by Melissa Blue
He sighed and glanced at Wade. “Catch you later?”
“Probably at Grady's.” Wade's gaze went seeking again, likely reading the truth on Victor's face. “Or maybe not from the look of you.”
In the next hour or so, Victor would see Ash again. He knew how he should act. Knew what was right and wrong. He was avoiding Porter for a reason. Victor was convinced that Porter would take one look at his longtime friend and know.
“Later, then,” he said, moving toward his car.
He couldn't have Ash. He wasn't good enough. Not even close if he was willing to betray his friendship—hell, friendships. So, he'd pretend like nothing had happened between them. It was the only way, because he had a problem. The first step was admitting it.
*****
Ash's friend Iris breezed into the break room and said, “Either Friday night was really fantastic and, knowing you, filled with sex, or you're wishing the rapture would actually happen. What happened with the blind date?”
Offended, Ash glared at her friend. “I don't always sleep with men I date,” her tone turned sharp.
Iris winced. “You usually do when you disappear for a weekend.”
Well, that was correct, but still. “Sometimes I cuddle.”
“So you say.” Iris grinned and that softened the truth.
They both knew Ash might play it fast and loose, but a fair few of her relationships lasted long enough that the “L” word was dropped, and Ash always meant it. Didn't change the fact those relationships ended with a whimper. She'd never been the kind of woman to fall in love after a bout of great sex, and clearly she never would be. Might help ease her guilt if she were.
She sighed—back to frustration and physical longing then since she couldn't repeat her weekend with Vic.
“That whole wistful sigh—you really have to tell me about the date,” her friend pushed.
Ash held up one hand to forestall any more questions from the other woman and then dumped coffee grounds into the machine. “Wait until I take my first sip. I have muffins in the fridge if you're hungry.”
Iris took out two. After settling against the counter, Iris pushed up her glasses. The red rims complimented her dark brown eyes and skin. She looked sweet and approachable. Such a damn lie. Her friend was nosy, fun, and sometimes relentless.
And since Ash could also be all those things, depending on her mood, they got along well. Iris had been the one to hire her, and over time their work relationship turned into a friendship. Mostly due to Ash's shenanigans and Iris's nosy nature.
Ash prepped two cups and then gestured for her friend to follow her down to the office. Ash could practically feel Iris bristling with impatience. She smiled.
She took her time sitting behind her desk. Took an even longer moment to leisurely intake a mouthful of coffee.
And then finally, she said, “Richard stood me up.”
Iris hissed. “I thought he was a keeper.”
Ash shrugged at that since it was a moot detail. “When I pointed out to him in a text message how standing me up made him an inconsiderate dick, he called me a bitch. I was drunk at the time so I probably didn't say it that nicely, though.”
Iris frowned. “Why were you drunk?”
“I'm sitting in La Roue's—”
“Ah,” Iris said with a note of understanding. “No matter what time of day, the servers always stare at you if you're alone. You can feel the pity just washing over you.”
“Exactly.” Ash sipped. “From now on, I'm only going with friends.”
“Before I forget, Taylor contacted Victor Yang last night. Victor accepted the job. So, good rec. He should be here sometime today.”
Ash choked on her coffee, dribbling a little bit on the front of her shirt. “What? He actually took the job?”
Iris's brows furrowed. She worked in HR right under their boss. If there was a problem, she'd need to know. And there was a big, stinking problem.
“You didn't want us to hire him?” Iris asked.
Ash just stared at her friend for a moment, shock shutting down all internal thought. “No—that's—shit. I should have texted you Friday night.”
Vic hadn't talked to her since yesterday morning, not even to warn her he'd taken the job. Yeah, he'd told her he would if they called him, but the list of potentials had been long.
Her company was a temp agency for the technologically inclined. Her job was mostly admin. Every week, she filed the resumes of everyone who made it through their extensive vetting process, and even that list was a mile long. Out of all of the potentials, they’d chosen Vic, a man who’d never, not once, contracted for Temp To Tech.
“He's a veteran,” Iris said in her defense. “Of course he'd get to the top of the pile.”
“And that's what I told him. Shit.”
Ash set down her coffee so she wouldn't spill any more of it all over herself. She’d assumed she'd get a few days, maybe even weeks, to mentally sift through what had happened between them during the weekend. Apparently not.
Iris leaned forward as though she could sense that the real gossip session hadn't started yet. “What happened?”
Ash swallowed a laugh at that innocuous question. It might just have come out hysterical. Vic, at her job. Every day for the next month or two. How in the hell were they supposed to keep their hands to themselves? She believed him when he said he'd have to confess to her brother. He would do it, too, if they so much as breathed too hard on each other. That was fine with her if that's what he needed to do to sleep at night.
But Ash hadn't slept all that well. She’d been going over every moment they'd spent together—glutting on the memories, yearning for more. The only thing that had been clear was that she wanted to have her cake and eat it, too.
“Ash?”
She glanced up. Her friend's brows were up high.
Iris asked, “What the hell happened?”
