22. Ashton
Chapter 22
Ashton
She steps back. “Is now really a good time to talk about this?”
I gesture around us. “We’re not going anywhere anytime soon. When would it be a better time?”
She sighs. “We might be stuck here for a while, and discussing this will only make us more at odds with each other.”
“We’re already at odds with each other,” I say. “Especially you with me for some unfathomable reason.”
“Fine.” She bites her lower lip, making my cock twitch. “The morning after we first… met, I learned how much you cat around.”
I furrow my eyebrows. “Cat around?”
She scowls. “I learned how much you fuck different women. Is that clearer?”
Shit. That was one of my leading theories. But… “How?”
She shrugs. “Spoke to one of your ‘conquests.’ Her reviews were glowing, by the way. Five stars all around.”
Fuck. Must be someone from college. “I wish you’d talked to me instead of just disappearing.”
“Oh?” She lifts her chin. “Why is that?”
“Because I would’ve told you that it’s all long behind me.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “Yeah, right.”
I put my hand over my heart. “After that time with you, I haven’t been with anyone else.”
She gapes at me, then snorts. “Bullshit. There’s no way.”
I grit my teeth. “Why would I lie?”
She shrugs. “To make me feel safer about having slept with you?”
I blow out a breath. “You should feel perfectly safe. Hell, I’ll show you my clean bill of sexual health as soon as there’s internet.”
She waves that away. “Just because you never caught an STD doesn’t mean you didn’t stick a condom-shielded cock into every hole in Manhattan.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “If you had bothered to get to know me, you wouldn’t be saying all this.”
Is that a glimmer of doubt in her eyes?
“Listen,” she says. “Who you sleep with—or not—isn’t any of my business. It was just… I felt like there was something between us that day, and when that woman told me about your ‘situation’, I felt?—”
“But again,” I say insistently. “What she told you is something that’s in the past.”
She scoffs. “How would you have felt if our roles were reversed? If some guy had told you I?—”
“Short of learning that you were a sex worker or something, I would’ve spoken to you.”
Her expression reminds me of the recent storm. “So… sleeping with a training client, you don’t consider that sex work? More importantly, if I were a sex worker, you would’ve ghosted me?”
Why do women like to trap men with such hypotheticals? This is just like when an ex-girlfriend asked if I would’ve slept with Marilyn Monroe—and then started a huge fight with me because I said yes.
“If some guy told me such a thing about you, I’d give you the benefit of the doubt,” I say carefully.
More like I would’ve beaten the truth out of the fucker, but we don’t need to get into that.
Her eyes turn into slits. “And if you knew that I was, without any doubt?”
Deeper into hypotheticals? What’s next: If we got married and I suffocated as I was giving you the best blow job in history, would you remarry? “I guess in such a scenario, I would have a problem with your job,” I tell her.
“Is that so?”
“If you were mine, I would not share you with anyone else,” I say with finality.
She narrows her eyes. “What if I needed the money?”
Seriously? “There are other hypothetical ways to make money.”
“You sound just like a pampered Vancroft,” she says, words dripping with disdain. “You’ve clearly never had to work for anything in your life. Everything’s been handed to you on a silver platter.”
I glare at her. “I’ve worked my ass off for what I have.”
“Ass? Are you sure it wasn’t your dick?”
My jaw ticks. “I think you’ve gotten so used to hating me that you’re just looking for any excuse to do so.”
“More like someone doesn’t like the truth.”
I blow out a frustrated breath. “What truth?”
“That your family is old money,” she states. “And didn’t you complain about the ‘revenue growth’ of your business—like it’s a bad thing?”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” I say.
My family cut me off when I dropped out of business school and chose my own path in life. What I’ve made of my business I’ve done on my own. If it were up to my parents, I’d be married to Gwyneth and working for my father. Do I hate it that my choice inadvertently led to riches? Yes, I do—because it’s made my parents far too happy and proud of me.
Money is how they measure a person’s worth in life, and I’ve finally become worthy in their eyes. But that’s neither here nor there.
“I looked up the Bryces, you know,” I tell Kendall. “Your family is doing far too well for you to have a chip on your shoulder.”
Kendall’s father is a doctor, and her mother stays at home and volunteers at charities—which is the exact setup of Gwyneth’s parents, I suddenly realize.
Such a little hypocrite, condemning me for having come from money.
As she glares at me, I ask tauntingly, “Are you telling me your father doesn’t help you financially?”
She draws back, stiffening. “How do you know? You stalked me or something?”
“Emma mentioned something to Marcus about the financial help. The rest was on your social media.”
Which I do not scroll through several times a day. Not at all.
Her lip curls. “Well, aren’t you just the PI.”
