Blogger Bundle Volume VI: SB Sarah Selects Books That Rock Her Socks

by Kathleen O'Reilly

  Ashley took her clothes from the bed and got dressed, as if everything was no big deal. He watched her though, and the air started to heat up again. She kept her eyes on the mirror, but in some ways that was worse. She could see his eyes watching her, and feel the automatic pull in her body. She wondered if he could see what was happening to her—see the damp clench between her thighs, see the heavy swell in her breasts.

  She thought he could because his eyes were hooded and shadowed, and there was a dark flush to his face.

  Quickly she pulled on her skirt, tugged that tank over her head, and this time when she looked at him in the mirror, his eyes had returned to the same no-big-deal hazel, and the heat was nothing more than the lack of an open window.

  Her smile was mostly relieved.

  “Ready to go?” she asked.

  “Anytime,” he answered in a warm, comfortable voice, exactly like chicken soup.

  That, she could handle.

  DAVID TOOK HER to eat at a barbecue place on 125th street. It was a hole-in-the-wall with great ribs and fried green tomatoes. Over dinner they argued about baseball, politics and the irrational idiosyncrasies of the female fashion style. Actually, David threw Ashley that last one because he liked to hear her argue, liked to watch her cheeks smolder and her shoulders jerk when she got particularly fired up. It took a lot to fire up Ashley Larson, but when she was sparked, the whole world burned brighter. David liked the burn.

  “Tell me about your family,” he asked after their plates had been cleared from the table. He felt like he should know more about her. He knew the big stuff. Knew she was afraid of flying, knew she wanted to make her stores a success, but he didn’t know all of the little stuff. Like her family, and why she didn’t say much about her marriage. He wanted to understand how a female came by a fascination for horror films, and whether her ex-husband was somehow responsible. David made his name, and most of his decisions, by thorough research, and reviewing a problem from all angles, and although he’d reviewed Ashley from many physical angles, it was the stuff inside her head that made him curious.

  “You don’t want to know about my family,” she commented, dodging his question, which of course, made him more curious.

  “I do.”

  “I have a sister, a mother, and a niece.”

  “What was the call about?”

  “Val lost a form. She needed help finding it.”

  At one time, David might have called Chris for exactly that, called him to talk about the hell that was now airline travel, might have even called him to bitch about the dating service. It was one of the reasons that Chris’ betrayal hurt. He wanted to cut his brother out of his heart, out of his life, but Chris was there, they shared DNA, they shared memories. For nearly ten hellish years, they’d shared a room. Amputating your brother wasn’t as easy as someone might think.

  “And they called you on a business trip to help find it?” he asked, watching her push back her hair, part avoidance, part nervousness, a lot sexy.

  Quickly she shook her head, sending her hair back in her face. “My family’s boring. Let’s not talk about my family. Let’s talk about exciting things. Like how you’re going to revitalize Ashley’s Closet.” She propped her chin in her palm, waiting for David to spout forth some powerful bits of sage business acumen.

  He shifted uncomfortably in the old wooden bench of a seat. “Not only me. We. You’re a part of this team. You can do it. I have faith.”

  It wasn’t that he was worried about his part. He’d given insightful advice to corporations valued in the billions, and he was always on target. Her four measly boutiques would be a walk in the park. However, if he went in, turned around her business and left, what would she do without him?

  That question echoed over and over in his head like an annoying commercial.

  Somewhere, buried beneath the sizeable ego—earned, not exaggerated—below the male pride, which wasn’t his fault, beneath the canniness of his brain, David knew that Ashley Larson was a helluva lot braver than he was, and that she kept her wings clipped for some reason he didn’t understand. He wasn’t convinced it was the divorce, although that seemed the most likely culprit. It was important to him that she succeeded—even without him, especially without him, because David McLean was only a temporary fixture in Ashley Larson’s life.

  One of them would move on, settling into a permanent relationship first. Maybe David, maybe Ashley.

