Out past the master bedroom, to the side was a sliding door which I had to admit I hadn’t even noticed. We hadn’t exactly been whiling away long, boring hours in the bedroom for me to study all the features. When I’d been in the bedroom, I’d either been tied up and having the best sex of my life, or passed out cold after having had the best sex of my life. It didn’t exactly hone my powers of observation.
Ash flicked on exterior lighting and I could barely make out the shape of a large, white mound surrounded by other, smaller mounds of things. What was it exactly?
“I’m going to need a shovel,” he declared, and dropped my hand to start heading somewhere.
“Get one for me, too!” I called after him. I put on some sweatpants and a sweater I found in a drawer, both too big for me but they’d work. What I didn’t have were snow boots. He’d managed to bring my bags when he’d kidnapped me, but inside I didn’t exactly have snow gear. The best I had was sneakers, the cute kind with neon pink laces.
Ash came back up looking like he’d gotten attacked by a giant coat. He wore massive snow boots up to his knees and wild tufts of fur framed the hood around his face.
“Are you in there?” I asked.
“You laugh,” he told me. “But just you wait. I’m going to shovel you out a hot tub.”
“That’s my man.” I patted him on the back and sent him out into the snow. Just opening up the sliding glass door took some doing, and it became my job just sweeping up the snow that billowed into the bedroom. Ash got to work, shoveling load after load of snow until, slowly, a large circle emerged, then wooden benches, then, the hot tub, itself. He pried off the top, flicked on a few buttons and lights came on inside the tub.
“Victory is mine!” He exclaimed, holding the shovel up above his head like a gladiator.
“You did it!”
He came in and swept me into a huge, snowy embrace and kiss. “What’s my reward, wench?”
I laughed. “Naked hot tubbing?”
“Arg!” He began stripping off his clothes. I followed suit.
“Wait, were you being a pirate just then?”
“With the ‘arg’?” he asked and I nodded. “Not entirely sure.” He helped me out of the sweater and took my hand. “This tub gets hot fast, but we’ll have to give it a few minutes. The caretaker only had it set to 75.
“It’s already warmed up?” I asked, astonished.
“I’m prepared for every scenario.” Ash winked at me, giving me another “arg,” for good measure. He disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. I grabbed a couple of towels and jammed my feet into a pair of slippers I found in the closet.
Outside, steam rose thick and fast out of the tub. Ash pressed a button that set it to a low bubble and it looked like a witch’s cauldron, hissing and spewing into the night air.
“Are you sure this is OK?”
“Are you afraid I’m trying to cook you? This is like a Hansel and Gretel thing?” He stretched out his hand and said with a grin, “I can’t promise I won’t eat you.”
“At least you’re being honest.” I took his hand and we both took a few tentative steps out into the cold. Make that freezing. And I wasn’t wearing anything. But in a few more steps, we reached the tub and we hustled in as quickly as we could.
The shock of the heat mingled with the chill of the cold air had my senses whirling faster than the hot tub, itself. But slowly, I adjusted, letting the peaceful hum of the water lull my senses. Up above, a crystal clear night sky expanded limitless and promising, countless start twinkling down on us.
“It’s so gorgeous here.” I exhaled, sinking down into the water. I guessed some city people would consider where I’d grown up rural, but honestly it was pretty suburban. We had plenty of traffic lights and stores that stayed open all night and you were hard-pressed to find any part of town where you felt all alone. Out here in the mountains, it felt different. The silence, the darkness at night, the mountains rising in the distance. Days could pass without any interruptions. We’d just experienced it. I didn’t want it to end.
As if he were reading my mind, Ash cleared his throat and said, “This doesn’t have to end, you know.”
I looked up at him, not sure what he meant. Of course our time up in this cabin had to end. Roads would be cleared. Planes would take off. The future would descend upon us whether we liked it or not.
“This between us,” he went on, seeming uncharacteristically hesitant. “I know we signed that contract. That this was a fake thing between us, for a month.”
