Fragments of Ash

by Katy Regnery

  Personally, I was raised as a Christmas Eve and Easter morning sort of Catholic. Yeah, I made my First Communion. No, I wasn’t confirmed. And honestly, I don’t have much of an opinion on the church in which Ashley was raised but knowing that it was influenced by Opus Dei certainly answers some questions about why she seems so sheltered.

  “That must have been quite a change from Hollywood.”

  “Yes, it was,” she says, “but I’m grateful for it. I was, I mean, it’s good I went away to school.”

  I realize that she’s opening up to me little by little, and I feel much the same way I do when I’m crafting something particularly delicate out of glass. One false move and I could destroy its shape, or shatter it completely.

  “Was it?”

  She rinses the last bowl, then stacks all five neatly in the corner of the sink, turning slightly to look up at me. I’ve never been quite this close to her, and it’s impossible to look away from her upturned face, so innocent, so lovely. I fist my hands at my sides to keep from reaching out to her, but the temptation is strong.

  I want to kiss her.

  I want to feel the softness of her lips beneath mine.

  I want to pull her into my arms while my tongue explores the hot, wet recesses of her mouth.

  I want to crush her breasts against my chest and feel the points of her nipples against my pecs.

  I want to devour her.

  I want to mark her.

  I want—

  “What?” she asks, her eyes searching mine, her voice a breathy whisper.

  “What?” I whisper back, feeling myself lean closer to her, my own breath short and choppy as I lose myself in her eyes.

  “The way you’re looking at me . . .”

  Does she realize that she’s stepped closer to me? That, if we synchronized our breaths, our chests would touch each time we inhaled?

  “It’s because . . . I want . . . Ashley, I want . . .”

  I dip my head, my lips closer and closer to hers.

  “Yes,” she murmurs, and I don’t know if it’s a question or permission, but I choose to believe it’s the latter as I drop my lips to hers.

  A week of potent attraction and months of abstinence make it difficult for me not to grab her hips, lift her to the counter, and grind my hard parts against her soft. But what I’ve just learned about her tells me that she probably has very little experience with men, and moving too fast will get me pushed away, maybe forever, which is precisely what I don’t want.

  Her breath is sweet, and her lips taste like cream and wine. I raise my hands to her face and cup her cheeks gently as I deepen the kiss, running my tongue along the seam of our lips. She gasps softly, and given the chance, my tongue slides effortlessly between her lips. Her palms have been flattened on my chest since we started kissing, but now her fingers curl into the fabric of my T-shirt, and I increase the pressure of my hands against her cheeks, pulling her closer to me as my tongue glides along hers.

  She gasps again, this time with a little whimper, and I can feel my heartbeat in my cock, which is hardening and throbbing between us. I am careful not to push it against her, though I long to draw her into my arms and ferry her to my bed.

  Slow down, I think. You’ve got to slow down.

  Breaking off a perfect first kiss with a beautiful, pliant woman isn’t something I ever imagined myself doing, but my desire to have more than one kiss with her overrules my immediate hunger. Tomorrow, when Noelle leaves, Ashley and I will be all alone again, and unlike last week, when I pushed her away, all I want this week is time with her.

  Drawing my lips away from hers, I kiss her right cheek, then left, the tip of her nose, and her forehead. I move my hands to her shoulders, keeping my pelvis a respectable distance from hers, and rest my forehead against hers until I feel her fisted fingers on my chest slowly loosen.

  When I look down at Ashley, her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes slowly open. Well, slowly at first. Then they fly open wide in horror. Her hands push me away.

  “No!” she cries. “Oh, my God! I’m so . . . That shouldn’t have happened.”

  I take a step away from her, but cover her hand, which has landed on the rim of the farm sink. “Hey. It’s okay. It was just a kiss.”

  “Just a kiss,” she mutters, yanking her hand away, her eyes stricken when they look up into mine. “I barely know you. We shouldn’t have . . . Julian, I’m not . . . I’m not dirty. I’m not a bad girl. I’m not fast.”

  “Of course you’re not. I know that.”