  David frowned.

  Ashley laughed at his face. “You don’t need to look so worried. I’ll help. These are my stores. My dream. What kind of slug would let somebody take over their dream? Stop looking so miserable, you’re making me nervous. What are you thinking?”

  David was still caught back at “temporary fixture.” “Thinking about what?”

  “How many designers do we need? It should be small enough to be manageable, but big enough to rate on the event-o-meter.”

  “Three,” he answered without hesitation.

  “Three is great. I thought about four, but that’s a strange number, and there could be a tie. Seven’s too many, and five feels too big. I couldn’t handle five.”

  “You could handle five.”

  Ashley frowned, a long wrinkle of forehead and nose. “Do you think I should do five?”

  “Yeah,” he told her, just to see what she’d say.

  She met his eyes, shook her head. “Nah. Too many.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “Me, too,” she agreed. “We’ll have Enrique, there’s a girl in Miami who’s great. Mariah D’Angelo. I saw her work online, and I’d love to see it in person.”

  “So you should go.”

  “I’ll go.” Then she paused to consider. “You’ll meet me there, right? I mean, would you want to come—no, no.” Finally she sighed, and there was that sad look of resigned self-awareness in her face, like when you overslept and you knew you shouldn’t because there were eighty thousand things to get done. David never overslept, but sometimes he thought about it.

  “I wasn’t always like this,” she told him.

  “Like what?” he asked, knowing exactly what this was.

  “I’ve never been the most decisive person. Actually, thoughtful is the word I like best. But after Jacob, I don’t want to commit to anything. Do you have that problem?”

  Of course not. David was decisive, able to leap tall judgments in a single bound, and once the decision was made he didn’t look back and never had any regrets. “Not a problem for me.”

  “Then what happened to you? Because everybody knows, when you get divorced, you’re marked for life. What’s your mark?”

  David bore the mark of Cain, or in this case, Chris. But that hadn’t marked him. He wasn’t indecisive or lacking in self-confidence as a result. No, compared to Ashley, David had come through his divorce fairly unscathed. “I don’t think I have one.”

  She held up a hand to her ear. “Can you repeat that please? I missed it against all those throbbing molto-basso sounds of male denial.”

  “I’m not in denial.”

  “Lie, much?”

  “Honestly, I’m fine.”

  She laid her chin on her palm. “Then why don’t you talk about your marriage at all? Huh? Riddle me that one, Mr. I’m-So-Well-Adjusted.”

  That small puff of air was the sound of male ego being deflated by a woman who wears bunny slippers on a plane.

  David gathered his courage, met her eyes and almost lied, but eventually the truth made its sorry way out of his mouth.

  “My wife had an affair,” he confessed.

  Okay, it was a half-truth, and he hadn’t even told her the worst part, but some things were not meant to be shared.

  Instantly her face was awash with concern. “I’m sorry. You must have really loved her. You look like it still hurts.”

  He schooled his features, removing all looks of hurt. Hurt was not to be shown. Showing hurt belonged to the female of the species, not to men. “Wounded pride,�
� he answered crisply, schooling his voice to remove all sounds of hurt as well.

  Ashley still didn’t look convinced. “I’m sorry, even if it is merely wounded pride.”

  “Thanks,” he said, and quickly changed the subject from the details of his divorce. “I’ll meet you in Miami.”

  She brushed one thoughtful finger over her lips. Lucky finger. “Why are you doing this? For the sex?”

  David was frustrated. It wasn’t the way she said it, she was thoughtful, strike that, pondering, and didn’t seem insulted at all. No, it was what she said because it sounded so…wrong. David thought about defending himself, since it wasn’t like that, he wasn’t like that. Not completely.

  “I signed up for an online dating service. It was miserable, thumb-screws, drawn-and-quartered sort of torture. I can’t do that. This, I can do.”

  “This?”

