And your boutiques, Ash. Let’s not lose sight of the boutiques.
Some of the hardness, some of that arrogance, left his eyes, and immediately she felt her body release the tension, and her breathing return to normal.
“If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to,” he offered again, watching her carefully. “I’ll go back, tell Enrique that the whole thing is a sham, give him an earnest and sincere apology. Then you can get back on your trail of finding more clothes for the store. Is that what you want?”
Oh, undermining her own undermining. Sneaky. Very, very sneaky.
She peered out across the bridge, through the webbing of steel cables toward the booming skyline of Manhattan. Why the hell not?
“I’m going to make this work,” she announced, completely without fear, or mostly without fear. There wasn’t a lot of fear. Honestly. “Do you think I can pull this off?”
He nodded once.
“Really?” she probed, looking carefully to see if there was even a speck of doubt in his eyes.
He nodded again. No doubts.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling. A man who evaluated million-dollar deals for a living believed she could pull off the most out-of-left-field idea she’d ever heard.
Whoa. Awesome stuff.
David started walking again. “And it’s about time you thanked me. Now, tell me where we’re going. I have no idea where we’re going.”
“Hotel Wilde. I thought it was unboring.”
“You’re not boring.”
“I could be more exotic though, more flashy, more élan-ful.” She checked her skirt, and immediately thought she should have accessorized better. Maybe a clunky bracelet…or gold. Gold was good.
He stopped, put down the carry-on and leaned against the metal railing. Then he took her hand, laid it hard against the thick ridge behind his fly.
The man has no need for accessories.
Do not say another word, Val.
S’all right. I like him.
“You don’t need more élan. Trust me.”
The oxygen was getting thin up here, causing a throbbing void between her thighs. It had been three weeks since she had felt—or filled—that void. In Chicago, Ashley had tried not to dwell on the void because it seemed pointless and unsatisfying. Although in that moment, with the feel of all that, Davidness still hot in her hand, Ashley realized the void was about to get filled.
Hello, New York.
With the breeze whipping through the steel girders and deadly water a meager thousand miles below, Ashley tugged at his tie, drew David close and touched his mouth with hers. It was intended to be a hello kiss, a thank-you kiss, but it wasn’t any of those. Instead, it was two very overheated people exploding. In less than a heartbeat, she was locked to him, his hands knotted in her shirt, pulling and twisting. His hard mouth worked over hers, and she could feel the anger firing under the surface, his heart pounding against her breasts. Mad…and aroused.
Bliss.
She dug her hands in his hair, his hard ridge firmly pressing between her thighs, and her wanton thighs quivered again.
Below them came the sound of a siren winding down, and then a bullhorn. “I know it’s a tourist thing, but you guys really need to get a room.”
David lifted his head, his breathing labored, and Ashley felt the sea of traffic wash over her, and it didn’t seem scary. It felt exciting. Her gaze met his eyes, and she could read his mind. They were going to have sex again…soon. And it was going to be even better. She was going to be naked. He was going to be naked.
Eighteen naked hours before her flight home.
Eighteen hours wasn’t going to be enough.
The siren wound up again. “Hello! Earth to Romeo and Juliet. Get a room, will ya?”
Ashley smiled, as any good tourist would. “That’s where we’re headed.”
THE HOTEL ROOM had red walls. Scarlet walls that were the color of hell. Behind the bed hung a modern painting of a woman’s open mouth, or at least David hoped that was a mouth. Red, wet. He twisted his head.
No, that wasn’t a mouth.
Whoa.
Ashley was in the bathroom freshening up. He shouldn’t have walked her across the bridge, but he needed to work off some of his excess energy. He hadn’t been ready to sit in a cab with her, not without mauling her. David wasn’t a mauler. He was an analyst.
The extra poundage in his shorts seemed to dispute that fact.
