No one had ever taken me this way before. No one had ever started out slow, ensuring I could take it before they began ploughing away. Ash was different. He was concerned. He seemed to get off on getting me off. And he wanted me to be comfortable while he did it.
I’d heard rumors that he was a “generous” lover. I just hadn’t realized he had so much to give.
He nipped along my nape, trailing kisses behind those love bites, and I arched my back to push back on him, driving him in as deep as he could go. We moved with perfect synchronicity, falling into a rhythm that made Ash grip my wrists so tightly I knew he could feel my pulse. One of his hands left mine to grab one of my breasts, tweaking the nipple, and I leaned my head back against his shoulder, cheek-to-cheek, and moaned his name in his ear.
“Ash…”
“Hannah,” he breathed in reply, sliding that same hand up my chest to my throat. He turned my head toward him so he could kiss my mouth, our tongues entwining. I didn’t want him to stop kissing me. Not then. Not ever.
I captured his groan between my lips, felt him shudder against my spine, and knew he was close. Pressing back against him, I squirmed and bucked, feeling him swell within the condom until he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Fuck, Hannah!” he hissed, holding me as tightly as he dared, hands roaming my body as he spilled inside me. He kissed every lock of my hair, found the curve of my shoulder, and bit down with a low snarl, pumping up into me a few more times before he stalled out.
I shot him a lazy grin as he withdrew and lay down beside me, carefully pulling the condom off and tossing it in a small waste bin near my nightstand. Ash returned the smile and grabbed my arm, pulling me against his chest, kissing me feverishly as he tangled our legs together.
“You’re welcome,” he said, and it took me a moment to remember that all of this had started because I wanted to thank him.
I laughed, shaking my head. “You’re lucky I like you, Brody. Anyone else, they would’ve gotten smacked.”
Ash wound an arm around my waist. “Mm. Sorry. You wore me out a little. Must be the afterglow talking.”
I bit my lip. I could offer to let Ash stay here, just for a little while. Maybe take a nap. An hour or so, and then he’d be out the door. But I’d never extended that invitation to a man before. I’d never even considered it. I liked my personal space, and it almost seemed a violation of it to have someone linger in my bed.
But not with Ash. With Ash, it seemed the courteous thing to do. Just as long as he was gone before my sisters got back.
“If you want,” I ventured, “you can rest for a little bit. Not too long—enough so, you know, you don’t crash your bike on the way home.” I shrugged, trying to seem casual. “Just for a minute.”
Ash looked at me a long time, as if he wasn’t sure what to make of the offer. Then, slowly, he grinned. “Guess that works. Should I put the food away?”
I shook my head. “Nah. Leave it for when you get up.” And I kissed him, gently, before rolling onto my side and putting a little distance between us.
It didn’t take long for me to feel Ash shift beside me, then reach out to lay one hand across my hip. I closed my eyes and pretended not to notice, even though the gesture made me realize that for once, I didn’t mind someone chasing after me.
In fact… I was beginning to like it.
10
Ash
That minute went by way, way too fast.
It seemed like I’d only just closed my eyes when Hannah turned over and slid her arm around me, waking me up again. Not that I minded—I quite liked the way she reached out for me, even in her sleep—but it served as an unintentional reminder that she expected me to go. And soon, probably. She’d made it pretty clear that I shouldn’t be in her bed when her sisters got home.
Fuck, and I was still so drowsy. I was probably gonna have to stop at a Starbucks or something on the way home. Getting my eyes open proved a Herculean feat; I could only imagine what keeping them open would entail.
When I finally managed, I realized two things. One: pale, dim light was filtering in through Hannah’s curtains, illuminating the downright angelic features of her pretty face. And two: that meant that it was not still evening.
I’d slept way more than a minute.
Fuck… what time was it?
My phone was somewhere on the floor, still tucked into my pants. Part of me—muscle memory, maybe—wanted me to swing out of bed and get it, throw on the rest of my clothes, and hurry out the door. But a bigger part of me, one I hadn’t fully realized existed before, was urging me to stay. To wrap myself around Hannah the same way she was unconsciously trying to wrap herself around me.
