“It’s Val. She won’t like you.”
In the mirror, she could see the stubborn lock to his jaw. “And why not?” he protested. “Come on, that’s ridiculous. I’m nice. I’m polite, even chivalrous at times. I can bring you to orgasm six, seven times a night, and God knows, that should count for something.”
“It merely says I’m easy,” she told him, opening her glistening thighs to illustrate the point—and perhaps distract him as well.
David wasn’t that easily sidetracked. “Why won’t she like me, Ash?”
“She’s just quirky,” she said, pulling away, turning her back on the inviting picture in the mirror, and this time, David didn’t seem to object.
“Does she like any of the men you go out with?”
“I haven’t dated a lot. The stores have kept me busy. It was just easier that way.”
“Is this going to be a problem? If it is, I’d rather know about it.”
He talked as if everything was so simple. And if she admitted to him that it was going to be a problem—which she did—what did he expect to happen? What did he think he could do about it? Ashley couldn’t fix the problem. David couldn’t fix the problem. Only Val could fix the problem, and she was trying. Honestly, she was trying.
“Is this going to be a problem?” he asked again, and she knew it wasn’t Val he was asking about. It was more a question of whether Ashley would have a problem if Val had a problem.
“Like the issue with your brother, and how you told me about that one?” she shot back, avoiding the answer nicely.
David ran his hand over his face. “Exactly like that one. Damn, you’re going to make me talk, aren’t you? Fine. You want to know, I’ll tell you. Tonight wasn’t so bad. Christine didn’t faze me at all. At first, I wanted to hit him, not because of what he did to her, but what he did to me.”
After that, he shut his mouth tightly, as if he had fulfilled all obligations of discussing his feelings. Not by a long shot. Ashley was diving in.
She pulled a pillow from the bed, and lay on her stomach, her feet kicking up in the air. “Were you two close? Has he always been in Chicago?”
She could feel his eyes touch on her ass, but he didn’t reach for her. Obviously passion and domesticity could exist, but passion and families couldn’t. Made perfect sense to her. “They moved here after the divorce. He said they needed a fresh start. He was right.”
“He loves her,” she said softly.
He gave her a cold look. “I don’t care. That’s his business.”
“Sorry. Tell me what it was like growing up. You never talk about that.”
“Well, since all of my memories involved my brother, I didn’t want to talk about it.”
Past tense. She noticed. “You could now?”
David thought, mulled it over and pulled her back against him. His hands moved over her, not as much to seduce her, as to soothe him. She didn’t mind. She liked that she could do that. Soothe him. “I can talk now.”
And he did. He told her about the time that Chris had skipped school to go to the Yankees game, and David had lied for him. But then their mother had found out, and they were both grounded for two weeks, which David thought was tremendously unfair since he hadn’t skipped school. He told Ashley about the Christmas that their father had taken them camping up at Lake George, and Chris had told David that the shadow creeping in the darkness toward their tent was a bear—not a raccoon. All his life, he and his brother had been together, until one day they weren’t. Families shouldn’t be split apart like that; it wasn’t right. Someone always ended up hurting, and in this case, it was David.
After he finished all that talking, he looked at Ashley and smiled. “You know, I’m sensing a trend. All my life, my brother has given me the crappy end of the stick.”
She covered his hands with her own. “Except with Christine. You are so lucky to be rid of her,” she told him.
His fingers slid lower, tempting, tempting…“You’re jealous, aren’t you?”
“Am not.” One long finger slid inside her, and Ashley’s back arched high in relief.
“I don’t mind. I think it’s kind of sexy,” he said, his thumb finding her most suggestible spot, and circling there, until she forgot about planes, forgot about television, forgot about her sister, and focused on nothing but the insistent torment of his hand.
In the mirror, she saw them together, saw the heavy darkness of his eyes, saw the swollen flush of her body milking his hand, and for the first time in her life, she saw herself come.
Later, her lungs remembered to breathe, and she turned her head to kiss him. When kissing wasn’t enough, she turned in his arms and slid over him, her lips tasting the skin of his chest, sampling the taut lines of his abs, and then, with serious intent, she slid lower, her hands sizing his cock.
“What about the movie?” he asked curiously.
“Maybe later,” she told him, before her mouth closed over him. There was domesticity, and then there was stupid.
13
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, before the sun even thought about getting up, the airplanes resumed roaring overhead. David didn’t open his eyes. He simply lay there, with Ashley curled up, half on the bed, half on him. It was pretty much the best blanket ever. Airplanes weren’t so bad. They had given him this.
For a few minutes he stayed there, not daring to move, sure this was all a dream. Her leg stirred, sliding against his own, and his cock really didn’t care if it was a dream or not. Gawd, he was a goat.
Her head was pillowed on his chest, and he pushed back the hair from her face. He had thought she was the weak one, vulnerable, letting everyone walk over her. David was wrong about that. Yesterday, she’d gotten him through the worst dinner in his life. He shouldn’t wake her, he should let her sleep, but this was his last day. He never told her how hard it was to leave. He didn’t even tell her that he was thinking about moving to Chicago. It wasn’t a bad town. They had banks, they had the Chicago Board of Trade. No, it wasn’t New York, but Chicago had one very important thing that New York didn’t. Ashley Larsen. The woman he loved.
