Panting… unraveling… I inhaled his name over and over until it no longer sounded like a word. Maybe it was his feral growl against me. Or maybe it was the way his lips suctioned around the swollen, dripping bud of my sex and pulled it hard into his mouth, drinking from it as though it were an antidote rather than an addiction. But it was definitely the way one hand drifted back up to my stomach, almost able to completely palm the slight swell, with a possessive grip that sent my body soaring.
I screamed in a way that I could repent for later as my body came apart once more underneath his touch.
I stayed frozen and trembling, unsure if my heart was ever going to return back to normal. Meanwhile, Ash drank down every drop of my release. His lips were gentle now, no longer demanding my pleasure, but basking in it as he carefully licked up the moisture that flooded from my body.
“Was that dangerous, Pixie?” he drawled, self-satisfaction and self-denial warred in his tone.
“I don’t know about dangerous,” I said, drawing a shuddering breath. “But it definitely felt too good to be safe…”
His tortured chuckle vibrated against me and I shook as he placed one more tender kiss on my sex. Then, his lips dragged higher, placing another on my stomach as he murmured, “Perfect.”
My eyes drifted shut and for a moment, I basked in it all.
The pleasure. The release. The adoration.
When I opened them again, his face was above me and then, those lips that had just devoured every part of my sex, pressed to mine. I could taste myself on him and the thrill stoked the embers of desire I didn’t think would ever die.
“Let’s get you ready for bed,” he decided with a low, gravelly voice.
“What?” I blinked, sure I hadn’t heard him correctly. “What about...” I trailed off, glancing down to where the thickness of his erection was painfully outlined against his jeans, so hard I could practically see the imprint of the veins pulsing against the fabric.
His hand cupped my face and he tethered me to the ocean in his eyes. “I need to earn you.”
I wondered if it was even possible to convince him how wrong he was. Wanting him the way I did was like freedom. Not earned. Not given. It just was. And it was essential.
“I’ll be fine, Pixie,” he insisted firmly, flashing me a tight grin.
I wasn’t completely naïve. I knew how that extremity worked - and I knew what happened when it wasn’t allowed to. “But you…”
“Have learned to recognize when what I want might get in the way of what I need,” he finished for me.
My heart stopped on a dime.
Need.
Did he need… me?
Before I could even think to say… anything… Ash rose up from the bed and pulled out one of his t-shirts from the drawer and handed it to me.
How many times had I watched as Blake stole a t-shirt of Zach’s to keep? To sleep in?
I finally felt like that girl - the girl who wanted to be covered with him in any and every way that I could.
And after I was all cleaned and brushed and tucked beneath the sheets, unsure of how any dreams could beat my reality tonight, Ash came out of the bathroom and my stomach coiled into a tight knot.
I didn’t want him to sleep on the couch. Not tonight. Not again.
I wanted him to hold me.
I wanted him to stay with me.
But knowing the state I’d left him in, I couldn’t ask that. So, I turned away before I did something I shouldn’t.
A small gasp escaped me when the bed next to me sagged under his weight.
“Ash.” I turned over, my eyes wide.
“Taylor,” he growled, one arm coming possessively over my stomach and tugging me back against him. “I just had my tongue buried inside your sweetness. I’ll be damned if I’m sleeping on the couch for one more fucking night.”
Well, then.
I bit my lower lip, but it couldn’t stop my smile as I settled in against him.
I wanted everything about this moment to last forever.
And I hoped that he might want the same thing before I told him about our baby.
And after…
16
Ash
Hi. My name is Ash, and I have a new addiction.
I couldn’t stop looking at her, walking around on the far deck as she talked to my sister on the phone. The wind blew strands of hair across as she smiled and I felt its warmth from where I stood.
With each day that passed, the cloak of guilt she’d arrived in began to disappear. It was a process – removing guilt always was. First, the edges began to fray from her decision to come here. Then threads began to unravel as she found a place for herself in this community – and in my life. And after the other night, the seams were barely holding it together and she was finally moving with a freedom that had always been restrained.
It was a universal truth.
Loving yourself is the hardest love to give.
Especially when the world hands you power tools and an instruction manual on all the ways to cut yourself down.
She had on jeans and one of my t-shirts; I’d insisted because we were painting today, and I didn’t want her to get anything on her stuff.
I’d insisted because I liked her in my clothes.
My dick twitched, thinking about that night… thinking about how insatiably I’d wanted her since.
I wanted to fuck her, sometimes more than I wanted to fucking breathe, but I needed her to stay with me. So, I’d kept my hands to myself for a few days - but just barely.
I kept waiting for the moment she’d realize it was a mistake to want me and tell me that it couldn’t happen again. There were so many things changing for her, the last thing I ever wanted to do was let her decide something in the heat of the moment that she would rationalize later as a mistake.
It wasn’t.
I knew it wasn’t, and I’d move Heaven and Earth to prove it to her if she didn’t know it herself.
But her regret never came.
Instead, I saw more frequently - more desperately - the looks, the not-so-mistaken touches, the tension that kept building between us. I just… I’d never fucking forgive myself if I took things too far, too quickly for her. Especially now. Especially because of the baby.
