Page 19 of Keeping Mr. Sweet

CHAPTER SEVEN

SAM

How am I going to sleep after that? Ash naked and spread out over my mattress like she was, her fingers dipping into her tight hole and rubbing her swollen flesh until it was glistening with how wet she was for me. Getting herself off while I watched because I told her to. I march straight to the stairs, take them two at a time.

The moment she was done I had to get out of the room. My dick may as well be carved from marble, it’s that hard for her. I grit my teeth and bear the painful rub of fabric against it as I race through the kitchen and into the small room I keep as an office. She’s had this effect on me since she was seventeen years old. Well, not quite the same. This is something new. Not the way she touched herself, but the way she complied. She had me so close to giving in to what she’s wanted from me since she showed up two nights ago.

I can’t see straight by the time I kick the door shut behind me and yank down my pajama bottoms. My cock is heavy in my hands, my skin tight as I wrap my palm around the length and squeeze. That first stroke is torturous. Two days with Ash and I’m blue balled. Two damn days, and I’m jacking off in my office because there’s a girl in my bed who should not be there. I run my fist up and down my erection, pre-cum lubricating my hold. That’s better. Closing my eyes, I turn my face up to the ceiling. Ash is there behind my eyelids, touching herself for me. Just once doing what I asked. Her pale lips are parted and her eyes are locked on mine and she wants... this.

My movements slow for a second as I try to figure it out. She’s always wanted something from me. Wanted my help. Wanted me to save her. Or hate her. Or fuck her. But this... this was something else, and I loved every damn second of it.

I pump harder, encouraged by the image of her orgasming for me and the need in her eyes that was so much more than simple lust. It doesn’t take any more than that to make me shoot ribbons of cum into my palm. Afterward I tuck myself back into my pants and find some paper towel to clean up with. But I’m still upstairs in that room with Ash.

Wish I was at any rate, as I stretch out on the couch with my legs hanging off the edge. I miss the way she used to wriggle her ass into my crotch and take my hand and slide it inside her tank top before we fell asleep. As though she would always need more of me than I could ever give. She was okay then. Better. The best she’d been in years.

My chest hurts, and I rub at the ache that’s settling there. It doesn’t make sense. She was better when she left me. She was standing on her own two feet and ready to tackle the world. Nineteen and ready to conquer life. She hadn’t been on a bender since the night the police called me to collect her from lock up. Even when she came back for Dad’s funeral she mostly had her shit together. I was the one who needed her to fuck away the world for me and she did. Because I asked her to. Because I needed her to. I just couldn’t let her go.

Until I had to. I have to. I’m supposed to. For fuck’s sake, I’m trying here. My pulse gallops, makes my chest tight until it’s hard to breathe. It’s probably stress. Nothing but stress from Ash showing up. I get off the couch anyway. There’s no way I’ll sleep tonight and there’s plenty of paperwork for Sweet N Soul I could be doing instead of dredging up the past.

***

There are voices coming from the kitchen when I wake. Climbing off the couch, I massage the back of my neck and my right shoulder, which feels seized from the uncomfortable position I’ve found myself in two nights in a row. I unplug my phone from the charger and check the time. Still early. Probably still dark too. But normally I’m in the kitchen by now, prepping for the day with Ru before my run. Which means he’s one of the voices I can hear. I pocket my phone and open the office door.

“So you’ve been everywhere then?” Ru asks Ash as he works his knife through a mountain of bacon.

“No. Not everywhere.” Ash shakes her head before taking a sip from the giant white mug cradled between her hands.

It’s my mug she’s confiscated this morning. Probably with my coffee, just the way I like it. The way I taught her to drink it when she was studying for finals in high school. Double everything. I fall back against the doorway and drink her in. She’s up and showered and dressed. Her wet hair is combed almost straight down her back to where it’s always kinked an inch from the tips. The difference between yesterday and today is like night and day. I catch myself smiling at how quickly she’s started to pull shit together this time.

She won’t stick around. She’ll work out how to deal with the sex tape and she’ll be gone again.

She taps her fingers against the side of my mug while she lists the places she’s been. “Australia, Japan. Pretty much all of Europe and the UK. Thailand. Singapore. But not so much the Middle East.”

“So everywhere.” Ru sticks his tongue in his cheek as he waggles his eyebrows at her, the knife in his hand still moving with precision.

“As many places as I could go.” She sighs. “Now I guess I’m grounded.”

“So you’ll go home to L.A. after this?” He tosses most of the bacon into big metal bowls that we’ll use when we open for breakfast. The rest of it goes into a smaller bowl along with eggs and butter that he then starts to whisk.

“I don’t even know if my dad’s talking to me after... you know.” She glances at the wall where the stairs run out of sight, then fiddles with her bangs. I can’t see her eyes, can’t tell what she’s thinking. It’s hard not to walk over there and push them out of the way so that I can see what she’s trying to hide from Ru. “L.A.’s never been home.”

“You don’t change, do you, Mischief?” He chuckles.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She pops her head up. “Sam said almost that exact same thing to me last night.”

“Did he now?” He pauses with the bowl in his hand. The sound of the whisk tinging off the metal ceases and then restarts. Is he surprised that I’m not completely blinded by her? I know who she is. Always have. That’s part of the problem.

“Yes, and clearly I don’t know what either of you are talking about.” She picks up something from the counter, a bit of eggshell or bacon and flicks it at him.

“Try to behave yourself.” Ru grins so wide, and I want to ask him if he’s sure he thought she’d get into trouble with me, or if he was kind of hoping it would be him. I take a breath and try not to roll my eyes at my own brilliance. No, Ru is only being friendly. Then his smile droops. “In all seriousness though, this isn’t your home.”

“I know that,” she says. “I do know that.”

I want to tell them they’re both wrong, but they’re not. How many times can one wish for something without realizing the impossibility of it?

“Do you? Do you also know he’s never going to tell you to leave, no matter how many times you push his buttons or in what order?”

“I’m not trying to push—” She starts to argue.

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