All Right Now

by Madelynne Ellis

  “The stickers are merely to keep track of what tasks you’ve completed. We’ll be using age appropriate rewards like I already said.”

  “Really?” he drawled, refusing to temper his scepticism. “So what tasks are we talking about that are going to incentivise me to earn my good boy stickers?” He peeled several off one of the sheets and stuck them to the front of his T-shirt.

  Ginny sucked in her cheeks. He knew she was biting back a retort, but he was dead tired of being treated like a naughty child that had to be appeased and cajoled and coddled. None of them were prepared to say what they were thinking to his face. Like he couldn’t tell that they all just wanted him to piss off and get on with his pity party somewhere else. That’s why he was stuck here and they’d gone elsewhere to perform without him.

  “Hey,” she snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Come back here. I don’t like this tuning out thing you keep doing. When I’m talking, I expect you to listen.”

  “I’m listening,” he sighed.

  “Ash, you’re really not the only one who has lost something, you know.”

  “What have you lost?”

  She wearily shook her head at him. “You dumb fool, don’t you know? You, that’s what. You keep locking me out. Stop locking me out, Ash. I can help. I want to help.”

  “I’m beyond helping.”

  It hurt to see her face scrunched with sadness. He didn’t want her to be sad, or to bring her down with his misery. Ash’s nose tingled, and the corners of his eyes grew damp. Shit! Crying in front of her; when had he become such a wuss?

  She clasped his hand and squeezed. “It’s okay to cry, Ash. Likewise, it’s okay to scream at the world and tell it how shit it is. Maybe we should. Come on, stand up.” She dragged him over to the balustrade so that they were overlooking the lounge below and staring through the wall of glass down at the slope of the lawn and the glittering water of the lake beyond. “Ready? After three, let all that festering rage out.” She counted down, and then let out a blood curdling shriek.

  Ash covered his ears.

  “You’re supposed to join in, dope.” She prodded him in the midriff. “Do we need to attempt it again?”

  He shook his head. “My ears would prefer you not to. Maybe we could go back to you explaining your chart. What is it exactly that you want me to do?”

  She followed him back to the couch, but stayed on her feet when he slumped into its soft embrace. “Well, like I said, there’s a whole variety of things. Most of them are Spook unapproved, that’s why we had to wait until he’d gone.”

  “Unapproved in what sense. Did you consult with him?” Just because she’d called him out for being a suspicious, jealous idiot, didn’t mean he’d quelled all his doubts.

  “Um, no… I just… You know how uptight he can be.”

  “Only about his own involvement in any sort of sexual activity. He’s not a prude, Ginny.” And she ought to know it. Spook had participated in their sexual relationship more than he generally cared to dwell on. He hadn’t forgotten that Spook, the man who didn’t put out for anyone, had wrapped his mouth around Ginny’s nipples. It may well have been before he and she were an item, but it still happened.

  “Fine, then nothing he’d agree to experience.”

  Ash squinted at her sceptically. “Are we talking about the tasks or the rewards?” What sort of sad fucker was he that he was genuinely curious about her plans now?

  “Tasks, rewards, both.” She leaned into him until her lips brushed the smooth patch of skin between his ear and where his beard had grown in. “Maybe you don’t believe I’m inventive enough to keep it interesting.” She planted a second kiss on the side of his throat, and this time nipped the skin between her teeth sending a shot of pleasure-pain zipping through his body.

  Ash’s heart started galloping. How crazy starved of affection was he if all it took was one little kiss to have him salivating and his cock threatening to rise? Plenty, and he knew it. All he really wanted was for someone to take charge and tell him he’d wake up tomorrow and everything would be all right. Or failing that, to simply still feel wanted. No one wanted him around at the moment. He wasn’t important to anyone’s plans or vision of the future. He couldn’t even see a future. Leastways, not one he wanted to experience.

  “Are you ready to work with me, Ash?” Her beautifully kissable lips pursed as she waited for his answer.

  “You still haven’t told me a thing.”

