by Rena Manse
Stupid man-cave.
His being here after she brought up the food—knowing she couldn’t take the elevator… Heat bubbled in her cheeks. Flattery and horror danced in her head.
A man used to manipulating and being in control, had just gotten inside her head and made her reveal something she didn’t want to admit lived right beneath her surface.
Aaron stretched out on the bed, steamed at the ceiling. If Jade were here… What was with Ashley McKenny? He’d asked for one night—no strings—she could find repentance in the morning. He’d never met a woman who refused him. Even if that meant agreeing to a ‘no commitments’ clause while they harbored a backup plan to trap him later. They always agreed.
He sat up. Ashley McKenny wouldn’t refuse him either. Not again. He’d see to it before she returned home. A Gilyard always gets what they want, and this prude was no exception. He peeled out of his shirt and whipped it to the floor as he headed toward the bathroom for a shower.
Her body had been soft, perfect. She felt great, she smelled great, and she... Aaron caught himself. She genuinely tried to communicate with him.
He groaned.
A woman of character? They reminded him of his grandmother, her faith, and everything else she stood for that he tried to rebel. He grunted, wanting off that subject quickly, as penitence of no longer having faith crept in. That shame took him to thoughts of his grandfather.
The weight of guilt of the dinner party was bad enough, but insulting Val’s integrity, failing Granddad…
He didn’t want this. Didn’t ask for any of it.
Breathing hard to regain control, his jaw turned sore clenched against every insult he could be causing his family.
Rejected three times in one night: business, personally and by his own conscience.
One hope stemmed from believing Ashley’s goody attitude worked in his favor. She wouldn’t reveal any of tonight’s events to his grandmother.
Pausing over the black marble basins, he stared at his reflection, tried to convince himself his ego was bigger than this.
She’d called him a machine.
Tepid sprays from the shower struck his face.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ashley plopped herself beneath a tree, and watched Jonathan sling the horses’ reins over a limb. “Thanks,” she said, realizing she’d just dismounted and walked away. She lifted her face to the bright sun poking through the foliage, trying to counteract the memories of last night.
Aaron triggered something, wouldn’t get out of her head. She couldn’t shake him off. At this point she couldn’t blame her restless attitude on her cycle, and wasn’t convinced she was homesick.
Did she have a legitimate reason not to like him? He projected arrogance and selfishness, but his relationship with Valerie deemed him capable of offering deep love. People didn’t find that anymore. He may have wanted to conquer his frustration with her last night, but he’d been patient, gentle, giving. That came from somewhere. She must be a sap to want to make his good qualities negate his underhanded business practices.
She bit the inside of her soft gums. Good qualities. Just chip, chisel, or hack away, and they’d come shining through.
Jonathan lowered himself beside her, and took her right hand. “You’re quiet,” he said, biting gently on the tip of one of her fingers. “A couple of days ago I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Is Val okay, or is it something back home?”
“All good. Thanks.”
She shook her head. Jonathan was a great friend, a perfect companion. If she couldn’t have fun with someone like him without thinking of Aaron, there was definitely something wrong with her. Why was she always trying to prove that there wasn’t something wrong with her? Aaron’s doing.
“I’m being silly.” She watched their hands. “Can I be honest with you? Again?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t get me wrong, the people here are nice, but you’re all so different. I don’t know what to expect from you…” or Aaron “…or the people I meet. You said you’ve never been so chaste in your relationships. I’m having fun, but I don’t want to use you as my placebo.”
Jonathan grinned. “You know I hate this friendship without benefits deal, but I know what I’m doing with my time. I can live with it for a while.”
“Hope it’s a long while. The person I’m most comfortable with is three times my age. I can’t keep up with anyone else, not even you. And I’m not acting like myself.”
Jonathan didn’t seem put off by her admission. “Every relationship, platonic or not, has its ups and downs. But how different can the Ashley at home be than the one with me now?”
Maybe she suffered from culture shock after all.
