18. brooks
eighteen
brooks
. . .
Drunk Like You - The Cadillac Three
I don’t know what the hell is in that cupcake-smelling gloop Ashton is always fiddling with, but god damn.
There ain’t a glass of whiskey in the world that could have me feeling like this.
Hell, I could go right up and talk to God himself, and I don’t think he could get me higher than one taste of those lips.
One simple press of her mouth to mine and I’m flying, drunk on years of want and lust and obsession and Ashton.
This is the girl I grew up with. The one I always quietly admired for her speed and spunk.
My best friend’s little sister—the one girl I swore, at four years old, that I’d never, ever hurt.
It’s one of my earliest memories. Jody and I sat on either side of Everett in his parents’ old den.
Mama Tanner laid two-day-old Ashton across Everett’s lap, and his eyes grew dinnerplate-wide as he looked at both of us.
“You gotta look after her,” he said to us with all the solemnness a four-year-old could muster. “You gotta help me keep her safe.”
I know I’ve kissed her before, but we were young and dumb and a little drunk, and I won’t lie and tell you it was the most earth-shattering moment of my life.
I remember she tasted like apple pie and bonfire smoke, and that I hated myself afterward for letting that alcohol-fuelled sloppy mess be our first kiss, but I don’t remember much else about that night.
Certainly not who I went home with, or whose bed I woke up in the next day.
But this kiss? This is the kind of world-rocking, life-affirming, ground-breaking kind of kiss they make books and movies about. This is the kind of kiss that shifts the earth beneath your feet and makes damn sure nothing in the world will ever be the same again.
Even with Ashton on her knees between my thighs.
Especially with her on her knees. A beautiful girl on her knees is a treat for any straight man, but when it’s the one who—well, fuck.
It’s hit me all of a sudden, right in the face.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything with more clarity than I am right now.
When it’s the one woman you’ve wanted for your whole entire life, it’s something else.
Everything is heightened. I send a quick, silent prayer to a God who may or may not exist that I don’t fuck this up, because holy shit, Ashton Tanner is on her knees for me right now.
“You okay?” I ask. I bend forward at the waist, desperate for another taste of her mouth, but not letting my lips touch hers until she nods.
My God, there’s not a thing in this world that feels quite like kissing Ashton Tanner.
Like holding her in my arms. Like wrapping my arms around her, pulling her up my body until she’s straddling me; one knee on either side of my hips.
I flick open the button of Ashton’s shorts as she rocks her hips against mine.
I’ve just come all over her tits, but having her shirtless body pressed against me, the heat of her core over the root of my cock, I’m halfway hard again.
I’ve never been more than a twice-in-a-night kind of guy, but something tells me Ashton Tanner might be the one to change that.
Something tells me that for her, I might be insatiable.
My T-shirt is covered in the remnants of the mess I left on her chest but she continues to rub against me anyway, whimpering against my lips.
She gives and she takes, and I take and I give, and anything that came before is long forgotten.
It’s simply the two of us: me and my lifelong dream.
My hands on her hips, guiding her to ride me.
My lips on her jaw, tongue flicking at the spot that makes her gasp. My body at her mercy.
My heart, for all that it’s worth, in her hands.
And when she snaps her hips against mine, grinding down hard against the waistband of my sweats with my cock hard between our stomachs, it hits me all over again.
This is Ashton. Ashton Faith Tanner—the girl who used to outsmart me at hide and seek.
The girl who impressed me for the very first time when she was five years old. The only woman I’ve ever truly wanted.
My breathing becomes ragged as Ashton throws her head back.
My hands skate up her bare back, hot skin beneath my fingertips, until my fingers tangle in her hair, tugging at the strands.
I hold my lips against her throat, stilling as she does, as the world explodes beneath me for a second time tonight.
I come with a shudder and a grunt; a sound torn from the back of my throat as Ashton’s fingernails bite at my shoulders.
And then the world falls quiet for a long moment.
There’s nothing but our mingled breaths, heavy and uneven, and Ashton lays her head against my shoulder.
Mindless for a moment, lost in the feel of her body against mine, I let my hand drift from her hair, ghosting fingertips up and down the length of her spine.
She shudders against me, and then giggles.
When she lifts her head, she meets my gaze with the most beautiful, beaming smile.
“That was…” Her words drift off. Her lips twitch as she tries and fails to maintain a neutral expression.
“Sure was…” I counter. No idea what my own face is doing. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say I probably look like one of those cartoons with heart eyes, or maybe just a little lost and dazed.
“Certainly somethin’.”
“Certainly was that.” Her laughter is infectious, and soon enough, I catch it too.
It hits me again, almost as hard as that second orgasm, when Ashton throws her head back.
The long line of her throat exposed. Her strong, tattooed arms; hands braced on my biceps.
Lightly tanned skin on her chest, still sticky from earlier.
She’s the most beautiful fucking woman I’ve ever seen.
“Ugh,” she grumbles, then sighs. “I should go. I think we both could use a shower.”
“Yeah.” I release my hold on her and she slides off my lap gracefully, buttoning her shorts with one hand as she collects her bra and tank top with the other.
I stand carefully, trying not to make more of a mess than I already have.
I follow Ashton to the door and brace my arm against the top of the doorframe, relishing in the cool—for Texas—evening air on my still-hot skin.
“Let’s not let this be weird, okay? You and me?
See you tomorrow?” There’s a storm brewing in Ashton’s eyes as she speaks, wrapping the shoulder straps of her bra around her wrist to carry it home.
Her nipples are still peaked against the thin material of her tank top.
The evening breeze whips her hair softly around her face, and she smiles softly. Dazzlingly.
I know she’s about to walk away, and I know I have to let her.
But my god, I don’t want to. For the first time in my twenty-seven years, I want to keep a woman in my bed, rather than kick her out.
I want to keep her with me, always. I don’t know how to process any of what just happened, or how to voice the way I’m feeling, so instead, I simply let her go.
“See you tomorrow, devil.”