11. Liv #2
Crystalline awareness hit as he pulled me upright.
Every giggle of a child or huffed breath of the adults chasing them, every scrape of blades, every pink and orange and blue streak in the sky and the myriad shades of black in Ash’s eyes, every layer of scent from the fire to the mingling perfumes to the scent of Ash’s spicy cologne gut-punched me.
And I clung to the ones that were just him .
And apparently, I clung to him as well, as he let out a hiss of a breath when I rose fully, my hands gripping the solid strength of his arms.
As the sun slowly sank behind the buildings, Ash and I stayed hand in hand as he led me around the ice.
When I wasn’t falling over my own feet, I saw why he loved it, the freedom and speed of it, the element of control not present when simply walking.
Letting him steer us was also freeing, in its own way.
Letting someone else take over went beyond everything I thought I knew about myself, but Ash didn’t push, he guided.
But I still wouldn’t be doing it on my own anytime soon.
A group of laughing college students sped past us, nearly knocking me down in the process, breaking the perfect incandescent bubble of Ash and me.
The cold, the unnatural, miserable, lowest level of hell cold Ash made me forget while we skated must’ve frozen my brain, because I blinked and found myself outside the barrier.
“You’re freezing.” Ash’s hands gripped mine, squeezing until I looked at him instead.
With my jacket slung over his arm, it was no wonder. “’M f-fine.”
“Barnes, you’re shivering.”
Even after he helped me into my jacket, I couldn’t stop. “It’s fine. I’ll warm up on the way home.”
“Absolutely not. You’re with me, now.”
Was there another layer to his words? Or was it only a kiss? We didn’t discuss anything; we’d just had our tongues down each other’s throats.
In public.
Oh, God.
How did I end up here, dangling on the end of a string, following him in a daze, not knowing what I wanted? Did I want it to be more? Was something between us transmuted with a brush of our lips?
Something new connected us; delicate like a drop of water or the lightest breath could sever it.
Delicate, I was not. I was more of a battering ram, usually too loud or too abrasive. Too opinionated and hostile. Too much but not enough. Delicate only served in my work; there was no place for it in my life.
But I yearned to protect this fragile thing. Cup it in my hands and hide it from the world. Like the concerned tilt of his head… I wanted to bottle it and take it out on my worst days.
“W-what?” The ache in my jaw as I tried and failed to keep my teeth from clacking together was nothing compared to the ache in my chest.
“Barnes— Olivia. ” Ash wrapped his hands around my shoulders, drawing me closer, all traces of joking aside. He had the same deadly focused look he wore when he stared down opponents on the ice, and being the object of such scrutiny was exquisite, almost painful in its intensity.
But maybe not in a bad way.
Slowly, he leaned closer, his breath mingling with mine in a tiny cloud between us. The rough pads of his fingers traced beneath my jaw, tipping my face up to his. “Let me take you home.”
Brakes screeched, leaving scorch marks on the highway in my mind, uncertain if he meant take me home .
At my scowl, he laughed softly, leaning nearer. Of their own volition, my eyes drifted from his sinful, carbon-black eyes to lips still too close to mine. “Your place then. I don’t have to come inside.”
Dazed, I nodded. The jacket slowly worked its magic, but I still shivered as I followed Ash to his car.
He opened the door, helping me into the stupidly high passenger seat, and then paused for a moment with the door open, shucking off his jacket, placing the puffer over my trembling legs.
Residual body heat sank through the layers of clothes, and I let out a pleased sound at the heat.
Blame it on the icicles forming in my brain.
With a sigh, my head sank back against the headrest, relaxing until Ash hauled himself into the driver’s seat. The overhead light cast a sickly yellow hue over us, and I blinked sleepily as he gripped the shifter, the skin of his forearms exposed for the first time since we met.
And, seriously, forearms on a man were the height of eroticism, everyone who’d ever read a romance novel knew that.
But Ash’s—he had?—
“Tattoos?” The unbidden question slipped out and was as involuntary as the stroke of my fingertips over his skin.