“The bathroom is great. You should see this,” Ashley yelled, and then she emerged from the bathroom, wearing a blue striped tank, blue skirt and sandals, and it was sexier than black lace. There were no buttons, no hooks, no zippers, nothing but easy-access cloth.
“Are you still mad?” she asked, and it took him a second to realize she meant emotionally, not mentally. Madness. In a lot of ways, that’s what it felt like. He was fevered and incoherent. It couldn’t be healthy.
“I was never mad,” he answered, fighting for what was left of his self-control.
She walked toward him, and then he could smell her—smell the quiet intensity that always hung in the air around her. He closed his eyes, absorbing her smell. For the past hour, all he could think about was touching her, burying himself inside her.
Nearly three weeks since he’d seen her; three weeks was a long time. A man could want a lot in three weeks. A man could hunger a lot in three weeks. It was the most logical explanation.
Except he had no logic. It was as if she twisted the wires until logic was impossible.
The madness started all over again. His eyes opened, and she was still there. Waiting for him to do something.
“David,” she whispered urgently. Her eyes flared, and he snapped.
They fell to the bed, and he offed her skirt in mid-fall. The panties were not removed, merely pushed aside. Condom was hastily installed, this time his fly was thankfully unstuck, and then David was buried deep inside Ashley. It took a second to restart his lungs, restart his heart, but his cock needed no restarting. No, it had found heaven all on its own.
Once again, there was no finesse. Actually, after three weeks of waiting, it was more frenzied than before. He prayed she didn’t mind. The blind hunger in her eyes said she didn’t.
It was fast, it was furious. Way too fast and way too furious, and she came with a long, low moan that ripped through him. This was more death than sex. His orgasm nearly killed him. After he came, David collapsed against the pillows.
Once again, Ashley scooted over to the far side of the bed. Considering the size of this bed, that was halfway to Jersey. His arm raised toward her, his fingers stretched, but her back had that turtle-shell look going, and David admitted that he didn’t know what to do.
They had a relationship defined by sex, hijacked by sex, and anything outside of sex—friendship, romance, business—now felt strained.
Was that really a bad thing?
He considered the smooth bare back in front of him, the golden rose hue of her skin, the sleek curve of her spine and decided that yes, yes, it was.
This was going to have to stop. He was going to have to make it stop.
He liked Ashley, he liked talking to her, he liked the almost-not-quite confidence in her. As a divorced man getting e-mails that flipped his stomach, he understood it.
The first time they’d had awesome sex, they had talked about it, laughed about it, because it was so extraordinary, a once-in-a-lifetime deal. But the second time? What do you say when you realize it’s not once-in-a-lifetime, but every time?
No, he wasn’t going to analyze this. Not now.
“Ashley,” he said, and the turtle-shell relaxed…a little. She turned, and her hair brushed across her eyes. He wanted to see her eyes, but she kept them hidden.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded quickly.
“Are you mad?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Are you ever going to talk to me again?”
She
giggled. The face lifted, and he saw the spark back in her eyes. Something lifted in his chest.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, because he thought he should feed her. It seemed polite.
“No, thank you.”
“How was the flight?” he asked, and she inched closer. That was good.
“Uneventful.”
“Takeoff?”
“I took four Dramamine,” she admitted.
“Landing?”
“I slept through it.”
He gave her an attagirl smile. “Excellent.”
“I think it was the medicine and the two glasses of wine that did it.”
“I think it was you.”
Divorce had done a number on him, but he could look at his career and feel good about his decisions. Ashley didn’t have that luxury. Divorce and career were going after her, double-barreled. It didn’t seem fair. He wanted to pull her to him, and hold her, but lying in a black-sheeted bed with a woman’s sexual organs artistically laid out on the wall was not the place to hold someone in comfort.
His fingers opened and closed, and if a man wasn’t an analyst, he wouldn’t have noticed.
She sighed, and rolled onto her back, staring up at the red ceiling. David eyed the shadowy curves where the covers barely hid her nipples, and his cock pushed against the sheet. Oh, jeez, he was such a goat.