  “I think you’ll get more out of it if I save revealing the tasks until we’re ready for them, but maybe I could give you a visual incentive as to what might be coming your way?”

  “Visuals of what?” He raised his head in time to see her kick off her shoes and then peel down her jeans. The boring button up shirt she had on came off too, and went sailing over the balustrade.

  “Of what’s on offer if you work hard. Tempted?” She gave a sort of tip-toe turn on the spot, then winked at him.

  Ash covered his mouth with his hand and swallowed hard. He didn’t want to bother with her tasks, but man…skimpy panties, corset, and fishnet stockings, she was seriously pandering to his weaknesses. He moved a cushion onto his lap. He was subtle about it, but she was onto him immediately, her carefully defined eyebrows quirking upwards slightly.

  “Should I take that as an expression of interest?”

  Fuck! She had him. She so had him.

  “You like?” She tiptoed forward , and performed another 360-degree turn.

  Ash swished his tongue over his dry lips. “Are those crotchless panties you have on?”

  “Could be.”

  “Crotchless,” he repeated, finding it hard to swallow around the lump that had formed in his throat.

  “You don’t think they’re too sleazy, do you?” She performed the same open and close legged dance move he’d recently watched Christina and Co. perform in that vid.

  Damn…damn…damn. When had these jeans got so tight? Jeez, talk about dangling carrots… “Fuck, Ginny.” He reached for her, but she backed off making, “Ah-ah!” noises at him. “Agree to the G-plan first, then you get to ‘Fuck Ginny’ if you’re a good boy who earns his rewards.”

  “That’s sexual blackmail.”

  She shimmied her butt at him. Ash pleaded, but despite his groaning and grouching, and promises to blow her mind, she stayed out of his reach and continued to taunt him.

  “Fine,” he snapped. “Tell me what I have to do.”

  “Sign the bottom of the chart saying you agree to abide by the rules of the G-plan, that you’ll work hard and be a committed student. And that you won’t slack off just because the rewards aren’t immediate.”

  “Whatever.” He had a hard-on he’d very much like her to sit on right now, so yeah, he was in a bit of a hurry to progress with shit and get to the good stuff.

  Ginny waited patiently until he picked up a pen and signed.

  “There, I’ve agreed. Now what do I have to do?”

  She grinned broadly at him. “Come with me to the bedroom.”

  -12-

  Ginny grinned to herself as they trooped down the stairs. So far, things had been a lot easier than she’d anticipated. She’d been worried that the guys would be back home before she’d even managed to convince Ash to take a look at her plan, let alone sign up to it. Of course, it wasn’t a legally binding contract, so his signature didn’t mean a lot, but it was something, and she had faith enough to believe the secondary rewards would motivate him enough to stay focussed, without having to worry about the ultimate goal of getting him fit and well and able to rock again, for long enough that the tasks might actually make a difference.

  First off though, she needed to correct him of the notion that this was purely about sex, and preferably before he’d wriggled out of his black jeans, so she didn’t end up distracted and lose her focus either.

  “Where’d you want me?” Ash asked once they reached the bedroom.

  “Floor’s good.”

  “No
t on the bed?”

  Ginny stalked past him, and collected the item they’d need from a drawer, then she perched on the edge of the bed and took off her stockings.

  Ash’s mouth fell open in outrage. “Wha—what are you doing? You know I love those things. Leave them on.” He claimed one of the stockings she’d discarded and brushed it against the thick beard growth on his face.

  “You can put them back on me later. They’ll get in the way of the task. Here, take this.” She handed him a small pot of coloured-nail polish, the same maroon shade that she currently had on her fingernails. Then she planted her foot on his knee and wiggled her toes. “I need you to make them match.”

  Ash stared at her, apparently under the impression that she was joking. “You want me to paint your nails. What the fuck? I was writing, you know? And you’ve dragged me away from that to do this.”

  She made a pinching motion with her forefinger and thumb. “That’s how you hold the brush.”

  Splinters of hyacinth flashed in the blue of his irises.

  “You agreed to the rules of the G-plan.”

