Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Holy hell…was this really happening?
Drew had ducked into his bedroom on the bus to grab his guitar for the next set of photos.
He’d needed to get away from all those eyes on him for a few minutes, take a momentary break from all those expectations and people from the label telling him what they thought he wanted to hear.
Saying how hot he looked. That he was going to smash sales records with his next album, whenever he finally got around to signing the contract and recording it. Telling him he was a superstar.
But he didn’t care about any of that. Didn’t need their praise. Didn’t, frankly, care what any of them thought about him and his music. Only one set of eyes mattered today. Only one opinion.
Ashley’s.
It figured, then, that out of everyone watching the shoot, she would be the only one he hadn’t been able to read.
Did she hate it? The flash? The props? The fact that the photographer had nearly sprayed his bare chest with oil?
All the big-budget, borderline ridiculous things the label had convinced him were expected at this stage of his career?
Already, he’d come to respect Ashley’s opinion a thousand times more than those of any of the Chief Records guys in suits. She knew the business as well as any of them—better, probably, because he’d never known anyone to read so much, not even his sister Olivia.
What Ashley innately understood that the guys from the label never would was what was behind the music.
The heart and soul of a lyric, a melody, a rhythm, that drew ears to it.
She could break a song down and analyze each piece, but she could also simply close her eyes and let the magic of it wash over, and through, her.
All through the photo shoot he’d been thinking about the ideas she’d shared with him this morning on the bus. Could he go indie? Could he put together his own company and do things his way?
But overarching even those huge career questions had been an even bigger one.
Namely, how much longer did he have to wait to kiss Ashley again?
All week had been a series of near misses, and frustration was bubbling up inside of him as he grabbed his guitar, opened the bedroom door to head through the living room…
And realized he wasn’t alone.
He smelled her before he heard her, the vanilla from the body wash she used in the shower instantly turning him on. He was on the verge of saying her name to let her know he was in the back of the bus when he heard what sounded like a moan.
A moan of pleasure.
A rash of jealous thoughts hit him first. Was she with someone else? Had she brought a guy back to the bus while he was doing his photo shoot?
Thoughts of anyone else touching her, kissing her, hearing her gasps of pleasure skewered him one after the other until he realized he couldn’t actually hear anyone else.
Only Ashley and the sweet little sounds she was making from her bunk.
Sounds that were so damned good, he had to move closer, had to find out if one of his biggest fantasies could actually be coming true.
Night after night, as he’d gone back into his bedroom alone to try to take the edge off his need for her, he’d wondered if she was doing the same thing. But to be lucky enough to stumble onto the bus just as she was touching herself?
Jesus.
Just then, she gave another little moan, and Drew couldn’t stop himself not only from moving closer…but also from putting his hand over his rock-hard erection.
He could hear her breathing now, the way it was speeding up as she came closer and closer to her climax.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Drew knew he should stay in the shadows, that he should let her finish getting off without realizing she had an audience.
But he couldn’t think straight anymore. Couldn’t think beyond the desperate need to see Ashley when she took herself over the edge.
When he finally got close enough to see into her bunk, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Not when the most erotic vision in the world lay only feet away.
She was lying on top of the sheets. Her skirt was up around her waist, and her hand was inside her panties.
Her other hand had found its way up her blouse where he was almost positive she was playing with her breasts.
Her hair had come part of the way out of the clip she wore to hold it back, and her skin was flushed with heat and arousal.
Her mouth was wet, as if she’d been licking it while she lifted her hips up into her hand in what had to be the sexiest rhythm he’d ever heard.
“Ashley.”
He didn’t realize he’d said her name aloud until it was too late. Her eyes flew open, and her hand immediately came out from between her legs. Of course, that only made him hotter, hungrier, when he saw how wet her fingers were.
“Don’t stop,” he found himself saying. “I swear I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t plan this. But, please, don’t stop.”
He watched as embarrassment shifted to indecision on her face. But beneath both was the arousal she hadn’t been able to bank. Not when she was obviously so close, hovering on the edge of what he suspected was going to be one hell of an orgasm.
Thank God, it didn’t take long for desire to win. “I won’t stop,” she whispered, “but only if…only if you touch yourself, too.”
He couldn’t get his pants undone and his hand around himself fast enough. “I’m already nearly there, Ashley.” He throbbed hard into his hand as she let him watch hers disappear again beneath the thin white fabric. “God, you’re sexy.”
Her lids came halfway down as she began to touch herself again. But she didn’t take her eyes from him as she said, “So are you.”
It took every ounce of control he possessed not to leap into the bunk with her and replace her hand with his own. Or better yet, his mouth.
He wasn’t going to last. Wasn’t going to even make it until she came. But then, a beat before he lost it, he watched as her hips lifted up off the bed, her eyes closed, and she whispered his name in a broken voice.
