Take Me Home

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ash’s mouth should have come with a warning. Hazel hadn’t had a lot to compare it to, since her limited hookups tended to skip this part entirely, but he had clearly tacked a specialty in oral onto his architecture studies. This was graduate-level work.

When he admitted he’d thought about this, pushing up her hot teacher skirt, she figured the fantasy would have gone somewhere more satisfying for him. This was all for her, wasn’t it? Her pleasure? He’d gone down on her yesterday in the barn, too, had only stopped when she demanded he come back up, let her get her hands on him. She didn’t quite know what to do with herself when all his attention was on her.

She reveled in the scratch of his stubble, the shape of him kneeling before her, the breadth of his shoulders, dark curls falling across his forehead, until she caught sight of them in the mirror above his dresser. And…Oh. She thought the view of him from above was a lot. This perspective made her lips part on a gasp.

After he’d roughly pulled her to his face, he’d hitched one of her knees over his shoulder, and she’d complied so quickly, she hadn’t had time to consider how intimate this position was. Now, she was looking at herself, half climbing him, hips angled desperately toward the exquisite warmth and pressure of his mouth, her skirt up around her ribs. She was clutching his hair, his free shoulder for support. His hands worked in tandem with his mouth, one working into her while his other hand squeezed her ass cheek. She watched herself writhe against his face and—

It was enough to break through the haze of her lust, make her unhook her knee from his shoulder. He looked up at her questioningly, and she fought the urge to cover her face. “Too much?” he asked roughly, turning to kiss her thigh.

Not physically. Physically, it had been so good. Already, she’d felt the swelling ache and pressure of an orgasm building. But something else had come with it, a frantic, needy clawing in her chest. Her skin pricked with a feeling of overexposure.

“Tell me.” His voice was gruff but not impatient.

His eyes flicked to her hand, which she’d drawn up to her collarbone, as if she could calm the internal clawing there. His awareness of her hand made the clawing worse, made it push up into her throat, a thick knot of emotion. God, where was this coming from? Her nose and eyes stung with the threat of tears—again—and she went to push her skirt down.

Immediately, Ash rose. He reached first for her face but seemed to second-guess touching her there and swept his palms down her arms, cupping her elbows. That wild, hungry, half-drunk look in his eyes vanished, replaced by sober concern. “Talk to me.”

“Sorry, I don’t know why—”

“Don’t apologize. Just tell me what’s going on.”

He waited, but she didn’t know how to explain something that she hadn’t yet worked out for herself. She’d stopped him in the barn yesterday, too, when she’d been so close, when she’d needed him to come with her.

“We don’t have to do this tonight,” he said. “We can watch a movie or—”

“No.” She wanted this, wanted him. There was just something malfunctioning inside her, some faulty wiring that had never been up to code but had kept the lights on until now, until someone opened the wall and took a good look at the shoddy work in there.

He waited, and she swallowed down the blockage in her throat. How could she explain to him that his adoration made her feel like she was coming apart at the seams?

“I don’t know how to let you…” She gestured between him and herself. “I’m not used to this.” She was being entirely too vague, practically saying nothing at all. She didn’t want to admit that sex, as rarely as she had it, was just another escape for her. She just closed her eyes and chased her release, and while she didn’t jump into bed with just anyone, she didn’t need an emotional attachment. In fact, the attachment she felt for Ash seemed to be precisely the thing making this harder.

“You’re not used to someone taking care of you,” he said.

This must have been true, too, because the sting of unshed tears sharpened.

Ash ran his hands back up her arms to cradle her face. “You need to know you’re not in this deeper than I am? Not more out of control?”

She shook her head. She shouldn’t need the upper hand. That wasn’t how relationships were supposed to work.

“You know how good you were feeling before we stopped just now?”

Her cheeks heated, but she couldn’t deny it.

