The driver had already warned them that the main town was closed to traffic for the parade so they would have to continue the rest of the way on foot. They trailed along cobbled streets with old buildings built with yellow and cream stone and red-tiled roofs. Flowers and streamers hung from windows of various homes and shops.
Yet, even as they got closer to the central square, and the sounds of music and laughter grew louder, Fliss still wasn’t prepared for turning the corner into the main parade street.
It swept her away in an instant.
More flowers, flags, streamers and lanterns adorned the wide road in their hundreds—as far as the eye could see. Laughing couples and families thronged the place, and live music played as people danced in the street. Now and then, incredible cooking smells wafted to her nostrils, making her stomach rumble in appreciation.
Ash turned his head to look at her and she grinned, unabashed. Then, his arm firmly around her shoulders and her body melded to his, he led her into the crowds.
‘Where are we heading?’ she said, laughing.
He smiled, shaking his head to indicate he hadn’t heard her over the bustling street.
‘Say again?’
‘Where are we heading?’
‘Anywhere we want.’ Ash placed his lips to her ear, so close his breath tickled her. ‘Stop me if you see anywhere which takes your fancy.’
She didn’t want to draw comparisons. What good would it do? Still, it felt heady to be so impromptu. Dates in previous relationships had been so planned, so rigid—everything she’d thought she wanted. She was beginning to realise that predictability could be dull and uninspiring.
Except this wasn’t really a date and it certainly wasn’t the start of a relationship. She needed to remember that.
‘Here.’ She stopped Ash abruptly.
A small but pretty restaurant had caught her eye. Unlike some of the other places, with tables spilling out into the road and smiling servers running around a multitude of tourists, this place looked smaller, more family-run. And there looked to be several locals enjoying a meal, which was always a good sign in Fliss’s book.
‘Good choice,’ Ash agreed, threading his way to a table for two and holding her chair out for her to sit down, before seating himself at ninety degrees.
It was nicer than sitting opposite him, Fliss thought with surprise, and it allowed them both to watch the festival without the pressure to make conversation. He was making everything so easy; if only she could convince her over-excited body to agree.
With a concerted effort, Fliss pushed her nerves about the later part of the evening to the back of her mind and focused on the carnival around them. The bands had taken a break and the dancing had stopped but she could still hear plenty of buzz, and music in the distance. Craning her neck eagerly, she realised that the parade had begun and the first troubadours and baton-twirlers were moving energetically down the streets, leading the most breathtaking floats Fliss had ever seen.
She clapped her hands along with the crowd, their appreciation evident. This wasn’t going to be such a tense evening, after all.
* * *
It was an hour before the last of the floats passed by, the music slowly drifting away, the lanterns now casting a warm glow over the darkening sky. Ash watched as Fliss turned back, her whole body more relaxed than he’d seen all evening. Possibly ever.
She glanced at her empty place setting.
‘The meal’s gone?’
‘You finished it.’ He chuckled softly. ‘You don’t remember?’
She offered a rueful smile. ‘I know I’m full, and I know the food was beautiful.’ She glanced at the bottle of red wine. ‘Ah, well, that isn’t why I’m feeling so chilled out; it’s only half empty.’
He didn’t have the heart to tell her it was their second bottle and she’d drank two-thirds of that one.
They fell into an easy silence, the street scene still offering plenty of entertainment.
‘So you enjoyed the parade?’ Ash asked, once the waiter had brought them a round of coffees.
‘I loved it.’ She nodded, her eyes sparkling happily. ‘It was almost magical. And now all the lanterns are so pretty; it’s like being in a fairy tale.’
‘I’m glad you had fun.’ He was careful to keep his tone upbeat. ‘I still can’t believe you’ve never been to a festival.’
He watched Fliss’s mind ticking over, wondering how best to respond. But then the server chose that moment to clear the dishes from their table and by the time they were alone again Ash feared she might have composed herself enough to brush him off. He was surprised when she answered hesitantly.
‘It wasn’t somewhere my uncle wanted to take me.’
‘He didn’t want to, or you didn’t want to?’
She slowly stirred her coffee, her eyes trained on the mini-vortex.
‘A bit of both, probably.’
He waited quietly in the hope she would offer more of her own volition, but she didn’t, and that ate away at Ash. He wanted to know her better, to understand her, but she was shutting him out. He couldn’t explain why that bothered him so much.
Then again, she wasn’t shooting him down either. It could mean part of her wanted to talk, if he could just coax it out of her without scaring her off.
‘You said your uncle raised you?’
She paused, then nodded. ‘From the age of eight.’
‘You mentioned your mother wasn’t kind to you.’
Perhaps by reminding her of things she’d already told him, it would help her to feel she’d already trusted him once. At least partially.
A brittle sound escaped her. ‘I represented the end of all her dreams. And she never let me forget it.’
He’d seen that often enough, with other kids in care.
‘She was an aspiring ballerina.’ Fliss bunched her shoulders.
Ah. Not that it excused it, but it gave him a better understanding of what Fliss had dealt with.
