Loving Ashe (10 page)

“It’s official then,” Riley laughed. “You’re a bona-fide nerd.”

“Excuse me, but I prefer to be called a collector. I have the first editions of the Sex Pistols, the Beatles, and many others,” Ashe smiled. “Who knows? If acting doesn’t work out, I can always sell them to pay my bills and then work behind a bar.”

Riley laughed, swatting at his leg but Ashe caught her hand. He wove his fingers through hers and Riley’s breath caught in her throat as his thumb traced her palm. For a few minutes, they didn’t speak. Riley allowed herself to enjoy the sensation of his thumb stroking her palm, amazed at how such a simple caress made her belly tighten and her insides turn to mush.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we met,” Ashe said, his voice deepening. “You’re a remarkable woman, Riley.”

There was something about the way he spoke that made Riley lightheaded just from listening to him and feeling his thumb maddeningly sensuous against her palm. It was a heady mix of man and sound in the way it was perceived by the human ear, sound waves traveled through a medium that could turn someone on or turn them off. In her case, that medium was Ashe’s velvety voice, deep and sensuous, and boy, did it turn her on.

“When was the last time you were with someone?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed. “Is this ‘Twenty Questions’ again?”

“No, it’s just one question,” Riley replied. “I just want to make sure you’re not shitting me, that’s all. I mean, this isn’t the Middle Ages, and a woman can ask whatever she wants, right?”

His brow furrowed, as if he were considering her question. Riley was being forward, she knew that. But she also knew that, just as Paige had said that evening, Ashe could hurt her more than Gareth ever had.

“If you’re asking me when I was last in a relationship, that was six months ago. I’ve been unattached since then,” he said. “But if you’re asking me when was the last time I slept with someone, then I’m afraid I can’t answer you. That’s quite a personal question, Riley.”

“Look, I just need to know that you’re not playing me like — ” She stopped herself, not wanting to raise the ghost of Gareth between them. It was ancient history, she told herself.

Ashe let go of her hand and began rubbing the top of his thigh, frowning. “What’s so wrong with trying to get to know you, Riley? Is this the way you really want to live your life, just doing whatever your sister decides is good for you? Do you even have an idea what you really want without Paige telling you whether it’s acceptable or not?”

Riley sighed. Was she pushing him away because of Paige, or was she afraid of him hurting her the way Gareth had? Why did she have to run into someone she actually did like, only to find out that he actually worked with Gareth? It was like a bad joke the universe was pulling on her, and it wasn’t the least bit funny. At least, she wasn’t laughing.

Ashe got up from the couch and dusted invisible crumbs from his jeans, probably just to keep his hands busy. “It’s late and I need to go,” he said. “Thank you for the coffee, Riley, and thank you for allowing me to spend the evening with you. I enjoyed myself immensely.”

Until I opened my big mouth, she thought.

He walked towards the door and Riley trailed after him, not knowing what to say. She used to be so funny, she thought. She used to be happy and spontaneous.
Used to be.
Now everything was an act, a finely crafted pretense to fool everyone into believing she was happy when deep inside she was lonely. Miserable, even.

Ashe walked to the door, reaching for his coat hanging from the hook.

“Ashe,” she whispered as he turned to face her, a questioning look in his eyes. She didn’t want to say another word. This time, she wanted to use another medium to relay what she wanted to tell him. A look, a touch, even a kiss — but only, if she were brave enough. Riley took another step towards him, her hand touching his face and feeling the stubble scratch her fingers. His brow furrowed, but his mouth was no longer set in a thin line. Instead, his lips were half open, about to speak, but he, too, stopped himself when his eyes met hers.

Riley stood on her toes and kissed him gently, inhaling his cologne and something else, his personal scent, heady and exhilarating. Her other hand curved softly along his waist, resting against the rippling muscles beneath his tight shirt. The kiss was gentle, hesitant almost. She was grateful that he didn’t pull away.

“I don’t want you to go,” she whispered.

Ashe took a step towards her, his arm around her waist, guiding her backwards against the wall. His movements were so fluid, reminding Riley of a cat. Stealth in tight jeans.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ashe whispered, his arms circling her, pulling her closer as he bent his face towards her. “Not right now.”

Riley closed her eyes as he kissed her, tasting coffee and cream on his lips, and smelling the scent of his cologne. They kissed for a few minutes, her arms circling his neck, her body melting against his. She felt Ashe’s tongue slip between her teeth, tasting her, sweeping along the sides of her mouth as his kiss grew deeper, making the butterflies in her belly flutter wildly, wanting more.

Her resolve, or whatever had remained of it, deserted her. All Riley wanted now was for Ashe to make love to her. She wanted him to tell her how beautiful she was, and that he really meant every word he said to her then, that she was beautiful, remarkable, and that he hadn’t stopped thinking about her since they first met — even if he was lying to her. She’d live with her decision in the morning when he’d be long gone, back to the world where he’d have his pick of women, booze and drugs, whatever his choice of poison happened to be. But tonight, the only poison that Riley wanted was Ashe, and she wasn’t about to let any promise to her sister stop her from having it.

Not tonight.

