“I like Brussel sprouts.” It was possibly the most pathetic thing I’d ever said in my life, like, ever.
“Yeah, on your dinner, maybe, but do you really wanna snog one?”
I didn’t answer her question, mainly because I’d say something that would make me sound like even more of a pussy, or a complete twat, so I let go of her hand and let her carry on into the bathroom. I went and collected my toothbrush and then came back, unsure of what to do next.
Me, unsure? That was a fucking joke, but that was what she did to me.
I took off my clothes and stepped into the shower with her. She had her back to me, face tilted upwards, letting the water bounce off her chin and down her chest. Her hair was piled up in one of those sexy birds nest things. I leaned in and kissed the curve of her neck and slid my arms around her from behind. She stilled for a split second, and then pressed her back into my front.
“You are so fucking gorgeous,” I told her.
We had the showers designed with a built-in sound system and ‘Mystify’ by INXS was playing.
Leaving one hand on her belly, I slid the other up and cupped one of her tits. It fit my hand perfectly. Squeezing her nipple, I dragged my teeth up her neck and over her ear.
“Baby, we need to get washed and get out of here before I embarrass myself and come before you even touch me,” I whispered.
She shuddered, fucking shuddered, and goose bumps spread across her skin. I bent my knees slightly and grinded my hips into hers.
She bent over to get the shower gel and I nearly came all over her arse.
“Fuck me, Ash, seriously. Don’t be bending over near me like that, babe, else this’ll be over before it even gets started.”
She turned to face me and rolled her eyes. The water from the shower head beat down between us. I slipped my arms around her hips, gripped onto her arse cheeks and pulled her towards me.
“I want to climb inside that head of yours and carve into your brain how fucking perfect you are so that you’ll finally believe what I’m saying to you.” I hate that she doubts that I’m telling the truth.
“It’s just…” She tilted her head to the side before shrugging her shoulders, then looked down at my chest. Her tits were squashed up against my bare chest, but I’d not even been aware of that fact because I was too busy worrying about what she was thinking.
“Look at me, Ash,” I ordered. I expected a big ‘fuck you,’ but instead, she brought her eyes up to meet mine.
“Trust me when I say this, baby. You are perfect.” She slowly nodded her head.
“If I trust you, Marley, please promise that you won’t let me down?” she whispered. Her voice was still a little bit croaky, but I could hear the plea, the desperation in her words regardless, and then I did something I should never have done.
“You can trust me, Ash. I’ll never let you down.”
We kissed under the flow of the water before slowly washing each other’s bodies. After turning off the shower and cleaning our teeth, we crawled into bed.
I spent the longest time I’d ever spent, exploring and worshiping a woman’s body. I kissed, licked, sucked, and bit my way from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.
When my mouth got back down to the top of her thighs, I lifted her knees and pushed her legs as wide apart as I could. She was spread bare for me. I ran my fingertips over the small patch of fair hair that sat above her perfect, perfect pussy.
Her hips bucked off the bed and she let out a moan as I spread her open with my thumbs and licked where she was wet.
“Marley, please.” I loved the begging tone to her voice—fucking loved it.
“You like that, baby?” I looked up at her and asked. She had one hand in my hair, her nails raking at my scalp, and the other was bent back behind her, gripping the pillow. Her cheeks, neck, and chest were flushed pink and I swear, I had never seen anything more beautiful in my life.
“Yes. Yes, I’ve never … no one’s ever—”
“No one’s ever what, baby? Kissed you here?” I kissed her clit. “Licked you there?” I swiped my tongue through her cunt, then pushed it inside her as she ground her hips into my face.
Her taste, her moans, the way she smelled, everything about her was so fucking perfect.
“You like that?” I asked after I blew over her wet skin.
“Yes,” she stated, still grinding her hips up towards my mouth.
“You want me to make you come? You wanna come all over my face?”
She nodded her head as her hands clawed at the sheets on either side of her hips.
