by Bella Andre
"Yes." She lifted her mouth to his, and he captured her "Please" in a kiss more raw than any he'd ever experienced before.
"No more space," she gasped as she gripped his shoulders so tightly he knew there would be marks. "There's too much space between us."
"Not anymore," he promised her. "All you need to do is let me in." Her inner muscles clenched over him then, and the pleasure was so intense that he could barely get out the words, "Let me all the way in, Ash."
And when she put her mouth to his while their bodies moved in perfect unison, Drew's passion for Ashley was wild.
Unraveled.
Unleashed.
These past months, he'd been numb and then hurting. He'd been running as fast as he could and then alternately trying to find that still place. But with Ashley, he didn't need to fight past anything or to pretend.
He just needed her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
"I know I promised to give you time," he said a short while later, "but I really think we should tell him." Drew had shifted his weight slightly to the side so that Ashley could breathe, but his need to touch her all the time was so strong that he kept one leg across hers.
Her eyes were still hazy from her climax when she opened them to look up at him. "Mmm?"
He loved her like this, when she was so sated with pleasure that her awe-inspiring brain momentarily shut off. He leaned down and licked over her lips, slowly and thoroughly, until her breath was coming faster.
But even though he was ready for her again and he could tell that she was just as ready, they needed to talk about her father--and the fact that they weren't going to be able to keep their relationship a secret forever. Especially given how much he'd hated keeping it a secret from his family today. He wanted to proudly tell the whole freaking world, She's mine. And I'm hers.
Still, he couldn't resist running his thumb over her damp lips. And when she licked out against the pad, he groaned at how good it felt. "Do you have any idea what you do to me?"
"If it's anything like what you do to me..." She bit her lower lip, and desire nearly won out over the talk he knew they needed to have. "Now that I said what I said..." Her skin flushed again. "Well, now you know exactly what I'm thinking. What I'm feeling."
It was huge that she'd told him just how much she loved making love to him--the words I want you inside of me every second of every day were better than the best lyric ever written--but he still wanted more. "I love you."
Her eyes went huge, and her lips parted in shock. "What?"
"I'm in love with you, Ash."
She licked her lips, shook her head, tried to slide out from beneath him. "How can you..."
He threaded his fingers through hers to keep her from moving away. "How can I not? I want everyone to know. My family already guessed. And I know my crew and band aren't stupid either. I promised your father I'd keep you safe, and I want him to know that I have." He stroked her cheek. "Safe with me."
She shook her head, the force of her panic strong enough for her to wriggle out from beneath him, the sheets bouncing over her naked skin as the bus hit a rough patch of freeway. "He won't think I'm safe."
Drew had never told a woman he loved her. He hadn't honestly thought he'd do it anytime soon. But then Ashley had appeared in his life and made him feel whole again.
So now, even though it hurt not to hear her say the words back to him, he tried to tell himself that with enough patience, they could work through her fears together. He understood how deeply the pain of losing a parent--even to divorce rather than cancer--could run. Knew, too, that he'd do anything to avoid that kind of pain again.
Anything, except giving Ashley up.
"Your father knows me. From before all of this." He was sitting across from her on the bed now. "He knows the family I come from. He wouldn't have trusted you with me if he didn't."
"But if we tell him about us, everything will change. I know I'm an adult. I know my choices are my own. It's just that I'm all he's ever had. I know what he wants from my life. And I know what he thinks of this one. How much it scares him to think of me anywhere in it. I had to fight to get him to accept that I wanted to be a part of this tour. And now...I just don't want it to end too soon."
Even as a kid, Drew could hear between the lines to what people were really saying--but never more so than now. Ashley kept saying that she didn't want things to change, that she didn't want the summer to end too soon, and that it all tied into her father.
But Drew was afraid her reasons for trying to keep space between them didn't have nearly as much to do with her father as she thought. What if the real reason she didn't want her father to know was because all she thought they were doing was sleeping together? After they'd broken past trying not to touch each other, he'd assumed they were on the same page with everything. But what if they weren't?
What if he was gunning for something that looked like forever...and she wasn't?
"Are you really sure your father is the one who won't think you're safe with me?"
In a split second, he saw her eyes shutter. From as open as they'd been before, when she was whispering every second, every day to him...to completely closed.
"You've got early radio tomorrow, and it's been a really busy day and night for you." She moved to slide off the bed. "I should let you get some sleep."
Drew didn't think, didn't pause, before reaching out and wrapping his arm around her waist. "Don't run, Ash. Please don't freeze me out."
He could practically hear the thoughts racing through her head, not in straight lines the way they normally did, but in jagged zigzags. He appreciated that she was a woman who didn't like being confused by anything or anyone--it was one of the reasons she looked so deeply into everything. And he would have done anything he could to clear up her confusion about the two of them, if only he could figure out exactly the right thing to say.
