Kiss My Ash

by Leddy Harper

  And by the time I got back Sunday, he’d already left for the week. That gave us six days before Kristy’s custody agreement reverted to normal—meaning Emma would be home. After that, school started, which translated into even less time that Kristy and I had to spend together.

  Nevertheless, I’d figure out how to make it work.

  Now that I’d gotten a taste of her—both physically and figuratively—I couldn’t allow her fears or excuses to get in the way. She tried, I’d give her that, though I refused to give her ridiculous obsession a second thought.

  The night before the first day of school, she sent me a message—technically, it was more like a novel, though it came through as a text—expressing her concerns. Her biggest worry was that I’d tell someone in class about us. Apparently, she didn’t know me very well if she thought I was that close to anyone, let alone someone my own age. That spawned quite a bit of rambling that, in the midst of it all, came down to Emma finding out.

  I simply responded with: Think of how good it felt earlier today when I used my tongue to get you off, and then touch yourself while imagining my face between your legs. After you come with my name on your lips, go to sleep. You’re being paranoid. See you tomorrow, babe.

  Luckily, her anxiety over getting caught didn’t stop her from seeing me each night. Whether she met me on the side of the house or down the street, I managed to sneak in a few minutes, if only to kiss her before bed. It wasn’t much, but at least it held me over until the next time.

  By Friday, I was so desperate to have more than ten minutes with Kristy, I practically kidnapped her the second Emma backed out of the driveway—it was her weekend with her other family. My dad wouldn’t be home until late Sunday night, which meant at least two days without interruptions, and I planned to spend every second buried inside the woman I couldn’t get enough of.

  “Ash, I’m not taking it off,” Kristy hissed as if someone might overhear.

  “It’s eleven o’clock at night. The chances of anyone showing up to the pool this late—in this neighborhood—are slim to none. But in the event the odds are against us, we’ll have plenty of warning ahead of time.”

  “Plenty of warning?” She hadn’t meant that as a joke, yet it didn’t stop me from laughing. Either way, she didn’t seem to be very happy about it. “I’m serious. Who’s going to announce their arrival before coming in? Other than a cop. And in that case…hell no I’m not taking off my bathing suit.”

  “You’re in the water, and there aren’t any lights on. I can barely see you, and I’m a foot away. You act like someone walking their dog across the street will be able to see through the bushes and gate and know you’re naked. It’s not going to happen, so you might as well stop fighting me on this and just do it.”

  “If someone hears us and comes over to check it out, there’s no way I’ll be able to put my swimsuit back on in the water. Just my luck, it’ll be inside out and backward. Nothing is more obvious than getting out with my top twisted and bottoms on wrong. No one with half a brain will believe I left my house that way.”

  I tried not to laugh, though I couldn’t help it. Her absurdity knew no bounds. “Think about it…we’re in a pool. What will they hear? Someone swimming? If so, I doubt anyone will come over to see what’s going on. Last I checked, people swam in pools, so there’d be no reason to investigate a few splashes.”

  “That would be amazing logic…if it were in the middle of the day. Most people are asleep at almost midnight, not taking laps in a community pool without any lights on.”

  “You’re absolutely right, Kristy. Most people are asleep at this time…which means no one’s awake to even hear you, let alone throw on clothes, walk all the way over here, just to see what we’re doing. Hurry up; you’re wasting precious time arguing instead of stripping.”

  “You talk a big game for someone who’s still dressed.”

  I moved to stand in front of her and rested my hands on her hips. “I used to come here all the time at night. Back when my dad first started traveling again and I was left home alone, this was the only place I could go. It got me out of the house long enough to keep the silence from getting to me. Trust me…you’re okay. I wouldn’t have you do this if there were anything to worry about.”

  “Why am I the only one getting naked? If you’re so confident that we won’t get caught, why is your suit still on?”

  “Because I’m not the one who said I’ve always wanted to go skinny dipping.”