Not wanting to miss one second, Drew stilled his hand over himself and watched with wonder as she gave herself over to what looked to be one seriously hot and powerful orgasm.
And when she finally opened her eyes and looked straight into his, her hands now unmoving inside her clothes on bare, damp skin, even though he was standing fully clothed in the middle of his tour bus on a Wednesday afternoon, Drew came harder than he could ever remember coming before in his life.
It took way too long for Ashley’s heart to stop racing and for the fog in her head to clear.
Oh God.
What had she done?
Of course, given that her body was still tingling in the most delicious way, she knew darn well what she’d just done.
She’d not only locked herself in the tour bus to touch herself and then kept going even once she realized Drew was there watching her…
but then had actually been bold enough to ask him to touch himself, too!
She felt so out of her element. Beyond mortified. She couldn’t stop her hands from shaking as she shifted on the bunk to pull her skirt down. Of course, that was when she also finally realized that somewhere in the madness that had taken over she’d pulled her top open, too.
At this point, there wasn’t anything left to say to him but, “I’m really embarrassed right now.”
“Don’t be,” he said, his clothes already put back together. He grinned at her. “It could have happened to anyone.”
His easy, teasing response caught her off guard, so much so that she actually forgot to be embarrassed. “Really? Other people have come onto your tour bus to—” Ah, there was the mortification flooding back in. Seriously, if the earth could just open up to swallow her whole…
She licked her lips nervously, and his gaze fell heavily to them before he grinned even wider and said, “No. You’re the first.”
How was it that she was on the verge of grinning back at him after what had just happened?
But she already knew the answer: Drew owned his sexuality so well that he seemed to assume she would own hers, too.
Now that was quite a thought, one she’d been circling more and more during the time she’d been with him. Why did she always feel like she needed to run from something that she knew was perfectly natural? And what would happen if she simply embraced it instead?
But she still couldn’t forget the hurt from Drew’s rejection on the beach, when she’d asked him to be with her.
As the remembered pain whiplashed her so hard that she swore she could feel the sting of it, she said, “You probably need to get back to the set, or they’re going to think something happened to you. ”
“Something did happen to me. Something amazing.”
She wanted to believe that what had happened meant as much to him as it had to her, but it was scary to let herself go there.
So scary that she knew she couldn’t be anything but honest. “I can’t do this again, Drew.
It hurt so much when you told me you didn’t want to be with me out on the beach.
But now…” She bit her lip. “Now it would crush me to hear you say it.”
“Ash.” He reached for her hand and tugged her closer. “That night, it nearly killed me to walk away from you. And now—” His phone rang with James’s special ring tone. “Damn it, can’t I just have five minutes alone with you?”
“As soon as James sees me, he’s going to know. They all will.”
She might admire those women in the audience every night who owned their sexuality, but who was she kidding? She wasn’t one of them. Slipping her hand from Drew’s, she turned to look for the shoe that had fallen off the side of the bunk.
“Ash.” Drew’s voice was so full of warmth that she had to turn back to face him.
“What just happened was beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever been a part of.
” She felt herself flush all over again as he continued.
“I have to get back to the shoot now, but we need to talk tonight. As soon as I can get away from everything.”
She took a deep breath, trying to get her brain to work right in the aftermath of her shockingly good orgasm.
But she already knew he was right, even without her synapses firing.
There was no way to hide from what was happening between them anymore.
Not now that they’d both just watched each other break apart into a million perfect pieces.
And when James called her phone, she knew Drew’s bodyguard was about to storm onto the bus to lay into his rock-star boss for skipping out in the middle of his photo shoot. “Okay, we’ll talk tonight. You need to go, though. This shoot must be costing a fortune.”
“Do you want to come back with me to the set?”
For a moment she was tempted to hide out on the bus.
But that’s just what it would be—hiding.
And, suddenly, she was sick of hiding. Sick of sitting on the sidelines of life.
No, she wasn’t yet ready to propose a fling again the way she had in Los Angeles, no matter how many sweet and sexy things he’d said to her since then.
But just because she was still trying to figure things out, didn’t mean she wanted to figure them out in the shadows.
Not when it seemed she’d been doing that her entire life.
“I like having you there,” he added when she didn’t answer quickly enough. “But I know you’re probably bored senseless.”
“I wasn’t bored.” Which was an understatement, given the fact that she’d been riveted by every flex of his abs, the slight sheen of sweat that had begun to cover his tanned skin under the hot lights, and how funny and clever he was as he joked with the photographer’s staff. “I like being there, too.”
He reached for her hand, and it felt more electric than ever. “And then after, we’ll talk. Tonight.”
She couldn’t look away from his beautiful eyes as she echoed, “Tonight.”