He couldn’t help but sigh.
The outside lights filtered in through the sheers, casting the room in a dim glow, and Ashley lifted up on one elbow, sleepy eyes met his own.
“Good morning,” she said. “Welcome to O’Hare, the airport that never sleeps.”
“Hmm,” he answered, kissing her once, pulling her fully on top of him, then burying his face against her hair. He liked the soft smell of it, one more thing New York didn’t have. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to watch the movie.”
“No, I think my movies will always lose out to your sex. I can read the writing on the wall.”
He lifted his head to stare at her. “My sex?”
“Fine. Our sex.”
“I like that. Our sex.” His head fell back again, and he stroked her arm. The condoms were on the nightstand within reach. If he just stretched…
“You want to go see my stores?”
He lifted his head, squinted. “Now?”
“No, this morning. We meet with Horatio at two. We have lots of time.”
David looked at the box of condoms, examined the valley between her bare breasts. Come on, this was important to her. This was her dream, and all he could think about was sex? Hours and hours of sex? That was his dream. But no, this wasn’t about David, this was about Ashley.
“Sure,” he told her, even managing to smile.
“We don’t have to,” she said, obviously sensing his hesitation, or perhaps the morning wood that was happily finding its home between her thighs.
“No. I want to,” he insisted, now feeling extreme guilt. But she was naked. And her nipples were starting to go dark and pouty, and her eyes were laughing at him.
He watched as she reached for a condom. “We could do both.”
“Both?” he asked innocently.
She took the packet in her teeth and ripped. His eyes narrowed. She
did that on purpose.
“It won’t take long,” she answered, busy fingers at work.
“It might,” he shot back.
“I’m talking about the stores,” she said, and he felt less guilt mainly because she was impaling herself on him and thus, guilt was impossible.
“I want to see them. I really do. I’m here. We should—” she lowered herself in one sharp move “—see them.”
David couldn’t speak if he tried.
Her arms slid up his chest, curled around his neck, and oh, damn, he was staring down the valley of her breasts once again.
“Later,” she said, kissing him, riding him, pleasing him.
THEY ENDED UP sleeping through the morning runway traffic. David knew the right thing to do was wake her up, then they could get dressed and he’d see Ashley’s Closet in person. His hands curled over her shoulder and shook her awake. Sleepy eyes looked at him.
He was definitely moving to Chicago.
“We should go.”
“Okay,” she murmured, and then promptly fell back against his chest.
He propped her up a bit. “I want to see your stores, Ashley. It’s important.”
“We can sleep.”
“We can sleep tonight. You should get up.” If she didn’t get up now, they weren’t leaving, and then he would not be the supportive man he wanted her to see. Last night, he wasn’t watching her movies, now they weren’t visiting her stores.
“Hmm…”
David flew out of bed before he could change his mind. “I’m going to take a shower,” he announced, eyeing the silky skin of her back, the way her ass bumped high in her sleep. That bump was so cute, so curvy, so intensely…inviting. He could just fit into that bump. “I’m going to take a cold shower.”
She rolled over, and David froze. The ass was safely stowed away, but now there were breasts. A shadowy triangle of hair beckoned between her thighs. Perfect thighs. He could sense his willpower disappearing. “You’re not being fair to me. You know, first the movie, now this. I’m trying to be good. I’m trying to show you I’m not a horndog. You’re killing the image, Ashley.”
She threw a pillow at his head.
“I’m taking my shower,” he stated for the record, turning his eyes away from the bed.
The box on the nightstand torpedoed soon after, condoms flying out like rain.
Obviously Ashley Larsen wasn’t a morning person.
David turned on the shower and smiled.
God, he loved her.
THE SOUND OF the shower killed her libido, and Ashley sighed. Oh, fine. She flung her legs over the side of the bed and raked her hand through her tangled hair. When she moved to stand, her legs wobbled—only for a second. But she and David didn’t have long. One more day.
Not quite in her happy place, she trudged to the bathroom, ready to hit the bracing spray, and maybe seduce David in the process. Halfway to the door, the phone rang.
It was Val.
“I have a problem.”
Ashley sank back on the bed, and clutched a pillow to her chest. “What sort of problem?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, Val. Just tell me what’s wrong.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You do know. Tell me.”
There was a long silence and Ashley waited. “I wrote some hot checks. I thought I had more money in my account, and Brianna needed some new clothes for school, and I knew payday was coming up.”
“How much?” she asked.
“About seven hundred dollars.”
“You spent seven hundred dollars on clothes for a little girl?” Ashley swallowed. For a sober Val, that was a lot of money.
“I knew you’d be mad,” Val whispered, and Ashley could hear the panic in her voice.
“I’m not mad.”
“You’re mad, Ash.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Where are you? I called the stores. You lied to me. Why are you lying to me?”
“We don’t need to worry about this now. One thing at a time, right? Where’s Brianna?”