Uh-huh. “And how did you learn about my family?”
“Talking to you is too tiring. I’m going to bed.”
She turns on her heel and strides away.
“Where the hell are you going?” I demand.
“I’ll take my chances sleeping in the stinky cabin.” She tries to slam the door, but the water damage makes that impossible.
Folding my arms across my chest, I stand there and wait.
If my recollection of the stench serves me right, she’ll come out in twenty seconds—tops.
Nope.
With a banshee scream, Kendall flies out of her cabin in two seconds—and to my shock, she runs over and hides behind me.
“What the hell?” I face her.
“A toad,” she breathes. “Fat, warty, and with razor-sharp fangs.”
I grin, unable to hide my amusement. “Toads don’t have teeth, let alone fangs. They swallow their food alive, without chewing.”
She shudders. “Was that supposed to sound reassuring?”
My grin widens. “You’re too big for a toad to swallow.”
She shakes her head vehemently. “That was a humongous toad. He probably grew up near a nuclear power plant.”
“So… does this mean we’re sharing my cabin?”
She looks at the evil toad’s cabin and then at me. “I’ll stay with you,” she says reluctantly. “But no more sex.”
“Sure. No sex… unless you ask for it.”
I don’t add “again,” but the way her eyes shoot daggers at me means she remembers how things went down the last time.
“And clothes stay on,” she says stubbornly.
“You can do what you want,” I tell her. “I sleep naked, and that’s when air conditioning is available.”
“Fine. Just stay on your side of the bed.”
With that, she turns toward my cabin and sashays away—which, given the thin slip that she’s wearing, gives me a view so erotic I instantly regret agreeing to the “no sex” bit.
By the time I catch up with her, she’s in bed, covered by a thin blanket.
I surreptitiously check the time on my phone.
Nine p.m. There’s no way I’m going to fall asleep so early. Then again, besides that which she said is off the table, there’s nothing else to do.
I take my clothes off, and I can feel her watching me as I do.
Getting under the blanket, I stay firmly on my side of the bed. I can smell apple and hibiscus, and just knowing she’s near is making me painfully hard.
“Sweet dreams,” I say, and my voice is more than a little raspy.
She doesn’t reply, but I know she’s awake.
Oh, well. She needs to process everything she’s learned today.
Hell, I should do that also. First of all, should I forgive her for ghosting me, given what she said?
It’s tempting. When she’s not picking a fight with me, I like her very much—and the sexual chemistry between us is out of control. But… what if she didn’t tell me the complete truth?
What if she didn’t just ghost me because of what she learned, but also because I was a lowly personal trainer?
Her breathing evens out.
Damn. That’s impressive. She fell asleep this early? She must have been tired.
My cock twitches, as if to remind me of what could’ve tired Kendall out.
Fuck. I doubt I’ll fall asleep anytime soon, especially not with such a hard-on.
Maybe I can do something about it? Not here in bed—that would be creepy. Maybe outside? No. The last thing I want is a mosquito bite on my privates.
Suddenly, Kendall rolls over and drapes her arm over my chest.
Well, then. Unless I’m willing to wake her, it doesn’t seem like I’m going anywhere. Especially not when she wraps more of herself over me, her breasts brushing my arm through her slip, and her right hand falling an inch away from my throbbing erection.
Is she actually asleep? Because if she wanted to torture me in some sort of revenge, she couldn’t have come up with a better methodology.
“Ashton,” she softly moans.
“Seriously?” I say out loud.
Her eyelashes flutter open, and her eyes widen. “Am I still dreaming?”
Fuck… “You dreamed about me?”
She looks at the tent that my erection is creating in the blanket. “I think I’m still dreaming.”
She pinches my nipple.
“Ouch! You’re supposed to do that to yourself when you’re the one unsure of reality.”
She slides her hand under the blanket, and I’m pretty sure she pinches her own nipple next—which makes my cock impossibly harder.
“I guess I’m awake,” she says grumpily. “But I feel like I’m still in that dream.”
“And that might explain why you’re still wrapped around me,” I say.
She nods. “Also, this.” She closes the distance between our lips and gives me a passionate, hot-as-hell kiss.
“So much for no sex,” I mutter under my breath when the kiss is over, and she has her delicate hand wrapped around the shaft of my cock.
“You said ‘unless I ask.’” She strokes me up and down. “This is me asking.”
And she doesn’t have to ask me twice.
I spring into action and do not stop until she comes thrice. As my reward, I shoot my load into her pretty mouth, and she swallows before she says, “I did that purely because it’s practical.”
Though I feel very languid, I find the energy to ask, “How is swallowing practical?”
“We have no water,” she explains. “Easier cleanup.”