“Do you want to spend time with me?” When she nodded, so did Jonathan. “See, that wasn’t so hard. Problem solved. Now, if I can get a kiss out of you, we can seal this deal.”
She had a feeling he was testing for more, but would move at her pace. He tipped his head in a “come over here” gesture, and she leaned in and pecked him on the cheek. He gripped her around the ribcage and repositioned her on his legs to face him leaning against the tree. Had she just agreed to go beyond the boundaries they’d set?
His breath tickled her throat. Jonathan’s hands had never endured hard labor, but, ever the outdoorsman, his weren’t Prince Charming smooth as one of them caressed her neck. Ashley liked the feel. She ran her hand along his sleeve, noting the muscles bunch when he brought her closer and groaned into her neck with a sound of frustrated restraint.
“What are you doing to me, Ashley?” He leaned back and stared at her. Playful Jonathan had transformed into a passionate man to be reckoned with. Rolling to the side, he lowered her to the ground and lay over her. “A man would be lying to say he didn’t want to sleep with you.”
She reiterated her position on that subject with a shake of her head, and he nodded understanding. When he lowered and gave her a peck on the lips, she sensed no romance behind it. A bird shrilled a broken note above them, and they froze, smiling at each other for the unlikely chaperone. He frowned his whole face then nuzzled into her in defiance of the fowl’s trill.
She tittered at him and his tickling lips. Jonathan the Good had resurfaced. The sound of approaching hoofs, however, drew them apart. Beyond their feet, on his gray mare, Aaron the Angry sat staring at them.
“Good morning, Aaron.” Jonathan sprang up and blocked her view.
“Jonathan.” Aaron’s glare found her when she peeked around Jonathan’s shoulder. “Valerie’s awake, Miss McKenny. Last I checked, you’re on the clock. I’ll accompany you home.”
Floating her lids closed, she composed herself by dusting off her back and butt.
“We can finish this tonight.” Jonathan grabbed her hips and swung her back to face their visitor. He tugged at her shirt and whispered in her ear, “Let me know.”
Let him know what? She watched him stroll towards Aaron.
“You have lousy timing,” she heard him grumble in a light tone. The two men exchanged witty conversation before Jonathan mounted his horse, threw her a curious look, and rode away.
“Willing to give this morning what you wouldn’t last night.” Aaron shifted in his saddle. “Or just fickle about who you put a show on for?”
A breeze swept over Ashley as she moved toward Tempestt. Looking down, she whirled her back to her audience to fasten three buttons. Jonathan’s rough hand had done more than caress her neck. Granted, he’d blocked her from Aaron, swung her around, stalled in conversation.
Ashley scrunched her face before finishing her task and taking a deep breath to face the dictator. She didn’t speak when she turned around, and avoided looking in his direction.
“I’d planned to bring a friend with me.” Aaron went on. “Is this the picture you wanted to paint of yourself if my partner had caught you frolicking in the woods?”
“You can always point your horse in the other direction, Aaron.”
�
��Tread carefully with your position in my house, Ashley. Don’t think I can’t convince Valerie of a replacement.”
“Like I’m afraid of your hollow threats.” She fussed with her horse’s lead on the tree limb, near blinded by rage. “And only a professional would swing between men like you’re implying I should be doing. Calling me fickle.
Gimme’ a break,” she muttered trying futilely to climb up the horse. “And just so you know, I’m not a part of your harem or one of the women in your evil wives club. Did they try to climb into your bed at some point? The way they carried on last night it wouldn’t surprise me.”
She stilled. The comment was absent minded. The amused, curious look she received was not. Immediately she wanted to make it clear that, no, they did not spend the evening discussing him and his sexual prowess. His name came up in more than one topic. Of all the men present, only he drew bedroom status.
“Jonathan and I have a relationship,” she spit out. “You and I don’t.”
“Oh, so you and Jonathan have consummated your relationship.”
“That’s your business how?”
