Page 35 of All Right No
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Four laps of the island did little to soothe Ash’s mood. Nor could the shower rinse away his hurt. Ash slumped on the bed, wishing the duvet would eat him up. He’d been in the same position for almost half an hour when Ginny returned carrying a wad of paper, which she slapped down on top of the sideboard. Ash raised his head, only marginally interested in the documents. That interest evaporated the moment he clocked her attire.
No bra. No panties. Just the T-shirt Spook had been wearing earlier.
He watched her dump her underwear in the washing basket along with the dress she’d been wearing when he left her.
Fuck!
He blinked a dozen times or so, while trying to frame a rational explanation for why his girlfriend was wearing another man’s shirt.
Maybe there even were a few besides the one hammering his frontal lobes and making him want to scream and beat his chest. He settled for propping himself up on his elbows and watching her breeze around the room, doing he wasn’t really sure what.
“Ginny?”
“We need to talk,” she said, coming to an abrupt halt to the side of the bed.
Oh, Jeezus. Effing. Christ.
“With him. Really? You’re not serious?” He knew the two of them were close, and that they often had a good chinwag together about all his faults, but he hadn’t seriously thought…
Ginny’s eyes narrowed down to slits, and she squinted at him, one elbow bent so that it rested on her hip. “What? Oh my God. You think… You honestly think.” She coughed and tottered backward on her heels. “Christ! That’s what you believe of me, that I was about to admit to shagging Spook? How do you come up with this crap?”
“You’re wearing his shirt.”
She looked down at her attire. “Yeah. I got wet. Did you forget that? You wanted to be alone, and I was freezing. Your mate happens to be a gentleman.”
Yeah… Yeah, Spook was that, and no, he hadn’t forgotten. Of course, he hadn’t forgotten she’d pushed him in the lake and jumped in afterwards. Okay, so actually he’d totally mislaid that fact. Only temporarily mind, probably a side-effect of having her flash that much leg at him. “You took your panties off,” he claimed as a defence.
“I don’t enjoy sitting in wet knickers, and this shirt’s longer than the skirt I was wearing the night we met. I don’t remember you moaning about my lack of panties that evening.”
Ash bit his lip, and studiously ignored the heat he could feel rising through his neck that was also making his ears burn. “Sorry.” It looked as if yet again he’d proved himself a humungous dick. “What did we actually need to talk about?”
“Oh, no.” Ginny planted her other hand on her hip too. “I think we’ll stick with this topic, actually. I’m not sure we’re done yet. What the fuck, Ash! Really, you think I’m screwing one of your mates behind your back. No, no, maybe you think I’m at it with all of them. Now, why would you think that, eh? Is it because a) you believe your girlfriend is a slut and your mates don’t care about you, or b) because you have such a crushingly low opinion of yourself that you can’t believe someone this hot would fall for you, and be devoted to you, and stay with you, even though you’re a fucking self-sabotaging idiot and you haven’t screwed me properly in weeks?”
Fuck! He’d evidently hit a nerve, and she was going to make him pay for it. “You never said you wanted to,” he bleated. He’d not really got the impression she wanted him near her. He hadn’t forgotten how she’d pushed him away that first night here.
“You never said you wanted to,” she shot back at him. “Well, apart from once. But then you’re so tied up in yourself, you’re not aware of much, are you?” She walked towards him, something he couldn’t quite make out grasped within her hands. “That has to change, Ash. It has to. You have to start working with them, not against them, and you have to start believing that you can be everything you want to be. If you put in the effort and work for it.”
“I am.”
“You are not. Stop pretending, Ash. Please, just stop it and think about what’s going to happen. They’re going to drop you if you don’t do something fast.”
“It’s not my fault that Iain screwed me up.”
“It is your fault that you’re not working as hard as you could to undo that damage though.” She pushed him flat against the mattress and slapped something hard against his wrist. By the time Ash had twisted his neck to figure out what it was, she had him handcuffed to one of the bedposts.
“Ginny, what the hell?”
She straddled his chest, and captured hold of his other arm. “Don’t struggle.” She bound that wrist with one of her many, many stockings.
Ash stared up at her, bewildered. Don’t struggle? This was getting surreal, and he really wasn’t all that sure he liked being tied up and at her mercy. Well, perhaps a teeny tiny bit, but that wasn’t the point.
They were arguing. You didn’t willingly put yourself in a position of vulnerability in those circumstances. On the other hand, maybe he needed to prove that his nonsense of a few moments ago was something he regretted and consent to being at her mercy in order to prove he absolutely did trust her.
Ash stilled.
Ginny crossed her arms before her and lifted the offending T-shirt over her head, revealing all her naked glory, high breasts with those big nipples, abs that rivalled his, and, of course, his very favourite bit, that little landing strip that pointed the way to her jewel. “Better?” she asked, watching his expression as his gaze raked across her. “I think it’s better.”