  “What you must think of me,” she whispers, placing her hands on her bright red cheeks and staring down at the floor in misery.

  “I think you’re beautiful,” I say softly. “I think you’re kind. I think you’re a little sad.”

  She raises her head, and I realize she has tears in her eyes, which I hate. I am desperate to reach for her, to hold her just for a minute, but I know it would comfort me more than her.

  “But I don’t think you’re dirty,” I say, somehow knowing that she needs to hear this more than anything else. “I don’t think you’re bad, and I don’t think you’re fast. Ashley, I . . . I like you, just the way you are.”

  Over the course of the past week, my jury has been out on Ashley, but as I say these words, I realize they’re true. I still think she has secrets, and I don’t trust her completely, but I have yet to see a way that she can hurt me. She hasn’t brought anything to my doorstep except sweetness. Whatever else may happen between us, she doesn’t deserve my disdain anymore. She deserves to feel welcome at this house. She deserves a chance.

  “Are you just saying that?”

  I shake my head. “I wouldn’t lie to you. I don’t lie. Ever.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “You don’t,” I say. “But I hope you’ll take my word for it.”

  “Are you going to take advantage of me?”

  “I’d like to,” I say, risking a grin because she’s so damn young and sweet. I reach up and whisk a tendril of blonde hair behind her ear. “But I won’t.”

  “I don’t know how to trust you,” she says, her eyes so serious as they search mine.

  “Hmm. How about this?” I hope I won’t regret the next words that come out of my mouth. “If you’re worried about me taking advantage of you, then I promise I won’t make another move on you. I won’t kiss you again. I won’t even reach for your hand. Nothing. I promise. Not unless you want me to. Not unless you ask me to.”

  Her entire body relaxes, a smile tilting up her lips, tentatively at first, and then she’s smiling at me, the tears in her blue eyes receding, and damn if I’m not smiling right back at her, because Ashley Ellis is not a woman easily resisted.

  “Okay?” I ask her, holding out my hand as though making a deal we should shake on.

  She nods, taking my hand in hers. “Okay.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Ashley

  It’s almost midnight by the time Gus and Jock hug me good night.

  “Can’t remember when I’ve been so spoiled. Thanks, little Ash,” says Jock in his half-British, half-American accent, which I’ve grown to love. He turns to Gus, his eyes full of tenderness. “I’ll go get the car started, Gigi.”

  Noelle insisted on clearing the table and washing the dessert dishes, and she has pressed her brother into service, so we are alone on the front porch when Gus embraces me. “You are quite a lady, Ash. I’m so proud of you, I could burst.”

  His words make me flush with pleasure. “The wines were perfect. Thank you for bringing them.”

  “That dinner was sheer perfection. Thank you for inviting us.”

  The sounds of Julian and Noelle washing dishes come through the screen door. Over Gus’s shoulder, I catch a glimpse of Julian replacing a vase I used. His gaze meets mine, a small smile warming his eyes, and I swear I can feel a shot of heat all the way to my toes.

  Gus lurches back, placing a hand over his heart. “Oh, Lord! You’re smitten, peaches.”
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  “Stop,” I chide him, but the truth is, I don’t know what I am.

  Ever since he kissed me, all I can think about is kissing Julian again. Sitting across the table from him at dinner, I felt myself withdrawing from the conversation around me, from Jock and Gus’s banter and Noelle’s encouragement for Gus to tell more stories about models and actresses behaving badly. I stared into Julian Ducharmes’s eyes, and I was lost in them.

  “Jock likes him,” says Gus. “My P.C. said that even if Julian seems prickly, he’ll look after you while we figure things out. Apparently our boy has a protective streak as long as his, ahem, well, you know.”

  I roll my eyes at Gus.

  I love it that Julian is protective. I’ve seen it in the way he speaks to his sister, the love he has for her, the way he looks after her.

  As Noelle helped me prep for dinner today, cutting up vegetables for the soup and making a half decent piecrust under my tutelage, she talked about her brother, about how he more or less adopted her at the age of sixteen, becoming her guardian. He left behind the fun of college to live with her, to parent her, to make sure that she could finish high school in Vermont after they lost their father.

