Page 27 of Keeping Mr. Sweet

CHAPTER TEN

ASH

I sit on the edge of the bed, uncertain. Hesitant. What am I doing here?

I’m doing what I was told. No, ordered. A foreign concept for me. I’ve always been in charge of myself. Alone, except for the army of staff my dad employed. I don’t remember how old I was when I realized that my dad’s limited presence meant, that by default, these people charged with raising me were actually under my command and not the other way around. They didn’t know what was best for me or how to control me. They couldn’t tell me what to do. And they didn’t care to. I learned how to rely on myself and not on anybody else. Until Sam.

He was always there when I needed him. Always willing to help. But he trusted me to work it out for myself. He knew me well enough to know that I had to find my own way because that’s the only one I could rely on. That’s why I could go to him with anything. It’s part of why I still do.

The only times he put his foot down and pulled me up is when I’d push and push and push until he had no choice but to tell me I was doing the wrong thing. He was always right. Even if it took me actually doing the thing he told me was wrong to work it out. Like that night he had to rescue me from the bathroom of the Voyeur in Hollywood because a motorcycle riding college boy was my sixteenth birthday distraction. He’d snatched my drunk ass up off the bathroom floor and carried me out of there, giving me a lecture that could rival a Liam Neeson monologue. If I hadn’t loved him already, I would have fallen for him then.

When I tried to straddle him in the car so I could kiss him, he’d made it clear that he wouldn’t touch me no matter how hard I tried. That I was too young to let me work this one out on my own. No one else has ever been willing to go that far for me.

But this is different. The way he made me apologize two days ago, and the way he got the truth from me just now isn’t Sam telling me off, or letting me get away with whatever I want. How do I handle that? And why does it thrill me and comfort me all at the same time?

“Why aren’t you in bed?” he asks, entering the room and taking his shoes off by the door. His shirt buttons are undone, and he drags the white cotton off his shoulders.

“I wasn’t sure,” I admit, “if we were still top and tailing.”

He smiles gently as he crosses the room, undoing his belt buckle and then the button on his pants. “What do you want, Ash?”

“Hold me?” I whisper. Not fuck me, or touch me; just hold me. Like you used to when you didn’t know I’d ruin you. When I didn’t understand that I could only cause you hurt.

He unzips his pants and pushes them down his muscular thighs, giving me a better view of black boxer briefs and the bulge they encompass. Folding his pants width ways, he drops them over the back of a wooden chair in the corner to join the rest of his clothes before coming to me. “Now that I can do.”

He scoops me up and drops me neatly onto one side of the bed before he pulls the covers over us both. One arm wraps around my waist, his hand tucked under my hip, his other slips under my head and lands possessively on my breast. The wall of his chest is hot against my back and I melt into it, let myself be engulfed by him. I want so desperately to never move from the circle of his care.

It’s a hard thing to know exactly where you belong when being there means eventually you end up hurting the person you care most about.

***

“Hey.” Sam sits on the edge of the bed, dressed in sweats and a long sleeve T-shirt. He holds out one of two mugs while I drag myself into a sitting position against the headboard.

Best sleep I’ve had since... him actually. I take the offered drink and sip it. Chai. Hello, my old friend. “What time is it?”

“Early. Too early. I want to get my run in, though. Ru doesn’t come in this morning.”

“You still do that religiously?”

“Yes.”

“Still worried?”

He shrugs. “Not as much. Just trying to stay healthy. I’m not young anymore.”

“You aren’t old.” Please don’t tell me you’re old and I’m too young again. I couldn’t bear it.

“Perhaps not.” He cups my face, his palm still hot from the cup. “Any chance you want to join me?”

“I’m not ready to go out there.” I hug my arms around my knees, resting my cup on top. “Is that all right?”

“I get it,” he says. “But you have to face the world eventually.”

“One person at a time,” I plead. “I have to face Summer first. I need to know she doesn’t hate me.”

“She doesn’t. You must realize that.” He gets up and puts his empty mug on the nightstand before collecting his running shoes and sitting on the edge of the bed again to put them on. “She’s been calling you. Calling me. I can’t lie to her, Ash. Can’t keep her at bay indefinitely.”

“Just a few more days,” I say.

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