My dick stirred as she wet her lips. I reached for my glass of wine, trying to shake it off. My movement interrupted her perusal of my abdomen, and a blush spread across her cheeks.
It was different between us, not because we were in a new place, but because it felt like a date. This didn’t feel like two old friends getting together for a dinner. She was watching me because she liked how I looked, and I couldn’t stop myself from imagining how she felt.
Maybe Ashleigh had always felt this and had managed to navigate the just friends thing, but for me something had changed and I couldn’t go back to how we were. I didn’t want to. What I wanted was to spread her out in front of me and have her for dinner.
I considered her over my glass. If I pushed things, would she resist me? Could she? Should I tell her how I was feeling, or would that be too much?
“Can I top you up?” I took her drink from her hands, deliberately brushing my fingers over hers. She jumped as if I were conducting electricity. I did my best to bury a grin.
She was toast.
She was mine.
I continued to watch her as I poured more wine. She seemed determined to admire the London skyline.
“How about that tour?” I asked.
I stood and she followed me back into the living room.
I headed to the back wall, pushing back walnut concertina doors. “This is my study. I guess you could use it as a dining space if you wanted to.”
“That’s great. Big.” She ran her fingers across my desk and along the back of my chair as she checked out the books on the bookshelf.
“Are these yours? I don’t remember them at . . . Emma’s.”
“Yeah, they’re mine. I never unpacked them.”
“God, yes, I remember this one. Didn’t you read this at school? You wrote an essay.” She’d picked up a copy of Lord of the Flies and flicked to the back cover. “You were obsessed with it. You called me Piggy for the entire summer.”
I frowned, but Ashleigh was turned toward the bookshelves so she couldn’t see. “I don’t remember that. I mean, I remember reading it and being obsessed, but I don’t remember calling you Piggy.”
“You don’t? I didn’t realize until years after that it wasn’t because of my thighs—oh and this one. Do you remember? We used to take turns reading it to each other under the magnolia tree in your parents’ garden.”
I nodded as I remembered the summer we passed The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn around as if it were a secret treasure, which of course, it was. I think we spent the entire summer under that tree, reading, laughing, fighting. I moved toward Ashleigh, close enough to sweep her hair from her neck. I yearned to see more of that perfect skin.
She continued to talk about that summer, the blossom, the way that ever since antebellum had been one of her favorite words. She chattered as if my fingers weren’t tangled in her hair, lingering over her neck, tracing her shoulder blades. God, she was mesmerizing. She smelled so sweet, so like summer. How had I resisted her allure for so long? Not seen how important she was to me? How precious, how sexy? My skin felt tight, as if I were going to burst if I didn’t feel her lips on mine.
“Ashleigh,” I whispered.
But instead of turning and reaching for me as I had expected, she stilled for a second before thrusting the book back on the shelf and hurrying out of the study.
What?
Had I done something wrong? Was I imagining the electricity between us?
I stalked after her to find her stuffing her phone back in her bag. Was she leaving? “Ashleigh.”
“I can’t. I mean, I melt when you’re near me—”
My heart surged. I smiled and she looked away. “That’s good, Ashleigh. Me too.”
“But you don’t get it. It’s been happening to me for years. I mean, it can’t feel the same for you. It’s too soon. It’s just been a few weeks since . . .”
“Since I woke up to what’s been right in front of me? That makes me an idiot, not unsure of my feelings. If I could turn back time and do things differently, realize what I had with you before, I’d do it. But I can’t, and I’m never going to be able to.”
“I know.” Her voice crackled as she spoke.
“It doesn’t mean this can’t work. Tell me what to do.” I just wanted to get to the part where I could hold her. I was ready. Couldn’t she see?
“I just need some time. You need some time.”
“I really don’t need more time.” I exhaled. “Will you ever be ready to trust me?”
“I don’t know, Luke. I’m scared. I’m sorry.”
Ashleigh
I was fucking up everything. Having Luke so close was confusing. It was as if I were careening down a mountain in a car with no brakes. I didn’t know what to do or how to stop it, but I knew how it was going to end.
Everything was so fucking perfect; it was maddening. He’d left Emma, rented his own place, taken up a hobby. Jesus, he’d even thrown out that bloody awful sofa he’d had since college. He was ticking every box that said he was ready. So why was I sitting with my head in my hands rather than lying naked beneath him?
The fact was, it was all too perfect, all too quick. I’d been worried Luke would see my concerns as a checklist for him to work though and conquer. I needed him to take the time to look at what he really wanted. Surely there was no way in the three weeks since we’d last kissed, last seen each other naked, that Luke could have worked through everything.
The problem was he looked ready; he seemed ready; he felt ready. His fingers on my neck lit me up. I was so tightly wound that maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see. I needed to jolt some sense back into myself.
“Ashleigh.” He said my name as if conjuring a spell. When had I become Ashleigh to him?
“I should go.”
The sofa dipped as he sat beside me. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t meant to touch you. I just . . . You look so touchable. I thought you wanted me to.”
I exhaled. That was the problem. Luke touching me was all I wanted. I scrubbed my hands across my face. “I do,” I said in a small voice. Instantly his hand went to my lower back, circling, soothing. He felt so easy, so right.
“Hey,” he said, pulling my hands from my face, cupping my cheek and forcing my eyes to his.
This man I’d been in love with my whole life seemed like he wanted me. Why couldn’t it be this easy? I tilted my head into his hand as he pulled me onto to his lap.
“I got it, Ashleigh. I understood why you put the brakes on at first. But now? I want this. I want you.” His words had the opposite of their intended effect. He seemed so certain, and I knew he couldn’t be. Not in such a short space of time.
I scrambled off his knee. “No.”
“No, you don’t believe me? No, you don’t want me back?”
I did believe him, and of course I wanted him but it was too soon. “Not yet. You’re not ready.”
“Fucking hell, Ashleigh. How is it you get to decide when I’m ready? I’m telling you I am. And you know it. You’re in my flat, flirting with me, teasing me. Is that what this is? Are you just trying to make me want something I can’t have so I know how you’ve felt all these years?”
His voice became tighter, harder, louder with every word. He rose from the sofa, and I backed away from him. We’d had relatively few arguments over the years, but I remembered each one of them in their every detail. I regretted every cross word that had ever gone between us. “That’s not fair, Luke. You think I’m trying to pay you back?”