by B. J. Harvey
I want to be the one to comfort her. I want to be free to pull her into my arms and be her rock.
If tonight goes well, I will be.
An hour and a half and three courses later, I meet her eyes again and nod toward the door. She bobs her head and mouths “five minutes,” and turns back to talk to Gaby, Bruno, and Mr. Ross.
Getting up, I move to the head of the table, toward Millen and Kenzie.
“Hey, lovebirds. Ash and I are going out for a walk, maybe check out the nightlife.”
Millen lifts a brow, and Kenzie’s eyes are full of curiosity. “Why?” she asks.
“We haven’t caught up for a while,” I reply with a shrug. Having Lana living with me has meant keeping everyone away.
Millen’s expression screams “Your bed, you have to lie in it,” but he also knows just how difficult Lana has tried to make things for me during the past nine months. He’s been a lot of help too, which I’m more than grateful for.
“Don’t worry, Mills. I’ll get Ash back safe and sound.”
Kenzie tilts her head, studying me. “You know where we are if you need anything,” I swear I see something in her expression telling me she knows something no one else does. Or no one is supposed to know. But as quick as it’s there, it’s gone.
“Aren’t you not supposed to see each other the night before the wedding?”
“Fuck that shit,” Millen growls, pulling Kenzie into his lap and nipping her shoulder. “We’ve already been living in sin for months. Why stick to tradition now?”
She giggles, earning a smile from the two of us.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning. It was nine a.m., right?”
“Yeah. Just come to our room. I’ll be there.”
“And I’ll be with Gabs and Ash at the spa,” Kenzie says.
I lean down and kiss her cheek, moving my mouth to her ear and stage whispering, “The getaway car is outside, ready and waiting.”
She laughs louder, and Millen gives me a shove and a growl. “Back off. She’s mine.”
Watching them, I’m jealous of what they’ve found in each other, and it brings home just how desperately I want that for myself. “Tomorrow she will be your wife. Now have fun, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“That doesn’t leave us much.”
“Get creative,” I reply with a wicked grin. With a quick wave, I exit the restaurant and make my way to the front steps of the hotel and the curved silhouette of Ash waiting for me on the other side of the glass. Her long, silky dress flaps gently in the sea breeze.
I pause as I reach for the door handle, taking a deep breath to try and slow my racing heart. Life is full of defining moments. Ones you wish you could forget and ones you know will determine the direction your life is gonna go in. Then there are moments like these, moments in time where you are the maker of your destiny, the actions you take and the words you say. The truths you confess will change your life from that point on.
My only hope is that Mrs. Ross is up in heaven cheering me on because something tells me I’m gonna need all the help I can get.
“Instead of a drink, should we just take a walk? I guess you haven’t had much time to have a look around since arriving,” she says, smiling up at me.
God, the things I would do to wake up to that smile every morning and close my eyes with the memory of it every night.
She must mistake my silence for indecision. “I mean, we could go to the hotel bar for a drink if you want, I just thought—”
I put my hand on her arm. “A walk sounds good, Ash. Lead the way.”
A shy grin unlike I’ve ever seen from her graces her lips, and it takes everything I have not to pull her into my arms like I used to have the right to do.
Hopefully, she’ll give me that right again soon.
When we reach the bottom of a wide set of concrete stairs, she veers to the left and onto a sweeping path leading around the side of the hotel. “So how have you been?”
“Good,” I reply gruffly. “Work’s really picking up now. I even had to hire an assistant.”
“Let me guess: blonde, stacked, and really intelligent?”
I chuckle, shaking my head at her. “Well, Todd is intelligent—just probably not stacked in the way you’re thinking.”
“Oh shit,” she says with a snort.
I shrug, a smirk tugging at my lips. “It’s not as if I’ve given you any reason to think I’ve changed over the years.”
“Well, you did have a type. I mean, Kayley…”
“You?” I quirk my brow, and she grins.
“There is that.”
“God, I’ve missed you.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been M.I.A. With everything going on with Mom, moving and the new job…”
“I get it,” I say with an exasperated sigh.
“I thought it was safer to stay away than run into Lana again and risk bodily harm—hers, not mine. And besides, that baby of yours didn’t choose his mother. He’s just lucky he’s got a damn good father waiting for him.”
I forget to breathe. Something about the ease with which she said that boosts my confidence. Of all the people in the world I care about, she’s the one whose opinion matters the most.
It gives me hope, and that’s something I haven’t had in a while now.
We approach a long stone wall at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean.
She turns to face me, slowly walking backward and sweeping her arms out wide. “This is what I really wanted to show you. Isn’t it beautiful?”
I stop moving, watching as she reaches the wall and places her hands on the top. She carefully leans over to look down before standing straight again.
I don’t even let my eyes drift down her body. My focus is locked on her hair, her face tipped up to the night sky, the freedom written all over her expression. I realize if I had confessed my love for her back in Boston, she might not have found herself by leaving; by walking away from what we had, she became the woman she was always destined to be because she had no one holding her back.
Fuck, that just makes me want her even more.
She looks over her shoulder. “C’mon. You’ve got to see the water. Even in the dark, it’s amazing.”