Aaron swung down from his horse and came over in a few long strides. He may have grown sick and tired of watching her sloppy mount, but to prove she didn’t need his help, Ashley scrambled onto the calm and unwavering Tempestt, and looked down at him.
“And I was not frolicking in the woods.”
“You were making out under a bush,” he laughed. “What else would you call it?”
How quickly we forget. “Well it’s a whole lot better than a romp in the hay above your beloved horses, now isn’t it?”
Aaron’s wide smile faded. Unprepared, she nearly schlepped off when he reached up and tried to yank her from the mount.
“If it’s experience under a bush you want, I can give that to you.”
“Hey!” Without thinking, she stomped her foot through the air to steady her position, but caught him in his chest. Her feet flopped down, her arms flew up, Tempestt’s head jerked, and the horse took off on a wild gallop towards the stables.
The speed frightened her. She struggled to stay mounted, coming close to a high-speed fall three times. Arriving at the stables, she slipped from the saddle, crumpling to the floor. Aaron wasn’t being serious, and she’d kicked him in the chest. She’d kicked him!
Shaking her hands in front of her face, Ashley shuffled to the entrance. Did she mean to strike, or honestly just correct her balance? The instinct had been there to ward him off, yes, so maybe…she didn’t know, but she’d made solid contact.
“Get back to the house. Back to the house.”
Before she could exit, Aaron’s horse whizzed by at less than a foot. The breeze walloped her face and chest. Aaron jumped to the ground in a blur.
“Are you crazy, you could have killed yourself.” His grip above her elbows hiked her shoulders up. “What were you thinking?”
Expecting worse, a cringe cramped her muscles. She peeked at him, and loosened up. Look at us, we’re both crazy. She should be terrified from her frenzied ride and at almost being trampled by his horse, not flooded with giddiness.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
Her twisted grin must have revealed her drunk and mentally unbalanced emotions. “This is hilarious. I try to kill you. You try to kill me...” She bobbed her head, but apparently he didn’t find the joke. “Sorry for kicking you.” Her eyes fell to a large, red and muddy smudge on his white button-down shirt. “Does it hurt?”
He didn’t answer.
“Will you let me look at it?”
His eyes closed. He grunted softly. “Ashley McKenny groping my chest.” The loopy smile stopped her from reaching out.
“Quit it.”
“Go ahead, Ashley. I’m sure Jonathan won’t mind, you’re a professional.”
She dropped her smile, then stood transfixed as Aaron unfastened shirt buttons exposing grisly lacerations close to his heart. Three-to-five inch gashes discolored his sun-browned skin. They must have happened when her boot shaved his buttons up his chest. They needed attention.
“Ow.”
Aaron’s blatant call for action had her searching the walls and shelves There was nothing sanitary to use to staunch the flow. Not here, only in the cramped office at the back. No way.
He glanced at blood smudged on his fingertips then held them up for her to see. “Don’t worry, I’m clean.”
His meaning snapped her out of her fog. She started to move. “At the house.”
“Here.” Aaron’s arm wedged in front of her, crossing down her body to hold her opposite hip. “Now. What if I pass out on the way back?”
The air in the wide open area stifled her. This unresolved issue between them couldn’t be what she thought. Good grief, not with Aaron. If she wasn’t a Christian, she’d be all over him by now, making her internal war stark clear.
Her forehead prickled with perspiration as she studied dirt on her boot. Sexual tension wasn’t a relationship, far from one with Christ. “Let me go.”
He angled his head, and she turned away. “It can’t be Jonathan. I don’t think he’s seen who you really are. Not like when you’re with me.” His voice lowered until it became a rumble inside her head. “Does the air between you get like this?”
Ashley pushed, smacked and shoved him away as heat coated her.
He chuckled, then sobered and waltzed backward a step when she lunged forward for escape. “If he hasn’t seen this fire up to now, he’ll never get the chance.”
Not willing to decide if it was true, she glared at him. “I have work to do with Val.”
