He tried to inject some irritation into his voice, like he was being put upon by her attempts to make this into something other than what he’d agreed to, but there was too much sadness in his voice and not enough fire.
She tried to pull away, to put a little space between them. This close it was impossible to think straight, to focus on what she wanted in the long term and not what his nearness convinced her body it needed right now.
Ash lifted her off her feet to stop her escaping. ‘I can’t make the sort of commitment you’re asking. I can’t … and you know why.’
‘But that’s just it. Actually, I don’t. You make some vague remarks about some relationship you had years ago, and you use touring as an excuse. Am I supposed to believe you’re never going to have a proper relationship again because Connie screwed you up?’
He did find some fire then; it blazed out of him and rose off his skin as steam. ‘Who told you her name? Did you talk to Spook about me?’
‘Ash, focus,’ she yelled into his face. She grabbed hold of his head with both hands and made him face her. ‘Twenty minutes. That’s all we have left. I want more than that. I want a date in my diary that says you’re going to be around to fuck me senseless.’
There were goose bumps across his skin now, and more sweat had formed on his brow. His eyes were wild, blue and shiny.
‘Tell me one good reason why we shouldn’t make one. One good reason why not.’
‘Stop it. Shut up. Shut up!’
Ginny squealed as he literally upended her so that she was suspended in his arms, her head level with his hips and her legs waving about somewhere above his head. Convinced she was going to slip and fall, she clawed at his arms for support.
‘Stop wasting time with talk, with things that can’t be. Let’s focus on now, and the time that’s slipping away, which we could be doing something pleasurable with. I don’t want to argue. I don’t want to talk, or think about tomorrow, or even what happens in twenty minutes. I just want you. I want to sink into you and not deal with anything else for a moment. Let me be with you, Ginny. You say that’s what you want, so let me do it.’
To her utter shock, he buried his head between her kicking legs and drove his open mouth against her panties. He kissed her intimately over and over, as though he couldn’t get enough of the taste of her.
The fight drained out of her. Man, he had a way with his tongue that could break the will of a saint, and she wasn’t close to being that chaste. ‘Put me down,’ she protested feebly.
‘You know what?’ He jigged her into a slightly more comfortable position. ‘I don’t think I will. This end gives me less grief.’
‘You’ll drop me.’
‘Nope. Ain’t going to happen.’
‘All the blood’s rushing to my head.’
‘Yeah, I’m having that problem too.’
The head he was referring to was busy poking her in the back.
‘Why have you put these silly things on?’ he complained about her knickers. ‘They’re in the way. I want to see bare pussy, be able to use my tongue on you. The only decoration you need is this interesting piece of jewellery you’re hiding.’
‘If you put me down, I’ll take them off.’
‘No, it’s OK, I can manage myself. Besides, if I put you down, you’ll only start on at me again, insisting I think when I don’t need to think. I only need to do. I want to do you so badly, Ginny –’
‘Walters,’ she supplied, and boy, was he obtuse. Why couldn’t he see that if he was this turned on by her, it was worth meeting up to explore their chemistry a bit more?’
‘– that I’m probably going to embarrass myself by coming the minute I get inside you.’ He wriggled his tongue under the elastic of her panties. ‘God, you taste good. These have really got to come off.’
He used his teeth to drag the lacy fabric away from her flesh, so it was stretched taut between her thighs, but with a clear space between the fabric and her pussy that he could squeeze his head into.
All the tension drained out of Ginny’s limbs as he explored her slit. Her arguments died down. She wasn’t hypocritical enough to pretend she wasn’t enjoying his attention and didn’t want it. She wanted it all right. Lots of it. As Spook had remarked, Ash’s tongue foo was legendary, and with good reason. He could work wonders with it, but even if he hadn’t been the world’s foremost cunnilinguist she’d still have turned to putty. It wasn’t only what he was doing that turned her on and inside out, it was the gusto he did it with.