“Do you have any idea how good it feels for me to do that to you? To see you like that?” He groaned like he was remembering, feeling it all over again, and kissed her. Staying in close, he said, “When you’re like that, I’m like that, too, I promise. I’m just as turned on. More, probably.”

When she didn’t speak, still embarrassed at how greedily she’d rocked herself against his mouth, he pressed his hips into hers, and she felt the hard length of him. The warm firmness of his body molded to hers made the tension in her own body give a little. He was a weighted blanket in human form. And yet, under the calm that emanated from him, the feel of him still hard and pressed to her and the open desire in his words stirred her own need back up.

“As for the feelings part…” He tipped his head back just enough to look her in the eye and smoothed her hair back from her face. “I’m ahead of you there, too. I meant what I said. It’s been a long time.”

Earlier, when he’d admitted he’d been jealous of Justin, even back in high school, her reaction surprised her. She didn’t feel trapped. It made her feel secure. Safe.

“I didn’t even really know you then,” he said. “Not like I do now.”

“And now you’re wondering what you were thinking?” she said on a watery laugh.

One finger swiped affectionately across her eyebrow and down to her jaw. “Pretty sure I’m falling for you.” A half shrug, a little shake of his head. “Don’t panic, okay?”

The swelling in her chest was different from the clawing, needy sensation that had made her pull away, the ache in her throat replaced by a stretch in her cheeks, a smile she couldn’t tamp down. And the tears that sprang back to her eyes were of an entirely different kind. “I won’t panic.”

“Good.”

If he hoped she’d say she was falling for him, too, he left no room for her to fumble over the words, covering her mouth with his. It was there, on the tip of her tongue. Something small. Me, too. But instead of breaking away to let her say it, Ash deepened the kiss, hands slipping down to her hips and flexing there, and soon she was following his backward shuffle to the bed.

She lay on the soft flannel bedspread and watched Ash toe off his shoes, loosen his tie, unbutton the collar of his shirt, and pull it over his head. She shimmied out of her skirt while he yanked off his belt. Once they were both in nothing more than their underwear, he sat by her hip and traced a finger across the top of her bra, over the swell of one breast, into the dip of her cleavage, and over the other. His hand continued around to her back, and she arched for him to unclasp her bra. This time, he managed it on the first attempt instead of desperately tugging it down. He gave her a victorious grin that made her giggle, giddy with affection for him as she lifted her arms to let him slide her bra off.

The grin vanished as soon as he got a full look at her. Thank God they’d turned on the bedside lamp because otherwise she would have missed that dark hunger in his eyes. That look could power a whole city block. I want to touch more of you than I did in the barn, he’d told her earlier.

Her nipples pinched into little peaks, aching for contact. “Touch me.”

He didn’t need any more invitation than that, covering one breast with his palm. She fumbled for his hips, tugging him to lie atop her, and he settled between her legs, pressing his erection right up against her. “You need me close? Right here?”

She wanted him even closer than this, but every point of their bodies that could be in contact already was, especially when he dropped his mouth to her neck. She nodded, then realized he couldn’t see it. “Yes.”

He was everywhere. Just when she got used to one sensation, he switched to another kind of touch, another part of her body. His palm slipped into the back of her underwear, squeezing a handful of ass cheek and lifting her up against him, before he ducked to capture her breast with his mouth, teeth grazing her nipple, then closing his lips around it and sucking hard. He shifted his body back up to meet her again with a slow, hard grind.

She couldn’t believe they both still had their underwear on. They were dry humping like teenagers. But God, it felt good. She could come like this, without even getting to feel him where she wanted him. The muscles in his arms and shoulders were threaded taut from supporting his weight, as if he didn’t understand she wanted him to crush her. “Closer,” she said. “You can come closer.”

“I want to be inside you.” The way he said it seemed to encompass more than just sex, like he had the same strange desire she did, to burrow through his skin, to curl up inside his chest.

