37. Ashely
ASHELY
I can’t . Not, I don’t .
I felt dizzy and sucked in a breath because I’d forgotten to do that in the last few seconds.
I waited for him to say something that would further clarify how he felt, but all I saw was anguished conflict behind his eyes. He yanked his gaze from mine, but his expression was tortured. It held all the hunger and surrender and defensive wariness that was making my stomach clench.
The silence was spooling out, leaving nothing but the rush of my blood pounding in my ears.
Because we stood on a precipice. One where saying the wrong words, saying those words, would change everything.
In that second, I achieved a type of clarity. Fox was my friend. He’d become my very best friend. He was my confidante. Maybe even a soul mate.
He was everything I wanted in a partner and I wanted to tell him that. I wanted to say the words I was longing to hear. They crowded in my throat with my heart, battling for space, but I swallowed all of it into a dull ache in the middle of my chest. It sat there like a dry wish bone, sharply pronged and piercing, strained apart and on the point of splintering.
Because I couldn’t ask him to destroy his own life by loving me. Love didn’t break things. Love protected and caught you when you were weak, the way Fox kept doing for me. Love sacrificed for the ones who held your heart.
Which meant that once again, I would have to lower my expectations, but this time it didn’t feel like settling. It hurt. It hurt so deeply I could hardly breathe, but I held that hurt inside me so I wouldn’t hurt him and something about doing that felt inordinately good.
“Thank you,” I said, looking to the flash of yellow. Reading again, ‘Love, Fox.’ “This would have been perfect, if Shane had been the man I loved.”
It was the closest I would come to telling him who I really did love. Because it was him. I was realizing that in real time, never expecting it to fill me with such an intense ache of longing and joy.
“Ash.” He closed his eyes and a spasm of pain flexed across his face.
“It’s okay.” I moved to hug him, one hand still clutching the note. I didn’t let the embrace turn into anything more than a hug, though. We were friends. That’s all .
I closed my eyes and accepted that. I let the side of my face rest on his bare chest and listened to his heart and told myself to be grateful for this much.
His arms closed around me, equally careful. Equally caring. I felt his chin rest on my hair. He released a shaky sigh that made my hair shift in a tickle against my scalp. It was the most beautifully imperfect moment of my life.
Words of longing and love crowded my tongue again. I wanted to turn my lips against the muscles of his chest. I wanted to rub my face against him, lift my chin and invite his kiss. Against my best intentions, my heartrate changed.
Tension invaded his muscles.
I started to pull away.
His arms, so gentle one second ago, hardened with resistance, holding me in place.
“Don’t go,” he said with an edge of desperation in his voice.
“Fox...” Now the paper fell to the floor so I could splay both hands on the warmth of back. He was so tense, I instinctively moved my hands, trying to soothe.
His chest expanded with a deep, shaken breath.
We held a long stare. Said nothing because anything we said right now could not be unsaid later.
Without really making a conscious decision about it, I leaned into him a tiny, tiny bit. An invitation.
He started to lower his head. Hesitated. Then he exhaled against my mouth right before he smothered my lips with his own.
Everything we weren’t saying came spilling out in our actions. Deep yearning sealed us in a long, wet, hungry kiss. Frustration made it bruising and trust made the strength in his arms safe instead of scary. I clung to him. I told him with the dig of my fingertips into his flesh that I wanted everything he was. I wanted everything he was willing to give me.
Yesterday’s lust returned in a flood. An unending wave that swelled and submerged, turning our kiss messy and blatant. His tongue swept into my mouth with a faint flavor of mint. I sucked on his bottom lip until he groaned and dragged me harder into the shape of his wood, then I scraped him with my teeth as I released him. He slanted his head and ravaged my mouth without mercy. There was no other word for it. He kissed the hell out of me until my knees weakened and I hung off his neck.
He caught me. Of course he did. His strong arm held me firm, never letting me fall. When I lifted my head, we were both panting. I gripped his shoulders, trying to find my balance. I watched his nostrils flare and his tongue slip across his bottom lip.
If he pushed me away again, I would cry. I really would.
He looked down. Allowed a small space between us that brought a sting to my eyes. A tried to gather myself to bear this rejection. Again.
He dragged at the belt on my robe, loosening it, then pushing it open.
A tiny shudder went through me. Relief. Joy.
I’d slept in a thong because I’d been too lazy to do anything but strip and fall into bed last night.
His breath left him in a jagged laugh. His hot hand went to my stomach, burning my skin as he drew a flat circle.
