“What?” Jess asked. “What are you thinking?”
No. The thought nagging at the back of my mind was stupid. Quinn had made himself clear.
“Ash?”
“He also said something else.”
Jessica finished pinning the hem on a pair of pants. “I’m afraid to ask.”
“When I told him I’d hit a block, he said find the ritual and recreate it.”
“Which means…”
“Get naked with Noah.”
“Then what are you waiting for? Jump on the rich guy and pound out the rest of act 3.”
Jessica ran the pants through her machine, raised the zipper foot, clipped the thread, and tossed the finished garment aside. Then she looked up. “Are we done here? Because I need to finish and you need to summon your inner Caroline.”
I chucked the last three M&M’s I held in my hand at her. Laughing, she dodged the attack. “Hey, what did I do?”
“You’re a bad influence.”
“Whatever, Ash,” she said, still grinning. “You came here looking for permission from someone and I just gave it to you. Now get the hell out and leave me to my work.”
Just as I turned to leave, my eyes landed on a coat wrapped in cellophane, hanging from a garment rack. I recognized it by the missing bottom button.
“How’d you get Noah’s trench?” I asked, pointing.
“It’s Noah’s? Lucas said he found it on a park bench—which is weird, because it’s a thousand degrees outside. And also because it’s Armani. Lucas thought it looked like something Andy would wear.”
How right he was. I pulled the cellophane off the coat, bunched the fabric up in front of my face, and inhaled the scent of him I’d already committed to memory.
Jess shook her head. “There’s no confusion, Ash. You are so gone over this guy.” Then she shooed me out the door. “Take it to him. It’ll give you an excuse.”
Chapter Fourteen
Noah
After assuring Lucas I’d check on Ashlyn’s progress, my cell rang. I looked down to see Quinn’s name on the display. My mind immediately shifted to Pritchard. He’d been on the move when I’d come down to the bar. Concern over his destination had me feeling twitchy.
“I need to take this,” I said, excusing myself from Lucas. By the time I reached the stairs, leading back up to my office, I answered.
“What’s up, Q?”
“Are you sleeping with my sister?” he fired off.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What the hell would give you that impression?” Christ. Who else was going to ask that question?
“Just some hypothetical story line Ashlyn brought up when I talked to her earlier. It sounded bogus.”
Ashlyn.
She’d be the death of me.
Literally.
“She’s a writer,” I said. “She’s always working out imaginary scenarios in her mind.”
“True… Besides, you’re not exactly her favorite person.”
“There’s that.” I had to get Quinn off this line of questioning before he caught me out. I cleared my throat and said, “So… Pritchard has steered clear of her. He hasn’t sought her out or come around the theater at all.”
“That’s good,” he said.
Climbing the last few stairs, I came to my office door. “You and I both know that guys like him don’t stay in their holes long.”
“According to GPS, he’s headed in the direction of one of the local wineries,” Quinn said.
“That should occupy him for a while at least,” I said, opening my office door and feeling somewhat better.
“Look,” Quinn said. “The real reason I called is I’m coming to Phair for the festival.”
I stopped short. That wasn’t what I’d expected to hear. Or wanted to hear. “When was this decided?”
“I made up my mind after I talked to Ashlyn. She’s my sister. If this Pritchard is threatening her career, I should be there when the play shows. I’ll be there on the Thursday before the festival starts.”
Good. By then the play would be written and there wouldn’t be any reason for him to observe Ashlyn and me together.
“Can I ask you one favor?” I said.
“Shoot.”
“Don’t tell Ashlyn you’re coming. Not yet, anyway. It’s too soon since she’s found out about Pritchard. Since you weren’t planning to come to the festival before, she’ll make the connection I told you.” A connection that would likely leave her feeling betrayed. Probably rightly so. But there had to be some way to make her understand why I had to tell Quinn.
Plans for his visit finalized, I hung up, then stared blankly at Ashlyn’s empty window for a good five minutes. Finally, a knock sounded on my office door. When no one barged in after the warning, I knew it couldn’t be Babs. I clicked the mouse over the bar’s security feed.
Ashlyn, wearing a light-colored trench with an upturned collar and a black hat, stood outside my office door.
She licked her lips.
My jeans got tighter.
I adjusted my position in my chair and watched her as she experimented with her posture while she waited for an open door. That’s when I knew that this was Caroline, not Ashlyn.
Shit.
So much for no improv.
I buzzed open the door. She entered the room, like usual. Only when she closed the door, she locked it.
After talking to Lucas and figuring her writing had stalled, I knew why she was here. Our agreement to avoid physical intimacy was about to get blown. Time being an important factor, for the sake of the play, I became Andy, living every man’s fantasy of being visited at the office by a sexy woman in a trench coat…hopefully with nothing on underneath.
“I didn’t order a stripper,” I said, teasing Caroline in a dry tone the way I thought Andy would. “Also, I’m all out of fives.”
She removed her hat and tossed it aside. Fiery red tresses tumbled down, framing a heavily made-up face that looked sexy rather than trashy.
“I like…” I cleared my throat. “I like it straight.”
“Thought you liked it kinky?”