They were in the midst of their kissing session five minutes later, still standing by the door, when Riley’s phone began to ring, or rather, tinkled, like series of fairy bells. It kept tinkling, pausing only to allow the caller to redial the moment the call went to voicemail.

“Are you going to answer that?” Ashe asked. “It could be an emergency.”

Emergency, my ass, Riley wanted to tell him. Everything was an emergency to Paige. “It’s Paige,” she whispered.

They were still standing by her door, though Riley was now leaning against the wall. Her legs had grown weak from his kisses, which had begun on her lips and continued to her cheeks and her eyelashes before moving down to her neck. His deft hands drove her mad, palms that cupped her breasts and squeezed them, fingers that rubbed against her nipples, gently tugging at the barbell clips through the fabric of her shirt that she whimpered shamelessly against him, her thigh rubbing against the side of his leg. It was maddening, but he was a man who took his time, and she wanted more.

The phone rang again.

“She might just come over here if you don’t answer,” Ashe said, disengaging himself from Riley. “And I don’t think she’s going to be happy knowing I’m here, is she?”

Riley didn’t answer. He was right, of course. She rushed towards her purse on the couch and fished out her phone.

“I’m going to leave, Riley,” Ashe said.

No!
Riley mouthed as she answered her phone.

But it was too late. Ashe was slipping on his coat and opening the door while mouthing back to her,
I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

“IS HE THERE?” Paige demanded to know from the other end of the line. Her voice was so loud that Riley had no doubt Ashe must have heard it. “He better not be in there with you, Ri, or I’m coming over. You promised me you wouldn’t see him again!”

The door shut behind Ashe and Riley groaned. She wanted to cry, but it would have been pointless. In fact, it would have made her look desperate, if she didn’t look desperate enough already.

“No, he’s not here,” she said. “I had the phone set on
Quiet
.”

“Really?” Paige asked.

“Yes, really,” Riley replied, collapsing on her couch. She wasn’t really lying. She did put her phone on
Quiet
mode whenever she worked, and at that moment, Ashe was actually not there with her.

Paige didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then Riley heard her exhale. “You better not be lying to me, Ri. I’m not in the mood to get dressed and go over there just to check on you.”

“Then don’t. I’m not a kid and I’m not lying to you, Paige,” she said. “It’s two in the morning. What the hell?”

“I actually called to apologize,” Paige said and Riley rolled her eyes. Sure, Paige also kept hitting the redial button four times in a row. “I may have come on too strong tonight, kicking Ashe out of the house and all, and for all I know, he’s probably a really nice guy,” Paige said.

“He is.”

Paige sighed. “But I want you to find someone normal, Ri, someone who has a regular job, who will come home to you every night, not someone who’ll run off to Africa because he’s doing a movie and come back three months later. That’s just a load of potential heartbreak, and you can’t handle that. No one can handle that, unless they’re into pain. Lots of pain.”

“You’re starting to nag again,” Riley said as she leaned back on the couch and hugged her knees in front of her.

“I just worry about you, Ri,” Paige said. “Anyway, hear me out, all right? I think he’s a nice guy, really I do. Even Clint said so. Anyone who can spend three hours with the boys and keep their sanity has got to be decent. But if he wants to woo you-”

“
Whoa!
Wait a minute,” Riley interrupted, sitting up on the couch. “What’s this about ‘wooing’? Since when did you even start using that word?”

“Since you’ve been watching all those Jane Austen and Gaskell movies at the house,” Paige scoffed. “Besides, I can’t think of any other word right now. Wait! What about ‘court’?”

“Is that what Clint did? He courted you?”

“You know he did, Ri,” Paige replied and Riley knew Paige was right. She still remembered the endless gifts of jewelry and designer clothes, even trips to the Hamptons and to the Bahamas and even Paris, with Riley in tow. “I know he’s twenty years older than I am, but he knows how to treat a woman right. He’d do anything for the boys and me. Anyway, about Ashe – so I asked around-”

“I can’t believe you’re spying on him,” Riley exclaimed.

“Did you know he’s a country boy?” Paige continued, as if Riley hadn’t spoken. “He’s the son of a sheep farmer and a schoolteacher up in northern England, Yorkshire, or something like that. I had to look it up. They apparently talk funny over there.”

“Who told you this? Is it online?”

“Betty told me,” Paige replied. “She’s got the dish on all her clients — not that she’s going to blab to the papers or anything.”

“But she’ll blab to you.”

“Only because I asked her,” Paige said. “She told me that Ashe is a wonderful guy, really caring and thoughtful. His fame hasn’t gone to his head, like someone you and I know.”

Of course. Gareth.

“Okay,” Riley said, sighing. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“He had this girlfriend. Betty said that they were together for three years or something like that. I mean, she just got his account because of
Sentience
, so she’s getting the old news second hand from someone else — maybe his manager, Collette or something. Anyway, he brought his girlfriend along on location to Jordan last year.”

“You said, ‘had’ a girlfriend,” Riley said slowly.

“I think they might even have a kid together,” Paige continued, her voice hushed as if for dramatic effect. “But don’t quote me on that. Sometimes Betty gets her juicy tidbits mixed up, like that time she told me Brad was gay when she really meant Tom.”

