Return
Ava stood gazing out of the tall broad window, surveying the bustling city. She had to admit the view from the vantage point thirty floors up was magnificent. She walked up closer towards the smoked glass, peering at the small figures moving around the busy streets below. Her heart skipped a beat, feeling the vertigo she'd experienced as a child, heady times when her father had taken her climbing in the steep foothills of the French Pyrenees, near Biarritz.
Up here in the large office atrium the atmosphere was an oasis of silent calm, utterly isolated from the noise and magnetic energy of the daily work going on at street level. She looked at her watch thinking how amazing it was that, in just one hour, the scene would change completely, as workers wended their long way back home.
Ava strolled over to the large desk stationed along the edge of one sleek wall, running a long finger experimentally over its surface. Barely the minutest ridge betraying the dark grain of the exotic hardwood, its polished surface naked apart from an exquisite oriental orchid. Subtle uplighting inset along the top of smooth cream walls cast a subtle glow along large rectangular panels, with expensive green art deco silk fabric set in wide mahogany frames.
She had arrived in the large, fast lift a few minutes earlier. Ava checked her appearance in the gilt coloured mirror surface doors. Not bad. The dark Katherine Hamnett outfit was tight, suiting her slim, graceful figure. She was neither an egotist nor self-conscious, but was well aware how others viewed the lustrous sheen of her long chestnut hair, her attractive tanned skin and wide green eyes.
Looks had their advantages in life, but that was the start and end of it for her. She preferred to use her feminine intuition and brains. Drive and ambition was really all that mattered in the finance world.
She paused to consider the strange sequence of events that had brought her here. The brief email that had arrived in her inbox, barely a week ago, out of the blue. She was shocked when she'd glanced at the name at the top, recognising it instantly. Knowing it definitely had to be him, even after all these years. As she read the brief message inviting her to his office, she felt a strange fluttering sensation, something she hadn't experienced in a long time.
In the many intervening years since they'd last seen each other she'd kept a low profile, closed social media accounts, even changed her name. She'd become virtually untraceable, invisible except to those in the know, or in the inner circles of her small finance world.
So how exactly could he have tracked her down? And why would he contact her now, after all this time? Why, after all the things that she'd been through, and the things they'd both done to each other?
She remembered how they'd first met, a decade ago now. Strong memories stirred inside her, creating goose bumps down her spine. The reasons they'd parted were multiple, and she'd felt mutual. But the intense times they'd spent together had been more than just a youthful phase, they'd been mentally demanding and physically challenging, as well as downright exhilarating and fundamentally life changing too. Or at least she felt for her. Maybe for him too then?
How much did he really remember of her needs and what they'd done with each other? And how did he feel about her now, and the shocking event that had forced them both apart all those years ago?
Ava knew that was the real reason she was here, she just had to know once and for all. To see if Lorenzo had matured in his views from those of that headstrong young man, but also to see if he still desired the same thing she did, that need so strong and primal that anyone who spent time in a professional world kept it well hidden.
New beginnings
On the very first day they'd noticed each other in the lecture hall, both of them studying banking and finance at the college. He was dark, suave and confident, she was beautiful, sexy, edgy, nervous.
The first view Lorenzo had of Ava was by the small refreshment stand next to the lecture theatre. What caught his attention was the suggestive way that she drank her coffee, tipping the cup gently towards her mouth, caressing the edge of the cup with her lips as she sipped at the hot, foamy liquid. He suspected he'd be happy watching her doing this all day, but their first lecture beckoned.
They'd both glanced at each other again across the wide room, as they sought places to sit in the banked rows of seats. He watched her from a position back and to the right of where she'd decided to sit, near the front of the class to be more attentive to their lecturer.
That first day he was content just to watch her. She moved with a slow, sensual walk in-between their many lectures, taking in all the world around her in an interested and animated manner. A way at odds with most of the other students, who mostly studied their phone screens for messages, or spent time flirting with each other.
Towards the end of the day he'd headed to the library, to see if he could borrow some of their finance course text books. To his surprise there she was, standing in a corner, by the photocopier.
That was when he first glimpsed her naked skin. She was bending over the tall industrial copier machine, opening a book at a specific page, placing it on the large glass copier plate. He saw her T-shirt ride up and it then he saw it, a light tattoo in the middle of her deeply tanned back. A small oriental marking, briefly exposed as she leant out over the copier.
He had little time to make out what it was, the tattoo only just showing above dark silky panties, peeping out provocatively above the line of her tight black hipster trousers.
He watched her for the next few minutes as she moved and swivelled over the copier, a motion showing off her firm, sexy bum to perfection. All he knew was that he desperately wanted this girl.
But first he had to find out more about her, who she was. Some casual research, and polite chats with other students he'd already met, revealed that her name was Ava. She was studying the same intense three year finance course he was, and it turned out that they shared almost all of their classes during the first semester.
That first week of term he spent hours in the back of lectures, gazing at the gleaming shine from her glossy hair, tucked up in a tight dark coil above the delicious curve of her neck. Then, mid-week, he suddenly spotted her turning round, briefly looking at him. He wondered, had she deliberately try to catch his eye?
Like most young women, Ava was attuned to catching glances from admiring men, but was not yet experienced enough to know what to do next to capture their attention, or how to handle them. The reality was Ava liked the look of Lorenzo, but he appeared so amazingly confident, almost completely unapproachable. Quite the opposite of how she felt about herself. She was simply too shy to try and introduce herself, or to try and strike up a conversation.
When two people have a natural thing for each other, events always have a habit of coming to a head. Over the following days, things hotted up between the pair of them. On several occasions Lorenzo saw Ava pretending to look in her bag, or bend down to get something from under her seat, taking a furtive glance behind her. Then, on the fifth day of lectures, she glanced directly at him for a brief moment, holding eye contact for a few microseconds, before turning away again quickly. He could have sworn her neck blushed.
That was all the encouragement he needed, and he knew the game was on. He'd always imagined he was going to have fun when he'd arrived at University, but never imagined that circumstances could become quite so interesting and delicious, and so quickly too.
The challenge he had was that she always hurried off to her next class, rather than hanging around between lectures to chat, like the other students. After a few more frustrating days of trying to track her, like a jinking hare, he decided he had to make the first move.
At the end of one of their Friday lecture he raced for the door at the front, pulling out a flyer for the amateur dramatics theatre group he'd seen lying in a pile on the desk in the student office. He stopped her, just as she tried to squeeze past him, putting his arm around her to take her aside in a gentle, yet commanding manner.
In truth she was relieved that he had broken the ice as, try as she might, she simply hadn't been able to pluck up the courage to speak to him, or work out something quirky to say. She knew his name too by now, practising saying it out loud to herself, Lorenzo. She thought he was gorgeous, a statuesque example of young, virile masculinity.
In his deep, engaging voice, he started talking about acting. How she'd be perfect for a student production that he was organising. Then, within a minute, he'd asked her out for a drink that evening. He said it was to discuss the student play, a part he had in mind for her, and she'd readily agreed to meet him at a local cosy city bar.
It was only when they were both sitting at a table talking together, that evening, that he admitted the theatre flyer had all been a ruse just to get to meet her. She'd laughed at that. When they mutually sensed the ice was broken between them, they'd got roaring drunk that first night together, challenging each other with rounds of tequila shots. He'd walked her back from the bar to her college dorm, him steady, her staggering slightly. He paused at the entrance door to take her hand, kiss it gently, then release it. He'd skipped off with a casual wave, disappearing rapidly into the dark.