I realized I'm a horrible person. Sex with my brother's best friend was the best sex of my life. I'm a horrible, terrible person, because I want to keep having sex with my brother's best friend even though I know it's going to break my brother's damn heart.
But to get to that, Ash had to spill the full story.
“So Richard stood me up. I got drunk and then I called my brother for a ride, because I'm cheap and didn't want to pay for a cab.”
“Okay,” her friend said slowly.
“Porter was at work. Victor came to the rescue.”
“Yeah. He's a longtime family friend, right? That's why you rec'd him.”
“One of my brother's best friends. Probably his closest friend.” The guilt kept digging in. Again and again. She shifted at the uncomfortable sensation it left behind. “He's great with computers.”
“Oh, right.” Iris's expression blanked. “Vic. The one you say makes you drool every now and again?”
This time, Ash couldn't fight her laugh, and it did sound just a smidgen hysterical. Iris had made the understatement of the century.
“Victor and Porter have been friends since the third grade. By the fifth, they added three more members to their clique.”
“So you practically grew up with five brothers.”
“Yeah.” Technically four, because she never considered Vic a brother. Ever. “It was both great and hellish. More so when I hit my teens and became acutely aware of boys.”
“Brothers—the ultimate cockblockers.”
Ash snorted, then laughed at the fact that she’d snorted. “You so get the struggle.”
But that wasn't the whole of it. She'd gone through crushes on Grady, who was solid, and the glue of the group. Wade, who was literally a genius. Then sweet Oliver, who would draw her comics when she bugged him.
But there was always something different with Victor. He never put her in headlocks or gave her tips on fighting or gave her boy insights. When he thought she wouldn't notice, he'd watch her intently.
Years later, she could now name what she’d felt for Victor in her teen
s—lust. It wasn't girlish or fleeting, but the emotion would strum at her core, and it had for years. Lust was not love, so it was easier to ignore. Until she'd drowned her filters in rum and created an unmitigated mess. Ugh.
Iris leaned over and pulled the cup of coffee away. “I will give this back when you tell me everything.”
Ash glanced at the ceiling then shook her head. “Well, he was being Victor, and I didn't have all my filters in place.”
“Ashley?”
Nothing about Friday was fuzzy. She remembered all of it in great detail. Though she may have been a bit more drunk than tipsy...
“I've known he's had a thing for me since forever. And I was curious, too. You know that.”
“Just curious, my ass.” Iris looked like she was going to claw some eyeballs soon if she didn't get the full story. “Ashley?”
Ash sighed. “I told him to kiss me so he could do away with the mystery. He's always looking at me like if only I could grow a second head then maybe he'd want me less. And you know me, I'm a problem solver. So I solved the problem.”
“Ashley Hicks, what did you do?”
“His angst was annoying so I kissed him when he didn't go for the idea.” She winced at how she’d downplayed what happened. “Okay. Okay.” She spread her hands on the table. “I kissed him once, and then again because my world started to spin and it felt right. Then again because I couldn't stop myself. He—he tasted incredible and so damn addictive.”
Iris said nothing. She just tilted her head before she closed her eyes. “How drunk were you?”
“I kissed Vic. More than once. How drunk do you think I was to do that?”
Her friend started to shake her head. “What did he do?”
Her face flushed at the memory. Or rather, the memories. “He kissed me in a way that confirms he's had a thing for me for forever.”
“That good?”
It hadn't felt truly real until she'd spoken these words to someone else. She inhaled deeply and then forged ahead with the confession. “And then we had sex for about thirty hours.”
Iris's mouth dropped and her eyes widened from shock. Ash stole back her cup as her friend continued to attract flies to her mouth. If anyone could understand just how significant the affair was, Iris would. She could also provide a bit of perspective being on the outside looking in. Ash really needed some, especially now, knowing Vic was at her job.
“So it was that good.” Iris's voice was so high-pitched, Ash worried her coffee mug would shatter. “Did you tell Porter?” she asked in a scandalized gasp.
Ash’s stomach sloshed the coffee around at the question. “It's none of his business who I sleep with.”
“Tell that to the guilt on your face.”
True. “I haven't heard from him since Friday.”
“And Victor? Has he seen Porter, yet?”
Ash rubbed a hand over her belly to soothe it. “I don't know. He has it in his head that we won't have sex again.”
“Will you?”
“Stop pelting me with questions. I'm still all over the place. I want him, but then I keep imagining Porter's reaction. He'll go to the ends of the earth for me. The least I could have done...”
Ash pressed two fingers to each of her temples. Her friend hissed at the movement. Hell, probably the situation. Iris had been on the outside looking in for five years, and that was still close enough to pick up on the sheer weight of what had happened.
Iris just shook her head for a moment. “Did Victor act like he wanted to have sex again?”
“Yes...and no. It's complicated.”
Ash sucked in air as the world threatened to whirl. In all the ways she'd lusted after Victor—worried for him—he'd never, not once, crossed a line with her. His friendship with Porter meant more than she could ever understand. It was why she’d curtailed her screw-the-consequences nature when it came to him. Until Friday.
So she took Vic's stares, the grouching, the acting like she barely existed because they did it for Porter. Not wanting to hurt her brother hadn't been enough, and that started an ache right in her heart.