This time, Riley stood up and began to pace the floor. From the corner of her eye, she saw Miss Bailey emerge from under the bed, stretch and approach her. She sat back down and waited till Miss Bailey hopped onto her lap.

“What about this girlfriend?” Riley asked, a knot forming in her belly. She remembered Ashe telling her he’d last been in a relationship six months earlier, but he hadn’t said anything about having a kid.

“She died,” Paige said. Riley pressed her hand to her mouth, stifling a gasp. “She was sick, I don’t know what with, but that’s why the promotions for
Sentience
were delayed. I heard that ticked Gareth off since it messed up his own schedule. Ashe only came back to work three, no, four weeks ago, around the time you both went to Lee’s for noodles.”

Riley sighed. “Is this where you’re going to tell me that he’s bad news? That there’s something else about him and I need to just step away? What if Betty got her gossip mixed up?”

“Then she got her gossip mixed up. Big deal,” Paige said. “Look, Ri, I know this sounds mean but it’s best that this be nipped in the bud now instead of later. What if he’s only using you as a rebound thing or something? I mean, I’m sorry for the guy. He might just be lonely. He could even be in mourning.”

“He’s on the rebound. He’s lonely. He’s in mourning,” Riley said. “What is it, Paige? Make up your mind. What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know,” Paige replied. “Clint actually likes him. He thinks that Ashe seems trustworthy. ‘Solid’ was the word he used, and that’s something — if Clint says someone’s ‘solid.’ He never takes to anyone-”

“That’s because everyone is a possible investment potential for him, Paige,” Riley said. “Not that it’s a bad thing for Clint, but that’s just Clint for you. And I’m honestly glad that Clint at least is the voice of reason in all this, because you are absolutely not making any sense.”

“I’m sorry he had to go through his girlfriend dying and all that, but if he’s in mourning, or on the rebound, don’t you think this infatuation should end now, Ri? For your own good. Maybe later, after enough time has passed and he’s still interested in you, it could be okay-”

“For him to court me?” Riley asked.

“Maybe,” Paige said. In the background, Riley heard Clint’s voice asking Paige to get back to bed.

“Paige, listen to Clint,” Riley said. “It’s late and you’re not making sense. Maybe tomorrow it will all make sense to me but for now, it’s not.”

“There must be a mourning phase somewhere, twelve months or something, before he should even start seeing someone seriously — unless all he wants from you is sex, then, of course, all bets are off,” Paige continued. “And if that’s all you’re after, I don’t blame you, but I hope you don’t sleep with him just so you can take a peek at his peen, you know. Besides, you really don’t want to be just a notch on his bedpost, right? I’m sure he’s a proper English boy and all — even if he was raised on a sheep farm.”

“You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing,” Riley said.

“I don’t know,” Paige said, yawning. “Is it?”

After hanging up, Riley powered up her laptop and did the one thing she realized she should have done long before now, and that was to learn as much as she could about Ashe Hunter. Surely major gossip sites would have the dirt on Ashe, or maybe fan forums dedicated to him where fans discussed his every move, like they did with Gareth.

She had run one search about Ashe when she first met him, but only after Paige had told her about the full-frontal nude scene he’d done for his first movie. When she went online, the only thing she’d searched for was just that, footage of his full-frontal scene, and when she found a looping GIF, she’d gawked like a teenager who’d never seen a dick before.

As the search results loaded up on her screen, information about Ashe was sparse. One journalist wrote that Ashe was an ‘insanely private person’. An article in a major men’s magazine stated that Ashe had been born and raised in Reeth, a small Yorkshire town, and that he was discovered by a theater actress, of all people, while visiting London with friends when he was about eighteen, and offered a modeling contract a year later through her connections. In the magazine’s website, Riley found herself staring at Ashe as he modeled suits and tuxedos like a true fashion model, scowling as he leaned against a door-frame, or looking pensively towards something off the page. Riley couldn’t take her eyes off his lips, his jaw, and his eyes. His six-pack abs. Then her gaze moved to his hands, and she sighed as she remembered the way he’d cradled her face when he kissed her.

She clicked the back button on her laptop and scanned the search results on the page. She typed
Ashe Hunter girlfriend
and waited with bated breath for the results page to pop up. That search rendered few results, though it came up with a lot of pictures — pictures of him with fans taken while he shot movies on location, or walking out of some restaurant with a co-star such as Isobel Reign, always wearing a pair of sunglasses to hide his eyes. In some pictures, Riley recognized Collette walking beside them.

Then Riley saw a picture of herself standing with her back to the camera, hailing a cab outside the hotel as Ashe stood watching her, his face in profile. It had been taken the night they’d first met, when they’d been talking outside the hotel. She scanned other photographs, looking for similar shots of the same night, but there weren’t any that she could find easily, which meant that she was all right as long as no one recognized her. No one would put two and two together and figure out that she’d been at the hotel to meet Gareth, only to run into Ashe instead.

Even Paige wouldn’t be able to figure that out, she thought, heaving a sigh of relief.

At least, Riley sure as hell hoped not.