Warm fingers covered mine for a second as he laid his other hand atop where mine rested on his arm, and he cleared his throat as he glanced in the rearview mirror. “Yeah.”
“They’re beautiful.” It came out as a reverent whisper.
“Thanks.” The blade of a knife might be duller than the edge in his voice, but I didn’t know why.
Black, vining floral tattoos snaked up the muscled length of his arms, disappearing into the stretched black sleeve of his t-shirt. The line work was exquisite, thin and precise, with countless tiny details.
I suddenly longed to trace each line with my fingertips, to see how far they extended beneath his shirt, to map their route across bare skin.
“You kissed me,” I blurted. “What does that mean?” Seriously, what is in the air in this car—SHUT UP, ME.
“It means I wanted to kiss you.” Ash said it like it was obvious.
The intermittent orange light from the highway lights created a weird, flickering backdrop as we drove toward my apartment. The sun was fully down, but the sky still held onto navy blue at the edges before it shifted into the deep grey of a night in the city.
“You kissed me,” I said again.
“I did. Did you like it?” Amusement wrapped around the baritone of his laughing response.
“It was very nice.”
“I need to work harder if it was just ‘very nice’.” He didn’t snap, exactly, but there was an edge to his words that pulled at my senses. All traces of humor disappeared.
“You don’t have to work harder for me.” Flooding memories flicked through my brain, chasing each other in a painful rush. Squeezing my eyes shut, I wished on a million stars that I could keep my damn mouth shut, hoping he wouldn’t question the accidental admission.
“What do you mean?” He spoke slowly, with a control I’d never heard from him, like he knew exactly what I meant.
His control pierced right through me, and I couldn’t stop the ache of those old memories from resurfacing.
“Nothing. I—it’s nothing. It was probably the best kiss I’ve ever had.
” Even though the statement was meant to deflect, it was still true, and somehow the truth both annoyed and amazed me.
“Everything with you has been the best. Except for that first dinner.” Again with the truth bombs. Shit.
“I put my name in the running for captain,” he blurted, and maybe I wasn’t the only one with an out-of-control mouth tonight.
“Ash, that’s amazing.” I supposed that explained the cleaned-up look.
“Yeah, no. I’m not sure it is.” Where he gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles whitened, squeezing so tightly the leather creaked.
“Why not?”
“It was sort of an impulse, and I’m not sure I can do it.”
I blinked at the vulnerability I never would’ve expected from anyone, much less this gorgeous, athletic Adonis of a man before me. “Clearly, after attending two games, I am a hockey expert, and I think you can.”
The sound he let out was somewhere between a scoff, a laugh, and a snort. “I appreciate your confidence in me.”
“Why don’t you have confidence in you?”
“Remember what you thought of me when we first met?”
Another pulse of pain in my chest, remembering how awful I was at first. “I’m sorry, Ash. It wasn’t fair to you.”
“Don’t be sorry; I get it. But that’s why. It’s what everyone thinks.” And oh, how defeated he sounded before he even began.
“You won’t know if you don’t try, right? You can prove them all wrong.”
“I like that.” He grinned, it was tiny and still a little melancholy, but his spirits seemed lifted. “Doing the right thing out of spite.”
“Exactly. Be a menace, but in a good way.”
Both of us slipped into our thoughts as he drove.
I needed to talk to someone about this, but my two options were currently Polly, Ash’s grandmother, and my dad, who was still after me to let him meet Ash.
A sounding board would be nice, someone helping me figure out how to navigate these new waters, trying to decipher where we stood.
I nearly made up my mind to ask him as we pulled into my parking lot, but bravery evaded me.
I was afraid his answer would be the one I wanted to hear.
The moment the car was in park, maybe even a little before, I leaned over to press a featherlight kiss to his cheek, unbuckled my seatbelt and threw myself out the door, calling, “Thanks for tonight,” over my shoulder, leaving a bewildered Ash behind.