‘Would she have made it?’
‘I honestly don’t think she would.’ Fliss met his gaze, not spiteful but factual. ‘My uncle said she was good, but there are thousands of good ballerinas. She wasn’t great, certainly not stand-out. But she could never accept that. She always had to have someone to blame. Never herself. Before I came along she blamed her parents for not supporting her enough. Then when she fell pregnant and neither of my two potential fathers wanted to know, that was their fault. And finally, when I came along, I was the excuse she needed to explain why she’d given up dancing altogether. She could be...cruel.’
‘Is that why you’re so responsible? So rule-abiding? Except for when you’re leaping off helicopters to save injured soldiers, that is.’
‘I don’t know.’ Fliss looked surprised. ‘I’ve never really thought about it, I guess. I just know I vowed to myself I’d never be like my mother.’
‘And yet your uncle, the General, he’s one of the most responsible, straight-down-the-line men I know.’
‘Yes.’ A fond smile leapt to her lips. ‘He was the typically duty-bound older brother. He had a younger brother who died as a baby—cot death, I think. When my mother came along within the year—another new baby and a girl to boot—I think my grandparents were overly protective.’
‘So, as she grew up, your mother got away with a lot?’
‘If you listen to her then no; her father was a military man too, and she bemoans the fact they were suffocating in their strictness. But if you ask my uncle, he’ll say she was given a lot of leeway. Yet the more she got, the more she demanded. She became known as a bit of a whinger, whilst my uncle was always expected to be the big brother and pick up the slack. He carried that with him when he followed in my grandfather’s footsteps into the Army. It’s what’s made him the General, I suppose.’<
br />
‘And you’re like him. Always striving to do the right thing,’ Ash mused.
He was certainly beginning to understand her better. He and Fliss had more in common than he would have believed.
‘But it doesn’t make you boring, or dull.’
‘I just think I was looking for someone I could trust. A man with the same qualities I see in my uncle. But I couldn’t love them the way they deserved to be loved. That isn’t me. I confused solid and reliable with boring and disconnected.’
‘Why? Why are you so afraid to let go, Fliss?’
She offered a helpless shrug. ‘I don’t want to be like my mother. She only thought about herself, about what she wanted. Did I tell you that we didn’t start off alone? That she only dragged me away from my grandparents’ house when I was four? And that was because she wanted to push me into all the dancing lessons she wished that she had taken, but her parents hadn’t allowed her to?’
Ash shook his head. ‘Did you like dancing?’
‘I hated dancing. But she said I was being selfish. That I owed her that much. I’d taken away her dream of dancing, so the least I could do was try to be half the dancer she felt she had been. It took my uncle four years to track us down. We were squatting in a house with about twenty others. We had no heating, no food because all the money she had went on sparkling new dresses so she could push me onto the circuit.’
He’d seen and heard a little about pageants over the years.
‘They can be quite cut-throat, can’t they.’
‘That’s an understatement.’
He could virtually see the nausea, the fear rising in her.
‘So you loathed it,’ he confirmed.
She bounced her head, unable to answer him for a moment. ‘Every single second of the humiliation. My mother would scream and bawl at me for missing a pivot or split. I was five, Ash. Five. I should have been playing on the swings, or being taught how to ride a bike. Having fun, laughing. Being loved.’
His throat constricted. He knew exactly how that felt. The loneliness, the despair, the rejection.
‘My uncle found us backstage after one of those competitions. I was on the floor, sobbing over something or other, when he walked in and I thought he looked like the biggest, bravest, most heroic man I’d ever seen.’
‘That was when he gave her the ultimatum.’ Ash drew his lips into a thin line.
She stopped abruptly, dropping her eyes from his, but he could see that, even now, her pain was still as intense.
‘Fliss?’
‘When my mother refused to leave with him—’ her voice dropped to a whisper ‘—she told him I was useless anyway and that she was better off without me. Then she dragged me off the floor and threw me across the room to him. She told him if he wanted to look after a worthless baby like me, then he could have me. Finally she walked out.’
Anger rushed up inside of Ash, along with something else. A fierce protectiveness. A need to ensure that no one hurt her or made her feel so worthless ever again.
He knew it wasn’t his place to feel that way but he couldn’t curb it; it refused to be pushed aside.
‘Ash, I don’t want to talk about this any more.’
Nodding grimly, Ash pulled his wallet out and thrust a generous pile of notes at the delighted server and pulled Fliss gently from her chair. Right now, she needed to be reminded of the better side of life. And he was determined to be the one to do that for her.
‘Come on, Fliss. Time to get out of here.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘WHERE ARE WE GOING?’ Fliss cried as he clasped her hand, holding her tightly as he weaved his way through the crowds, the music and dancing starting up once again to their left as they were jostled and bumped by revellers.
Holding on as though he never wanted to let her go, Ash maintained the pace and, although she was initially reluctant, Fliss discovered the further they got from the restaurant, the more she felt as though she was leaving the conversation—and her past—behind.
