Chapter 11
CAMILLE
I ’m dead asleep at three a.m. when I wake to a pounding at my door. I’m sleep-drunk and dazed, but pretty sure that’s not Sybil’s dainty knock.
“Who is it?” I pad across the room and stretch on tiptoe to peer through the peephole.
Holy shit.
“Ash?”
“Let me in, Camille.” He tugs off his tie and shoves it in his pocket, one sleeve of his shirt already rolled up. “Now.”
“One second.” I’m buck ass naked and my morning breath smells like something died. “I’m indecent.”
“Perfect,” he says as he rolls up the other shirt sleeve. “That’s how I prefer you.”
“Hang on.” I race to the sink and squirt out a fat lump of toothpaste. There’s no time to brush, but I swish it around with some water while finger-combing my hair. I showered four hours ago, so at least I’ve got that going for me.
Or maybe smelling like sex would be a turn on for Ash. That’s assuming he’s here to get naked. I can’t tell from his dark look if he’s turned on or pissed off. Maybe both.
Why is my heart beating like this?
I spit out the toothpaste and race to the door. My sweaty palm slips off the knob as I twist it open.
Goddamn. Ashton Holyfield is an imposing figure.
“Hello.” My voice sounds raspy. “You’re here.”
“I’m here.” His smoldering gaze roams my body, then back to my face. “You’re naked.”
“Very observant, Mister Holyfield.” Snatching the front of his shirt, I drag him into my room.
Ash kicks the door shut, backing me up toward the bed. “I needed to see you.”
My breath’s coming fast as I claw at his shirt. “I thought you were spending the night in Negril.”
“You can’t honestly think I’d be able to sleep after that show you put on.” His mouth crashes into mine as we tumble into my sleep-rumpled bedding. “Couldn’t”—he breathes between kisses—“get you”—more kissing, this time in a trail between my breasts—“out of my head.”
“I missed you.” It’s silly to say, since I’ve only known him for three days. “I hope that video call was okay.”
Ash stops suckling my breasts to give me a bewildered expression. “Surely you can’t be serious.”
“I am serious.” I bite back the urge to giggle. “And don’t call me Sh?—”
He kisses me back into silence, which is just as well. His hands feel insane on my body, greedy and hot and demanding. I unbutton his shirt, shoving it over his shoulders like it personally offended me.
Ash yanks his arm from a sleeve as he comes up for air. “That was the hottest fucking call I’ve ever taken.”
I laugh as I tug at his belt. “Glad you liked it.”
“Did you have fun?”
“Yes.” I sink my teeth into his peck. “But I desperately craved your cock.”
The organ in question gives a sizeable throb behind the fly of his trousers. “My cock says the feeling is mutual.”
“I thought feelings weren’t part of the equation.”
His icy eyes blaze, and for three breathless seconds, I’m afraid he’ll get up and run. Have I crossed some invisible line?
Instead, he just growls. “I don’t know what the fuck you did to me.” He goes back to kissing my breasts as I work his cock free from his pants. “Some kind of witchcraft, maybe.”
“Definitely.” I let out a whimper as Ash rolls me onto my back. I’ve barely got his pants shoved past his ass before he’s sinking inside me with a groan.
“This tight little pussy,” he snarls, thrusting inside me again. “Must’ve put a spell on me.”
“Oh fuck.” I scream as my legs wrap around him. “It’s my supernatural snatch.”
A laugh rumbles out of him, then turns to a moan as his thrusts start to quicken. “Flew all the way here with a hard-on.” I’m not even sure if he knows he’s still talking. “That’s what you do to me.”
I gasp as he hits something so good . “Did you use your dick as a propeller?”
The sound that rolls up from his chest is half laughter, half growl. His body tenses as I arch up against him. I’m clutching his ass, obsessed with the taut flex of muscle as he drives into me.
Ash swears under his breath. “Devil Woman.”
God, this feels good. “I prefer Magical Maiden.”
He growls in my ear, nipping his way down my throat. “Can’t fucking believe I’m this close already.” He pounds me so hard I see stars. “I jerked off twice already.”
I’m right at the brink myself. “Your hand is no match for my bewitching bajingo.”
Ash lets out a roar and that’s all it takes.
The throb of his shaft deep inside me sets off a chain reaction.
My thighs clench around him as we ride out our climax together.
It’s fierce and consuming and I don’t understand what’s happening now.
It feels different somehow. More intense, more connected.
So fucking infused with emotion.
Ash goes still as my climax recedes, but my body keeps humming. I’m struggling to wrap my head around what just happened.