The thought of ‘too far’ had my cock throbbing again, angry that my mouth had feasted on the most perfect pussy I could ever imagine, and it hadn’t been let in on the fun.
But Taylor wasn’t experienced. A smile pulled at my lips, remembering the innocent panic in her eyes when she thought I was going to blow her up like a damn balloon.
God, she was so damn adorable.
I didn’t want to sleep with her and have her regret it. I didn’t want her to regret me. Because it was more than just the desire to fuck her. It was the mountain of moments in between, working on my restaurant and watching her boss all us guys around, hanging out at Roasters and ignoring all the ‘I-told-you-so looks Larry sent me, dinners together, and TV shows put on pause every time she felt the baby move.
So, even though I wanted to fuck her, I needed her for all those other things.
Waking up with her curled in my arms put everything in perspective, one that had a future centered around her.
“How is she?” I asked when Tay came back inside.
“Good.” She smiled. “Excited. Happy. They were looking at venues.”
I turned back to the wall in front of me. My sister’s happiness would always be tainted with my remorse, knowing that my selfishness almost ruined it. “You could have talked to her. She misses you.”
My chest ached. I missed my sister, too.
But she’d forgiven me too easily for how I’d hurt her. So, I kept my distance and would continue to until that forgiveness was earned – until I had some proof that the man no longer existed. And that was what the restaurant would be - both hope for the future and forgiveness for the past.
It was tangible evidence I was a changed man.
&nbs
p; “How are you?” I asked instead of responding, watching as she sat on one of the folding chairs Mick had brought over the other week.
“I feel fine.” I loved the way her hand went to her stomach when I asked.
Fuck, I loved kissing her bump - the way the skin was like hard velvet; I loved seeing the way her body was creating new life, feeling it under my lips and tongue. Even if the baby wasn’t technically mine, she was.
“That’s not what I meant.” I chuckled. “I know baby Ragnar is doing just fine the way you devoured my chicken parm last night.”
Her face scrunched. “Ash, the baby’s name is not—”
I interrupted her with a smile. “I want to know about you up here,” I said, tapping on my head with the end of my spatula, “not down here,” I said, tapping then on my stomach.
“Oh.” She always licked her lips when she was thinking. First the bottom, tugging it into her mouth, and then along the top. “I’m okay…”
“Liar.”
She bristled - an expression that only made her look adorable for being so tiny.
“You don’t always have to be strong.” I cleared my throat. “It’s okay to lean a little when you are struggling. Not that you are…”
“I feel better… better than I did when I first got here.” She stared out the large windows as she spoke. “Sometimes, I worry that I don’t feel guiltier,” she said ruefully. “Don’t get me wrong, I know I would’ve been broken by my parents’ reaction to this. And sometimes, I do feel it – ashamed of not telling them, ashamed for disappointing them. But I thought I’d feel it more, if that makes any sense.”
I dropped my paintbrush and crouched in front of her. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Her eyes widened a fraction, and then, in true Taylor fashion, she replied selflessly, “Neither do you.”
My lips thinned and I reached out and put my hand on her stomach, smudging my own shirt with light blue paint with a possessive grip.
“What was your first thought? When you found out?”
I wanted to know it all.
Her limelight eyes sparkled with surprise. “I know you think I probably freaked out, and I can’t say I didn’t. But it wasn’t my first thought.”
Warmth suffused through her face. “Okay, maybe it was the very first thought. But only in an instinctual way, not in a meaningful one,” she clarified. “It’s going to sound strange but before all of this, I’d felt lost. The tour was done. I was home. I was working on other projects. Everything was ordered and organized, Blake’s image and popularity was soaring, and there was nothing to worry about; I should’ve been in heaven, right?”
I nodded in acknowledgment.
“I wasn’t.” Her stomach quivered under my hand. “I was lost. Surrounded by structure and plans and time to make sure it all went off perfectly, but… It was like I took a boat into the ocean with all the maps and charts and tools I could ever need for my journey, only to realize I had no idea where my destination was anymore. Somewhere in all that planning and preparedness, I lost sight of where I’d intended to go.”
She stood as she spoke. My strong girl. She’d planned her whole life. Hell, I remembered when she’d had her college picked out before she’d been in high school a full year.
“Like you followed all the directions, step after step, only to finally look up and take stock of how far you’ve come and realize you’ve no idea where you are.”
“Yeah.” Her agreement was more a breath than anything else. I lost myself in her eyes, like for a second I was a part of this amazing woman who’d come to me in her moment of weakness. “So, the first thing I thought when the test came back positive was ‘Thank you, Lord.’”
For Taylor, that wasn’t like most people’s ‘Thank God.’ It wasn’t casual relief or a nonchalant exclamation. No, she was truly grateful for what she’d been given.
Her chest shook with an almost silent laugh.