‘Lord … sweetheart … the taste of you is better than any damned drug on the planet. I might get addicted.’ The notion didn’t stop him exploring every bit of her he could reach with his tongue. He sucked her clit piercing too, driving her demented and making it impossible for her not to thrash about in his arms.
Finally, finally he relented and turned about so that her head and shoulders were supported by the bed. The position should have been horribly uncomfortable – he had her in a shoulder stand, looking up at her own body, knees either side of his ears and her cobweb-painted toenails wiggling in the air above his head, but all she could think about was him, and his mouth, and how shiny his lips and chin looked covered in her dew.
This was what she’d been trying to avoid by talking to him: mindless sex, the sort that sure as hell felt good but wasn’t going to leave either of them in a very good state when Spook came knocking on the door. It didn’t seem to make any difference, though. She’d lost the will to fight to keep his hands off her, but not the will to keep him. Maybe, if they did this, he’d see the sense in them keeping in touch.
Ash ripped off her panties.
‘Don’t make me come,’ she begged. ‘Not until you’re inside me.’
He raised his head but kept hold of her legs. ‘Can’t reach the rubbers from here, and I’m not letting go.’
Ginny tried to stretch far enough to snatch the box of condoms, but from the position Ash held her in she couldn’t even reach the opposite side of the bed. Twin groans echoed from their throats. ‘You’re going to have to let me move.’
‘No way on God’s earth.’
‘Ash, you can’t fuck me in this position anyway.’
‘Wanna bet?’ He was doing a damned good impersonation of it with his tongue, driving deep and making her half-crazy with lust. She wanted to touch him though. Needed to feel his weight above her and have his scent surrounding her.
‘No more,’ she begged. ‘Or I’m going to explode. Please, get the goddamned rubber on.’
Chapter Eleven
Ash released her, laughing in delight. He was so into this girl, so high on the taste and the smell of her that for one crazy moment, when she spread her legs either side of his waist, he contemplated diving in bare and saying to hell with the consequences. Thankfully, a smidge of sanity remained. His mum had taught him to be a gentleman and to take care of those around him. Her lessons were deeply ingrained, as was the one about looking out for himself. There was drama enough in his life without adding to it unnecessarily. He wasn’t looking to procreate, so it’d be best to stick with the appropriate safety devices.
As he stretched over her to grab the box, Ginny wrapped herself tight around him, legs around his waist, her heels digging in his butt, and her hands clasping tight at his shoulder blades. If that wasn’t enough of a distraction, she licked his goddamned armpit. What the hell was that about? It sent a shiver all the way down to his toes.
‘Lady, if you don’t cool it, I’m going to do something stupid.’
‘I’m on the pill.’
‘Yeah, but you don’t know where I’ve been.’ Come to think of it, he wasn’t entirely sure where he’d been himself. He got around a lot, and no, he couldn’t remember most of the women he slept with, not names or faces. He’d remember Ginny, though. He didn’t think there was any way he could forget her. This girl would be living in his dreams for the rest of eternity. She seemed to be hardwired into his soul or something, like they’d
been split apart even though they were meant to be together, and sliding into her was the only way of reconnecting them. Maybe if he just slipped into her for a moment …
No, he wasn’t into lying to himself so directly. It wouldn’t be fine. It’d be fantastically amazing, and he knew without doing it that once he was in there’d be no pulling out. No control. No protection. Bye-bye safety net.
Somehow, he managed to stretch his fingertips out far enough to grab hold of the box. Condoms scattered as it tipped over. He didn’t care. He caught one end of a strip of four. Ash ripped the damn thing open with his teeth, while Ginny was busy latched onto his neck giving him probably the biggest hickey he’d ever had. Shit! He’d look like Xane. That guy was always sporting bites and bruises around his throat. He got off on being bitten. Ash, not quite so much, though what she was doing was definitely wrecking his concentration and punching a few good holes in his sanity to boot.
Fuck! He really, really had to get inside her. Like now. Right now.
Somehow he got himself protected and all lined up. The latter didn’t take any effort at all, which made up for the delay caused by his fumbling about with the rubber. They seemed to come together perfectly.