I swallowed, wondering if he was saying what I thought he was saying.
“We don’t have to, you know…” He swallowed, too, and I realized he was nervous. Ash Black was nervous, talking to me. My heart swelled.
I reached over to him. “We’ve already kind of done things we said we wouldn’t in that contract.”
“Yeah.” He wrapped an arm around me, drawing me close. “The no-sex clause didn’t exactly happen.”
“We ripped that right up,” I agreed.
“So, about what we have going here.” I could feel his heart beating fast. “Do you, ah, want it to end in a week?”
“No,” I answered, quickly and honestly.
I felt him exhale. But he still held himself tense. “I thought you might, that night in Vegas.”
“You mean the night you kidnapped me?”
“Yeah, that one.” He sounded sheepish.
“I’m glad you did,” I reassured him. “But, you’re right. I was thinking about breaking things off. Fake or real or whatever this is.” Now I was stammering a bit, too. “Because, the thing is, Ash, I can’t really do that whole scene in L.A.”
“No, I can’t either,” he agreed with me urgently.
“Really?” I looked up at him. “Because that’s pretty much your scene.”
“No,” he protested, but I kept looking up at him, waiting for more. “OK, yes, it was. It used to be.”
“Until you met me?” I couldn’t help it, my question was laced with doubt. It wasn’t that I didn’t think much of myself. I had a pretty good sense of what I was bringing to the table, both great and not-so-great. But Ash had lived a hard-partying life all his 26 years. A flash romance with me wasn’t going to change all that.
“It sounds like rubbish, I know,” Ash admitted, shaking his head. “But I’ve been tired of this crazy life I’m in for ages. A couple years now, if I’m honest. I’m done with it.”
I wanted to believe it, take it at face value and just let it make me feel good. But the pragmatic part of me had to interfere. “That’s pretty easy to say when you’re snowed in here with no one but me to keep you company. What about when we’re back?”
“I don’t want to go back,” Ash answered, holding me close.
“Neither do I,” I confessed. “But at some point we have to go back.”
“Not to the way I was living. I’m not going to do it. I want to figure out something new.”
“You do?” I looked into his eyes, so dark and sexy.
His lips parted, full and red. “I do. I know it sounds like bullshit. But you have to remember, it’s like show and tell in school.”
“Like show and tell?” Sometimes it got hard to follow exactly what he was saying, he was so freaking hot. His shoulders so broad and muscled, rising above the bubbling heat. His jaw so strong, that stubble dark and rough. I wanted to feel it on me. Between my legs.
“Show and tell,” at least he continued the conversation. “You’d bring something in from home and talk about it?”
“Yes.” I remembered show and tell.
“I’m better at showing how I feel than telling.”
“Yeah?” My question came out breathy. I really wanted him to show me.
“Yeah.” His voice sounded deep and husky and he brought a hand to my neck, slowly trailing a thumb down my skin to the hollow at the base of my throat. “Can I show you how I feel?” he asked.
; “Hell, yes,” I managed before I sank into his kiss, kissing him more deeply, more passionately, more breathlessly than any lead characters in any of the historical romances I’d read in the basement of my town library. We kissed and kissed, twining our limbs, drifting our hands along each other’s skin, kissing each other like we’d never stop.
Gently, he eased me out of the water, kissing every inch of me that emerged. I’d grown hot, from the water and his loving, and now the chill of the winter air felt welcome. He kissed along my belly, brought his hands to my ass and there was that scratch of stubble, right where I’d wanted it. Damn, did it feel good, adding just the right amount of rough along with his long, slow, hot licks straight up my slit. The man was a freaking genius with his tongue.
I clenched his hair in my fingers and he really began to feast on me, digging his fingers into my ass cheeks and fucking me with his tongue. Up he’d swirl over my clit, grazing it with his teeth, just enough to make me gasp, then he’d suck me in full with his gorgeous lips and start tongue-fucking me again until I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Ash!” I cried out, bucking my hips into his face. “Ash, I’m going to come!”