  “I suppose it was foolish of me to imagine it had anything to do with G-spots.”

  At least he’d brought his sense of humour along, even if the remark was delivered with a distinctly petulant snarl.

  “Another task might,” she replied cheerily. “Now, the quicker you get on with this, the sooner you’ll earn a reward.”

  “This sucks,” he grumbled, nevertheless bowing his head to the task.

  “No, I suck good boys when they finish their homework.”

  He muttered several more grumbles, but set to applying himself. The first challenge was to get the lid off the bottle. This particular shade always cemented itself closed. It took him several minutes, during which he bounced the bottle off the carpet a couple of times, and clasped it between his teeth. Eventually, it was his fingers that secured him the victory. Ash loaded up the tiny brush and daubed paint on the first of her nails.

  Ginny expected him to talk, or rather she expected him to gripe as he worked, but he did neither. He painted in silence, with his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth. Her big toes didn’t cause him too much trouble, but the smaller toes had him sneering and shaking his hand out repeatedly to ease the tightness in his fingers. He growled when he overloaded the brush while attempting to paint her littlest toenail and splodged nail varnish all over her toe and his knee.

  “Oh, fucking fuck!”

  “Suck it up, big boy. It’s just a smear.” She passed him a tissue.

  Ash mopped up the mess and started over.

  In the end, he did a decent job of it. He was actually not bad at nail-painting. Him and Spook probably did each other’s black before playing gigs. On the other hand, his issues with his hand did mean there were definite lumpy blobs in places where he’d daubed too much varnish onto one spot and then attempted to spread it out, but hadn’t done so evenly. Also, most of her toenails weren’t actually that long.

  Importantly though, it had proved that a pincer grip wasn’t beyond him. If he could grip a paint brush, he could grip a pencil, he could grip a plectrum, ergo he’d eventually be able to play guitar again.

  “So, does that get me a sticker on the chart?” he enquired petulantly.

  “You already stole five.” She pointed at his T-shirt. “But if you complete three tasks today, then we can talk about a proper reward.”

  “Three!” He groaned. “Fine, go on, tell me what’s next. Do I have to thread your eyebrows? Wax your moustache?”

  She prodded him in the stomach with her toes. “I don’t have a moustache.”

  “Change your clit piercing?”

  Ginny padded over to the chest of drawers and got out a pair of stockings. “Put these on me.”

  Ash looked at them and frowned. “Why them? Why not the ones you took off?” He retrieved the discarded pair of fishnets from the floor.

  “Because, they’re harder to put on due to the holes. You should start with something easier and work up to the fishnets.”

  “I prefer these.”

  “The seamed ones are sexy too.”

  Ash gave his head an emphatic shake. “They’re not even vaguely in the same league. Seamed stockings are like, ‘I’m a bit kinky when I’m not at work, and I either like to have my arse smacked or I’m into whipping your cock with a flogger,’ whereas fishnets—” He stretched them across his face, sighed and shivered. “—they’re like ‘I’m going to wild hump you until you’re floating on the moon, and I’m gonna stick my tongue in all the places you love feeling it, but shouldn’t like it going, and I’m going to talk dirty to you the whole time we’re doing it.’ Seams are all prim and proper. Fishnets are dirty. In fact, they’re the ultimate in sleazy fun. Therefore, they win. They always win.”

  Ginny knelt on the floor before him, so that they were on the same eye level. “Ashley Gore, is it me you love, or just my fishnets?”

  Bugger actually made like he was considering for a minute. “You in the fishnets. They’re not nearly as exciting when they’re not encasing a pair of nice legs.” He fluttered his long eyelashes at her. “Though, I do remember you offered me a Popasockaloo once with them, if you recall.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure how well that would work.” She grimaced, with her teeth pressed together. “You have a long memory. That was what, the night we met?”

  Ash got a whimsical look in his eyes. “When it comes to my faves, I have an infinite memory.” He took hold of her hand and pressed it to his fly. He groaned when she pinched, and again when she pulled away. “So,” he said huffily. “You recommend sticking to using your panties to polish it?”