“Use your words, baby. I need to hear you tell me what you want.” Her eyes widened as she worked out that she was gonna have to beg, or at least ask me nicely for an orgasm.
“Please Marley, please. I wanna come. I want you to make me come.”
Did I mention that I fucking loved the way she pleaded with me?
Loved. It.
I could’ve come myself just from listening to her beg. I kissed her belly before sliding my hands underneath her arse cheeks and tilting her hips towards my face.
“I’m gonna use my mouth, baby. I’m gonna use my mouth and my fingers, and I’m gonna blow your fucking mind.” I flicked my tongue over her clit, sliding two fingers inside her, and curled them forward. She was so tight.
Tight, wet, and so fucking perfect.
I pumped my fingers in and out of her, curling them and stroking her from the inside, slowly. My opposite hand was resting against the silky soft skin of the inside of her thigh. I wanted to keep tasting her, but I also wanted to watch her come. After a few more flicks, I replaced my tongue with my thumb and kept working her clit as I sat up on my knees so I could watch her face.
Both her arms were over her head, holding onto the pillow. Her shoulders were pulled back, her tits moving as she rode my hand. I slid my hand up her body and squeezed one of her nipples as I looked at both her eyes, and her parted lips.
“Perfect. You are fucking perfect,” I said, because it was the truth.
“Ahh,” was the first sign I got of her impending orgasm, and then everything happened at once.
Her internal muscles tightened around my fingers and her legs trembled as she let out a loud moan. I gave my cock a couple of strokes and shot off all over her belly. All the while, Ash continued to convulse all around me. Her legs, her stomach, internal muscles and her clit, all squeezed, twitched, and shook, and the whole time, she never once broke eye contact with me.
Sexiest thing ever.
When her insides stopped pulsating, I slid my fingers out of her and licked them clean as she watched. Then I reached for the towel I left on the floor after our shower together.
I wiped off the mess I made on her belly, then laid on top of her, kissing her mouth gently. She opened her legs, welcoming me in between them. I slid my tongue across the seam of her lips until eventually, she opened her mouth and allowed my assault. I couldn’t get deep enough as I tangled my tongue with hers. I swiped it over her teeth, her mouth, and her lips. It didn’t take long for me to grow hard again.
After kissing her senseless for a while, I gave her nipples the attention they deserved, which seemed to drive her fucking nuts. Her nails dug into my arse cheeks and I had to laugh out loud at her enthusiasm as she pulled me against her.
When neither of us could take it anymore, I slid inside her. This time it was quiet and gentle. This time I lasted. This time I laced my fingers through hers and stared into her eyes. This time was beyond perfect—beyond anything I had ever experienced in my life.
* * *
I knew before I even said the words that it was wrong of me, that I was lying. I promised I wouldn’t let her down, but I knew that one day I would.
She’d been let down before, I could see it in her eyes. I heard it in her insecurities, her self-doubt, and I never wanted to be the reason behind any of that, so later that night, when we’d showered together, fucked once more, and she’d fallen asleep
in my arms, in my bed, in my heart, and my dirty, tarnished soul. I watched her. I watched the rise and fall of her chest, memorising her long eyelashes as they fanned out across her cheeks that were still flushed pink with the sex and the showers we’d shared. Then I gently kissed her perfect mouth, slid out of my bed, packed a case with my clothes and left her a short note. I called a car service to collect and take me to the airport.
It was five in the morning, but from the phone in the security office of my building, I called Andrea, mine and Maca’s PA. I told her I needed a flight to anywhere, ASAP, and she called back within fifteen minutes. Three hours later, I was touching down in Paris.
I stayed drunk in my hotel room for two days. I was still too close, too tempted to go back and claim her, to make her mine, at least until I would do what I did best and fuck things up again, until I broke her.
I called Andrea again and booked a flight to the States.
I checked in with Len and told him I just needed some time to myself. We had nothing on anyway. With only a month till his wedding, we had nothing scheduled until later in the year when we’d start the new album.
