter what Kurt did to her. He'd never once acted in any way except the most superficial ones that had caused her to freak out in the beginning, but she never really doubted that his intent was always entirely different from Jeff's.

And that had become crystal clear to her, the time they had lain tangled in his bed, both languid in the aftermath of their coming together, him spooned around her, tracing his fingers gently up and down her arm as they just lay there quietly in each other's company.

Until she had begun to talk to him softly of her own accord, without him asking her anything or saying anything to her at all to prompt her reminiscence.

But Kurt had listened to her raptly from the beginning, even able to catch those things that she was barely able to say above the tiniest of whispers.

And he had held her, tightly, kissing her temple or the top of her head occasionally, as she talked and cried then cried and talked some more, not letting her know that he was in tears himself during several revelations she made. His insides raged at the faceless Jeff, but he was excruciatingly tender with her, even long after she'd stopped talking, and just as unwaveringly supportive of her as he'd always been thereafter.

Ava had worried that he might run screaming from her, too, if she confessed the extent to which she had allowed Jeff to mistreat her, but if anything, he reacted in the opposite fashion, becoming even more caring than he had been.

Even so, Kurt could inspire that "good scared" in her with just a look—one that promised retribution of some sort that was going to make her bottom—and never anywhere else, and certainly never her head—hurt in a good way that definitely turned her on to the ninth degree.

And that man was friggin' dynamite in bed. Kurt paid scrupulous attention to her. Sometimes that wasn't necessarily such a good thing, when it got her into trouble, but even then, he never made her feel any way but sincerely cared for, even when her backside was burning. And he'd learned in short order just how to drive her absolutely crazy, playing with her, taking his time, creating an atmosphere between them that kept her arousal at a fever pitch nearly every minute of the time they spent together.

However. That was just it. They still only spent time together.

He had mentioned that he thought he would need six weeks or so to acclimate himself to the baby, suggesting that after that point, he would come over to her place, and they could all have dinner together.

But that hadn't happened yet, and it was now a full four months later, going on five, really, and he hadn't graduated much further at all. It was true that he was less antsy about being in the Westbrooks' house while the baby was there. But he never held her, and when they were sitting on the couch in the den, talking with Sheila and Jack, and the baby was on Ava's lap, he sat there like a statue, as if he was terrified that a ten-month-old was going to touch him.

He looked at the baby like she looked at a spider—in horror—and that was not a good thing.

And it wasn't changing in the least.

Granted, he had gone above and beyond in the interest of helping her get through the legal process of becoming April's guardian. He'd gotten a lawyer friend of his to take the case pro bono, which was a huge thing, because she certainly didn't have enough money to pay a lawyer.

Of course, he'd also offered to pay, which she'd flatly refused, cautioning him that this was not something she expected him to discipline her over, either. There was no way in hell that she was going to let him pay for her to become the mother of a child whom he—her lover—could barely stand to be in the same room with.

He backed down quickly at that, although she could tell that he wasn't at all happy.

But that was just too damned bad. Everything she'd said was true, and if he didn't like it, then he needed to do something more about it.

She'd tried to encourage him to hold her, tried to calm him while she was holding the baby and he was close to her, but nothing worked, and it had come down to the fact that she needed to see some kind of improvement—something. Anything, at this point.

And it was her opinion that the only way that was going to happen was if he got professional help. Ava wasn't absolutely sure how he would feel about that; although she thought she had a pretty good idea. Kurt was pretty liberal, especially for a cop, but she had a feeling that that kind of philosophy stopped—as it did with a lot of men, for some exceedingly stupid reason, she was sure—at the idea of needing, or getting, help.

But she wasn't really going to give him that choice.

She couldn't, and still see him, and she definitely didn't want to break up with him. Ava had come to care for Kurt quite a bit, and she thought the feeling was probably mutual, although they hadn't spoken along those lines yet. She did not want to lose him, and she hoped he would be willing to do what was needed—for her sake—in order for them to stay together.

It was Friday night, and they had planned to spend it together, at his place, of course. She'd taken him up on his list of other people who could care for April, and she'd quite liked all of them. He'd inadvertently expanded her social horizons quite a bit by introducing her to them—a couple of divorced mothers and one or two couples, all of whom seemed enchanted by April. The only one who wasn't was Kurt himself.

She was supposed to leave April with Kelly Kennedy, who was a single mom of a little girl who was a couple months older than April, and the two little girls adored each other.