  Ginny sucked on her lower lip, suppressing her urge to laugh. She’d probably upset him again if she gave in, and he was acting like the old Ash right now, the dorky, crazy hot boy next door rock god she’d fallen for.

  Also, the thought of him with his jeans around his ankles stroking his cock with a pair of her silky knickers got her hot around the collar. She’d always liked watching men come. Watching him come as a result of something he was doing with her stolen underwear would be a definite treat. “Do you actually do that? Steal my underwear and jerk off holding it?”

  Ash raised the stockings again, so that they covered his eyes and peeped at her through the weave. “Don’t you just love these things and how they have all these handy holes in them that you can use to hold on?”

  “Ooh, evasion!” She dragged the nylons down so that she could properly see his face. “Is there a confession you need to make?”

  He angled his head slightly, so that his gaze was cast down towards the floor. A streak of pink coloured the ridges of his cheekbones.

  “Ash?”

  He jerked his chin up, all sense of humour gone from his expression. “Your knickers are unadulterated. I’m shit at wanking left-handed, okay.”

  Fuck, he was tetchy. She dropped what she hoped was an apologetic kiss onto his sad pout. “Shall we set aside a nice pair so that I can rub you off with them later?”

  His gaze softened. Suddenly, his arms were around her, and his hands pushing into her hair. “Ginny, Ginny, Ginny… God, I swear you were sent to torment me.”

  “Which ones are your favourites? The rose-coloured ones, the purple satin shorts with the black lacy bits, my teeny tiny pink thong?”

  “What pink thong?”

  “I think it’s the frilly French knickers that really get you going. Well, those and the ones I currently have on. You know, you do seem to have a thing about stuff with holes in it.” She opened her legs and drew her thumb down over the front of her panties to where a slit opened right over her slit.

  Ash puffed a breath out hard. “Okay, no more tease. I can’t take the tease. Life’s torment enough already.”

  “Not even a weeny teeny bit of a tease?” She climbed into his lap and drove her pussy up against the swell tenting his fly.

  Ash groaned from the depths of his bel
ly.

  “These last weeks have killed me.”

  “Me too,” she admitted. “Did you think when I warned you off the day you were released that—”

  He nodded. “I thought maybe you didn’t want me anymore.”

  “Dope. I just thought it would have been selfish of me to ignore medical advice and put your health at risk so soon into your recovery. You were pretty fragile still, and you’d totally over done it that day.”

  “Yeah, well depriving me of nookie turns me into—”

  “—a wookie.” She giggled.

  “—a sad son of a bitch was what I was going to say.”

  “Well, you are pretty furry.” She rubbed at his beard. It was a beard, and not just a bit of sexy scruff despite what he might imagine.

  “Do you hate it?” he asked earnestly.

  Ginny tipped her head from side to side as if considering. “Ash, you idiot, there’s not a single thing about you that I hate.”

  “You hate it,” he confirmed.

  She rolled her eyes. “Visually, I prefer you without. But, I reserve final judgement until I’ve felt it against my lady bits.”

  Ash stroked his hand over his beard growth. “Are you suggesting you want to get pussy juice in my fur? I thought the next task involved stockings.”

  “Are you saying you don’t want to get your beard wet?”

  Humour flicked through his eyes. “Sorry, whose beard are we talking about?”

  Ginny flicked a finger against his chest. “Pfft! I’m baby smooth.”

  His gaze briefly dropped to the apex of her thighs. “Yes, yes you are, aren’t you? He jiggled her against his hard-on again. Ginny felt him swell.

  “Feels so good.”

  There was no denying the truth of that. She leaned forward, meaning only to briefly kiss his lips, but Ash clung onto her and refused to let go until their tongues had done some serious sparring. It was she who stopped him, when his kisses progressed down the side of her throat, and his fingers started seeking passage beneath her corset. “I’m all yours, Ash, but only after you’ve earned it. Three tasks first.”

  “Spoilsport.”