  “This.” He pointed an accusing finger at her because he didn’t like the snickering twinkle that was fast appearing in her eye. “And don’t make it out to be sleazy. It’s not. Not completely. If you lived in New York, it wouldn’t even sound remotely sleazy. It’d be completely normal. But noooo, you don’t, so if it’s quasi-sleazy, it might sound that way, but it’s not. I travel a lot. It’s not a big deal to synchronize my schedule to match yours.” David sighed. It still felt sleazy. Possibly because he wasn’t an affair type of guy. He and Chris were raised to respect women, value honesty, work hard, and stand when “The Star Spangled Banner” was played. Apparently, David had been listening to their parents harder than Chris when the whole “value honesty” lectures were covered. No, not going there. This time he concentrated on Ashley, met her eyes squarely.

  After a moment, a smile bloomed slowly. “Okay,” she said.

  He peered closer, checking to see if Inquisition Ashley was really finished. “Really?” It seemed too easy. “Okay? Just like that?”

  “Yeah. Just like that.”

  David heaved a glorious sigh of relief. “I like you, Ashley Larsen.”

  I like you lots.

  “I’m glad.” She shot him a curious look. “You really signed up for an online dating service?”

  “You said I should. I thought, it’s time, I should, and then I did.” He shook his head. “I knew I shouldn’t have.”

  “What happened?”

  “So, first there was Kim, then Pam and then…” Abruptly he stopped, frowning.

  “And who was next?” she prodded.

  “Jane.” It sounded oddball to tell Ashley that he’d been out with another girl named Ashley. Actually two other girls named Ashley. The world was full of Ashleys, and it wasn’t his fault. Now it sounded a little obsessed, and he wasn’t. There was just a hell of a lot of Ashleys. Statistically, that did not make him obsessed.

  Ashley leaned across the table. “Why does Jane make you guilty? I see guilt on your face. You slept with her, didn’t you?”

  “After one date? Do I look like a man whore?”

  Her eyes said yes, thankfully her mouth stayed shut.

  And now he was blushing. A thirty-four-year-old divorced man who’d been cuckolded by his brother did not deserve to be labeled a man whore. He shouldn’t have to stoop so low as to blush. He told himself to stop, but she started laughing. The damned blush remained. “Only for you,” he defended. “And that’s only because I don’t see you enough. I think you’re right. It’s the distance thing. It’s like Spanish Fly.”

  “It’s a good thing I don’t live in New York,” she told him, and he nearly disagreed with her, clamping down on his tongue just in time. That would be twice that he brought up her living in New York, which would suggest a pattern, a train of thought, a need, and that’s not what their relationship was. It was not how they defined it. It was not what they both wanted.

  “I think we’re moving on,” he said. “You know, getting past the whole black plague of divorceness.” There. That sounded correctly ambivalent.

  “I should sign up for a dating service, too,” she said.

  Instantly he knew that was a bad idea. An idea of disastrous proportions. She was vulnerable, easily swayed, ready to leap into bed with every Dick, Dick and Harry Dick that was out there.

  “After all the horror I’ve endured, now you want to endure it, too?” he asked. It sounded logical, completely unlike the throbbing molto-basso sounds of male denial.

  “It sounds interesting. I should broaden my horizons, don’t you think?” There was a glint in her eyes, a spark of mischief and things that he knew were cock-twistingly bad.

  “I think an intracontinental affair could broaden horizons,” he told her, not wanting to think about his cock. Not thinking about his cock. Not thinking about his cock. “Jet-setting around the country, a hotel room in every port, a glass of champagne under every beach umbrella. That could seriously broaden your horizons.”

  And if that didn’t work, there were some other positions they could think about. Light bondage, for instance. David had been a one-hundred-percent homogenized sex participant before, but scarlet nether lips for hotel wall art made a guy think about nether lips, and how his cock fit into said wall art.

  Ashley lifted her hands, feigning innocence. “But that’s only once a month.”