She pushed his boxer briefs halfway down his ass, loving the hard muscles there, which flexed as he ground himself against her. When she didn’t finish the task, he made an impatient sound in the back of his throat and pushed off her until she focused enough to shove his underwear the rest of the way and wriggle out of her own.

He was beautiful, stretched out above her to open the nightstand drawer, all lean muscle, long lines, and smooth planes. She ran her fingers down the ridges of his abs, making his stomach clench. His shaky laugh cut off into a deep groan as she wrapped her fingers around him and slid down and back up his length. He was in the middle of tearing a condom open but dropped his forehead to her shoulder, apparently too caught up to do anything else with it, so she took it and rolled it onto him. She slid her hands up his sides and urged him closer until his chest pressed firmly against hers, and he positioned himself at her entrance.

Instead of pushing into her, though, he lifted his face to look at her. His breathing was labored, the tendons in his neck strained tight, but the kiss he pressed to her lips was tender. He reached between them, and she jerked, surprised by his fingers on her again. Dear God, was he really going to keep teasing her? She would combust.

“Asher,” she said sharply. “Get in me.”

And then, with an amused huff, he did.

She wanted to cry from the relief of finally having him there, from the pressure and stretch of the welcome intrusion. He pushed in slowly. Too slow. She whined when he retreated, but he came back, pushed deep inside her. They both released shuddering exhales, husks of sound scraping through the silence.

Hazel was about to beg him to move when he began to rock into her, back muscles flexing under her palms, mouth open against her neck. “Goddamn, Haze,” he said, both strain and awe in his voice. The pace was slow at first. She felt everything, every movement like shoreline waves crashing in and dragging out. Under her hands, his shoulders began to tremble—“You’re shaking,” she marveled—and he snapped his hips harder into hers, giving in to some needier drive.

She understood now what he’d been trying to tell her, that seeing her on the edge of losing it turned him on. She pulled his face up so she could see it again, that wild hunger, and when she did, when his impossibly dark, desperate gaze met hers, and she took in his kiss-swollen mouth, the tense crease between his eyebrows, the ragged sound of his breath, something snapped inside her.

She didn’t know how he understood immediately what she was doing and maneuvered them, but quickly they were sitting upright, and she was straddling his hips. His head tipped back, letting her hold his face and kiss him hard as she rolled against him, staying deep, getting the pressure she needed. His hands hovered at her waist and then gripped tight enough to leave a mark. The thought of it, his fingerprints on her skin after, quickly morphed from a curiosity to a need.

“Fuck, I’m—”

She knew already. He was bucking up into her, giving her hips an extra pull every time she rocked against him. She was right there, too, tried to say as much, to assure him he could let go, that maybe she needed his release to get to her own.

“Haze,” he panted. “Come with me.”

The pressure deep inside her crested then tore through her. Every part of her clenched tightly around Ash as the waves of it kept coming, kept breaking. The night’s ever-present tears stung her eyes anew, this time from sheer relief, like her orgasm was yanking open every door inside her, letting out every pent-up breath. She was only half aware that he came, too, his thrusts hard and fast up into her and then one last jerk.

They held each other, chests heaving, until Ash gingerly tilted her face back and swiped a tear from her cheek. His eyebrows furrowed, but then he seemed to understand these tears were different. “How?” he whispered. “How is it like this?” And his own eyes were intense with emotion that made her want to hold him forever.

“Pretty sure I’m falling for you, too,” she answered.

He swallowed twice before he managed, quietly, “Thank God.”

The first time Hazel awoke, the room was still dark. Ash’s arms were wrapped around her from behind in a full-contact cuddle. He stirred shortly after she did, pressed a kiss to the back of her neck, and soon they were grinding against each other under the warm blankets, pausing only to grab a condom from the bedside table.