He looked like he wanted to say more, but removed his arm. She didn’t look back.
She couldn’t see Val in this state though. He hadn’t kissed or touched her in an intimate way, yet her heart pounded faster than she had breath to calm it.
“Keep your head,” she whispered, afraid to admit why. She needed to stay upset with Aaron for firing her mother, and remain professional with him because she was nursing his grandmother. Nursing. Those lesions would turn brusque in a few minutes and she’d left him in the stables, bleeding.
In a stuttering thought, she turned around. A second later, resumed her march to the house. It must be her training rearing its pathetic head why she wanted to go back, put her hand over his wound, and relieve him of hurt. Just like last night. Well, unlike last night, Little Red Riding Hood wasn’t getting seduced by the big, badness on the hunt.
Women must take care of him all the time, let him go find one of them. She refused to be lost in the masses.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Aaron walked to his horse and took the reins. Roughly he scratched down the varnish roan’s neck just the way she liked it. “She has spirit, Junction, the worst woman I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. Thanks for not tromping on her back there.”
The horse lowered her head, and Aaron noticed a young man staggering breathlessly toward him. The twenty-two-year-old part-time stable hand probably feared getting fired for not being there.
“Sorry I’m late, sir.”
It was he who’d returned from his ride thirty minutes early. Aaron nodded, his mind too occupied with Ashley to speak. She possessed an uncanny ability that kept her from sinking below a certain level. It took great strength not to lash out at all the junk he bombarded her with.
He frowned. Exactly what level below Ashley did he think he’d sunk? Was it perverse to want to break her down? Something in her stoked his attention, answered his attraction. But what else? She said she wanted peace. He wanted to peel back her layers to uncover her character. They could pick at each other all day long, and he’d still want to see what made her tick.
If he had his way, there’d be no peace with Ashley.
He hid a smile at the thought of where he’d left her shoes last night. How long before she asked him for them? Or someone noticed?
The stable hand reached for Junction. “Is that Mr. Riley’s Tempestt?”
The young man looked at Ashley’s bay standing inside the stable. “Should I take her back, or is Miss—”
“I’ll do it.”
The young man froze for a heartbeat, then ran to the other horse. Aaron rubbed Junction’s shoulder and whispered how beautiful she was as he watched the performance. People around him went out of their way to please him, to prove they lived up to his standards.
“Not Ashley,” he said to the only ear that knew more of his problems than Kavin. “I don’t think she cares one way or another about racking up points.” Yet she held the highest score. “And she prefers Jonathan.”
Will mysteries of the woman never cease? Try as he might, he couldn’t bring himself to respect their relationship. He liked Jonathan, but there were qualities in Ashley he was positive didn’t fit the other man’s style. Not that he preferred a relationship with her—not the way she’d want it. He didn’t have time. He needed to concentrate on his immediate problem, and cover a portion of his cousin’s work while at it.
Aaron could hear his cousin’s scolding at the prospect of him interfering with Ashley’s time. Kavin’s experience with women included senators’ daughters, business women and actresses; women with influence and a campaign. Aaron never cared for pedigree or ambition. But the women had never crossed over into his family’s life.
The closest was Jade, and she knew he merely tolerated her company. Thanks to a bitter argument years ago, she and Kavin were never to be in the same room again. Kavin didn’t trust her, called her a drug. But Jade had been there when his world turned upside down. He’d made his bed with a viper and got used to lying in it. Silent, deadly, and he’d been bit more than once.
At least he knew the direction from which she came. That’s a lot more than what he could say about the enigma Ashley.
“Might as well give Junction her full workout,” he told the stable hand, feeling like he’d already gotten his. Aaron took Jonathan’s horse and started toward Riley Hills.
A sneer ripped his face as the abrasions seared hot. Sweat trickled in behind the initial sting. When dizziness rolled over him, he unwisely peeled the shirt away to see what was going on. He tore the clotting, starting a fresh ooze.