  “Well, being the only one doing it isn’t much fun.”

  “Wow, babe…what happened to you?”

  After a moment, she asked, “What do you mean?”

  “You got old.”

  “I did what?”

  “You heard me—got old.”

  “Don’t be an Ash-hole. In case you don’t remember…I am old.”

  Shaking my head, I bit back a grin she couldn’t see, though I felt confident she could hear the hilarity drifting past my lips. “Did you just call me an Ash-hole? On purpose? Or are your dentures falling out, giving you a minor slur.”

  “Keep it up, and you’ll leave me no choice but to open a can of whoop-Ash on you.”

  It took everything in me to hold back the humor that filled my entire body before it bellowed out into the night—which would most certainly wake a few people. “You’re on a roll. What else you got?”

  “The list is rather extensive; it could take all night. Maybe if you weren’t such a jack-Ash, I’d tell you. But alas, you are, so it looks like you can kiss my Ash.”

  “See?” I lowered my head and allowed my hushed laughter to swarm us, creating a cocoon meant for two. “You’re not old. You might think you are, but if that were the case, you wouldn’t have been able to come up with creative ways to spin my name into a curse word.”

  “Well, they say you are the company you keep.”

  “So it’s my fault you’ve been sneaking around, making out with your neighbor behind bushes at night like a teenager without a care in the world?”

  “Something like that…” She couldn’t even say that with a straight face, which was evident by the amusement in her tone. “Regardless, you’re not allowed to say I’m old. I don’t give a rat’s Ash how good you are in bed, do it again and we’re finished. You hear me?”

  “Yeah, Kris…” Eliminating the humor between us, I lowered my lips to her ear. “Loud and clear. And if you don’t take this bathing suit off now, I’ll make you scream so loud the entire neighborhood will hear you as well.”

  I slowly pulled the strings on the sides of her bikini until both knots came untied. Either she didn’t realize it or didn’t care, because she didn’t stop me—only released a slight gasp that went straight to my cock.

  I had to step away before this turned into something more than I had planned. “Now, take off your top.”

  She glanced down—though I couldn’t see at what—and began fidgeting with something beneath the water. I wasn’t positive, but it appeared she was in the middle of retying the strings at her sides.

  “Oh, come on. I’m not asking you to steal a car or rob a panhandler. You’re too stuck in your own head. If you worried less about all the ridiculous things that could go wrong and just do what it is you truly want, you might have fun. I promise.”

  Without a word, she bent forward at the waist, and when she stood upright again, she had the wet material in her hand. After placing it on the edge of the pool, she released the knot at the middle of her back. Once she had the top over her head, she added it to the other piece on the concrete deck and turned to face me.

  What I wouldn’t give to see her right now.

  “There. Are you happy?” The smile in her voice made the corners of my mouth curl.

  “I’d be happier if you moved away from the side and enjoyed yourself a little.”

  “It feels silly being the only one naked, Ash.”

  As much as I wanted to join her in this experience, I’d told myself prior to leavi
ng the house that this was her moment. “If I take off mine, I’ll end up fucking you on the stairs. And as much as I would love to do that, I’m trying to eliminate reasons for you to freak out.”

  “I’m already naked in a public swimming pool where anyone and their brother can walk up and see—and who knows, join in if they’re feeling frisky. Why not add another misdemeanor to my rap sheet? After all, I’m supposed to be pretending I’m young and carefree, right?”

  “Not that carefree.” I rolled my eyes and took a few more steps away. “To get the full effect of the water along the parts of you that are normally covered, you have to move around. The sooner you cross this off your bucket list, the faster we can get back to your place and cross off another one.”

  She froze in place, so still it was like she’d turned into an ice sculpture. But then she asked, “Which one might that be?”

  The devious grin that consumed my lips wasn’t meant for her, considering she probably couldn’t even see. It was for the things I planned to do to her once I had her in bed. “Swim, and you’ll find out.”