“I’m going to have to find more designers,” she stated, her voice a little firmer now.
“You will.”
“Can you help?”
It was a tempting idea, part of the reason—a lot of the reason—he blurted everything out to Enrique like he did, and didn’t give her a chance to say no. So, she was in Chicago, and he was in New York. It was the best of both worlds. All the excitement. None of the commitment. No worries.
“Is that what you want?” he asked.
Her worried gaze met his eyes. “It’s what I want.” After a minute she spoke again, not so worried this time. “Why the argument on the bridge?”
“Because the USS Intrepid was booked.”
She didn’t laugh.
He met her eyes again, and this time, he knew he was the worried one. “I thought you’d like it,” he offered.
“No, you didn’t,” she told him, completely unfooled.
David sighed. “Okay, I didn’t think you’d like it. You needed the distraction. You needed to walk across to know you could do anything you wanted.”
“Like stranger sex?” she asked, an innocent question. The look on her face wasn’t so innocent.
“Not exactly,” he told her. Honestly, he didn’t know why he kept pushing her like some cheese-dick asshole. It wasn’t who he was. He was laid-back, carefree, except when consumed by raging lust. But when he’d watched her with that jerk of a designer, when he saw the beaten look in Ashley’s eyes, it ate at his gut and pissed him off. Probably because it reminded him of a lot of things about his own life that pissed him off, too.
And wasn’t that too much self-analysis for the day? His analytical eyes wandered back to the covers where he could ogle Ashley and analyze her naked flesh to his heart’s content. No worries.
“I liked being on the bridge,” she told him, and then she smiled.
“I did, too.”
“Do you like the hotel?” she asked, and her voice was so full of enthusiasm, he wasn’t heartless enough to tell the truth.
“Love it,” he said, punching a pillow in a golly-gee sort of way. Frankly, it wasn’t so bad. Actually, it was growing on him. The red walls were growing on him. The sleek black sheets were growing on him. Nah, that was all bullshit. It was the idea of Ashley underneath him that was growing on him.
Perhaps sensing the direction of his thoughts, she sat upright, covers falling away, and she grinned. “It’s sorta goth-vampire falls in love with George O’Keefe and they have a love child. It’s very now.”
He liked seeing her unassuming grin, seeing the way it belonged on her face. This was Ashley Larsen the way God had intended. “Yeah.”
“And you should see the shower.” She stood up, all bare and curves, and David felt his control slipping away. “It’s delicious. You can fit like fourteen people in there.”
All David needed was two.
7
AN HOUR HAD PASSED, her skin slightly pruned. Ashley stepped away from the three walls of jets and wrapped a toasty towel around her body.
David was otherwise occupied, studying the brass pipes and hardware that trailed down the tiled walls like a half-filled Scrabble board.
His hands were gentle, yet firm on the metal. “I like it. Brass Fittings. I’m going to have to remember that name. Easily customized, yet still well made.”
Honestly, he was well made. Very subtle, very lean. Wide shoulders that would be best displayed in a straight-cut European style. Long legs that could wear white, a pant color that few men could carry off well, and then there was the derriere…
Ashley sighed.
He looked back at her. “I don’t think they’re public. Have you heard of them?”
She shook her head, totally bemused. “I don’t think I ever have.”
“I’m going to look it up.”
He was so curious, so intent, so completely content with himself, whether he was sexy, jerky, analytical, or nice. She didn’t understand him, didn’t quite understand what they were doing, and she didn’t think he did, either.
You’re having great sex. Go with it, Ash. It’s nothing more than that.
And what happens when it goes bad, or even worse, fizzles?
What happens if it doesn’t?
Can you just relax and enjoy the moment?
No. Moments don’t last, that’s why they call them moments.
Right then, her cell rang, and Ashley ran to get it.
It was Val.
