by Lucy Score
“Promise me you’ll stay, Ashley,” he whispered, darkly as he probed her center.
“I promise!” As soon as she gave him the words he thrust into her. Ashley gasped at the invasion and bent her knees to take more.
His thrusts were swift and hard, on the borderline of losing control. The rocky ground bit into her back, but Ashley didn’t care. He filled her completely, and that was what she craved.
Jason suddenly released her hands and lifted her from the rock. “I don’t want to hurt you.” He sat up and lifted her to straddle him. “Ride.” He positioned himself under her so all she had to do was sink down on him. Inch by glorious inch until he was completely sheathed in her.
He recaptured her breast with his mouth and she rode until they came together in a swift explosion of need. It was her name that he half-shouted to the trees.
Always her name.
###
“I think I’ll take a long, hot bath in that incredible tub of yours,” Ashley decided when they returned to the house. “I’ve got pine needles and dirt in places they don’t belong.”
“This is the first time that tub will have been used.” He put the backpack down on the kitchen island.
“You’re not the ‘soak all your troubles away’ kind of guy?” she teased.
He laughed and guided her up the stairs, hands on her hips. “I’m more of a ‘shower and solve the troubles’ kind of guy.”
“No one has used the tub? How does anyone resist that temptation?”
“I’ve never brought anyone besides family here.”
She believed him. For God knows what reason, she was the only woman he had ever brought here. She bit her lip to keep the smile from splitting her face. So this is what it felt like to be special. To be treasured.
Jason smacked her on the butt playfully. “Come on, let’s get your bath ready.”
He led her into the bathroom and turned on the tub’s faucet. “Keep an eye on the temperature.”
He handed her the robe. “OK, beautiful, take it all off. I’ll do some laundry while you relax.”
Ashley complied, tugging her shirt over her head. She had no idea where her shredded bra had gotten to. It was probably back on the trail somewhere. She shed her shorts too and stood naked in front of him.
His gaze warmed her skin.
Jason stepped forward to cup her breast, hefting it in his palm. “You are too perfect.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead and slid his thumb over her nipple. It went taut. “God, the way you respond to me.”
He stepped back abruptly. “You’d better get in the tub now before I make love to you again. Soon you’ll be too sore to walk.”
Ashley grinned as he gathered up her clothes and hurried out of the room. She loved that her body had this effect on him. It felt ... powerful.
Pulling her hair up in a knot, she returned to the tub and slid beneath the water’s surface. The steamy heat enveloped her and teased a sigh out of her.
Sunlight filtered through the tall windows warming her face and arms. She cracked an eyelid long enough to appreciate the greens and blues beyond the window.
Perfection.
Minutes later, the snap of a camera brought her back. She spotted Jason standing inside the doorway, a tray at his feet and cell phone in hand.
“Hey!”
“Sorry to disturb you, but I had to commemorate the tub’s maiden voyage. You looked so peaceful.” He tucked the phone away in a pocket and picked up the tray.
“I thought your bath could use some wine.” He settled the tray across the tub lip.
“Now this is service,” Ashley teased, eyeing the wine and small plate of cookies.
“It’s just an excuse to see you naked again.”
“Insatiable.”
“I could say the same about you.” His hand dipped into the water to tease the pink tip of her breast.
Ashley’s head dropped back against the tub and she fought a moan. “I can’t help it. Every time you touch me I want more.”
“Close your eyes.”
Skeptical, she raised an eyebrow, but did as she was told.
“Just relax. Let me touch you.”
Ashley let his hand stroke over her breasts, gently tugging and kneading, before slipping lower beneath the water between her thighs.
She opened for him, letting her knees fall to the sides. He stroked gently at first, circling her sensitive center with the pads of his fingers.
Ashley let her head lull back. Eyes closed, she let herself drift on the sensations.
She felt his other hand enter the water to cup her breast and sighed. It was pleasure that she floated on. Pleasure given by his gentle hands.
Ashley felt the subtle tensing between her legs and knew he was going to take her over the edge.
“You’re such a gift to me, Ashley. Let me give you this.”
This time she didn’t stifle her moan. She lifted her hips to press against his hand. “That’s right, beautiful,” he whispered. She felt his fingers probing and she opened, accepting them. They slid inside her as he tugged harder on her nipple.
“Oh, Jason,” she sighed.
“Let it happen, Ashley. Let me take you.” His fingers withdrew and then thrust into her again. He drove her higher until she closed on his fingers and came in slow, sweet waves. Her hands fisting in the water.
###
They spent the evening relaxing outside. Dinner was hot dogs and s’mores cooked over the fire in the outdoor fireplace.
Ashley licked melted chocolate from her thumb. “Who knew roughing it could be so delicious?”
Jason leaned over to pop her index finger in his mouth. “Mmm, I agree.”
“Hey! Get your own chocolate smeared fingers!” She slapped at him playfully.
They settled back and watched the fire. Ashley took a sip of her beer. “You know it strikes me as strange that we can be this intimate and yet I hardly know you.”
“I’m pretty sure you now know every inch of my body.”