She'd told him he was a good listener, and for now, something told him it would be better to listen...but first he prayed she would trust him enough to at least keep talking.
"I know I shouldn't run," she finally said as she slowly began to relax her tense muscles, "not after I watched my parents run and freeze each other out for fifteen years, and it only ever made things worse. All night it was so hard to try to keep our relationship a secret from your family. I kept asking myself why I was. Especially when Olivia all but asked me if we were together. Not because she's nosy, but because she loves you and doesn't want you to get hurt by anyone." She shifted slightly so that she could look into his eyes while still remaining in the circle of his arms. "I swear I'm trying to wrap my head around everything that's happened, Drew. Trying to wrap my head around us. I know you must be so frustrated with me."
"I am frustrated, Ash. But only because I want you to love me back just as much as I love you."
"Drew."
"We don't have to tell your father yet. But taking more time to get comfortable with telling him doesn't mean my feelings are going to change." He shifted her so that she was straddling him on the bed. "I'm still going to be in love with you. And I'm still going to hope that you'll let yourself fall in love with me, too."
After watching his father and mother together over the years, he knew when it made sense to back off. Ashley was a very strong woman. One who would never let anyone tell her what to feel, who would never let anyone bully her into saying or doing anything she didn't want to.
So he wouldn't push her more tonight. Not with words, anyway.
*
Moments after telling her just how much he loved her--again!--Drew's delicious mouth was on hers, and his big hands were holding Ashley captive on his lap.
But that was a lie, and she knew it. She was the one holding herself captive. Utterly ensnared by a man whose life--whose entire world--was so big, and so fast-rising, that it was taking every last bit of energy she had just to keep her head above water.
She couldn't think straight when he was kissing her, when her hands
were instinctively reaching for him, when he was saying her name in that raw voice, when she was opening herself up to him again and taking him deeper than she'd ever known it was possible to be with anyone else.
She closed her eyes as she held on tight and pleasure stormed her system again. She couldn't breathe anymore. And yet, for a few precious moments, nothing else mattered but the way Drew was saying her name over and over and over against her lips as she rose in a blaze of light and color, then fell fast and hard. And then she shattered into so many pieces against him that when the lights finally faded, she didn't have the strength to do anything but burrow into his strong, warm arms around her as both physical and mental exhaustion finally pulled her all the way in.
Chapter Thirty
Miami, Florida
The next day was by far the craziest of any on the tour so far. Ashley had never been to Miami before--her mother had always come to California to visit her rather than the other way around--but as soon as they got off the bus that morning and stepped out onto the beach, she could see exactly how well the sun-and-energy-filled city fit her mother.
Camila had been born and raised in Miami, but when her parents passed away and she'd met Ashley's father in her early twenties, she'd left her tropical home behind and settled in Palo Alto with him. Ashley knew her mother had always craved the hottest days and constantly wanted to take day trips to the ocean. Only, it turned out that the cool and cliffy northern California coastline was nothing like Miami's endless stretches of hot white sand and blue water.
What's more, the crowds of Drew's fans were not only bigger and louder here--they were extremely passionate, too. More than one group of girls started to cry when they caught glimpses of him as the TV cameras moved around him and his interviewers on the beach.
Ashley hadn't inherited her mother's dark skin or hair--her father's pale genes had won, hands down--and when she felt as though she was both overheating and burning, she told James, "I'm going to see if the owners of that slushie stand will let me hide out in their building for a while."
James nodded, but he didn't take his eyes off Drew or the fans who were pushing really hard against the barriers that the local police had set up a short while ago to deal with the rapidly growing crowd.
She'd nearly reached the small building when she suddenly heard something crash and break. Turning, she watched as hundreds of girls and women began to stampede toward Drew and the cameras. While the local security crew and police moved as quickly as possible to block their progress, James sprinted toward Drew, doing something that looked like sign language. Drew started running, but still couldn't escape a few overzealous fans who grabbed him and nearly tackled him to the sand before the security guards could pull them away.
She was still standing frozen on the sand when Drew ran up to her. "James wants us to wait it out in here." He pulled her inside the pink building filled with slushie machines. All of the employees were out front by then to see what the commotion was on the beach, so no one saw them slip into the back storeroom.
"Are you okay?" she said, stunned by how fast things had fallen apart.
"I'm fine. I just hope everyone else is all right. I wouldn't have agreed to do the interviews on the beach if I'd known this was going to happen."
"Is Miami always like this?"
"The fans are always excited, but this is the sort of thing we've only ever had to watch out for in New York and Chicago."
"You're more popular than ever. I wonder if it's going to be like this everywhere soon?"
Of course she was thrilled that Drew had so many ardent fans, but at the same time, she could see how easily things could spin even more out of control than they already were, considering it was already difficult for him to walk down the street without being mobbed.
But she wasn't sure he was listening anymore, not with the way he was pressing his cheek to hers while he ran his hands down her arms. When he reached her hands, he pulled them around his waist.