“Hey, what’s up?” Ashley asked in a brisk, businessy, not-having-fun, not-getting-laid tone.
“I can’t find the school form from Brianna’s doctor. I looked everywhere, Ash. Where’d you hide it?”
A family crisis. They occurred often, usually on a daily basis. Ashley tucked the towel securely in place. “I didn’t hide it anywhere, Val. Did you look in the desk?”
“I looked there. Mom took apart the kitchen. They need it tomorrow. You won’t be back tomorrow. I need to find the form.”
“Don’t panic,” Ashley told her in a calm, soothing voice.
“That’s easy for you to say, she’s not your kid.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You’re right. I’m panicked. I’m in bad-mother mode. I don’t like bad-mother mode. It makes me surly. Tell me where the form is and I’ll get off the phone and leave you to your clothes calls.”
David padded into the room, completely naked, completely not shy, and her eyes were drawn…drawn…
Ashley swallowed, not used to overt male nudity. Jacob had been shy, never wandering around naked, never making her tongue grow too big for her mouth.
“Ash?”
She jumped and shifted her eyes away from the light. “Did you check the coffee table in the living room?”
“I did.”
“Did you move Brianna’s books out of the way? Things get hidden under there.”
“I didn’t move the books, but wait a minute, we’re moving the books now, still moving, still moving, and yes, thank you, Jesus, that is a doctor’s form. You are a lifesaver.”
“I know,” she said, feeling the bed shift under added weight. Ashley kept her eyes averted until she couldn’t help herself and the eyes turned back to the light.
David was sacked out next to her on the bed, and was studying her with his analyst’s look. Curious, assessing, trying to figure out the conversation from the one side that he was hearing.
“I should go, Val.” And she should because she wasn’t going to tell David about Val, and she wasn’t going to tell Val about David.
“Why are you trying to brush me off here?” asked Val.
; “Work to do,” she lied, not liking the lie to Val, but it made things easier. There were dishonest lies, and then there were lies for the betterment of mankind. This was definitely the latter kind.
“Brianna wants to say hello. Say hello to Aunt Ash, will you?”
“Hi, Ashley, Bashley.”
“Hi,” whispered Ashley.
“We miss you, Ash. Valerie said that when you got back you’d take me shopping.”
“I don’t think she said that.”
“She didn’t, but she thought it.”
“I don’t think she thought it.”
An impudent hand was tugging at her towel, threatening to remove it, and she clapped strong—pit-bull strong—fingers over the hand. She would not have this conversation with her niece without the sanctity of a towel. It seemed…well, way too debauched for her.
“I have to get back to work,” Ashley said, since she sensed the towel would not be around for long.
“I love you, Aunt Ash. We all do. See you tomorrow. And don’t be too scared on the flight.”
“You’re an angel,” Ashley told her, then hung up the phone.
“Who was that?” asked David.
“My niece and sister. I told you.”
“Oh, yeah, the bossy one.”
“We should get dressed and go eat,” she said, feeling intensely naked under his gaze even though she was still wearing a towel.
“Okay.” So with an easy shrug, he got dressed just like that. As if everything was no big deal. For Ashley, everything was a big deal, worthy of consideration and internal debate because her first instincts usually weren’t good.
She liked analyst-David. He was harmless, sometimes goofy and didn’t make her think about things she didn’t want to think about, and when he was like that, the David need wasn’t so overwhelming. It felt warm and comfortable, like homemade chicken soup.
It was when he was hard and moody and decisive that she got nervous. Ashley was, or had been, a firm believer in considering all your options, make a plan—i.e., buy four boutiques—stick to the plan, and with enough hard work and perseverance, the plan paid off, or you hoped it would. But sometimes it didn’t—i.e., expenses for said plan boutiques outweighed income—and you had to readjust. It was the readjustment that gave her grief because Ashley wasn’t a good readjuster. She needed consistency. She needed routine. She needed time for the internal debate—in order to plan, of course.
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