“I’m not stopping, Ash.” His voice was something I’d never heard, gritty enough to make my scalp prickle. “Not unless you tell me to.”
He dipped his head and tongued my nipple. One arm locked across my back and the other hand slid to my ass.
I felt every single callus on his palm as he massaged my cheeks. Every whirl in the pattern of his fingerprints as he caressed the backs of my thighs while opening his mouth over my nipple in wet suction.
So many sensations accosted me, I squirmed, but his arms tightened, holding me in place. The onslaught sent pulses of pleasure directly into my pussy, making me ache while juices gathered and dampened my thong. I moved my hands helplessly over his shoulders and the back of his neck, alarmed at how intense this was, but all I could really think was, Don’t stop. More. I need more .
I was so hot . I shook the robe off my shoulders and tried to drag my arms out of the sleeves.
Fox straightened, throwing me a look between triumph and defeat as he helped me free myself, then he backed me toward the bed.
We kissed again. He kissed me as he followed me down. Kissed me and kissed me as we settled on the mattress and I opened my legs so his weight was between my thighs. I curled my legs around him and roamed my hands over his satiny back.
Time slowed. There was nothing but long, lazy kisses that strayed over cheeks and jaw and neck. His breath whorled against my ear. I inhaled the scent of ocean in the crook of his neck and sucked on his earlobe, smiling when he went taut.
He didn’t stop his lovely slow caresses. His hand on my thigh lazily climbed to my waist and ribcage and up to cup my breast, driving me mad with anticipation before he finally got there. Then I gasped as he played his thumb in light circles around my nipple.
My hands shaped his shoulders and the hollow of his spine, then found the waistband of his shorts and slipped inside to enjoy the way his glutes flexed under my feathery touch. Mine , I thought. All mine .
Now there was only this—the thing we really wanted to communicate. The words that had to remain unspoken, but were there on his lips as his mouth returned to mine. He kissed me tenderly. Lovingly.
He took my hand in his and set kisses in my palm and against the underside of my wrist and nuzzled the sensitive skin inside my elbow.
It was profound and mildly awful because it was too deliberate. I wanted to be swept away so we could pretend later that this wasn’t a conscious decision, but it was. I wanted this. With him. Only him.
I wanted to tell him I had never felt like this with any other man—so natural and delicious and glad . But I didn’t want comparisons. I didn’t want anything inside this moment but us.
I rolled against him in a press of joy and a cling of need, throwing herself more deeply into this experience to dampen intrusive thoughts.
He fell onto his back and pulled me over him. The playful move left me straddling his hips, startled, but then laughing in exhilaration.
“Damn.” He lazily played his fingers against my waist and hips and up, watching his hands as he slid them across my skin and cupped my breasts, plumping them before he swept his touch around to my shoulder blades. He urged me to come down, so my chest was above his chin. He turned his head to capture one nipple, drawing hard enough to make me squeak at the intensity of the sensation that pierced between my thighs.
“Hurt?” His hot breath wafted against the damp, beaded nipple. His tongue circled, fueling that rush of heat into my thong.
“No,” I sobbed. “It’s good. I like it.”
He took the other one, made me groan and clench my pussy muscles on another burst of wetness. I lifted my hips off him, self-conscious.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I straightened my arms, blushing. “I’m really turned on.”
“I know. I like it.” He looked down my front. His hands climbed my thighs so his thumbs were in the sensitive crease at the tops of my legs. His lashes hooded his eyes as he grazed the pad of his thumb against the gusset of my thong.
He made a noise that was low and pleased and used a tiny bit more pressure, just enough to have me biting my lip and dancing my hips to follow the movement.
He slid his thumb beneath, skimmed fine hairs in a frustratingly light, yet more deliberate, caress.
“Fox,” I breathed.
“Like?” He slid the fabric aside and watched as he delicately parted my slippery folds.
“Yes.” When he grazed my clit, my eyelids fluttered closed. A fresh pulse of heat released. I bit my lip, so swollen and sensitive, he barely had to touch my clit and I was quivering in anticipation.
I was more aroused than I’d ever been in my life. Aching so intensely that, before I realized what I was doing, I had set my hand over his and was showing him, pressing his touch deeper into my cleft, rocking in time to his circling. Biting my lip. So close?—
I abruptly moved his hand away. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t even,” he growled, bringing his thumb to his mouth to taste. “I want more of that.”
In an agile twist, I was on my back on the mattress, arms splaying out to catch myself before I’d realized that I had already landed safely. He pulled my thong down my legs, sliding away as he did.
