Page 60 of All Right No
Having polished off her brunch in record time due to its utter deliciousness, Ginny set her knife and fork aside. She didn’t have any particularly amazing talents like he did. She didn’t play any instruments, and she wasn’t especially artistic. She’d been a competent gymnast in her youth, but she wasn’t about to teach him how to cartwheel or backflip. For one, she wasn’t sure she was still up to doing either of those things herself, and secondly, she didn’t want him to end up with another injury. Other than that, all her skills were pretty mundane. If she could teach him not to lose his phones that might be useful, but mostly the issue there was down to his over-trusting nature when it came to entertaining women of dubious backgrounds. He’d mislaid his phones so often in the past because he spent too much time having intercourse with groupies, and not checking their pockets before they left. Strangely enough, he hadn’t mislaid nearly so many items since they’d begun dating.
“You must have some skills.”
“Well, I’m told I give amazing blowjobs.”
“You do, but that’s not something I need to master.”
“Sure?” She gave him a hard stare through narrowed eyes.
Ash sat back in his chair and laughed. “I know exactly what you’re thinking. I don’t know why you have such an obsession with this. Look, I’ve never blown anyone, and I’ve no intention of doing so.”
“You didn’t wrap your lips around Xane’s dong?” She left her chair and came to sit in his lap.
Ash smiled up at her. “No. Other way around.”
She kind of already knew that. He’d dropped hints their first night together when he’d ranked her efforts as the third on his all-time best blowjobs listing. She’d managed to deduce that his ex-girlfriend Connie was one of the two occupying the hotspots, and that Xane was the other. Though by now, she hoped she’d managed to usurp them. “No reciprocal action?”
“Nope.”
She pressed her thumb to her pursed lips. Ash watched her, a smirk dancing across his face, betraying his amusement over her fascination with his sexual history. “For God’s sakes, just spill it. Tell me. I need to know. All of it, from beginning to end. How it happened, where and when it occurred, and how the heck it even came about.”
She hooked her arms around his neck and waited. Ash sighed and wet his lips. He took a drink and then set it back down.
“Alcohol would be the primary factor. That, and Xane’s an addict and not fussy in any way. Leastways, that was the case back then. He was pretty mucked up. I guess you could say I was too, since I let it happen.”
“So what, you were bored on the tour bus and he said, ‘Shall I blow you?’ and you said, ‘Okay.’”
He shook his head, then kissed the top of her arms. “It was a cold cruel night. Sky like pitch, with nary a hint of moonlight, when the great arch-fiend Xane Geist went prowling door to door seeking out a victim.” He broke off cackling. “I’m sorry. It’s just you’re turning this into a big deal and it isn’t. It’s just something that happened. It probably shouldn’t have done, but everyone makes stupid mistakes.”
“I still want to know.”
“Yeah, I got that.” The muscles of his thighs tensed as he shifted uneasily beneath her. “Okay, just accept that for some excessively complicated and irrelevant reason we—the band—ended up in separate locations. It doesn’t matter to the story other than to know that Xane and I got separated from the rest of them.”
“While on tour?”
He nodded. “Our third or fourth. I’m not sure. They kind of blur into one. Anyway, Xane and I ended up stranded at some pokey backwater hotel. Paul, Spook, and Steve were with the bus; and Elspeth with our Hungarian support act. Knowing we were going to be stuck there a while, we hit the bar.”
“As one does.”
“As one does,” he agreed. “Things went pretty much as you’d imagine. Xane attracts admirers like a magnet. So, roll forward a couple of hours and we end up back in my room accompanied by a couple of lovely ladies.”
“Your room, not Xane’s?”
He crooked an eyebrow as he frowned. “It could be we were sharing a suite. I don’t remember. It’s not really important.”
“You’re right, go on.”
Ash sought her hand and gripped it. “We’re all on the bed making out, the four of us that is, only one of the girls gets a phone call. Suddenly, she’s not quite so into it anymore, and she’s like, ‘Actually, I’ve got to get out of here.’ And she leaves, and her friend leaves with her.”
“Leaving you alone with Mister Horn Dog.”
Hurt flashed through his eyes and he looked down at the floor. “Leaving the pair of us alone on the bed. Xane—he just rolled over, and threaded his fingers through my hair.” He raised his hand to the side of his head in demonstration. “And kissed me. He didn’t stop for a beat. I don’t think there was any conscious thought involved in it. He needed his fix, and I was right there. And for whatever insane reason you care to imagine, I didn’t push him away.”
“He went down on you?”
“He went down on me.” A thread of colour snaked across the ridges of his cheek bones. “When I didn’t leap to reciprocate, he rolled me over and…” Ash clammed up.
“Fucked you,” Ginny mouthed.