The next time she awoke, the dark night outside was just beginning to turn, an undertone of blue bleeding through. She extracted herself carefully from Ash to tiptoe across the hall to the bathroom, hoping since they were the only ones up here in the addition, she wouldn’t run into one of his sisters or nieces. When she returned, she stopped in the doorway to watch Ash, curls brushed across his forehead, T-shirt sleeve twisted up around his shoulder. She had designs to pull the covers down, wake him with her mouth, but something began buzzing. She pawed through the pockets of Ash’s blazer on the floor until she found her phone.

She had seven missed calls, four voicemails, six texts, all from her father.

“Get back in here,” Ash murmured, eyes still closed. When she didn’t, he pushed up on one elbow. “What’s wrong?”

She held up her phone.

“Your dad?”

“I don’t want to look yet.”

“Don’t then. Give it ’til morning.”

She nodded at the window. “It is morning.”

He pulled the covers back. “Five more minutes. Then we’ll figure it out.”

Hazel was pretty sure you couldn’t snooze anxiety, but she relented. He took her phone from her and tucked it behind him where she couldn’t fixate on it, and he held her in the cozy warmth of his bed until, somehow, her adrenaline and dread leveled off.

“It’s going to be okay, you know,” he said after a while.

“I acted like a freak.”

He made a sound of protest in his throat.

“I flipped a table. And the things I said…”

“I think you needed to say them.”

Regret burned through her. “I should have had more control. Now it’s all just…” She closed her eyes. Her breathing was shaky.

“You did the hardest part,” he said, kissing her shoulder. He stroked her arm. “Now you guys can talk it out.”

Hazel flipped over to face him. “There’s no coming back from this. Now he knows.”

“I know,” he said gently. “I know it feels like that. But it’s a step forward.”

“No, it’s like ten thousand steps back. It undoes everything. The whole point of this week was to not do any of this. No steps forward or backward. Everything was supposed to stay the same.”

“But things don’t just stay the same. I understand you didn’t want to tell him how you really feel, but—” He squeezed her wrist gently. “What you guys have been doing all these years isn’t a real relationship. Isn’t that what you want, something better? Isn’t that, deep down, why you came back?”

Hazel opened her mouth to deny it but couldn’t.

“You don’t want to change anything so you won’t risk losing these scraps he’s given you.”

She sat up, and he barely dodged her shoulder. “You don’t get it.”

“What am I not getting?”

“That I fucked up. Things can never go back to how they were. I didn’t want this.”

“You’re right, they can’t. They have to change. But I’m telling you, it’s going to be for the better. When you took off, he wasn’t angry or annoyed or whatever. He was concerned. He wanted to understand.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When you went to the bathroom. He had no idea what he’d done wrong. I mean, Christ, Hazel. He didn’t know about Justin. He thinks if he tries even a little, he’ll smother you. He’s not just on a different page than you. He’s in a completely different fucking book.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him he needed to talk to you.” Ash groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “And I said what anyone with a shred of sense would have known after two minutes around you, that he should see this incredible person right in front of him, visit you, call you.”

Her eyes went wide. “Why would you tell him that?”

“I was trying to—” He tried to stroke her arm again, but she pulled it away. “Look, I know it wasn’t my place. I know I shouldn’t have said anything, and I’m sorry. But, Hazel, him not knowing how you feel about anything doesn’t protect you. It only hurts you. And I really hate seeing you hurt.”

“That’s funny,” Hazel said without a shred of humor and pushed herself off the bed. “Nothing hurt until I came here. Until you started digging around in my business.”

It felt at once not quite true and the absolute truest thing she’d ever said. He was the one who’d been so incensed by her exclusion at the dinner last night, who just couldn’t let it go. She’d given in to her hurt feelings after he’d stoked them. Not to mention all their other conversations this week, his badgering questions, how openly not right he judged her relationship with her dad to be. And now he’d gone and compounded her outburst, revealed more that she wouldn’t be able to claw back.

She gathered last night’s clothes from the floor and dropped them next to her bag, which she unzipped so hard, the teeth caught the canvas. She had to yank it several times before it gave. Then, she pulled out jeans, a sweater, and jammed her legs into the pants.