  “We could go bi-weekly. I’m not averse to the idea,” he offered, a total understatement.

  “But you thought that would get boring.”

  “No, you thought it would get boring,” he corrected. “I never thought boring. Not once.”

  “But what about all that variety that I’ll be missing out on…” Her voice trailed off wistfully.

  “If you want variety…” And his voice trailed off wistfully, too.

  “With other men,” she finished.

  David narrowed his eyes, sensing mischief afoot. “Are you toying with me? Me, Mr. Not-So-Well-Adjusted? Me, Mr. I’m-Heartbroken-After-the-Divorce? Me, Mr. Downtrodden-and-Depressed? Are you that cold?”

  She nodded once, a smile playing on her face. “Miami.”

  “Miami in June. And now that that’s decided, can I escort you back to your hotel room? You could toy with me some more,” he coaxed in a low voice that was carefully designed not to sound carnally obsessed. But to be fair to himself, they didn’t have a lot of time, and it’d be another month before he saw her again. Miami in June.

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  “Yes, I think it will,” he promised, and when David made a promise, he kept it.

  IT WAS LUNCHTIME on Friday when he took her to JFK, and there was a particular moment when she was about to go through security. He was all charm and old-school proper, but the hazel eyes were darker than before. His hand stayed firm at her back, a polite touch, yet a little more. Around them, a thousand air travelers rushed through the terminal. Posted signs were explaining what the FAA allowed, what the TSA permitted, the proper procedure for taking off your shoes, but there was no protocol posted for saying goodbye to David.

  He confused her, he fascinated her, he wanted her…yeah, she knew all that. Their relationship was all flash in the pan, big fireworks, little common sense. It was the leaving that made this relationship work. Instinctively she knew it, and she wasn’t going to give him any more. Because that would be stupid.

  Ashley put a hand on his arm, pulling him closer, ostensibly to be heard above the madding crowd, but actually because she needed to be closer, needed to share his personal space for just a bit longer. She liked it there with him. They fit.

  David looked at her. Frustration clouded his eyes, which were even darker now, and a particularly vile suitcase jammed into her side.

  He swore, pulled her against the wall and kissed her.

  It was a lot more flash in the pan, big fireworks, and she lifted up on tiptoes because she loved the flashing lights behind her eyes, loved the way he kissed with such desperation.

  He lifted his head, gave her a last glance and then walked away without looking back. Not once did he look back. It was a tiny thing
, but it hurt. She watched him leave, wondering if he would turn around, but he didn’t. Casual white shirt, well-worn blue jeans, but no regretful look back. Eventually he disappeared into the crowd, and the businessman behind Ashley prodded her. “You in line?”

  She nodded once, went through the motions of pulling off her shoes and wondered why David hadn’t looked, and why it should bug her. A no-look was better. It illustrated the casualness of their relationship, their twin desire to have a fling. Besides, airports were busy places, everyone fast and ready to go about their business. It wasn’t the place for look-backs. It was the place to be processed and pressed forward.

  After she handed her boarding pass to security, she passed through the metal detector. She was flying eight hundred miles back home, back to her family, back to her stores. Back where she belonged.

  If this intensity didn’t fade though, if this fling turned into something more, David would want her to move to New York. He even brought it up, and she had seen the worry in his eyes. David was the one who would demand things of her, doing a mock TV show with three up-and-coming designers was the least of what he’d expect her to do. He’d want her to leave Chicago, leave her stores, leave Val.

  Ashley wasn’t a leaver. Jacob might have left her, but Ashley was the port in the storm, the parked car, the unbudgeable rock. That was what her family needed, and that was who she was. Then she laughed at herself. She and David had seen each other twice. Three nights of great sex didn’t a relationship make. No, relationships were built on things more solid and reliable.

  Her bunny slippers came out of the bag and she rubbed the pink fur affectionately.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me, kid,” she said to her good-luck charm, but she did look back, just once, and frowned.