  * * *

  “I guess it’s a good thing Black Friday is in a couple of days.” Kristy huffed as she leaned against the counter in her kitchen. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to find a fridge I can afford. Although, I’m not sure how that’ll help me now.”

  Sitting on the floor, I finished putting the last piece of cold food into the ice chest and glanced up. The defeat on her face bothered me, but only because there wasn’t much I could do to make it go away. It was the day before Thanksgiving, and Kristy had come home from work to a broken refrigerator full of food.

  “No need to jump the gun, babe. I don’t know a lot about appliances, but there’s still a chance it’s something simple that I can fix without having to replace it. For now, we have the cold stuff in the cooler, and if we need to, we can store it in the fridge in my garage.”

  “I really appreciate this, Ash.” Her sad attempt at a smile did little to comfort me. “But I doubt you’ll have room. I mean, right now, it’s just a bunch of ingredients. Once I prepare it all for tomorrow, there will be casseroles and dishes that’ll take up too much space. And if I wait until tomorrow to do it all, I’ll have to get up super early to get started since I can only cook one or two things at a time.”

  I scooted closer until I sat on my knees in front of her. If there was one thing I could do, it was take her mind off her troubles. I’d spent three months doing just that, and so far, I hadn’t failed yet.

  She’d taken off her heels after coming home from work, though she hadn’t changed her clothes. And seeing her stand barefoot in front of me with just enough of her thighs exposed beneath her tight, black skirt to make my dick twitch, I couldn’t resist the temptation to make her forget about her broken appliance or whatever casseroles she had to prepare for tomorrow.

  While sliding my hands up her legs, I met her stare. Her chameleon-like eyes brightened, turning more green than brown. They were one of my favorite things about her—capable of telling me when she was happy, when she was uncomfortable, and most importantly, when she was turned on. Like right now.

  Pushing the material up her thighs until they bunched at her hips, I studied the effect I had on her. At first, her breathing hitched, then she held it while sucking her bottom lip between her teeth. I quickly added that to the list of things I loved the most. Between her eye color, the pink hue in her cheeks, and now this…I wanted to spend every day watching all three in a continuous loop of changing expressions until I had memorized every nuance of her reactions.

  But once her breathing increased, I couldn’t delay my need to taste her any longer. She didn’t fight me when I grabbed her behind the knee and guided it over my shoulder. Nor did she protest when I traced the inside of her leg with my tongue. And when I slipped my finger beneath her panties to pull them aside, she gave her full approval with a throaty moan.

  However, I had barely tasted her desire before the front door opened, breaking us apart so fast I got kneed in the face. Kristy righted her skirt while I crawled toward the ice chest. We’d managed to escape the position we were in by the time Emma came into the room, even though that didn’t seem to do much to hinder her suspicion.

  She set her bag on the island and glanced between the two of us. “What’s going on?”

  “Fridge broke. Ash came by to see if he could fix it.”

  “Why is your face flushed, Mom?”

  Kristy really needed to learn to control her nerves better. She talked with her hands when she was uneasy, and if Emma recognized her tell, the cat would be out of the bag long before she was ready.

  “We just finished packing all the food in here.” I tapped on the top of the large ice chest I had brought over, saving Kristy the need to lie. “Care to help? We have to pull it away from the wall so I can check the coils on the back, and if that’s not it, then we’ll need to move all this over to my garage. An extra set of hands would be appreciated.”

  “Yeah…” Dragging out that one word, she slowly nodded and regarded me with a squinted stare. “While that sounds like loads of fun, I’m gonna pass. Tori and I are about to hit up the early deals at the mall. And it seems like you’ve got it all under control—wouldn’t want to get in your way.”

  As happy as I was that Emma didn’t plan to stick around, I wasn’t excited for the lecture that would inevitably follow once she left. I could practically hear it now, and Kristy hadn’t even glanced at me. That was enough to deflate my erection and give me a chance to stand up without giving myself away.