He growled into my pussy, licking and lapping and then bit down right onto my tender clit.
“Ah!” I screamed as the orgasm hit me, hot wave after wave washing through my body as he sucked and licked and drank me in.
“You taste so fucking good,” he groaned as he finally lifted his head, licking his lips.
“Oh God, Ash.” I wrapped my hands around his neck and slid down his body, his hands traveling up my back. I positioned myself right at his groin, right where I could feel his huge, swollen shaft. I brought my hand down to his cock and wrapped my palm around it, savoring the feel, velvet and steel.
“You’re so big, Ash,” I moaned, feeling him grow under my stroking. His muscles gleamed in the water, the lights and steam showing them off. I wanted to lick him everywhere. I sank my mouth down to his chest and kissed and licked.
“Fuck me, Ash,” I groaned, pressing my sex down against his cock. “I need you inside me.”
“I can’t go easy, Ana,” he warned me, lifting me to the top step in the tub. “I can’t do it.”
“Don’t go easy, Ash,” I begged him as he began positioning my legs, throwing one up over his shoulder, then the other. “Fuck me hard,” I pleaded.
“Yes,” he cried out as he positioned his tip and then sank into me deep. With my legs thrown over his shoulders like that, he got so deep inside of me. My mouth flew open and I gripped the base of the step to brace myself.
“Keep your legs like that and hold on,” he growled as he wrapped his hands around my ass and started to fuck me good. Driving into me so deep, he kept hitting me exactly in the spot that made my eyes roll back in my head.
“Fuck! Ash!” I screamed, almost not able to take it yet wanting more, wanting him to split me in two, wanting him to fuck me harder than he ever had. He drove into me again and again, relentless, seeming to get even bigger as he took me.
“I can’t wait to come in you, Ana.” His voice, so rough and deep, the way he held me and took me. I’d never felt so cared for, so possessed. “Are you going to take my come, baby?”
“Please,” I begged him, knowing how good it would feel. That hot shot of thick come from his cock, feeling it deep inside of me. I was so close and once I felt him shoot it into me, I knew I’d come, too.
“You want it?” he asked, breathless and rough, pounding into me like a jackhammer.
“Yes,” I moaned, holding onto the step as best I could for purchase, my legs up over his shoulders.
“You need my come?”
“Yes, yes, Ash!” I screamed, crazy for him. “I need your come. Please, give me your come!”
With a great roar, he exploded into me like a fucking firehose, coming deep inside me, shooting it out of his huge, thick cock. Screaming, clawing at his shoulders, I threw my head back and came, bucking against him, my quivering pussy clenching in orgasm around his shaft. Groaning, grasping, we shuddered and rode the waves together, coming and coming into each other under the sky full of stars.
He held me close and we drifted there together in the warm, bubbling water. I breathed him in, his scent, his rough stubble, his heart beating. I looked up at the sky and I knew. I didn’t know exactly when it had happened. But I knew that it had. Somewhere along the way in the last few weeks, I’d fallen completely, hopelessly, impossibly in love with rock god Ash Black. Heaven help me.
CHAPTER 7
Ash
Ana. I’d seen a lot of beautiful women in my life. Hell, I’d been surrounded by them. Models, actresses, debutantes. But Ana in that hot tub underneath the stars? She blew them all away.
I almost didn’t know what to say to her. Everything that came to mind sounded so clichéd, especially coming out of my mouth. I’d told her I thought she was amazing, gorgeous, all that. But this was a woman who worked with books for a living. She’d quoted Shakespeare to me just yesterday. Anyone could see that she was much smarter than me. If I had to rely on my powers of verbal persuasion with Ana, I didn’t have a shot.
So, I did what I knew how to do. I gathered her in my arms. Inside, we rinsed off and I toweled her dry. I loved how relaxed she grew with me, so pink and dreamy. The smile on her face looked so light and sweet, almost the smile of someone asleep and in the middle of the most enchanting dream. I wanted to make every day like that for her. She deserved it.