I tried to tell myself I was just tired, and Hannah’s bed was just that comfortable. But those were both half-truths. They weren’t the reason I wanted to stay. Her peaceful face, the wild ramblings of her hair across our pillows, her soft breath on my shoulder—those were the reasons. They were the full truth of the matter.
Fuck. This was gonna be a problem.
Hannah had made it abundantly clear that I wasn’t dating material, and shit, I had to agree with her. I wasn’t the kind of guy to “settle down.” Sure, I’d stay for a little while—I’d already stayed with Hannah longer than most—but eventually, our time together would be up. I’d wear out my usefulness. She’d quit holding my attention quite as strongly. And then it would be time for me to go.
Only… only with Hannah, it didn’t feel like that’s where this was leading. If I laid real still beside her, if I gave myself the opportunity to just… stay here and be with her—really with her—it seemed to me like something completely different would happen. It seemed like maybe I’d never leave her bed again. And that maybe I would be content with that.
No. That was a fairy tale. Wishful thinking, on my part. And if I kept it up, we were both gonna get hurt. I knew the kind of man I was. I knew the things I’d done. I disappointed everyone around me, no matter what I did. If I kept imagining a better life for myself—if I let myself believe that I could have this one thing, this one person, just for me—then I’d end up disappointing us both.
That was not a sin I would allow myself to inflict on Hannah Miller. I was a lot of things to a lot of people, but a heartbreaker? No. That wasn’t one of them. Well, not an intentional one, anyway. Tanya might disagree.
Hannah was too good for me. I’d known it from the start, and I reminded myself of it now. She had this glow about her as she slept, like she wasn’t even human—like she was some supernatural creature I’d had the good fortune to behold for just a little while. I had to be content with that. It was what she wanted. What was meant to be.
For now, I’d just have to convince myself that it was what I wanted, too.
I kissed her forehead, letting my lips linger a little longer than I should. Then I carefully, regretfully, disengaged from the warmth of her limbs and slid off the bed, searching for my clothes and my cell phone.
I took it out of my pocket as I pulled up my boxers and pants. Shit. It was a little after six a.m. and my battery was damn near dead. Good thing I hadn’t woken up any later, or I’d have some explaining to do to Sarah and Beth—which was exactly what Hannah didn’t want.
Blearily, I put on the remainder of my clothes and took one last look at my Sleeping Beauty. She’d rolled onto her stomach when I left her and let out a sigh, like she was already missing me. No, fuck—I had to stop thinking like that. She had no idea I was gone, and she’d be furious to know we’d both overslept. My thoughts were fiction. This was reality. I had to stay grounded, or the sight of Hannah’s bare back rising gracefully out of the covers with the swells of her breath would put my head right back in the clouds.
Give them what they want, but leave them wanting more, I chanted in my head, a sobering mantra. It reminded me of who I was. Ash Brody: ladies’ man.
It was simple, really. But then I stepped outside Hannah’s bedroom and things got a little… complicated.
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Since it was the ass-crack of dawn and all, I hadn’t expected either Sarah or Beth to be up and about at this hour. Turned out I was wrong—I’d underestimated the Amish dedication to rising and shining way too goddamn early. You can take the girls out of the farm, I thought, watching them look over at me from the kitchen table. Helplessly, I sighed. But you can’t take the farm out of the girls…
They’d been chattering a moment ago, whisper-quiet, undoubtedly out of respect to Hannah. Once they saw me, though, they stopped, jaws still open in mid-speech, eyes wide. Slowly, Sarah moved to cover her mouth with her hand, the very picture of the word astonished. Beth, meanwhile, did her best to suppress a cackle.
Neither reaction made me feel any less weird.
“Morning,” I said, doing my best to sound like I’d done nothing wrong. And hell, I hadn’t! It was just the delicate sensibilities of these pretty young things that had me sweating like a sinner in church.
Neither one of the girls answered. I cleared my throat, mustered a devilish grin. “What’s wrong, ladies? Never seen a man do the walk of shame before?”
