Criminal Affinity [18+]

Chapter 71

Ava wakes up sometime in the night with incomplete sleep burning her eyes. She shifts around the bed, and someone  next to her shifts, too.

Ava finds Ivan splayed next to her, the moonlight slanting and bending over the muscles of his arm. His lashes flutter before his eyes open, shooting right to hers.

She swears they flow with dark intent. Something that makes her want to hide.

They stare at each other across the bed. She doesn’t know who reaches for who first, but they end up in each other's arms. Warmth blooms everywhere, in her chest, her mind, and her bones.

And with it comes the familiar lash of heat that makes them draw closer. It makes her itch to feel his hands all over her body. She turns her back to him, pushing into him. His hands tighten on her hips, dipping into her flesh. Still consumed by sleep and yearning, their bodies crush into each other until skin touches skin.

His hand dips under her shirt, pushing into her stomach to close the last inch of space between them. Breathing turns to gasps and hitched pants. But he stops, eventually pulling his hand out and placing it along her hip. Once the heat dies down, in the silence, he strokes swirling patterns along her body.

Ava wakes sometime later to the feeling of her imaginary heckles raising, sharp sensations firing across her body. Her eyes stay shut, breathing as slow as someone dead to the world as she focuses on her ears and nose.

No smell of smoke. No roar of a fire or footsteps.

Ava’s instincts tell her to hold the peace, but she dares to look through her lashes. The room is as dimly lit as she left it, no Ivan beside her. Panic flares in her system. Did something happen to him? Where is—?

Her eyes open to a figure sitting on one of the hardly used loveseats, eyes glittering with the same dark intent from last night.

Last night…?

Ava sucks in a stinging breath as her body barrels back into the headboard. Her mind simultaneously calculates what around her can be a weapon as her eyes adjust to the murky figure in the chair.

All the effort dries up when she hears a chuckle. A familiar chuckle.

“What…” Ava clears the sleep off her throat. “What are you doing?”

“Good to know you're still sharp.” Ivan murmurs, very comfortable in his little spot as if he didn’t trigger Ava’s fight or flight.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ava’s voice is sharper. “What are you doing?”

“I was waking you up.” Ivan says simply and it makes Ava want to kick him in the chest.

“By watching me sleep?” Ava shouts, irritation flaming harder. She should be creeped out, horrified even. But she just feels so…

Another laugh drops out of him. It makes her want to wring his neck, partly because it’s not funny and partly because it is too early for her to be logical and the sound of it makes her toes curl.

He says nothing. After letting out the most insufferable sigh in history, Ava throws over the covers and stands.

Until the cold air hits her breast and the routine prickling of her nipples hardening courses her.

Ava freezes on the spot, eyes widening with acute awareness. Those all-knowing gunmetal eyes are taking rounds roaming her bodywhen she meets them.

She snatches the covers, turning her face. “You saw nothing.”

“Hm,” Ivan responds, a smile neatly laced in his voice.

“Never do that again.” Ava grumbles, trodding over to grab a glass of water. Her throat is dry. For some reason, a very unknown reason—obviously, Ava feels like it has nothing to do with her incomplete sleep.