Every perfect, chiseled inch. “Isn’t there more to you than just a hot body?”
“Isn’t that enough?” he teased.
Ashley rolled her eyes. “OK, Mr. Deflection. How hard do you have to work at this whole mysterious thing? Are there times when you really want to open up and tell someone about your day? Or are you just naturally a vault?”
He took a long pull from his beer. “No one is naturally a vault. It’s just not easy for me to open up.”
“Were you born that way, or did some girl break your heart?” Ashley asked.
“Maybe a little bit of that. Do you trust me?”
“What does trust have to do with talking about yourself?”
“Now who’s deflecting?” Jason smirked.
“Smart ass.”
“I think there are layers of trust. There’s the casual trust where you tell someone about your day and you trust them to care enough to listen. Then there are deeper layers where some people think they can trust someone not to hurt them.”
“And you think that’s bullshit?”
“Don’t you?”
Ashley took another swallow. “Do you think all people are untrustworthy?”
“Yes. It’s just to what degree? Everyone becomes untrustworthy at some point. Whether they lie or cheat or steal or backstab. It’s just better not to let yourself be vulnerable like that.”
“Well aren’t you just a little ray of sunshine?”
“I prefer to think of myself as a realist. I’m surprised that you, of all people don’t agree.”
“I don’t think that all people are going to turn out to be like Steven. At least, God, I hope they aren’t. That would be an incredibly narcissistic world.”
“You haven’t answered my question yet. Do you trust me?”
“I don’t know you well enough yet to decide.”
“Touché.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ashley woke Sunday morning to a fully-dressed Jason del
ivering a cup of coffee.
“It’s early,” she groaned. “Why are you wearing clothes?”
He sat on the edge of the bed. “I have some bad news. I’m hoping the coffee will help make up for it.”
“We have have to go home, don’t we?”
“My grandfather set a meeting with the investigators today.”
“So it’s almost over?”
He set the coffee on the nightstand and stroked a hand through her hair. “Almost.”
Ashley sat up and reached for the mug. “OK. I can be ready to go in twenty.”
“I’ll make it up to you, Ashley. I promise.”
The ride home was quiet, with both of them lost in their own thoughts. Jason’s phone rang several times, but he let it go to voicemail.
Ashley saw a text from Georgie, from Saturday asking her how her trip to her parents’ was.
Trip to parents canceled. Spent weekend in the woods for an orgasm marathon with my bearded lov-ah. Call you later!
Georgie replied seconds later.
Squeal!!
Ashley grinned. It would be fun filling Georgie in on the details of the weekend. It made her think of her conversation with Jason about trust.
She shared things with Georgie because she knew her friend cared about her. But sometimes that same reason caused her to keep things from people. She hadn’t shared any of her earlier relationship troubles with Steven with anyone. And maybe that was partly because she didn’t want her friends or her parents worrying about her and partly because she didn’t want them judging her for staying ... or now, leaving.
She thought about how her parents would react when she told them about why she and Steven were no longer together.
Maybe sometimes withholding was kinder when it was for protection.
###
It was just after 9 in the morning when they pulled into Jason’s driveway. One of the garage doors raised soundlessly, and Jason pulled the Jeep inside.
“We’re back.”
“Back to reality,” Ashley echoed flatly.
He turned to her in his seat. “Ashley, no matter what happens this week, I want you to remember this weekend.”
“Believe me, Jason, it’s burned into my brain. I’ll probably still be fantasizing about this weekend when I’m 90.”
He squeezed her thigh. “Good girl. I’m counting on that. Are you going home?”
“I guess so,” Ashley sighed. “I should catch up on a few mountains of laundry and dishes that I let slide while I was playing spy games.”
“Are you going to stay there when this is all over?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it yet, but probably not. I can’t afford the place on my own and I certainly don’t have any sentimental feelings about it.”
Jason nodded. “Text me when you get home, OK?”
“As long as you text me after your meeting.”
“Deal.” He leaned forward. “Now give me a kiss that I’ll remember.”
###
Ashley arrived home a little disheveled, but still smiling. The kiss had gone a bit farther than she had planned. She felt like a teenager sneaking home after making out with her boyfriend.
A teenager sneaking home to find a pair of stilettos in a jumble with a man’s belt and tie just inside the door.
She quietly set her bag down. A quick survey of the kitchen revealed two wine glasses — the good crystal ones that Steven had insisted on — and a woman’s Coach clutch tossed carelessly on the breakfast bar.
Victoria.
Ashley’s heart started to pound as adrenaline coursed through her system. It would end today. All she had to do was walk into that bedroom.
Taking slow, measured breaths, she sat down on a barstool. She wanted to plan it out, do it right.
But there were just some things that required you go with the flow.
She picked up one of the nude heels by the door and dropped it into the trashcan before grabbing a bottle of ketchup from the refrigerator.
She opened Victoria’s clutch and squeezed the contents of the bottle into it. Closing the metal clasp, she set it neatly back in its place.
The walk down the hallway to the bedroom door seemed to last forever. Her heart thudded in her ears as she reached for the handle.