I needed to be back in England in three weeks for my final suit fitting, which gave me plenty of time to be seen and photographed with a different woman on my arm every night. I went to every place in LA we usually avoided. Every club, bar, and restaurant I knew the press hung about outside, I was there. I made sure I gave them plenty of opportunity to get their shots of me leaving, and I made sure I was with a different woman each time.
It wasn’t that I wanted to hurt Ash, I didn’t, not at all, but I knew if I went where I was sure our feelings were taking us, I’d eventually let her down. I’m Marley Layton, fucking things up is what I did.
With just a couple of days left in LA, I spoke with Maca on the phone and he told me that he and George had found a place in Hampstead, and had been able to move straight in. Ashley had taken over G’s flat, which she had left fully furnished for her.
“I take it things didn’t work out between you, what with the way you just took off?” Maca asked me down the phone.
“Why, what’s she said?” I asked, waiting for Georgia to jump in and give me a bollocking. I was actually surprised I hadn’t heard from her or Jimmie by then.
“Nothing much. Gia has only seen her a couple of times. G’s tried going back to work, but the press are up her arse so she’s promoted Ash to area manager. The flat and a car come with the job.”
Well, that made me feel a little better and a lot worse.
In the note that I’d left for Ash, I’d told her to stay at my place for as long as she liked. Despite the shitty thing that I’d done, I was hoping that she might still be there when I went back for the wedding.
“I think she told G that she’d gotten back with her ex, and that’s why things hadn’t worked out between you two. I assumed that’s why you took off. I know you said you liked her.”
“Her ex? What fucking ex?” I paced the floor of my hotel room as I shouted down the phone. What ex? There was no ex? She never told me about any fucking ex. Probably because I didn’t hang around long enough for her to tell me much about anything.
Images of Ashley, small, vulnerable, curled up all warm beside me, hot and sweaty from sex, water dripping from her in the shower, flashed like snapshots through my brain. The thought of someone else seeing her like that, sharing moments like I had with her, touching, tasting and smelling her, made my head feel like it was about to explode.
Whoever the fucker was, he had to go.
Even kidnap and murder seemed like reasonable possibilities in that moment.
“Oi, hold your fucking horses. I don’t know what ex, she’s your bird.”
“She’s not my bird.” I bit back.
“Well, not if she’s back with her ex, she ain’t, no.” We were both quiet for a few seconds. “Sorry mate. I thought you knew. I thought that’s why you left.”
I let out a long sigh. My head was now pounding and my brain was in overdrive. I needed to get back to England and put things right.
I’d fucked up. Yeah, yeah, I know, it was what I did, but this time I’d fucked up massively, and possibly lost the best thing that had ever happened to me.
“Mac, I need to go. I’ll be home tomorrow and give ya a bell then. Give my love to George.” I never gave him a chance to say goodbye before I cut him off.
I called Len and asked him to get me on the next flight back to London, and to have a car waiting for me when I landed.
By ten the next morning, I was pulling up outside Posh Frocks. I pulled my cap down low and ran into the shop.
“Morning, Lorna. Ashley about?” I kept it casual and talked to the girl like I’d known her forever. We’d chatted a few times when I’d been waiting for Ash and I’d signed some stuff for her.
“No, she’s out on the road today. She might come back here later, but not until around four. I can call one of the stores she’s visiting today and let her know you’re looking for her?” she said with a smile.
I liked Lorna. She was a bit older than me, and wasn’t fazed by who I was.
“Na, that’s all right. I was hoping to surprise her,” I told her with a wink.
“Oh, so she’s not expecting you?” she asked and something in her tone had me questioning her.
“No, why’s that?”
She tilted her head sideways and folded her arms across her chest.
“I’ve no idea what’s gone on between the two of you, but I don’t think you’re her favourite person right now, Marley.”