But first she needed some sleep. I loved how much I tired her out. The last few days we hadn’t done much more than have sex, make music, and sleep. Plus occasionally eat. And I’d managed to keep her out of clothes the entire time. Perfection.
Together, we settled into bed, her head on my chest, my arm around her waist. Her breathing drew deep almost instantly and I thought she’d fallen asleep. But then she murmured,
“They don’t know you like I do.”
“What’s that?” I leaned down to catch her quiet voice.
“All those people around you. They all know your image. But they don’t know you.”
I nodded. That was absolutely true. And I wasn’t the first celebrity to feel that way. When you as an individual became a brand with large dollar signs attached to your image, you got catapulted into this strange other world. I know, play me a tiny violin of sympathy. But I wasn’t trying to complain about it. It was just a fact. In my bubble, the more people knew your name, the less people knew the real you. It got so I barely felt like I knew myself.
“What about you? Do you feel like you know me?” The second I asked her, I almost wished that I hadn’t. I felt like so much hung on her answer and I held my breath wondering what she’d say. For some reason, I felt like it would just about kill me if she said no.
“I know you.” She rested her palm over my heart, beating steadily for her. “And you’re amazing.”
I was grateful she fell asleep soon after. I knew I was literally naked, but her answer stripped me bare on a whole new level. I had nothing left to hide. And if she’d looked up in my eyes at that moment, I knew what would have tumbled out of my mouth.
I would have told her that I loved her.
That thought woke me right up. As Ana sank into a deep slumber, my body began buzzing with nervous energy. Pale moonlight glimmered in through the windows, casting Ana in a near-unearthly glow. She looked like a woodland fairy, with her hair in a tumble cast across the pillows. Her berry-red lips, full and gorgeous in sleep. Her long eyelashes, her heart-shaped face. I’d never seen anyone more beautiful.
Or more terrifying. What was going on here? It was like I was bewitched. I was the guy who usually kicked out girls before we got anywhere near the sleep portion of the program. And now, here I was, gazing down at my love while she slept. I loved being around her. I loved having sex with her. I loved making music with her. I loved eating meals with her and learning more about her past and her future hopes and dreams. And, apparently,
I loved watching her sleep.
I loved Ana.
I felt it, like a nail driving into my chest. She’s the one.
Was that supposed to make me panic? Was that realization supposed to make my pulse race and my throat constrict and my hands reach to see if I left a glass of water on the bedside table? Because suddenly I really felt like I could use a drink. Maybe something stronger than water.
Using my well-honed skills of slinking out of bed undetected, I shifted my weight over, over and away without waking up Ana. I sat there, head in hands, grappling with my middle-of-the-night realization.
Unexpected. Complicated. Completely out of my fucking league.
For a strange moment, I wanted to reach for the phone. I could really use a friend to call and have one of those conversations you saw in bromance movies. The guys would dish everything and then hug it out with an “I love you, man!”
I knew I could call Connor. He’d be up, I was pretty sure of that. When the sun was down, Connor was almost always up. He also made occasional daytime appearances, but those were rare. But how would that conversation go?
“Hey, dude, could you take a second away from snorting coke off of that chick’s boob to have a heart-to-heart with me about grown-up emotions?”
Not going to happen. It wasn’t Connor’s fault. Nothing like this had ever crossed his radar. Frankly, it hadn’t crossed mine, either. A month ago if he’d called me with the same problem I probably would have told him I had an incoming call and would love to talk to him but sorry had to go!
Swiftly, I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and headed into the kitchen to fix myself a drink. No fire in the fireplace, no storm raging outside, it was quiet. Too quiet. I flipped on the TV, surfing from one channel to the next. Why was it always hundreds of channels but nothing on? I knew it took a lot to hold my attention, but come on, all I found were sequels and reruns and boring porn even a raging beast like me didn’t feel like watching.
You know what held my attention? Ana.
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