The only time Ash stopped was when they passed a street vendor selling popcorn. He halted abruptly but, instead of buying a cone of hot buttered puffs, he asked for a small bag of kernels.
‘What are they for?’ she asked curiously.
Dropping them inside his shirt pocket, he patted the outside, his expression giving nothing away.
‘Secret.’
And then, before she had a chance to say anything more, he set off again, her hand still tightly in his, and resumed their determined pace. By the time he pulled them both left into a side street that was decidedly less packed than the main route, Fliss had forgotten her earlier unease and felt a renewed sense of adventure. She marvelled at the effect. How easy Ash made it for her.
‘According to our server, there’s a path up the hillside here which offers a view out over the town. Apparently it’s well worth a look.’
‘I never even heard you ask.’
He shot her an indulgent smile which lifted her spirits even further.
‘That’s because you were too entranced by the floats. So, are you up for it?’
She glanced up at the cobbled path, infrequent lanterns offering pinpoints of light, lending it an almost romantic air.
‘Sure, why not?’
As they headed along the narrowing streets, she couldn’t suppress the rush of pleasure that, even though they were no longer pushing through crowds, he still enveloped her hand in his as though he wasn’t ready to let her go.
As they left the last of the bars and restaurants, souvenir shops and revellers behind, the night closed around them like their own personal cloak. The path climbed steadily, a stone wall protecting them from the ever-increasing drop on one side whilst higgledy-piggledy stone buildings lined the other.
As the space between the festival lanterns stretched longer and longer, they began to pass the occasional couple, kissing passionately as they leaned on the wall or up against the buildings, cocooned in their own little world and oblivious to Ash and Fliss approaching. Yet another reminder of a typical carefree youth which Fliss had never allowed herself to experience.
Partly because she was afraid of becoming her mother and having a baby, only to make the child’s life the same misery Fliss herself had endured. But also partly, Fliss was loathed to admit, because she was so prickly that no boy had ever wanted her enough—or, at least, made her feel wanted enough—to let go of her tightly held reins to try.
‘This must be it.’ Ash broke into her musings. ‘So, what do you make of it?’
Peering around his shoulder as they turned to their left, Fliss took in the view and gasped.
The town beneath them seemed to be dotted by a thousand pretty fairy lights, the floats strategically sited around the streets for festival-goers to enjoy. It was prettier than she could have imagined. She moved to the parapet and stood transfixed, unable to articulate how she felt.
‘You seem tense. It was all those couples kissing, wasn’t it?’ he asked, coming to stand next to her but deliberately giving her a little space.
She turned to look at him, confused.
‘I’m not uncomfortable. If anything, I confess I might have felt a little...envious. Fusty Fliss, too uptight for anything like that.’
She snapped her mouth shut, wishing she hadn’t said that. She certainly wasn’t about to tell him where it had come from.
‘Fusty? Is that so?’ Ash muttered, angling his body so he was now facing her, looking straight into her eyes as though he could see every last worry etched in her face. ‘Only I don’t think that’s entirely true.’
Ash lifted his hands to her shoulders, compelling her to turn her body, only to pull it against his, unbelievably hard and unyielding. Her insides turned to molten liquid.
She wanted him with
an ache so fierce it should have frightened her.
He dipped his head to skim her lips with his own. He drew a lazy line across her bottom lip with his tongue. He slid his tongue in just enough to tease her. And all the while she could only cling to him, unable to tell whether he was the one thing stopping her from going under or the one thing pulling her beneath the sensual waves. Finally, Ash lifted her arms to hook them around his neck, allowing him greater access to the rest of her body, and she didn’t stop him. She couldn’t.
His hands explored her body, tracing every contour, firing every nerve-ending. Fliss opened her mouth to invite him further inside and he complied. Tasting her, teasing her. She pressed her body harder against his, the solid length of his erection unmistakable between them. It was a turn-on to know just how much he wanted her and instinctively she rocked against him.
He made a low, guttural sound in the back of his throat. Nerves and boldness mingled and Fliss rocked against him again.
‘Be careful,’ he warned her.
‘What if I don’t want to be?’ she whispered back shakily.
He stilled, pulling back from her so he could look her in the eye. ‘Don’t you?’
She hesitated before offering a helpless shrug. ‘I don’t know.’
She wanted to do something out of character, go a little crazy. But she’d been trapped by her own set of unbending rules for so long that she didn’t know how to break free.
‘Do you trust me?’ he demanded gruffly.
She thought back to the soldier she’d spoken to out in the field. The way every man who had worked with Ash only had good things to say about him.
‘Yes,’ she murmured.
He gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod, then leaned in to resume their kissing. But this time it was different. So intense and passionate her toes actually curled with pleasure. She ran her hands languidly over his body, exploring the taut, bunched muscles of his shoulders, his back, his obliques. Every inch of him was honed and uncompromising, without an inch of soft skin. And for tonight it was all hers. She only wished she knew exactly what to do with him.
Encounter with a Commanding Officer Page 9