When he brushed my legs open and settled between, so casual and confident, I forgot how to breathe. A wet kiss touched my inner thigh, making me twitch. He steadied me with a warm hand at the top of my thigh, stroking to coax me to open my legs wider. His hot breath clouded on my mound.
He groaned and licked on either side of my outer lips before flicking once with his tongue.
I jolted at the lash of pleasure, tensing as I braced for it to happen again.
He made a noise of amused pity. “I’ll be gentle,” he promised.
“Oh, please don’t be,” I groaned, letting my legs fall fully open.
Another chuckle wafted across my flesh, bringing every cell alive to the nearness of his mouth. He parted me with his fingers and settled in to grow very acquainted with the most intimate part of me.
This was Fox, I was thinking through my haze of lust, but nothing about this felt strange or wrong. Not when he was doing such glorious things. He pressed a finger into me. Two .
I moaned.
He paused. “Okay?” His touch retreated.
“So good,” I managed to stutter.
His fingers slid back, arriving deep, stretching me in the most delicious way.
He was driving me insane. I lifted my hips into his mouth, moaning unreservedly and suddenly peaking. Quaking. Coming hard while he kept fucking me with his mouth and hand.
He didn’t let up until I was weak and trembling, thighs splayed, body twitching all over. Even then, he played a little more, until fresh swirls of desire began singing in my blood.
He rose over me and took tastes of my nipples on the way back to my mouth, causing fresh havoc in nerve endings that should have been spent.
“I liked that,” he said against my mouth.
“Me, too,” I breathed. “A lot.”
We shared a smile. A kiss.
“Condoms are in the bathroom.” His gaze checked in. Are we really doing this?
“Hurry back.” I caressed his ear, his shoulder, the line of his collarbone and down the center of his chest as he pulled away.
I liked the way his cock pressed so insistently against the front of his shorts, and the way he dragged them down and kicked out of them on the way the bathroom, letting me watch the flex of his firmly muscled ass.
When he came back, his erection was in his fist.
I’d seen him in shorts and togs and underwear more than fully clothed, but the full effect of him naked and aroused was somewhere between soft-porn firefighter calendar and old-world artistry.
Fox was physically perfect. His wide shoulders and muscled chest narrowed to stacked abs and flat hips. Tidy patches of hair arrowed down to that dark erection jutting so fiercely from between his thick, tense thighs.
My heart took a little skip of erotic excitement. I watched him open the condom and roll it on, thinking again that this wasn’t something we could pretend ‘just happened.’ We were two adults making a choice. Maybe a bad one.
It didn’t feel bad as he came back down on the bed, knees sliding between mine and pushing my legs apart.
I slid my hands between us so I could fondle the shape of him, squeezing to test how thick and hard he was, then caressing balls drawn tight with arousal. He closed his eyes as I stroked him, head sinking to hang heavily against my shoulder.
We kissed again, lengthy dirty kisses with a lot of tongue and moaning. I bent my knee and lifted my hips, silently urging him to give me what I wanted.
“Okay?” he murmured, sliding his touch to feel how wet I was.
So much more than okay. I nodded and guided his tip to ride against my clit for a few rocks of my hips, enjoying the friction before letting him catch at my entrance.
He made a growling noise and his body shook as he pressed that wide dome into me, filling me with a smooth, thick invasion of his flesh.
I drew my weak knees to his sides. He settled his weight fully against me, all of him snug and deep, filling me up. He was iron hard inside me and I gripped him with my inner muscles, eyes closed, reveling in the feel of him lodged within me.
I cupped the back of his neck and drew him close enough to nibble at the edge of his jaw, his lips.
He withdrew and returned. The move was slow and deliberate and delivered such a delicious rake of pleasure, I gasped and arched.
A wicked noise of amusement filled my ears. His satisfaction turned to torment as he did it again. This was too good. It was more pleasure than either of us deserved. And more than I could endure for long. It would be over far too soon and this was all I would ever have.
Maybe he realized that, too, because he held the pace to those careful, heavy strokes, drawing this out, holding us on a plain of abject joy while we groaned in ecstatic torture.
It was no use. The inevitable crept over us, locking us with tension, demanding more. I dug my nails into him and he deepened his strokes. I lifted my hips to meet his thrusts and he quickened them, losing what remained of his control.
Climax hit like a sledgehammer, engulfing me in waves of joy, tearing cries of elation from my throat while he drove deep and shuddered in equal surrender.