Ashley looked up, found David leaning against the wall, hair wet, a towel wrapped around his hips. His eyes were waiting to see what she would do. The hard bent in his jaw said he thought she would cave. A test. Ashley hated tests.
“She’s at school. Mom’s at work. I didn’t tell her. She’ll worry. You can help me, right?”
“I can’t help you now, Valerie.” Coolly she met his eyes. There. See? She could do it.
“You don’t understand, Ash. They called and wanted me to come down. They told me it was a special sale. It was a trap. So here I am at the mall, and they aren’t happy with me. They’re going to call the cops.”
Cops? Oh, God. “They don’t call the cops for bad checks.”
“They do if there’s more than one bad check.”
There was no way that Val could get out of this on her own. Ashley looked at David. No, Val could get out of this on her own. “Valerie, I’m not going to do this.” Her voice was firm, unwavering, as steady as the hard line of his jaw.
“Please.”
“No,” she answered, her voice not quite so steady.
“You can’t leave me hanging like this.” Now Val was doing the angry-pleading thing, and Ashley had never responded well to that. She didn’t like it when people were mad at her, she didn’t like it when she felt guilt. Feeling both at the same time was guaranteed to kick her butt.
“I have some business to take care of,” she stated, not letting her butt get kicked.
“You’re with somebody, aren’t you? You’re out fucking some guy, and you don’t give a damn about me. I need you.”
Slowly Ashley’s gaze drifted away from David. “I can’t do this right now.”
At that, Val hung up.
“Problem?” That was David. Master of the obvious.
“No. No problem,” she replied.
Five seconds later, the phone rang again. David looked at the phone, looked at Ashley. Ashley waited, but then eventually jabbed the talk button with a lot of extra force. She was going to tick somebody off here. If it wasn’t Val, it’d be David. But David was the tough one. Val, not so much.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry, Ashley. I don’t mean to yell at you. I don’t know what to do. I don’t have seven hundred dollars.”
She couldn’t look at him. Not now. When she looked at him, she couldn’t focus, couldn’t concentrate, and she needed to keep her wits about her. “You get paid on Monday?”
“Yes. I just need a little money until then. And you might need to talk to these people.”
“Where are you at?” Ashley asked, defeat in her voice.
“Nordstrom.”
Nordstrom. Yes, when it came to her daughter, Val spared no expense. “I’ll be there in about an hour.”
“Could you get here any sooner than that? You know I don’t handle this stuff well.”
“It’ll be an hour. I need to get my car.”
“Thanks, Ash. I’d be dead without you.”
When she hung up, she tried to smile at David.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Anger would be so much better than sympathy. If he was angry, she could be mad at him for being angry. With sympathy, there wasn’t a lot she could do except analyze her own shortcomings, and wonder if she was doing the right thing. The only problem seemed to be that there never was a right or a wrong thing. There was only two wrongs. Ashley sighed. “I’ll be fine.”
“You’re going to go?”
“Yeah.” It wasn’t the answer he wanted, and she knew it.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
She stared balefully. “I don’t think it’d be smart.”
“No, probably not. What about Horatio?”
“Who?”
“The designer guy.”
“Damn.”
“Want me to reschedule for you? Might as well do something useful.”
“No. I can make it there by two. Don’t worry about it.” She met his eyes, wished she could read his mind. “Are you mad at me?”
“No. I could never get mad at you. Sometimes I get mad for you, but that’s a different thing.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. You should tell your sister about us. She might actually think twice about calling.”
“I will. It’s just not the right time.”
“There won’t be a right time, will there?”
There never is, Ash. Never will be.
I don’t need to hear this, Val.
That’s you, not me. All you, sis.
“I have to go,” she told David, and then quietly, efficiently, she got dressed. She’d had enough of that voice in her head. She’d hear the live version later, and that wouldn’t be as easy to shut out.
DAVID WAITED FOR Ashley until one-fifty, by which time he decided that she wasn’t going to show up for her meeting with the designer. Four times he had called, not wanting to interrupt, not wanting to yell, but merely to know if he should reschedule the damn meeting.
Four times she didn’t answer.
Finally, realizing that Ashley wouldn’t be there, he made a command decision to see Horatio himself, betting on a large position of negative consequences with absolutely no capital to back it up. In the biz this was appropriately named “naked short.”
Maybe she’d be mad, maybe she’d be happy, but at this point, somebody needed to worry about her livelihood, and apparently it wasn’t her.
Hell.
It wasn’t that he was angry at her. He wanted to help her, make her life easier, fix things. When he got frustrated, anger seemed to be the emotion du jour, and in this case there was no one to receive that anger, except for one poor client from the vinyl flooring company, and honestly, if it had been some other company, he wouldn’t have lashed out, but today, he didn’t have the patience for anything.
He took a cab to Wicker Park, finding the shop on a well-trod street of one-named shops and understated bars. There was money here. It was there in the window displays and the polished signage. But the neighborhood was not built on flashy cosmopolitan dollars. This was “I’m too cool to be rich” money.
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