  “He was in the Secret Service,” she added. “He even met the vice president.”

  “Wow! Really?”

  “Mm-hm. It was his lifelong dream. His bedroom was covered with pictures and decals he got in Washington whenever we went there on vacation. We must have watched In the Line of Fire five thousand times. I know that movie by heart.”

  I haven’t watched many movies in the past few years, except a few times when I was home on break and watched one with Tig, but I think I’ll try to get a copy of this movie from Gus. I’d like to know what Julian loves so much about it.

  “What happened?” I asked, wondering why he’d leave his dream job and return to Vermont. “Did he quit, or . . .?”

  She shrugged, her lips pursing like she was unhappy about something.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” I said, sorry that my curiosity about her brother was making her uncomfortable.

  “You’re not,” she said, rolling the dough out on the floured surface. “The answer is that I don’t know. I don’t know why he left . . . or how. I just know that one day he worked in Washington, and the next, he was moving up here. All he’s ever told me is that he broke protocol, but I’m not even sure what that means.”

  Hmm. A mystery.

  But I’m glad that Jock likes Julian. I wonder if Jock knows why Julian left the Secret Service, but I don’t feel it’s my business to ask about Julian behind his back. If I want to know what happened, the right person to ask would be Julian.

  “Gus,” I ask, reaching for his hand and holding it in mine. “Would it be wrong? For me to . . . like him?”

  “No, baby. It wouldn’t be wrong. You can’t help who you like.” Gus releases my hand, then reaches up to run his knuckles gently over my cheek.

  “It feels a little wrong,” I murmur.

  “To like him?”

  I shake my head no as my cheeks flush.

  “Ah. To want him?” I nod and Gus sighs. “Listen up, li’l Ash. I loved your mama. But I don’t agree with how she raised you. The life we lived, me and Tig, was no place for a kid. I know the visitors Miss Tig had comin’ and goin’ every night. I know what you heard. I know what you saw. And then suddenly, out of the goddamned, ever-lovin’ blue, she marries a dirty old man and throws you into a church school that tries to make a nun out of you.”

  “Oh, they didn’t—”

  Gus holds up a hand. “It’s chilly out here, and P.C.’s car is warm, so you let me finish, now.” He is wearing a pale pink pashmina over a white tennis shirt, and he swings the fringed end over his shoulder before continuing. “It was wrong the way your mama done it, with all those men parading in and out the door. But Ashley, listen to me now: if you were told by those nuns that wanting someone, that liking someone, is wrong, well, baby, that’s crazy too. It’s not wrong to want someone. It’s not wrong to like them. And it’s not wrong to give yourself over to loving if the chance arises.” He glances at the car, where Jock patiently waits before searching my eyes. “Do you understand me? It’s not wrong. None of it. It’s just . . . human.”

  I take a deep breath and exhale, letting many of my misgivings and fears hitch a ride on the cool air and float, like cinders at a campfire, like fragments of ash, into the night sky.

  “Thanks, Gus,” I somehow manage to whisper.

  “Just . . . take precautions,” he says, leveling a no-nonsense look at me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “No glove, no love.”

  “What in the—”

  “Sock that wang before you bang.”

  “Gus, I don’t—”

  “For God’s sake!” Gus shakes his head with a thoroughly exasperated expression. “Use a condom if you decide to have sex!”

  I gasp in surprise, covering my mouth as my cheeks flame with heat. “Gus-Gus!”

  “I’m just sayin’,” he says. “Be smart.”

  “That isn’t even a . . . I mean, there’s no need . . . Gus! Really!”

  He gives me a knowing look. “Oh, honey, just have some fun. Damn, girl, if anyone deserves some fun, it’s you. And that boy is the very one to give it to you.” He grins. “If you know what I mean.”

  I smack him on the arm, blinking at him with disapproval. “Oh, look! Jock’s waiting. Time for you to go!”