I smile as I close the distance and mimic her stance, leaning on my hands and peering down over the wall. “It’s water. And a beach.”
She faces me, rolling her eyes and poking her tongue out. She puts her back to the sea and carefully lifts herself to sit on top of the wall. I follow her lead and join her, perched on the edge.
Over her shoulder, I spot a warning sign, a stick figure sitting on a wall and a big red cross over the top of it. Quirking a brow, I point at it. Her eyes soon follow the direction of my finger. “Um, your brother would never forgive me if I willingly let you risk your life on the edge of a cliff.”
“Out of all the things you’ve done, you think that would be his breaking point?” she says with a wry smile.
“Good point. I’d be like Humpty Dumpty, except it would be Millen pushing me off the wall,” I reply.
“Then Kenzie would kick your ass for getting him arrested on his wedding day.” Her lips twitch, and as hard as she tries, she can’t stop herself from bursting out laughing, and I’m soon chuckling along with her. When we finally let it die down, we stay there, side by side, not touching, not talking, and even though it should feel weird, it doesn’t. It feels comfortable. Then again, it always does with Ash.
She reaches out and puts her hand on my leg, the familiarity giving my wavering confidence a small boost.
“So, what are you really wanting to talk about, Drew?”
A slow-growing smile curves my lips. Of course she would see through my seemingly innocuous invitation.
I move to tangle my fingers with hers like I always used to. Clearing my throat, I close my eyes and take a slow, calming breath before fixating on our joined hands. “So many times I’ve thought about what I need to say to you, and now you’re here,
and I’m here, and I’m bumbling like an idiot.”
“Drew, unless you’re going to propose, in which case I’m warning you right now, don’t. Just tell me what’s on your mind.” She gently squeezes my fingers.
“With everything that’s been happening in these past few months, I’ve learned a few things about myself.”
“Like? C’mon Drew, you’re usually such an easy book to read.”
“Not seeing you, not talking to you—it’s been hard, and I’m sick of beating myself up and thinking I deserve everything that’s happening to me with Lana. Sick of stopping myself from having what I really want…” I swallow hard and lift my eyes to her wide ones, “. . .which is you.”
“It’s always been you, Ash.”
Silence stretches between us, our gazes locked, her eyes full of so much unreadable emotion. My heart beats harder the longer she doesn’t say anything. Shit. My chest tightens, making it harder to breathe. Maybe I did blow my chance. I try to move away, but she squeezes her hand into a fist, taking my fingers with her. She sucks in a ragged breath, but her eyes never leave mine. I hate seeing her indecision. Before our years apart she would’ve never questioned my feelings, my sincerity. I’ve done that to her. I did that to us.
“I don’t know if I can go there again.” She looks so torn and knowing I’m the reason for it is like a punch to the gut.
“I know I wasted so many years hiding what we had. I’m sorry for not standing up for you—for us—when I should have. You gave me a deadline, and I missed it, but what I realized as soon as you were gone is you should never have had to draw that line in the sand because I should’ve already jumped over it and made you mine.”
“Why couldn’t you have said something before I left? You knew I needed you to make that move. I needed you to show me you were ready to take that last step with me, to prove that you’d fight for us, whatever the cost, whatever the consequences.”
“I did come. I was about to jump on a plane for your graduation when Millen called and told me you’d left.”
“I was sick of waiting, Drew. Don’t you get it?” she spits out. Her breath hitches and she looks out across the water, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip the same way they always used to when she was worried or torn. “What we had was never what it could’ve been because you were always running scared. How do I know that anything has changed?”
I reach out and grab her hand, pulling it into my lap and gently rolling my fingers with hers until she meets my eyes again. “Because I lost you once and I’m not prepared to lose you again without telling you how I feel. I’m sick of hiding how I feel.”
Her lips part, her
“And Millen?”
“Both of you deserve honesty and transparency. No more hiding. I had five years of screw-ups and fuck-ups, and the only bright spot in all of that—throughout everything that happened—was you coming back into my life. We’ve tried the friends thing, and I’ve realized that there’s no way I could ever be just friends with you. You’re the love of my life, and if it takes me another five years to wear you down and prove to you that I mean that, I’m willing to take the time and put in the effort until you realize I’m telling you the truth.”
“You should’ve told me years ago.”
“And I kick my own ass on a daily basis that I didn’t.”
“And the baby? Lana?”
“The baby is inevitable. Lana is an unwelcome consequence that I’m still working out. You’re my beginning, middle, and end, Ash. I need you to trust in me—in us—and believe me when I say when all is said and done, whatever happens, I’m always going to be yours.”
She stands, still holding my hand, and pulls me off the wall so we’re facing each other. “I need time, Drew.”
“Ash, I—”
She leans forward and puts her finger over my lips, rendering me speechless. There’s a newfound confidence in her expression, her eyes open and willing, a flash of heat and a soft edge of emotion all shining back at me. “Time, Drew. Everything you said is what I’ve waited years to hear. You need to give me time to process. It wasn’t until I left that I realized just how much we took from each other. I have a piece of my heart missing that I’ll never get back, and that’s because you’ll always have it. I need to consider whether I’m willing to risk losing the rest of it.”
