Page 16 of Keeping Mr. Sweet

CHAPTER SIX

ASH

Being around Sam makes everything better, and worse. There are seconds where he makes it feel like my existence is worthwhile, and breaks my heart all at the same time. Moments where every fiber of my being stretches toward him in anticipation, wishing for everything he could offer, and knowing it isn’t for me.

Right here, right now, with his fingers stroking my face and the way he’s looking at me and how he can see through me when he tells me I’m looking for the opposite of trouble shatters me deep inside. I wanted everything with him. Love and family and children like we used to talk about. Does he have any idea how much I wish I could have believed him when he said he wanted those things too. I wish I could have convinced myself to give him everything he wanted. We might have had a chance. He still believed in me then, and I hadn’t ruined everything.

The yearning doesn’t change though. I’m glass in his hands. Is he right that I don’t want trouble? I’ve spent my entire life finding it. I have no idea how to avoid it. But maybe Sam can teach me...No, no he can’t. That’s not who we are.

Only it doesn’t matter, does it? There’s no future for us, only stolen moments. If I’ve learned anything from my father, it’s that the people you love are always the ones who hurt you the most. Sam doesn’t deserve that from me. Nobody deserves the cost of a love like ours.

I clasp his hand to my face and push myself up against him. His chest hitches as he catches his breath, and he tenses down to his fingertips against my cheek. An almost silent groan twists from deep in his throat when I slide my hand over the bulge in his pants and squeeze his cock as it grows hard. I still affect him, deep down to his core, the same as he does to me. “Come on, Sam. This is our truth. Your hard cock and my eager pussy. Why fight what we both need?”

More of my fans from the bar spill onto the street, their voices growing louder but they gather around the lights of Mayhem like moths, probably attracted more to the idea of another drink than to chasing after us. Sam is still as a statue. Adrenaline spikes in my veins, making my heart pound so damn hard while I wait for him to pull me closer or push me away. He’s never tortured me like this before. Never made me wait for what we both need so desperately. Not since I was eighteen.

His hand catches at my hair, hanging loose down my back, tangles at my nape and yanks my head to the side. His mouth finds the angle of my neck and his teeth scrape my skin so hard it almost hurts. There’s an unexpected roughness to the way he gives into me, like he’s pouring all his frustration at my behavior into his touch, and it thrills me. I want it. I’m desperate for it, bursting with the need to feel it on my skin and pounding deep inside me. He curves an arm around my waist and crushes me to him as he growls against my throat. It vibrates into my skin, right down to my toes. This magic he weaves inside me that no other man has ever managed to compete with. Every damn time I’m with him.

It’s a shock when he lets me go. Goose bumps break out all over my arms and legs as I’m sobered up by the chill in the air and the loss of his body heat. His muscles bunch at the top of his jaw and he blows out a breath. I know that look, the way his brow dives low across his eyes before he shuts them for a second, blocking me out again. When he opens them, he holds out his hand to me without a hint of the lust that was between us only a moment ago. “Come on, let’s get inside.”

I stare at the palm he holds out to me, the deep lines I’m so familiar with. The heart line that curves up between his index and pointer finger. When I was fourteen, I told him it meant he would love so deep and true that he’d only ever fall in love once. I’d wanted it to be me he fell for. I’d wanted to know what it would feel like to have him care about me in a way no one else could. He’d laughed at me back then. I guess he was right to.

“Ash?”

He brings me back to the present as he reaches for my hand, but I can’t put my hand in his when all I want is for him to touch me. Can’t take his comfort when I need him to ease the throbbing ache inside me. Can’t let him in when my world is turned upside down and it’s only going to get worse. Seeing Luca’s message tonight, the things that he said…How could I have screwed up so badly? Why did I ever believe he was anything but a creep? I hug my arms around myself and walk ahead of Sam. Why couldn’t it have been my father checking to make sure I was okay? Just this once?

Sam doesn’t try to catch up. I can hear every move he makes, the subtle unevenness of his steps from that time when he broke his ankle jumping off the guest house into the pool. The jingle of his keys as he pulls them out of his pocket and locates the one to unlock Sweet N Soul. He reaches around me when we get to the restaurant and his wide chest is pressed to my back for a fraction of time while he opens the door for me, then he presses his mouth close to my ear and says sternly, “Don’t drink anymore. And don’t you dare masturbate in my bed.”

“I wasn’t,” I start.

“I know you so damn well, Ash,” he says, ushering me inside and shutting the door. “The only trouble you’re after tonight is my attention. That’s what that whole show back there at Mayhem was about, wasn’t it? You’ll go up to my bed, and you’ll slide between the sheets, and you’ll think if you moan loud enough I won’t be able to ignore you. I still remember that night I picked you up from that party. You were dating that kid, what was his name?”

“Dean Castle.” How could I forget? Easily. He wasn’t muscular with hair that turned dirty blond in the sun and blue eyes that smiled when they saw me. He didn’t have wicked dimples that flashed me every time he grinned. He didn’t make my belly all warm and funny and the spot between my legs slippery any time he got close to me. He wasn’t a man. No, Dean Castle, despite what the rest of the girls at school thought of him, was nothing more than a distraction from what I could never have.

“You were so drunk when I found you that I thought it was best to let you sleep it off in the guest house.”

“You put me to bed,” I murmur, turning my back and studying the pictures along the wall. Mostly they’re autographed pictures of his heroes, and celebrities he’s met through the food industry. “And I came onto you so hard.”

“You did,” he agrees.

“It was so embarrassing.” I still feel awkward about my behavior that night despite everything we’ve been through since. The way I’d stripped and tried to seduce him, until he’d taken a pillow and blanket out to one of the loungers by the pool was pathetic. And then I’d played with myself, moaning as loud as I could so that he would hear me. He never came back inside. “Horrific.”

“No, you’d had that massive fight with your dad. Beth had quit because you insisted you didn’t need a nanny anymore.”

“Don’t forget I was too much trouble,” I point out and then parrot the woman who raised me for three of my teenage years. “Ashleigh is always getting into things she shouldn’t, drinking and smoking and partying. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s doing drugs, Mr. Durum. And orgies. You should try that new boarding school, Mr. Durum. That’ll help straighten her out.”

The only reason I didn’t end up at that boarding school is because no one cared to send me. I might have skipped school entirely if it weren’t for Summer’s friendship. My dad certainly wouldn’t have noticed.

“And then you found Dean making out with Muffy Winthrop. You were upset.”

“I’m upset now too.” And I am. That much is true, but this night isn’t anything like that one. I didn’t run off to Mayhem because I wanted him to follow me. I didn’t dance on the bar because I hoped it would make it impossible for him to keep his hands off me. At least not at first.

I ran to escape Luca’s message. I gave in to the urge to go to Mayhem because everyone expects me to be that girl. Assumes I’m only a party girl, a troublemaker, a slut. Why fight the inevitable, right? Why not drink and dance seductively on the bar and behave like I don’t care? It was only when Sam looked at me that I got caught up in wanting him again.

“And you don’t give up.” He smiles a tight smile as he relocks the restaurant door and secures the keys behind the bar. “Except for when it’s important.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means nothing that I say is going to make a difference right now, is it?”

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