  Kristy helped me slide the fridge away from the wall while Emma changed in her room. And before I could finish checking out the backside to see if it was anything I could fix, she’d said goodbye to her mom and left the house. Then, after a few more minutes, Kristy spoke up. Honestly, I was surprised it had taken that long, but I was in no hurry to be reminded of her reservations.

  “We have to start being more careful, Ash.”

  It didn’t surprise me to find her across the room, as if being too close would make her clothes fall off. Truth be told, that was entirely possible, though not while I was in the middle of cleaning the coils behind her fridge. That would have to wait until I at least washed my hands.

  “She didn’t see anything.” It was a lame attempt at a rebuttal, and we both knew it.

  “What would’ve happened—”

  “I know.” I stepped to the side so I could see her without having to speak with a giant appliance in the way. “I get it, okay? I fucked up and didn’t think about her coming home. I guess I thought that since we both left school at the same time, her not being here meant she wasn’t coming.”

  Her shoulders dropped, though her eyes never left mine. And with an elongated sigh, she dragged her feet toward me. It didn’t happen often, but when she came to me—and not the other way around—it gave me a burst of hope that she would eventually accept the idea of us being more than what we were.

  “It’s not all your fault. Don’t say you fucked up like I wasn’t just as much to blame for allowing it to happen. She’d told me she was going to the mall with Tori, so I didn’t expect her to come home any more than you did. We just need to be more careful, that’s all I was trying to say.”

  I grabbed her hand and pulled her the rest of the way to me. And when I lowered my mouth to hers, she didn’t hesitate to give me what I wanted. Her lips parted, though our kiss remained calm. As much as I enjoyed the passion-filled, impatient, needy kisses we shared any chance we could, they didn’t compare to these—the slow, intense kind that told me she was all-in. They convinced me that her feelings went beyond the physical, regardless of how hard she fought against it.

  After a moment, I pulled away to return to her fridge. There was a good chance that if I hadn’t put an end to it, I’d have her on the counter, legs spread, making her scream until Emma returned. If that happened, all her food might spoil, and I’d be the only one with something to eat in this hou
se. “What do you suggest we do to be more careful?”

  So far, we’d been good. We’d managed to make it three months without anyone catching us. Then again, it wasn’t like we went many places to be seen. On the weekends Emma and my dad were gone, we kept ourselves holed up in her room. However, those weren’t always convenient. Between their two schedules, we were lucky to have one weekend a month. Which meant we had to get creative in the meantime.

  I’d snuck in after Emma had gone to bed a few times, and there were other nights she’d come to me. Although, she wasn’t a fan of having sex in my room—she said it reminded her of my age, which made her feel dirty. Other than that, when we were desperate, we’d meet at the pool, I’d take her to the lake if I knew no one would be there, or we took advantage of the lawn chairs in her back yard. Somehow, despite having a hundred obstacles in our way, we’d managed to find time for each other.

  I couldn’t wait until we didn’t have to sneak around anymore—though I doubted that would happen anytime soon, considering Kristy seemed adamantly against the idea of ever admitting her feelings for me.

  She smiled and shrugged. “I was kind of hoping you’d come up with something. My suggestions aren’t exactly doable.”

  “Why?” I asked with a laugh. “What would you recommend?”

  “Uh…stay away from each other?” Even though she said it with a smile on her face, it was obvious this had been something she’d thought of at some point. The fact that she would even contemplate the idea of ending things—whether she believed it was possible or not—hurt worse than a dagger stuck in my chest.

  “That’s the only thing you can come up with?”

  “At least it’s something, Mr. I-Got-Nothing.”

  “Oh, I have a solution, but you won’t like it any more than I like yours.” I licked my lips and continued before taking a moment to think this through. “How about we stop hiding? If we eliminate the secrecy, then we won’t have any need to be careful. That way, if I make you scream my name, we won’t have to worry about Emma catching us.”