“It’s… it’s forbidden,” Beth said, apparently awestruck, but not in the same way that Sarah was. Beth clearly thought it was funny. Sarah looked white as a ghost.
“That so?” I asked them, looking right at Sarah. She could only nod. Words seemed to have escaped her.
One of the easiest ways to take the spotlight off yourself in situations like this is to find a way to deflect it on to others. For example: you walk into a party feeling kind of awkward ‘cause you don’t know anybody there. Maybe you’re not real good with people, especially in social situations such as these. But there’s another guy in the room looks even more uncomfortable than you are. He’s trying a little too hard to fit in and looking all the worse for it. He’s an easy mark. What you wanna do is stick close to him—bring him in to the conversation. Make fun of him a little, but gently—enough to boost yourself up in the eyes of those around you while remembering to make him feel like he’s in on it, too. Symbiosis. Win-win.
Sarah was my mark now, clearly. Of the three of us, she was the most uncomfortable in the room—besides me.
“Better close your mouth there, love,” I told her, flashing a winning smile as I did. “Unless you plan on catching bugs with it.”
Beth snickered and Sarah did as I suggested, her cheeks hot and red. I made my way closer to the kitchen table, eyeing their coffee mugs enviously. “You two are up bright and early. How’d your dates go?”
I thought maybe I’d pushed a little too hard with Sarah, because her only response to my question was to look away and chew on her nails. Beth, however, outright beamed. “It was so great! Wyatt took me to the zoo and I got to feed a fruit bat. I had no idea they could be so cute. And then after that, he took me to this cave on the outskirts of town where…”
She was talking a mile a minute. I wasn’t even sure she’d paused to take a breath between words. Playfully, I touched a finger to the rim of her coffee mug and slid it away from her. “I think maybe you should switch to decaf, love.”
Beth smiled and ducked her head a little. “Sorry,” she said. Christ, they were both so sweet and innocent. What, did the Amish just grow them out in a cabbage patch? Was this their main import-export? I sure as hell never met one in the wild.
Farm fresh. Organic. No GMOs.
It was way too early. I was getting loopy. No way I wouldn’t get into a wreck if I didn’t get some coffee in me. Gingerly, I plucked Beth’s mug from the table, confiscating it for my own purposes and taking a sip. It was an instant relief, even if the girls made it a little strong.
“Hey, that’s mine!” Beth protested, but I couldn’t take the frown on her face seriously. Apparently, neither could she. The corners of her lips were pulling into a smile.
“Well, I put my mouth on it, so it’s mine now,” I told her, then flashed Sarah a wink. “That’s how it works out here, you know. In the English world.”
Sarah blanched. “Y-you put your mouth on something… and that makes it yours?”
I held the mug up to my mouth to contain my grin. “Mm hmm.”
She covered her face. “Oh, God…”
“Don’t listen to him,” Hannah said from behind me, and I turned to see her leaning against the bedroom doorframe, her arms crossed—one of her go-to poses, it seemed. Damn, but she could pull it off though. Especially wearing nothing but a big t-shirt and a smirk. “Ash is just trying to make you squirm.” She looked me up and down and made her best attempt at an unimpressed face. “I thought I threw you out, Brody? What’re you doing back here?”
I offered Hannah a hungry leer before I shrugged at her. “What can I say, love? I got lost on my way out.”
She rolled her eyes at me. But as always, she smiled afterward. “Get to steppin’. You’ve already caused enough trouble for one morning, haven’t you?”
“Not nearly enough, if you’re still able to walk.”
Sarah choked and Hannah stared at me, mouth open, a sound of disbelief bubbling from her throat. The joke appeared to go right over Beth’s head at first, but after a moment, she dramatically gasped and then cracked up.
“Get the hell out of my apartment, Ash,” Hannah said with a shake of her head. “You’re bad news. You gotta go.”
“Fair enough,” I told her. But then, on impulse, I walked over and kissed her cheek goodbye.