Wow.
I mean, wow.
Not to disparage my afternoon with the girls, but that was a next-level fuck.
We’re both breathing hard as he rolls to his side, pulling me onto his chest. With a hand on his pec, I prop up to peer at his face. “Where’s Kora?”
He blinks. “That’s what you lead with?”
“What?”
He arches one salt-and-pepper brow. “I would have presumed you’d had your fill of group sex with beautiful bisexual women today.”
“It’s a new day, babe.” I swat his chest. “Not what I meant anyway.”
“What did you mean?”
“You didn’t just abandon her in Negril, did you?”
Ash shakes his head, heart beating fast under my palm. “I texted her just after midnight to say I’d send the jet back for her in the morning.”
“Kind of you.”
“By the time I got down to the lobby, Kora was waiting with her suitcase.”
“You woke her up?”
“Apparently she couldn’t sleep, either.” He gives me a look that would melt off my panties if I weren’t already naked. “It seems Sybil sent her some video footage.”
“Ah, yes.” I chuckle at the thought of Kora and Sybil together. “She asked if she could. I certainly envy their sex life.”
That earns me another raised brow. “You’re finding ours lacking somehow?”
“No, I just—” What am I trying to say? “Don’t you think it’s remarkable for two people who’ve been married three years to still be so sexually in-tune with each other?”
I watch as his eyes fill with feeling. Shit.
That’s not how I meant it. I’m not trying to bring up his marriage or probe into his past about?—
“You’re right,” he says softly. “It is remarkable.”
I relax just a little, my hand still riding the waves of his breath. The thump of his heart under my palm might still be from sex, but I don’t think it is. Ash is keyed up and I’m suddenly not sure how to read him.
His eyes flutter shut and a hand moves to cover my own, which still lies flat on his chest. We lie there like that for five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. Waves shush the shore outside my window and the lull of the sea almost lets me believe something big hasn’t shifted.
But I’ve been a shrink a long time. Something is different in Ash tonight. I feel it in my bones.
We lie there in silence for five minutes at least. Just as I start to get up for some water, Ash speaks.
“I got married young,” he says softly. “I didn’t have a great childhood, so maybe I was looking for some kind of stability I didn’t get from my parents.”
There’s the slightest upturn in his voice at the end of that sentence, so I’m sensing he wants a response. “That’s very common,” I say softly.
It must be what Ash needed from me. “Brigitte and I had Grayson right away,” he continues. “That little boy was my whole world. I loved him with my whole twisted heart.”
My own heart breaks at the catch in his voice. I circle my palm over his chest, attempting to soothe all his pain. “I’m so sorry, Ash.” I can’t even imagine that loss. “This must be tremendously painful.”
He doesn’t acknowledge my words, but he also doesn’t argue. Doesn’t pretend he’s some coldhearted, emotionless monster. Just draws a deep breath and keeps going.
“Even before Grayson was born, Brigitte and I didn’t have a great sex life.” He opens his eyes and looks straight into mine. “I apologize.”
“What for?”
“It’s inappropriate to broach that subject while naked in your bed.”
I need to tread carefully here. “If you’re talking about being vulnerable with me, I think naked in bed is as good a time as any.”
“Okay.” He releases a long, shaky sigh, his eyes falling shut again. “I’m not telling you that to disparage my late wife. Just stating the fact that our libidos were mismatched from the start.”
“It happens,” I say, commanding myself not to ask any questions. To let him speak freely.
But the silence drags out for another long minute. Then two. There’s a reason he said what he did. If Ash doesn’t know or isn’t sure how to say it, then maybe he does need a nudge.
“Were you the partner with the higher drive?” I know better than to assume. “Or was it your late wife?”
He’s silent so long I don’t think he’ll answer.
“I refuse to blame my actions on my high sex drive like there’s some kind of clinical cause for how I behaved in my marriage.” He lets out a long, ragged breath. “I lied and I cheated because I’m an asshole. It’s as simple as that.”
My clinical training says otherwise. “It’s never that simple, Ash.” I’m walking on eggshells contradicting him, but maybe he needs to hear this. “Good people make poor choices every day.”
Ash shakes his head, eyes still shuttered like he can’t bear to see me.
“I was not a good person. Not even close.” He’s using past tense, which is noteworthy.
“If I could go back and do it all over again, I’d force myself to be faithful.
To be a good husband instead of the asshole who betrayed her. ”
“Oh, Ash.” I’ve counseled enough clients through infidelity to know it’s never that easy. “We all have regrets. We all make mistakes.”