Ginny’s mouth opened and her head tilted back as he entered her. Oh, God, that feeling of sliding inside, feeling her heat surround him, swallowing him up. There was little, if anything, that could top it. The first moments as her body adjusted to the shape and feel of him was …
‘Fuck! Ash.’
‘I know … I know.’
He gathered her closer. She was so wet, their movements so smooth.
He didn’t hammer into her frantically, preferring the gliding motion they had going. Besides, he wanted, needed this to last. He committed every second of it to memory, each buzz, every pulse of excitement and groan of pleasure she gave. Might not be very rock and roll to wank himself stupid over a girl, but he knew he’d be doing it. Thinking of her while lying in his bunk, giving himself wrist-ache as he tried to recapture what he was feeling as he moved inside her now.
She was right too. There was no logical reason for not seeing her and doing this again. But when was he ever logical?
‘Ash … Oh, God … Ash!’
She was almost there. He could already feel her inner muscles fluttering around him. When she came, he knew it’d be enough to tip him over. Just hearing her cries of pleasure was almost enough anyway.
You’re an idiot if you’re going to walk away from this. He knew it, and still figured he was about to do it. His mind wasn’t yet ready to deal with the alternative. He didn’t do commitment. He’d been repeating that mantra endlessly for five, coming up to six years. Living it wild and sleeping around, that’s what he did. No one could hurt him because he never afforded them the chance to get close enough. Only the guys in the band had any hold over him, and he trusted them, even if some of them royally pissed him off – Xane most of all, but only because there was stuff they’d shared that he couldn’t detach himself from, yet Xane had no trouble casting to the wind.
Xane would tell him he was a fucking fool for holding a torch for Connie all this time. Not to be cruel, because Xane got the love part, but because he wouldn’t want to see Ash wasting himself on rose-tinted memory, when the opportunity to grab hold of something amazing was right in front of him. And Ginny was damned amazing. She made him feel things he hadn’t felt in aeons, assuming he’d ever felt them, because, looking back, he wasn’t actually sure. It wasn’t as if he and Connie had had mad, passionate sex like this. They’d made out a whole lot, but he’d been much younger then, and she was saving herself for the right moment. She kept him sweet by blowing him on a regular basis but her pussy had been completely off limits. Ginny’s pussy was milking him for all he was worth.
Her back arched off the bed as she came, slamming her body tight to his, so they were connected with no spaces at all between them. Ash’s cries echoed Ginny’s, as orgasm engulfed him. He watched her while his body wept, fighting to keep his eyes open when they wanted to slide closed. He needed to see her. It was important to remember every detail of her face.
Just as his cock was weeping its last, she looked up at him, a wide easy smile spread across her lips, but her true bliss showed in those mystical eyes of hers. He didn’t recall ever having met anyone with eyes like hers. Eyes that could see into him, that stripped away the web of intrigue and deceits he wove around himself, which protected him from reality. Ginny saw him as he truly was and still wanted him … and was still prepared to love him.
He knew in that moment that he couldn’t hide from himself any more. He didn’t merely desire this girl. It wasn’t wholly lust between them. She was right. It was more than that, there was a connection, and he did feel it as ardently as she did.
Bright. Hot. So hot he hardly dared examine it. If it was the first glow of love, then he had no idea what to do with it. The mere idea scared the shit out of him.
Trembling, Ash rolled off her. He dealt with the condom and threw it in the direction of the waste bin without bothering to see if it landed there. His hair was sticky with sweat and plastered to his skin, so he pushed it back off his face. Ginny lay glowing before him. A fresh flush filled her cheeks. Her lips were bare, but red from the multitude of kisses they’d shared. He didn’t know what to say to her, though he felt he ought to say something.
They hadn’t just fucked. He’d made love to her, and yes, he knew the difference.
Was he truly ready to dive into those murky waters and make the commitment she was after? He didn’t know if he could. Connie might be nothing but a distant memory to his friends, but she’d burned him so badly, the scars remained tender even now. Could he open himself to the possibility of such pain again? Did he want to take that risk?