But, on impulse, she'd cancelled that plan, and instead, they had just driven home. She supposed she could have just arrived on his doorstep, but that smacked too much of an ambush for her to ever be comfortable doing that. She didn't want to force him to confront the baby. She wanted him to approach her himself, but she was rapidly reaching the end of her rope of hoping that that was going to happen.

So, she drove home instead, and once she'd put April in her playpen, she called him.

"Hey!" he answered enthusiastically, making her feel terribly guilty. "Are you on your way?"

"No, and I'm not going to be."

His first thought, of course, was always for her. "Are you okay? Are you sick or hurt?"

Ava slumped down on her couch, not really wanting to say this to him but knowing she had to. "I'm fine. There's nothing wrong." Then, before he could say anything, she corrected, "No, that's not true. There is something wrong, but not with me."

She could see him frowning at that. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you've never come over to my place for dinner, and it's been a lot longer than six weeks. You still avoid the baby like the plague, and I don't know how much longer I can do this."

"Jesus, Ava."

"I'm sorry to drop this on you, but it just struck me that I've been facing all of my challenges with you, and you've been fabulous about helping me do that. But I have no idea what I can do to help you face yours, besides suggesting that maybe you might want to talk to a professional."

His silence at that spoke volumes to her.

"But you don't want to do that, do you?"

"Don't put words in my mouth, honey. I didn't say that."

"So, you will?"

"Are you making us continuing to see each other conditional on my doing that?"

He heard her defeated sigh. "If I need to, yes."

Kurt rubbed his hand over his face. This was not how he'd expected this evening to go.

She waited what she thought was a reasonable amount of time for him to reply to what she'd said—to the ultimatum she'd given him, which she knew could either push him away, or bring them closer, eventually. "So, I guess—"

"I'll do it."

He sounded as if she'd asked him to cut off his own right arm, but he'd agreed, and she knew that was a measure of how he felt about her that he was willing to do it.

And he confirmed that to her with his next words. "You know, there's no one else on the planet I'd go see a shrink for."

Her eyes filled with tears, and her reply was watery, "I know."

"Oh, honey, please don't cry. I know I've fucked this up by not stepping up and doing what I needed to do, and I'm sorry that it's come to this. I know it's not easy for you to ask me to do anything for you."

"For us. For all of us, including April. You'd make a great dad for her, Kurt."

"Jesus Christ." He wanted to tell her not to say that, but he knew that was where all of this was going, where it should end up. He certainly had already gotten to the point where he was thinking about asking Ava to make things permanent between them, but that was because he had spent a good amount of time talking things out with the Maureen who lived in his head. He'd talked things out with her and been able to accept the changes he was making in his life, even though they were moving him away from her. But he couldn't talk to his baby in the same way.

He heard Ava's soft sob at his reaction to what she'd said and immediately felt a wave of guilt wash over him. "You're right, angel. You're right. I'll find someone Monday and get in to see them as soon as I can."

"Promise?" she asked, sounding doubtful.

"Absolutely, honey. If it means anything to you, I wish I was there so I could hold you."

She was thinking that he could be, if he wanted to, but she knew that it was too much to ask. Then she knew she had to say the second thing, that was even harder than the first. "I want us to take some time off, while you work on things." Her impulse was to add, "if that's okay with you," but she stopped herself from doing that. It didn't matter whether or not it was okay with him. It was what she knew she needed, if not wanted.

His, "All right," sounded horribly defeated and depressed. "Promise me you'll take care of yourself like I would, angel."

"I will," she agreed, and he knew that she was crying.

"I'll work hard on it. It won't be long before I'll come home from work and you'll hand me the baby, and I'll watch her while you make dinner, and we'll all eat together."

"That sounds lovely." It sounded like they were already living together—maybe even married—which surprised her in a pleasant way, that he would even envision that for them. Maybe he'd come further than she realized. But she still didn't think that she was making an unreasonable demand of him, and it sounded like he didn't, either.

Kurt knew that they were saying goodbye for some unknown amount of time, and the words just flew out of his mouth, "I love you, Ava Henrietta LaValley."

She never knew she could burst out laughing and yet be sobbing her heart out at the same time. Her chest literally ached that he would say those words to her at all—much less at a time like this, when she didn't know when she would see him again.

When she spoke, it was in the tiniest of voices. "I love you, too, Kurt Gilmore."

Then she forced herself to hit the red hang up button on her phone, after which she hung her head and bawled her eyes out, and the man on the other end of the call threw his phone across the room and buried his head in his hands.