“I’m not him,” I whispered huskily into her ear. A shiver traveled down her body, and her hands fell to mine.
“I’m not him,” I repeated, this time kissing the skin beneath her ear after I spoke. When I pulled away and looked into the reflection of the glass, I found that she had closed her eyes.
“Ashlyn, I’m not him.”
I would continue to say it until she told me to stop, or until she pulled away. Everything about this was in her court. I would continue to come at her, to push my way into her every waking thought, and hopefully appear in her dreams. I needed her to know that I wasn’t going anywhere. I would not make that mistake again. Ashlyn Hart was the temptation of the only life I wanted.
“I know,” she finally replied.
“What will it take for you to truly believe that?”
She twisted in my arms until we were chest to chest. Her hands came around me and grabbed the back of my belt, but I remained silent. “I’d say you’re doing a pretty good job at making me believe it.”
“You’re the only one I see, Ashy. I don’t want or need to be with anyone else. I’m pissed off that you are constantly reminded of who I was and who I’ve been with. You don’t need that reminder, especially when you are sharing your body with me.”
Her laugher was like music to my ears. “Is that what I’m doing? Sharing my body with you?”
“Ashlyn, I’ve given you multiple orgasms, you’ve come on my fingers, tongue, and cock, and I’ve fallen asleep with you in my arms. So yeah, I think that constitutes you sharing your body with me.”
Her cheeks flushed, but her eyes never left mine. “You have a way with words, Joshua Crawford, but I guess I can’t really disagree with any of that. Does this mean we have officially stepped into friends-with-benefits territory?”
She could not be serious. There was no way that this woman just referred to herself as my friend with benefits. I wanted to climb inside her head and erase every possible reason why she would come to that conclusion. I stepped away and moved back to my desk. A look of misunderstanding washed over her face, and her green eyes shimmered with confusion. I leaned against my desk, and crossed my legs at my ankles and my arms over my chest. My gaze locked with hers, and a chilly silence fell between us.
“Is that what you think?” I asked, my voice deep and more intimidating than I wanted. “That you are just a friend who I happen to be fucking?”
“We have had sex once, Josh,” she said in a breathy voice.
“Fine, if you want to get into specifics, I’ll rephrase my question. Are you just a friend who I have had sex with once, but who I have kissed and finger fucked more than once? You think I look at you as a friend with benefits?”
Her eyes turned intense and her jaw tightened. “That’s all I can be.”
“That’s bullshit. Have I not touched you, kissed you, fucked you? Have I not given you a clear sign that you are my girl? I’d give you the world, Ashy. I would give you my final breath if it meant I didn’t have to live a moment without you. Sorry if that freaks you out, but that’s the truth. Time means nothing when it comes to how I feel about you, because I’ve felt like this for a long fucking time. You aren’t a casual fling to me, and you aren’t a friend with benefits. Get the fucked up thought of being a notch on my belt out of your head too.”
“It’s not bullshit, Josh,” she whispered. “Hearing you say all of that is like living a dream. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to hear that? How many years I wished for those words to spill from you? But I’ve changed, and I feel like in some fucked up way that I’m damaged goods. All I can give is casual. Five years ago, we had a chance, but it felt like all you wanted was a one-night stand. I lived for a happily-ever-after, and you chose a path of random girls and no commitment.”
My jaw clenched at the words she was spitting. For the past five years, this was what she’d been thinking? That she was a one-night stand, and that was all I wanted? That was so far from the truth. “You have absolutely no clue what happened five years ago. The fact that you even considered yourself a one-night stand pisses me off.”
She crossed the office and stood before me. “I’m standing right here, Josh. Tell me. Make me believe it. You’ve been so incredible to me, and no one has ever treated me like you have recently. Fuck, you’ve made me believe that I am worthy of finding love one day. You make every bad thing disappear with a kiss, a look, or a simple touch. You, Josh. No one else. But every single time I feel myself start to fall, I have to catch myself. I can’t trust that my heart won’t get broken again, because I can’t shift the thought that I was just some random girl to you.”
I hooked my finger into the hoop of her jeans and pulled her hard against my body. Her hands went flush against my chest, and she looked up at me with shock and intrigue. My lips collided with hers in a hard kiss. There was no softness, there was no romance, and there was no thinking. All I wanted was to show her the strength I had behind everything I felt for her. I wanted to bruise her lips so she’d remember this moment for days to come. Her gasp rang through my body as she breathed in everything I was giving her.
Broken breathing filled my office as I pulled away, leaving my mouth lightly brushing against hers, while my lips were caressed by her desperate need for air. “You have never been a random girl to me. You, Ashlyn, are everything. Do not let that thought get inside your head, because I’ll make it my mission to destroy it.”
“Tell me. I need to know,” she whispered.
Suddenly, the air around us shifted, and Ashlyn stepped away as the door opened. She wiped her lips and removed the smudged color just as Ky and Eden stepped into my office.
Perfect fucking timing.
“Just the two people we wanted to see,” Ky said with a wide smile gracing his face.
“Have you found out anything, Ash?” Eden asked, shooting me a cheeky wink. Jesus, she wasn’t going to let up.
“Not yet. Still working on finding out what I want to know,” she replied, with more meaning behind her words then Eden would ever know.
Ky grabbed Eden’s hand, and suddenly the loved-up couple appeared. Eden looked up at him with happiness radiating off of her, and Ky’s smile somehow got bigger. I could be kissing Ashlyn instead of witnessing this. Fucking hell.
“We have decided on a joint bachelor and bachelorette party. The west coast crew are coming over for Red Velvet New York’s birthday celebration, so we are going to have it then and combine them.”
What the actual fuck?
There was no way my only brother would be sharing his bachelor party. I’d been planning an epic celebration since he announced his engagement. It would seem that Ky had suddenly lost his balls.
“So, Savannah and Tanzi will be here?” Ashlyn asked excitedly.
“Yep, Tate and Jack are coming over too.”
Tate Connors was the owner of Red Velvet, and Savannah’s husband. I met him when I first met his twin, Tanzi Connors, who worked for Beautify Magazine in Los Angeles. Jack had been Tanzi’s fiancé for as long as I could remember. I spent plenty of nights at Red Velvet L.A. Ashlyn, Ky, and more recently, Eden, had become good friends with them over the years, and whenever any of us were in each other’s cities we would catch up.
“This calls for a shopping adventure. New dresses, shoes, lingerie, the whole shebang,” Ashlyn said excitedly.
All I focused on was lingerie. Christ, she had me by the balls.