“I'm a horrible, selfish person.”
“Oh, Ash.” Her friend's tone softened. “You're not.”
“It's okay.” Ash put up her hands to stem the flow of comfort. She didn't deserve it—not for this. “I know I am, and still...”
She couldn't be someone else. God, she'd tried. Back in college one of her roommates had joked, “You should probably never get married,” after Ash had confessed her penchant for serial dating. The girl hadn't known how much those words hurt and hit so close to Ash's fears.
Was she like her dad? No matter where Raymond went, he was the life of the party. He made his own rules and broke them when the mood struck. Those traits made him both lovable and unreliable. Didn't that describe her?
The only difference she could grasp and hold onto for dear life was that she loved, truly and deeply, the people in her life. That was why she’d gone along with Porter's rule about not dating his friends. He'd needed it and she loved him. Deciding to not hurt him had been easy—until now.
“God,” she muttered.
“Well”—Iris winced—“from Porter's perspective, he'd have to sit next to the guy banging his sister. So I can get why he wouldn't want to do that...ever.”
Ash stared at her friend in horror. “Not helping. You're supposed to blow smoke up my ass and tell me I'm wonderful. That's what I need right now.”
“And he'd have to kill his friend if Victor ever says 'she does this one thing with her tongue...'”
“Shut up,” Ash said, but laughed.
Her friend shrugged. “I can see Porter’s point, but...would he really stand in the way if there's something more there?”
Ash had never tested the theory. “Sexual chemistry just means we have zing when we touch. You do not implode friendships for zing. And Vic is probably just appealing because he's the one man I can't have.”
Iris gave her a blank stare. “You don't really believe that.”
Ash didn't. If she just wanted dick to get off, she'd buy more vibrators.
Vic was loyal, smart, grouchy, handsome as sin. There were moments—too many to count—when for a second they'd forgotten themselves, and had just laughed and joked, or argued because they were both stubborn. She liked him and they had zing together—exactly what she needed in a lover.
He was still the epitome of off limits, because if anything else happened between them, Vic would go to Porter. Their small community would be ripped apart. No matter how tempting her cake was, she damn sure wouldn't dive head first into it. She wouldn't be like her father and say, “Fuck my family, I want what I want.”
“Eat your muffin,” she told Iris, frustrated with...life.
“And you've already imploded a friendship for zing. One friend just doesn't know it yet.”
Ash threw a pencil at Iris, who easily dodged it. “Drink your coffee.”
Her friend laughed, her eyes twinkling behind her glasses. “Do you want my advice?”
“Go ahead. You're going to give it to me straight, anyway.”
“It's probably why you told me.”
Iris was right. “Yes, tell me what I should do, because I honestly don't know. I know what I want. That's never been my problem. Despite the fact we grouse at each other, I like him and he likes me, so compatibility isn't a problem, either. So...I don't know.”
“For once in your life, follow his lead.”
If Vic wanted to act like nothing had happened and nothing would ever happen again then, yeah, she should let him.
“Because it was just sex?” Ash reminded herself and added absently, “It was great sex though.”
Iris shook her head, a knowing expression tugging her mouth into a frown. “That's not what I said. God, you're hopeless.” She paused, eyes narrowing. “From the sounds of it, so is he. I'm just going to sit in your office all day. This is a train wreck waiting to happen, and I want front row seat
s to this clusterfuck.”
Iris was probably right. Again. “Shit,” Ash muttered.
CHAPTER SIX
~Gamer Truth: When in doubt, push every damn button.~
A little bit before lunchtime, Ash finally managed to find a groove in her work as she closed out former clients' files. She’d actually relaxed, so of course Victor strode into her office.
Her fingers froze over the keyboard as she tried to take him in. He was in her space once again, except this time, he wasn't in her bed. Her office was no less feminine than her apartment. It had polka dots, family photos, and at least one half-used cake-scented candle. It also had whole lot less space than her apartment, and he seemed to take up all of it.
He was tall, and his muscles made him appear solid, immovable. The only outward sign that he hadn't forgotten about their weekend was the way he gripped a small toolbox, his knuckles so white compared to his tanned skin. He had no problem meeting her gaze, though. There wasn't a hint of the man who had laughed with her in bed—who’d kissed her and touched her until she couldn't breathe.
He topped that cold reception off by saying in a lifeless tone, “Save whatever you're working on. I have to diagnose your computer. It might take a while.”
No “Hi.” No “Hey, Ash.” No, “I kissed your face off and then we had wild sex for two days.”
She tried to ignore the annoyance flooding her veins like melted steel, but him acting like nothing had happened was different than him directing his arctic chill toward her at full blast. Back to business as usual. Fine. If he wanted to act like a dick, she was going to let him.
She pushed her chair away from her desk and gestured to it. “All yours. Do I need to stay to type in my passwords?”
Victor frowned at her but that wasn't new. “Yes.” He had the nerve to sound pissed.
She refused to even blink at his tone. “I can always write them down for you if me being here is a problem.”
“Never write down passwords.” He turned his back to her.