I don’t know what made me do it. I was just feeling so good about all this. It was stupid, really—not at all an alpha male move. I should’ve just walked out, maybe after some snappy quip that would’ve left the girls howling with laughter once I was gone. But I couldn’t help it. The teasing. The banter. Hannah always found a way to just… get to me. How could I resist that sense of belonging she made me feel?
This was exactly why I had to leave. I was dangerously close to making things weird. Hell, I could hardly remember the last time I’d felt like the guy I’d worked so hard to be. That guy didn’t fumble awkwardly. That guy knew how to put on a show. Every night was an opportunity for his next greatest performance.
Hannah was looking up at me expectantly. I wasn’t sure for what, but she looked a little… confused. I imagined I looked much the same way. Neither of us were particularly good with feelings, and that probably applied to long goodbyes. Unceremoniously, I pressed Beth’s coffee mug into her hands. Then I turned to leave, reminding myself, The show must go on.
But I could feel the heat of Hannah’s stare on me all the way out the door. Just before it closed, I heard Sarah say, “So… Ash put his mouth on it… and now you’re putting your mouth on it… so does that mean he’s yours?”
Once again, Beth began to laugh. And the last thing I heard before I saw myself out was Hannah scoff and say. “Y’all need Jesus…”
But she didn’t say “no.”
11
Hannah
“I don’t know, Hannah. I just… I’m just not sure I can do this.”
As much as I so dearly loved my sister, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at her. I’d heard this all before, countless times. No matter what the situation was, no matter what new and potentially innocuous thing presented itself, Sarah’s very first reaction to it was crippling self-doubt.
I sighed, glancing in her direction as I sorted through my laundry. “Do what? Go to an awesome cabin in the woods and hang out with a hot guy who’s totally into you, or was there something else on your schedule for tomorrow that I’ve forgotten about?”
“I’m serious, Hannah!” she said in Dutch, flopping down on the edge of my bed. Suddenly I felt like we were back at the village, chatting about what passed for gossip back then as we tended to our chores. “What if… what if he wants something I can’t give him? I’ll be there with him all alone. No transportation. No chaperone. No escape.” She worried her lower lip between her teeth. “Reid can be so… gentle. Considerate. Kind. I see the capacity for such compassion in him. But he’s also… focused.
Intent, it seems, on achieving this one particular goal.”
Slowly, Sarah looked over at me, her arms stretched up over her head. “Sometimes it seems like, more than anything else, he wants to… know me. You know…” She blushed. “Biblically.”
I grinned. I could tell by the way she talked about him that she was utterly smitten. Maybe she didn’t realize it yet—not totally—but she was. The lilt of her voice. The sparkle in her eyes. Even the uncertain crease of her brow. These small expressions all told a story in which my younger sister was falling in love.
And she was scared. I didn’t begrudge her that. Love was… a terrifying prospect, for some. I think if more people knew what they were getting into, what they could lose, the horror movie genre would be flooded with films detailing all the terrible ways a Tinder date could go wrong.
I added a folded sweater to my shirt pile, then grabbed a cami from the hamper and began folding that too. “You’re probably not wrong. Guys like Reid and his brothers… they’re always looking to score. You’re not obligated to give in, mind you—your body, your decision—but you’re not exactly obligated to steer clear, either.”
Sarah looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “What is that supposed to mean?”
I shrugged. “It means if you want him, no one’s gonna judge you. Not me, at least. I’d hardly be the one to tell you not to have sex…”
I was thinking, of course, of the previous night. God, what a rush that had been. I’d thought our public dalliances were hot, but in private, a side of Ash I’d never seen before had come out. There was so much more to him than met the eye, and though I’d shooed him out the door that morning, part of me was still clinging to the fact that he had stayed at all. I wasn’t sure whether he’d just overslept or if the oversight was more intentional, but knowing that I’d spent the night in his arms… it just did something to me. Stirred up butterflies in my stomach. Made me feel like I was flying and falling all at once.
LUST: A Bad Boy and Amish Girl Romance (The Brody Bunch Book 2) Page 10