“I’d been praying for direction. For… something. And then… I found out about the baby, and I knew it had to be my answer. They say God works in mysterious ways and that’s true - I never thought the answer to my prayers would come like this; they also say He never gives you more than you can handle; that one was a little harder for me to swallow, I will admit.” A small sheepish smile crossed her face. “After that is when I freaked out a little bit.”
“I think it’s okay you freaked out a little,” I reassured her.
“I think so, too.” She licked her lips. “I know that a blessing is never the answer to a problem; it’s a gift to help you grow through whatever you’re facing – a blessing is who you become by accepting it.”
I swallowed hard. Her words filtered down into the finest cracks still left in my soul, healing them just a little bit more.
Sobriety wasn’t a gift. Recovery was. Who I was without alcohol wasn’t the same thing as the man I became through my recovery.
I searched her eyes. “And did He bring you here?”
Her breath hitched. “Something like that.”
I pulled my hand away as she stood, gently rubbing her lower back once she was upright.
I rose, watching as she paced along the wall we’d finished painting yesterday. “Are you afraid?”
“Not really.” She stopped and turned back to me. “Not when I’m with you.”
“Taylor…”
“Sorry.” She shook her head. “I rambled. No one… has asked how I felt in a long time.”
“What’s still worrying you?” I asked with a low voice, closing the space between us. My hands burned to hold her. “What can I do for you, Tay?”
Her nose scrunched as she thought for a second and it took everything in me not to lean down and kiss the tip.
“You don’t—”
“No, I do. And I want to.”
“The truth?” she replied hesitantly, and I nodded. “I’m worried about making a mistake. I’m worried about doing something so utterly and completely wrong I’ll mess the poor child up forever. But I think that’s normal, too.” She laughed and tried to play it off casually, but I knew it was anything but.
I listened to what she said, but I heard what she meant.
I heard her fear that she’d been programmed to raise her baby like she’d been raised.
I tipped her chin up, not caring that I smudged some paint on her skin.
“Taylor, you are going to love your baby more than anything in the world. Hell, you’re going to love your baby more than the world. And I’m sure even you are going to make mistakes, but there’s nothing you can do to mess up something - or someone - you love so much,” I promised her. “And the fact you came here should prove to you that you’re nothing like your parents – that your love isn’t contingent on loyalty to certain rules.”
“Ash…” Her lip shook violently.
I refused to let her eyes go. Not now.
“You’re here because your love is unconditional, sweetheart,” I rasped. “Now, don’t let the number of times I’ve said the words ‘God,’ ‘Christ,’ or ‘hell’ fool you into thinking I know a whole helluva lot about religion, but I have heard that unconditional love is what it’s all about.”
I thought it was the right thing to say. It sure as fuck sounded like it when it came out of my mouth. But the way she immediately burst into tears had me second-guessing every word.
“Hey, hey…” Trying to wipe each one away was like playing pong except only there was more than one ball that I was trying not to lose. “What’s wrong? I’m sorry, sweetheart. What did I say?”
She shook her head, pulling out of my reach, tugged the edge of my shirt up to wipe away the wetness.
“Nothing,” she said with a watery laugh. “Nothing is wrong. I just… I don’t understand how you always say the right things.”
Jesus. I wiped a hand over my mouth.
“Maybe because I’ve had so much practice saying the wrong things,” I teased, hoarsely.
Taylor laughed and
I knew then and there that right or wrong, I’d say anything to hear her laugh, see her smile, wipe her tears, and soothe her worries every day for the rest of my life.
“Ash.” Her hand on my arm make me freeze. “I’m not the only one who will… or who has… made mistakes. I know you think you have, but there’s nothing that would make Blake - or Zach - love you less. Even not knowing everything, they know your heart is in the right place, even if they don’t know your mind might not have been.”
My jaw clenched, not expecting my own advice to be used against me. “Maybe I don’t deserve it, Tay.” I sighed, brushing her hair back behind her ear. “Maybe I don’t deserve their understanding.”
“Too bad.” She shrugged. “Did I deserve all this?” Her arms opened. “You don’t just say the right things to make me feel better, you do them, Ash. We weren’t that close and yet, I showed up here with no notice - an interruption - and you dropped everything for me.”
I shifted my weight, finding it more uncomfortable to talk about my good deeds than my bad ones.
“You let me stay - you let me stay in your bed while you took the couch. You’ve cooked for me, introduced me to your… family… out here, taken me to doctor appointments, held me when my body felt like it was trying to kill me, held me when I cried…” Her breath faltered. “It’s not about accepting their forgiveness, is it?” Her eyes widened as she realized my battle. “Ash… why won’t you forgive yourself?”
I felt my throat clog as, in just a few words, she dug down into the deepest, most raw and wounded part of me, and demanded why I couldn’t stop punishing myself. “Forgiveness is the greatest form of strength, Tay… and I just don’t know if I’m that strong yet.”
Her face glossed over again and I knew more tears were coming. So, I cut her off with a hard kiss. It was a cheap shot. But I knew if I heard everything I’d done from her eyes, I’d see the one truth that I was still more comfortable passing off under the guise of ‘the right thing to do.’
Vote Then Read: Volume I Page 242