"I don't like you being out here in this, Ash. I can't stand the thought of anything happening to you. If you had been in the middle of that crowd..."
"Don't you think I feel exactly the same way?" That was when she saw the cuts on his arms from where his fans' nails had cut into his skin. Her stomach hurt as she gently brushed her fingertips over the marks. "Don't you think I'm scared for you when everyone is being so crazy?"
"I can handle it," he told her, just as he'd said after his fans had ambushed them at the airport that first night.
She knew that he really was strong enough and resilient enough to handle anything that came his way. She only wished she could say the same about herself. But the truth was that she didn't know if she actually could handle it. Not just her fears that something might happen to him one day because of his fame and popularity around the world...but all of it.
Everything that came with being his.
Ashley hadn't realized she was going to come on this tour and fall in love. But she'd ended up falling for Drew so fast that her head, and her heart, were both still spinning from the whirlwind of it all. And ever since he'd told her that he loved her--and that he wanted her father and the rest of the world to know how he felt about her--she'd been outright panicking.
He'd momentarily soothed her with words and caresses that aroused her past the point where she could think at all, but she'd still woken up with that seed of panic in her stomach growing bigger by the second.
It was just all so much. So fast. A half-dozen worries spiraled around and around inside her head at once.
I don't know how to stop worrying about everything. That we're too different. That what we have now could never last outside of this fairy tale. That all I'm doing is repeating my parents' mistakes and that one day you'll resent me the way my mother resented my father, for clipping your wings with all my spreadsheets and business plans.
Drew had been so open and honest with her, and Ashley had tried to be just as honest with him...at least until last night, when she hadn't confessed her love for him. She hated the feeling that she'd not only lied to his family about them, but that she was also now lying to Drew by not telling him exactly how she felt about him.
Somehow, she needed to get up the nerve to tell him everything--all her fears, all her worries. Right here, right now, in the slushie shack on the beach. But Drew's phone dinged before she could stop spinning and panicking long enough to speak.
"It's got to be James." Drew pulled out his phone and looked at the message. "He needs us to come to the front of the building right away. He's got a car waiting to get us out of here safely." He took her hand, and thirty seconds later, they were in the backseat of a black town car with James.
"Sorry about that, boss," James said, looking none too pleased with the situation. "I should have been more on top of things before it all went to hell. The area wasn't nearly secure enough from the start."
"We all should have been better prepared, and we'll make sure we are next time," Drew said. "Everyone okay out there?"
"Everyone's fine, thank God."
"We need to move the rest of the interview inside," Drew said.
"Already on it," James confirmed.
Drew was still holding her hand, but James didn't make a big deal out of it, didn't stare at them or raise his eyebrows. She knew it had to be because their relationship wasn't a surprise to him in any way. Drew had said his family had guessed last night, as well. Which meant that she was the only one fooling herself about keeping things "private." Pretty soon, the entire world was bound to know.
Was she ready for that?
"After your interviews," James said, "you've got lunch with the mayor in support of the Music for Miami foundation, and then your recording session will take you through to your show tonight."
"Sounds good. Thanks, James." Drew turned to her. "You look like you got a little too much sun. Your skin is flushed."
"It doesn't take much for me to burn," she said, but that wasn't the entire reas
on she was so flushed. It was all the conflicted questions burning inside of her, too. Questions she desperately wished she could already have figured out the answers to.
They pulled up outside a high-rise, and when James got out to open the door, Drew pressed a kiss to her lips and whispered, "I love you," before slowly letting go of her hand and heading out of the car to do his very demanding job.
He'd said I love you again and again last night, but hearing the three little words in the light of a new day was at once the most beautiful thing Ashley had ever heard...and the most terrifying.
She wasn't at all afraid about her physical safety while on tour, not when Drew and his team went out of their way to make sure no harm came to her. She wasn't sure her heart would survive the tour. Because she loved him so much she actually felt like it was going to burst all the way out of her chest.
She'd always gone to her dad for help when she was confused about something at school. But this wasn't a math problem. Wasn't an English paper she needed help outlining. This was love and sex--the two things she was absolutely certain her father couldn't handle talking about. Especially with Drew Morrison associated with both of them.
But she would burst if she didn't talk to someone soon. Not just anyone, but someone who knew her really well. And someone who understood exactly what it was like to be in a relationship with someone so different from them.
So when Drew headed into the studio to record for a few hours before his show, Ashley told James she was going to run some errands. Though she hated to miss hearing Drew work on his new songs, there was something she needed to do--and someone she needed to see--before she lost it completely.
Her mom.
Chapter Thirty-One
"Mom."
Ashley was taken completely by surprise by the tears that began to fall when she got out of the taxi and ran into her mother's arms. Tears she couldn't keep from falling. Partly because she was so confused about her relationship with Drew...and partly because it had been so long since her mother had held her like this.