“I meant your hair, you…never mind.”
Ashlyn—no, Caroline—walked around and took a seat, legs crossed, on top of the desk in front of me. I inched my chair back to make room. Curiosity as to what really lay hidden beneath that coat had my cock throbbing in a matter of seconds.
Running my hand up and down her calf, I said, “What happened to our agreement?”
Her hand paused over the button she’d been unfastening. “Do you want me to stop?”
Was she serious? Did she really think I’d send her away now? “Just trying to figure out what’s going on in that head of yours.”
“I’ve discovered a link between sex and writing. The more I have, the better I write.” Her eyes met mine and her words came in a rush. “I know we had an agreement to not do…this…again because it seemed the most sane thing to do at the time, but I’ve spent the last God knows how many hours staring at a flashing cursor wondering where to go next, and then Quinn called. He gave us his blessing.”
My hand on her calf stilled.
The color in her cheeks deepened. “Or he basically did.”
I didn’t believe her for a second. “How, exactly, did he give his blessing?”
“He said ‘recreate the ritual.’ He told me to go back to doing whatever it was that worked. That means the improvisation…and the sex.”
But while her brother giving us his blessing might be a stretch—or more like a leap across the Pedernales during a flood—there was definitely logic there. And with the way her coat gaped where she’d opened the buttons, revealing the inner curve of her breast, made it feel more like a step across a babbling brook.
“When you said you found a link between writing and sex, did you mean sex in general, or sex with me?” I asked.
Her blue eyes pierced me. “I tried sex with myself. Didn’t have the same effect.”
Jesus H—of
all the things to come out of her mouth, I hadn’t expected that. Want for her sliced through me, sharp and wicked.
I pulled my shirt off as she loosened the final button, opening the coat. Inch after inch of her beautiful naked flesh greeted me. Every man’s fantasy, indeed.
Stupid agreements and my phone call with her brother forgotten, I stood and pushed the trench from Ashlyn’s shoulders. “Is this mine?”
“My body or the jacket?” She lowered her lashes then gazed back up at me in coquettish fashion. Then she uncrossed her legs.
“Dear God,” I murmured. The woman was perfection in every way. “How do you come up with this stuff?”
She shrugged. A sly smile turned up the corners of that luscious mouth, “It’s a gift. Just think of it as doing your part to further the arts and save a town.”
I lowered my lips to hers.
She pulled back at the last second. “Wait, do strippers kiss on the mouth?”
“I don’t know. It’s your script.”
“Nope,” she whispered, biting at my neck. “In fact…” She made quick work of unfastening my jeans. “Drop ’em.”
Once I did, she eyed me lasciviously. With clothes tossed aside, she placed her hands on my shoulders and guided me backward into my chair.
My palms covered her breasts.
She removed my hands from her body. “You can look, but not touch.”
“No way. I don’t like this.”
She pulled out the handcuffs I’d hidden in the pocket of my trench last week. “I’m not afraid to use these if I have to.”
With a little smile, I leaned back in my chair.
Ashlyn dropped to her knees between mine, wrapping her hand as much as she could around my cock. She licked red lips.
Gazes locked, my fingers threaded the back of her hair and I guided her head down.
“Sweet Jesus,” I hissed, as from tip to stem, she slowly sucked me into the hot cavern of her mouth. Combining that with her silken tongue and her firm pumping fist, I reached the precipice of unraveling in record time.
“Come here, sweetheart,” I said, trying to pull her away.
She looked up at me with those big blue eyes. “No. I want to taste you.”
I couldn’t say no to her. Not when the mere sight of her tongue flicking over the tip of my shaft made me want to come.
“Fuck,” I growled, hips rising to meet her mouth. Moments later, unable to take any more, every muscle in my body stiffened. She moaned her pleasure at my release as she swallowed every drop.
“You’re so amazing,” I said, pulling Ashlyn onto me so that she straddled my lap. Her legs dangled over the arms of my chair.
“I missed you,” she said.
My heart skipped a beat. That’s when I realized I was in too deep.
Way too deep. As in, Crater Lake deep. The Marianas Trench deep.
I loved this woman.
I loved her guts, and her brains, and her vivid imagination. I loved her smart mouth, her passion, and yes, the fact that she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And the way she looked at me now, like the mystery of the Universe had revealed itself and she liked what she saw, told me she loved me, too.
Things might be rosy right now, but life with my father had proven how quickly it could change. And I’d rather die before I hurt her.
But I couldn’t turn her away now. Not when she’d come here not only needing me, but needing my help—for the play, for Broadway, and for Phair.
Looking at her, so open and vulnerable, had my cock stirring again.
I locked my arms around her and took her mouth in a kiss meant to make her mine. Ashlyn’s bones seemed to liquefy as she molded herself around me. Her hips circled, bringing that scorching part of her body in direct contact with the now fully aroused part of mine.
She was wet like I hadn’t felt her before. Just knowing how turned on she was whittled away at my self-control.
My lips traveled to her jaw, down her neck. Her back arched as I moved lower, kissing the tops of her breasts, between them, watching her nipples pucker and darken in anticipation.
Then I feasted on her mouth all over again.