“Lorna, I know I’m not her favourite person right now. That’s why I need to speak to her, and if she knows that I’m looking for her, she won’t see me so please, would you give me the chance to put things right? I fucked up and I need to speak to her.”
“Yeah, well, good luck with that. I won’t say I’ve seen you, but you better put things right. She’s a good girl, Ashley is, and I’ve hated seeing her upset these past few weeks.”
“She’s been upset?” I asked, feeling bad for sounding so hopeful.
“Yeah, she’s been upset, especially when she sees that.” She nods her head towards the coffee table where there’s a copy of Hello Magazine. My ugly mug was smiling from the front cover, Alexis Kanchelski, some model I met in a club a few weeks back, wrapped around me.
“Fuck.” Is all I could say. I actually planned on her seeing it. I’d hoped that she’d see it and hate my fucking guts. That in turn would make it easier for her to move on and forget about me.
Well, job well done, Marley. Job well-fucking-done.
“Right, yeah. Well, like I said, I’ve fucked up and I need to put things right, so I’d really appreciate you not saying that I’ve been here.”
“She won’t hear it from me. Now piss off and put a smile back on that girls dial,” she ordered. I stepped in and kiss her cheek.
“I’ll do my best, Lorna. I’ll do my very best.” I promised.
I got Dave, who picked me up from the airport, to drop me off at home. My plan was to take a shower and drive back to Ashley’s flat and wait for her arrival.
The first I realise that there was a problem was when I couldn’t get my key in the lock. I called Ronnie, one of the doormen up to take a look. He called out a locksmith when he couldn’t do anything with it. The locksmith arrived and promptly told me that a key had been snapped off inside the lock.
He drilled it out, but ended up having to replace the whole barrel. I couldn’t stand the damage that it did to my front door, so ended up telling Ronnie to tell maintenance to order me a new one.
As soon as the door was opened, it was apparent that the place stunk.
“Bloody hell, mate. You forget to empty your fridge before you went away?” Bert the locksmith asked.
I was already pissed off at that point, so I bunged him a twenty quid tip and told him to invoice me for the bill.
Once I stepped all the way inside, I could see where the smell
was coming from.
Sitting on my kitchen work top was the contents of my freezer. Two chickens, a whole salmon, a loaf of bread, a box of ice poles, and a tub of ice cream. I assumed that the freezer had broken, but why the stuff wasn’t thrown out, I had no idea. To make things worse, the place was like a sauna. The heating had obviously been left on the whole time I was away.
I go to call Maca to find out what the fuck had gone on when I realised I had no way of contacting him. I didn’t know his new number.
I grabbed a black sack and threw everything in it, then ran it down to the bins. When I got back up, I sprayed the place with what I thought was air freshener, but turned out to be furniture polish. Still, lemony pledge smelled a whole lot better than rotten chicken and fish.
When I walked into my bedroom, I was hit by another strange smell.
“What the fuck?”
I looked down to see what was causing the strange squelch under my feet and realised at once the cause.
My bed had been stripped back to the bare mattress, and the carpet had a two inch layer of water cress growing over it. The carpet was wet, and when I pushed down on my mattress, so was it. On the night stand next to the bed was the note that I left Ashley, along with the front door key I left for her, half of it snapped off.
Underneath what I had written, Ash, I assumed, had added…
WELCOME HOME
FUCKER!!!
I laughed. I didn’t actually know what else to do, so I stood on my water cress carpet and laughed.
Fuck. If I didn’t love that girl before, I definitely did then.
Yes, so fucking what. I admitted it. I loved her. I knew it a month ago and I sure as shit knew it now.
I took off my cap and scratched my head.
“Ah, Ashley Morrison. What are we gonna do with you?”
Chapter Twenty-One
1989
I contacted Andrea and asked her to send a cleaning crew to my place.
It only took the supervisor one look at my bedroom to tell me that I needed new carpet and a new bed. I decided to play it safe and opt to leave the original timber floor exposed instead of having new carpet laid.
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