Don’t back down, Ashley. Don’t back down. You can do this. She took a deep breath and shoved the door open hard enough that it bounced off the wall. Two heads popped up from the rumpled bed.
“Get. Out.”
Her voice must have carried a pretty high threat level because Steven and Victoria both bolted naked from the bed.
Ashley stepped into the room and grabbed the slinky cocktail dress that was in a heap on the floor. She hurled it at the retreating blonde head.
“Get out of my house!”
“Whoa, Ash! Calm down!”
Steven was busy trying to yank on a pair of pants backwards.
“Calm down? I come home and find you in my bed with some skank from your office and you want me to calm down?”
“Are you going to let her talk about me that way?” Victoria shrieked, storming back into the bedroom, her dress partially on.
“What part of ‘get out’ don’t you understand?” Ashley yelled. She grabbed the framed engagement picture off of the dresser and hurled it at the wall behind Victoria.
“Steven!” Victoria screamed.
Steven, still fighting with his pants, tripped and fell in the doorway. Victoria stormed past him with Ashley hot on her heels.
“Babe, I can explain!” He stumbled to his feet, following them down the hallway.
Ashley found Victoria frantically gathering her things in the kitchen.
“If you aren’t out of here in 10 seconds I’m calling the cops.”
“You have no grounds. I’m visiting my boyfriend in his home.”
“Why don’t you take your boyfriend to your home and get out of mine?”
“Listen, Ash, let’s talk this out.” Barefoot, with suit pants on backwards, Steven was pulling a t-shirt over his head.
She hurled one of the wine glasses at him.
“She’s a crazy bitch,” Victoria shrieked, and ran for the door.
“What are you waiting for?” Ashley threw his car keys at him and hit him squarely in the forehead. “Get out.”
The sudden quiet in the loft was overwhelming. Hands on hips, Ashley surveyed the mess. It was no longer hers to clean up.
Her phone signaled a text, but she ignored it. She had a lot to do.
It took her the better part of three hours to meticulously pack her things. She called a moving and storage company for same day pick up and gave them Steven’s credit card when they named the hefty fee.
She didn’t know where she was going to go. But she was done here.
Ashley briefly thought about using Steven’s credit card to put herself up in Georgie’s hotel, but dismissed the idea. She didn’t want any more ties to him. Besides, he probably couldn’t afford it anyway.
She took a final tour of the apartment, making sure she wasn’t leaving anything important behind. It was amazing to realize how much wasn’t important. She had left nearly everything, taking only what was officially hers, which amounted to three suitcases, fifteen banker boxes, and a few odd pieces of furniture.
Back in the kitchen, she calmly put her engagement ring in a sandwich bag and dropped it in her purse. It would be her down payment on a new apartment.
“We good to go here?” One of the movers loaded up the last of the boxes on a dolly.
“Yep. Good to go.” Ashley allowed herself a small sigh as she watched her life roll out the door.
But there was no time for regrets. There was only time for forward progress.
Ashley wrestled her bags into the elevator and hit the garage button. She had no idea where she was going to go. Maybe a hotel close to work for a few days? She would start looking for a new place in the morning. Crap, what if she had to get a roommate?
&
nbsp; The elevator doors whirred open on a neon-spandex-clad Mrs. Menifield.
“Ashley, my dear! How are ...” her voice trailed off when she noticed the suitcases. “Oh, dear. I don’t suppose you’re going on a trip?”
“No, unfortunately, Mrs. Menifield. I’m moving out.” Ashley maneuvered the first suitcase out into the garage and held the doors open for her neighbor.
“Oh I had hoped it would be your other half moving out when you broke up,” Mrs. Menifield sighed.
Ashley reached for the second bag. “I take it you’re not surprised?”
Mrs. Menifield shook her brassy red head. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you get good at identifying assholes. And that fiancé of yours is a big one.”
“Ex-fiancé now,” Ashley said, tugging the next suitcase through the doors. “And I wish I would have had your radar.”
“You’re a smart girl. You won’t let it happen again.” She wrapped a freckled hand around the handle of the last bag. “I wish you didn’t have to go. Where are you moving?”
Ashley took the suitcase from her. “I’m not sure. I think I’m going to find a hotel for a few days before I start looking for a place to live.”
“Why don’t you stay with me?” Her neighbor’s eyes lit up behind her tinted bifocals. “I’ve got a spare bedroom. We’d be just like Laverne and Shirley!”
“Thank you, Mrs. Menifield but I couldn’t impose —”
“Nonsense! It’s perfect, and it will annoy that asshole if you stay in the building. I won’t take no for an answer.” She wrestled the suitcase away from Ashley and pulled it back into the elevator with surprising strength. “Now come on, we’ll start happy hour early!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
And a happy hour it was. With her suitcases safely tucked away in Mrs. Menifield’s spare room, Ashley learned that every Sunday afternoon Mrs. Menifield hosted a well-attended happy hour.
She took a healthy sip of her third “house special.” “How did I not know about this?” she asked the couple who lived in 3E.
Michael and Mitchell ran an architecture firm and were in the process of adopting twins from Vietnam.