‘Ash?’ she said, turning to him when he rolled onto his back.
He tugged at his hair near to the scalp. ‘Shit, I need a smoke after that.’
‘You smoke?’
He shook his head. ‘Not since college. But …’ He plumped the pillow behind his head and slumped against it. ‘You’re too good to be real. I’m going to wake up and discover this has all been a fucking dream, and that some dumbass chucked a bottle at me while we were on stage, and knocked me out.’
‘It’s real, Ash.’
So, unfortunately, was the knock on the door.
How could twenty minutes have passed so quickly?
With Spook’s arrival they were both thrust rudely back into the real world.
‘Now what?’ Ginny asked. Her eyes were wet, a fact he couldn’t fail to notice. Chicks cried all the time when he said goodbye, but this was different. He didn’t want to hurt her. Not Ginny. Not that he deliberately hurt anyone, but normally he forgot them straight afterwards, so any guilt or discomfort he felt at flattening their expectations was short-lived.
He raked a hand over his scratchy growth of stubble. What to do? He didn’t have any answers, except ‘Don’t answer it.’
‘Is that gonna work?’ Ginny asked.
He suspected not. Spook might be mild-mannered, but he could also be completely belligerent.
‘Can’t he give us five minutes?’
The hammering continued. ‘Ash! Time to leave, mate.’ Give it another few minutes and he could expect a battering ram and some violent Swedish expletives.
‘It’s not his fault,’ Ash said in Spook’s defence. ‘He said he’d give us an hour and he has.’ More, actually, if the time on the bottom of the TV was accurate. That, and he knew that Spook was only doing what he always did, looking out for him, by extracting him from a situation before he screwed up. Spook had seen him shag all manner of girls, big, small, old and barely legal; some shy and others hardcore gold-diggers. How was Spook supposed to know that Ginny was different from all of them? That this time he didn’t want rescuing, but would rather linger? And that right now he didn’t give a fucking fig that Xane was missing and that they needed to find him?
‘I wa
nt to kill him,’ Ginny mumbled.
‘Don’t do that. I need him.’ Spook was their best shot for putting the band back together. The guy was a born mediator. He might not say a lot most of the time, but he was generally the one to soothe tempers and make people consider all sides. He was also the finest guitarist Ash had had the pleasure to meet. They’d never find anyone half so good, should anything befall him. Really, he ought to have been playing lead, but he always allowed Ash that limelight, saying he preferred to cover the rhythm.
‘Ash! Paul says he’s going to take the van back to Ulf and check in with Graham on what the situation is. We’re on hunting down Xane, so get your trousers on and let’s get going.’
Almost on autopilot, Ash sat up and started hunting around for his jeans.
‘Oh, God, don’t,’ Ginny blurted. ‘You’re not seriously just going to do as he says?’ She didn’t look tearful any more; she looked angry, as though if he actually pulled his clothes on she might rip them off him again and shred a few layers of his skin at the same time. ‘You bastard, don’t you dare.’
‘I’m just putting some things on.’ He didn’t mention it was easier to think that way. ‘Never said I was going anywhere.’
The high colour that had swept across her cheeks faded a little. She breathed more easily. She watched as Ash dressed and combed his fingers through his hair, doing his best to work the knots out of it, while continuing to ignore Spook’s pleas. Common sense told him he had to respond, to both of them. ‘I’ll be five minutes,’ he yelled at Spook. ‘I’ll meet you downstairs in the foyer.’
‘You fucking better.’
One down, one to go … He took a deep breath and steeled himself. This wasn’t going to be easy for either of them. He turned to face her. ‘Ginny.’ He touched her face, and looked her in the eyes, determined to convey his sincerity. ‘I don’t do relationships.’ He covered her lips with his index finger, making sure she didn’t interrupt what he needed to say. ‘But if I did, I’d definitely do one with you.’ He turned away at the end of his grand admission, his cheeks stained pink.
All Night Long Page 12