Wanting more—needing to remind her of just how good we are—I grab hold of her arms and pull her into me, crushing my lips to hers and plunging my tongue inside. She tenses against me for barely a second before melting into my chest, her fingers digging into my skin as I wrap my hands around her back.
As quick as it starts, it’s all over, Ash ripping her mouth from mine and near jumping away from me.
“Shit,” she says, covering her mouth as her wide, shocked eyes stare at me. “Shit.”
She snaps out of it, her head shaking from side to side before she lets out a little huff, spinning on her heels and walking back up the path.
I have to hide my grin when she turns back at me, her finger pointed my way. “Time, Drew Peters. Time.”
“I’ll see you at the ceremony then?” I call out with a laugh.
“I’ll be the woman in red.” She waves me off, giving me her back as she runs out of view.
From that whole conversation, there’s one thing that sticks with me.
She didn’t say no. She didn’t say yes either, but anything is better than a no, right?
If time is what she needs, then time is what I’ll give her. Whatever she wants, as long as she wants it, I’ll give it to her. Whatever it takes to have her in the way I always should’ve had her.
For the first time in five years, I have hope, and it feels so fucking good.
An hour after watching Ash walk away, I’m sitting on my balcony in just a pair of pajama pants, a tumbler of whiskey and ice in my hand, and endless scenarios filling my mind. How did I end up in the French Riviera, alone, about to stand up for Millen tomorrow as he marries Kenzie, the love of his life, while the love of mine sits in the front row and I can’t scream it from the rooftops?
Then there’s the other big problem: the fact that Lana Mason is due to have my child in three weeks, and is about to become even more ingrained in my life than I ever thought she would be. There are dumb decisions you make that kick your ass. Then there are the ones like sleeping with Lana and not using a fucking condom that you end up kicking your own ass for.
I wanted everything with Ash, and five years ago, I thought I had a chance of getting it. I was ready to put everything and everyone on the line for her. It will only ever be her for me, and part of me confessing my feelings to her tonight was about making sure she knows that.
The next few months are going to be hard to get through. I hate that because of Lana, I’ve lost regular contact with everyone. It’s hard to keep up appearances when you have this whole other life that no one knows about; holding people at a distance makes hiding the things I’ve had to hide so much easier.
A soft, barely there knock at the door grabs my attention. I wait a moment to see whether I’m simply hearing things, maybe just wishful thinking on my part. Then I hear it again, and my heart leaps into my throat as I push myself to my feet, down the rest of my drink, and walk back through my hotel room, ditching the glass on the desk as I pass by.
I peer through the peephole to see Ash staring back at me. Dropping my forehead against the wood, I will my pulse to calm down, taking a slow, deep breath and closing my eyes for a second.
Opening the door, I meet her wary—definitely skittish—eyes, and can’t stop the smile growing on my face. “Hey, sweetheart.”
She huffs out a breath, her shoulders sagging as she doesn’t grin back at me.
Suddenly, I’m worried. “Is everything okay? What’s—”
Ash surges forward, her arms hooking over my shoulders, her mouth plastering itself to mine as her tongue delves inside without any hesitation.
Wrapping an arm around her waist,
I shove the door closed with my hand, and walk backward, taking her with me. She’s all hands and lips and body pressed to mine. She’s everywhere and everything, and I want to give it all back to her tenfold. To do that, I need her naked.
And preferably talking too so I have at least some fucking idea where her head—and heart—are at because I don’t want to fall back into the same old pattern with her. I want more. I want it all.
I need it all
I drag my fingers up into her hair, gently pulling her back and nipping her bottom lip as I go.
“Ash, not that I’m complaining, and I definitely don’t want to stop you, but…” Her body all over mine, her arms holding me tight, her cobalt eyes glistening with heat and dare I say, love—am I ready to stop this if she says it’s just sex for her?
“I need you to say it, Drew. I need you to say the words back to me. I’ve waited so fucking long to hear them, and all I’ve ever needed is for you to tell me how you feel. I loved you. I’m still in love with you. I always will be. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped loving you. I just need—”
This time when I kiss her, it’s not like before. It’s a hungry, desperate, cling-to-each-other-to-make-sure-this-is-real kind of kiss. No holds barred. I give her everything, and if her breathy moans and husky whimpers into my mouth are anything to go by, she’s giving me just as much back. She perfectly fits the hole in my chest where a hollow ache has been plaguing me for years.
I tear my mouth away, tightening my fingers in her hair and holding her in place so I have her complete undivided attention. “I love you, Ashley Grace Ross.” I kiss her again, softly, reverently, worshipping her, determined to make her feel my words and just how deeply I mean them. “I loved you the minute I saw you. I think I loved the idea of you before I ever met you. You are the one constant in my life I never wanted to lose, and when I did, I was lost—until five minutes ago when you knocked on my door.”
Tears fall down her cheeks as she crushes her mouth to mine again, and this time, there’s no chance I’m going to stop. Anything else we need to say can come afterward. Right now, I need to make my girl my own again, and something that important takes a lot of time and a lot of effort.