At this, Ash rose from the bed. “What are you doing?”

“Getting dressed.”

“I see that. Why are you doing it right now?”

“Because I don’t want to have this conversation naked.”

“Can you just—”

“What?”

“Slow down and talk to me.”

A bitter laugh scraped out of her. “Maybe I don’t want to talk. Maybe talking is the whole fucking problem.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said quietly.

“Well, you don’t know everything,” she snapped. “Maybe you’re one of those people everything just works out for. Maybe you can count on people wanting you around, even after you fuck up. But people aren’t falling all over themselves to be with me.”

He pressed a palm to his chest. “I am.”

“Well, you shouldn’t!” She felt wild. The clawing in her chest was back, and she rubbed the spot, felt her heart pounding back. “God, you shouldn’t have to work so hard for something that isn’t going to last anyway. Everything eventually falls apart. Everything. The only difference is whether you know that and accept it, or you let yourself hope it’ll be different this time.”

Ash shook his head, letting it hang. “Don’t do this,” he said. The resignation in his voice stopped her short. He didn’t mean just to stop spinning out, to stop talking herself out of a reasonable outlook on her relationship with her dad. He was two steps ahead, even of her own self-awareness. And now she was catching up. He was resigned because she was talking herself out of a reasonable outlook on her relationship with him.

The realization sank in her stomach. She didn’t want to do this. She wasn’t ready to do this. But it was always going to happen.

“If I don’t do it, it’s not like you will. You’ll keep driving the same shitty car until it dies, stay friends with a guy you don’t even like.”

His face was strained when he looked up. “So, this is a favor? Is that it? You think you’re saving me from some future pain by ending it now? Because you’re too goddamned late, Hazel. If you leave now, you will fucking break my—”

He stopped himself short as she looked away. Hazel’s rib cage was too tight. She couldn’t get a full breath. Her eyes stung and blurred, so she stooped to zip up her boots, anything to not have to look at him.

His voice was thick when he continued. “Won’t it hurt you, too?”

She shoved the remaining clothes into her bag. Just like last night, she forgot about the cut on her palm, and it stung when she lifted the strap. This pain was what finally made the tears spill over. She was so damn tired of crying.

She held out her uninjured hand, eyes cutting to her phone on the bed beside him.

He picked it up but didn’t give it to her. “Don’t leave. Not like this.”

“Please, give me my phone.”

He shook his head again, kept shaking it, like this was the only gesture, the only thought available to him—no.

Hazel pulled the phone from his grasp and shoved it into her back pocket. She turned to his door. “It hasn’t even been a week. We barely even started this.”

“So, what? Shit got a little uncomfortable, and now that’s it?” He came up behind her, pressed his hands flat to the door on each side of her shoulders, caging her in. He wasn’t touching her, but she felt the warmth of his body behind her. How many times had she wanted him to press against her like this, wanted the relief of that contact? If he wrapped his arms around her again instead of just holding the door shut, she didn’t know if she had the strength to resist.

She felt his breath on her ear when he asked, “Last night you were falling for me, but now you’ll just turn it off?”

She shook her head, helpless.

“Hazel.” A plea. Her body wanted to stay, wanted to sink into his arms. Her heart begged her to turn around.

“Hazel, please.”

She grabbed the doorknob, willing him to unblock the door. Willing him not to.

“Fuck,” he said, voice brittle. He rocked his weight into his palms, making the door creak on its hinges. He stayed there for long seconds, trapping her.

Every moment that passed cemented her words. Take it back, she thought. Don’t let this happen. But she couldn’t speak. She needed out.

Finally, Ash pushed himself back. His bare feet shushed across the carpet, away from her.

“I just need some space,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he bit out from somewhere behind her, bitterness in his voice. “I’m sure that’ll fix everything. Thousandth time’s a charm.”

“You know me so well,” she agreed, matching his cold tone. “I guess you should have seen this coming.”

Then she opened the door and walked out.