“Show me how you touched yourself,” I said against her ear, “when you imagined it was me.”
Hooded eyelids raised as a little smile pulled up the corners of her mouth. Slowly, she pulled my arms away, linked her fingers over the tops of mine, and placed my hands on her breasts. Her skin heated as she guided my hands with hers. Together, we rolled her nipples between our fingers until she cried out, moaning my name.
Last night I’d fantasized about watching Ashlyn touch herself, of catching her unaware and not being able to turn away. Those fantasies left me feeling a little dirty because she didn’t know I’d watched or how bad I wanted her. But that was nothing compared to this reality—to feeling what she felt because she took me there with her, and in knowing that she trusted me, because she didn’t hesitate in doing what I asked.
Keeping one hand on her breast, the other hand over mine trailed down her stomach, turning so that neither of our limbs was in an awkward position. Then my finger, along with hers, slid as far inside her as we could go.
“Oh God, Noah, that feels good.” Her voice was raspy, her breath ragged.
I’d never experienced anything so erotic as watching her, feeling how her insides swelled around our aligned digits. My cock throbbed with an urgency to take her slow and deep.
Sensing my need, Ashlyn pulled out. Using the arm rests, she braced herself, raising her hips as I positioned myself between her thighs. Then slowly, she lowered, fitting tight around me like her body had been tailor-made for mine.
“Noah,” she moaned, working her hips exactly the way I liked. Watching her move in synch with my upward thrusts was like poetry—a perfect sonnet of unmatched beauty that let me know, with her, anything was possible. That being with her offered something better than love.
It felt a lot like redemption.
Ashlyn kept a firm hold on her release, waiting for me, I knew. And when the quivering started in her belly, moving through her limbs, I wasn’t far behind.
“Come on, sweetheart, let go. Come for me.”
Our eyes locked and my mind blanked. Spasms ripped through her seconds before the rolling wave of my own orgasm knocked me flat. I’d never experienced anything as mind-blowing, nothing as intense.
Burying my face into the curve of her neck, I pulled her hard against me. Her fingers of one hand threaded my hair. With the other, she traced along the line of my jaw.
“Kiss me, Noah,” she whispered. “Kiss me like I matter.”
My head dipped. Her ragged breath fanned my face.
Our lips locked.
And yes, I kissed her. I took her mouth the same way I took her body—slow and sensual—like she mattered. Because like it or not, she damn well did.
Chapter Fifteen
Ashlyn
It had been a risk coming to Noah this way. One I’d been willing to take for the sake of the play, even if it was at the expense of my heart. Based on the ideas already swirling in my head, vying for a spot on a page, I knew that risk was going to pay dividends.
“You lost your shoes,” Noah said, holding my stilettos by the heels. He followed that by saying, “Leave the coat. I’m thinking of having it bronzed.”
“Very funny,” I said, slipping my arms in the sleeves. “If you have it bronzed, we can never use it again.”
His brows rose as he set the shoes aside and finished fastening the buttons on his jeans. “Okay, but I still want the coat back…someday.”
I picked up one of the shoes, bent my leg behind me, and slipped it on my foot.
“Lucas was here,” Noah said. “Right before you.”
My gaze dropped to the other shoe. “Let me guess. He’s concerned because I haven’t given him anything in over a day and a half.”
Noah nodded.
Just great. Noah had questioned my seeking him out
, but he hadn’t resisted in the slightest. While the part about sex between us having a positive effect on my writing had been true, he’d accepted my thin link between recreating rituals and Quinn’s unspoken blessing of our relationship—a fact that sent my heart down a path of hope. But Noah having talked to Lucas prior to my arrival explained everything. He’d been acting as Andy as much as I claimed to be acting as Caroline, making that path a dead end trail. Even the way he kissed me at the end probably hadn’t been real.
“Wheels, look. What if we’re making this more complicated than it needs to be?”
“How do you mean?”
“If sex is what you need…”
“I know what you’re getting at. Sex confuses an already weird situation, and neither one of us intended to take it there. The fact that it helps my writing is something I don’t like any more than you do.”
“Don’t like it?” Noah snorted a laugh. “Could have fooled me.”
“I don’t like the complication. The sex is…” Unable to help myself, I let out a dreamy sigh. Then I noticed Noah looking at me, a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
What an ass. The smugness was entirely uncalled for.
I cleared my throat and started over. “After everything that happened the other night, I wrote. And not only did I write, but it’s really good. Better than what Lucas read before.”
“So what you’re saying is that sex with me blew the cobwebs out.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Noah rubbed his jaw. “And what you’re getting at, without really saying it, is that I need to suck it up and take one for the team.”
I half-smiled.
He took a step forward, crowding me with his body. “You don’t know how hard this will be for me, Wheels.”
“Pun intended?”
“When you hit the cover of The New Yorker,” he said, backing me against the door, “I better get some recognition.”
“I’ll dedicate my two-page spread to you.”
Noah’s hand found the opening in my trench where a button should have been and slid a hand up the inside of my thigh. “You’d better.”
Desire pulsed through me as his touch inched closer and closer to the hidden place that longed for only him. And then he pulled away. The tease.
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