  “I love you, baby doll,” he says, chuckling softly as he gives me a Gus-scented hug.

  “I love you back,” I say, then wave good-bye from the porch steps as he and Jock drive away.

  Instead of going in, I walk around the house, to the backyard, to see if I can help bring in any dirty dishes, but the picnic table is empty. All traces of our dinner party have already been cleaned up by the Ducharmes siblings.

  I look up at the midnight sky, at the thousands of stars, and I wonder if Gus is right. What he says feels right, but I feel very young and very small as I stare up at the universe. It’s not wrong to give yourself over to loving if the chance arises.

  “We get beautiful night skies up here.”

  I look over my shoulder and find Julian, tall, barefoot, and beautiful, walking toward me.

  “Yes, you do,” I answer, giving him a shy and tentative smile before I turn my attention back upward.

  My skin prickles with awareness. My lips tingle, remembering the insistent pressure of his. And elsewhere in my body, I clench hard, willing those deep-set tremors not to start up again right now. I want to believe what Gus has told me—that liking and wanting a man isn’t wrong—but it’s new to me, and I need a little time to marry my desire and conscience together.

  “When I lived in DC, it was what I missed the most, besides Noelle. More than the cheese. More than the beer. More than the skiing.” He stops, standing beside me, staring up at the firmament. “I missed Vermont’s night skies. And the millions of stars.”

  “I can see why,” I say. “When I lived in LA, I never saw stars.” I giggle. “I mean, I saw the people kind, not the sky kind.”

  “Who’s the most famous person you ever met?”

  “Hmm. Maybe . . . Gigi Hadid . . . or Bella? Hmm . . . Or Cara Delevingne? Kate Moss mentored my mo—Tig for a while, um, and she knew Gisele, of course. Also—”

  “Wait a second! Gisele? Did you ever meet Tom Brady?” he asks, his voice eager.

  “Let me guess.” I glance at his face. “Patriots fan?”

  “The biggest.”

  “Tig went to their wedding, but I never met him. Sorry,” I say, giggling as he lays a hand over his heart and pretends to cry. “Speaking of the rich and famous, Noelle tells me you met the vice president while you worked in Washington.”

  “She did?” His teasing expression disappears quickly as he straightens, dropping his hand. “Uh, yeah. Long time ago.”

  “Not so long,” I say.

  “Yeah, well
. . . I guess it just feels like a while ago.” I wait for him to say more, hoping to learn why he left Washington so abruptly, but he stretches his arms over his head and yawns. “I’m tired. You must be exhausted.”

  “At school I was on the dining hall rotation, which meant cooking for one hundred souls regularly. Tonight was a breeze.”

  “Your soup was amazing.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The lamb too.”

  “Thank you again.”

  “And the tart.”

  “That was your sister. Let her know you thought so.”

  “And the kiss.”

  “Thank—” I’m grinning at him, but my eyes widen at his unexpected compliment, and I immediately look back up at the sky. It’s dark out so he can’t see my blush.

  His chuckle is soft and low beside me, and maybe I’m wicked for not feeling more guilty, but I feel my smile grow as I trace Orion’s belt. I don’t dare look at him, but I feel Julian step closer to me, the warmth of his chest radiating against my back. If I moved slightly, one step even, his body would be flush against mine, and the shiver down my arms has nothing to do with the night chill.

  As though he can read my mind, he whispers, close to my ear, “Not unless you ask.”

  I close my eyes and say a prayer for strength and virtue, which, sadly, works, because the next thing I hear is his footsteps receding.

  “Good night, sweet Ashley,” he says to my back, his voice a low rumble.

  My eyes open slowly to the glittering heavens.

  “Good night, sweet prince,” I whisper to Julian’s stars.

  ***

  Julian

  She’s tempting.

  She’s so very fucking tempting.

  But I gave her my word, and no matter how much I fucking want her, I can’t have her until she says so. My come-on was gentle and playful enough, but pushing her any further would have been obnoxious and off-putting. Nothing about her posture invited a repeat performance tonight. It seems I might have a wait on my hand before I get kiss number two.