Ashton Scott

His nostrils flare. “Try me, Lorelei.”

I straighten and drop my arms from around his neck, resting my hands on his chest. “I was with Boston for three years. I thought he was the man I would spend the rest of my life with, but when he asked me to marry him, I couldn’t say yes. I didn’t know why, but it just didn’t feel like the right thing to do at that time in our relationship. We didn’t break up, though, and he said he’d wait for me to be ready. That lasted for three months until the day we had a huge fight. A couple of weeks later, he moved to the States for work, and I haven’t heard from him since.”

Ashton watches me intently, his mind clearly working fast to process all that. “Why did you say no?”

I press against his chest, and he surprises me by finally letting me go. Taking a step back, I say, “I told you, it wasn’t the right thing for us.”

“No, you said you didn’t know why. You’ve had time to figure that out now.” He pauses for a beat. “What was the real reason?”

I stare at him for a long few moments. He stares right back, pinning my gaze to his. The man just doesn’t give up. Always pushing me to give him my truths that I don’t want to share with anyone. It’s one of the things I both love and hate about him. “I have this fear of losing people,” I say softly. “So sometimes I push them away before I have the chance to lose them.”

“That may be so, and I don’t doubt it because you’ve tried repeatedly to push me away, but it’s not the full story here.”

I frown. “I’m not lying to you, Ashton, if that’s what you’re trying to say.”

He shakes his head as he closes the small distance between us again. Placing his hand under my chin, he tilts my face to his. I can’t help but notice the way his eyes have softened. “You’re not lying to me,” he murmurs, “But are you lying to yourself?”

If everything about him right now didn’t scream his genuine care for me, I would push him away and tell him where to go. But there is none of his bossiness or dominance in sight. Instead, it’s like he’s truly trying to help me see something. So I run with it and attempt to explain myself to him. “I’m not lying to anyone. I’ve spent time analysing this. Losing Mum at such a young age kinda screwed me up, and I still haven’t conquered that demon.”

His hand snakes around my waist, and I lose the ability to breathe for a moment when he says, “If you hadn’t conquered that demon, we wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation. Your walls are high, and you did your best to keep me out, but here I am breaking them down brick by brick. And as much as you try to keep me out, and as much as we fight over that, you’re not going anywhere, and you know that.” His lips brush my ear when he adds, “There’s something I’m giving you that Boston never could. And I’m betting it’s the one thing you really need from a man.”

His deep voice commands every one of my senses. He is all I can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell right now. The world doesn’t exist when he has me like this. And that scares me because I never want to give anyone that kind of power over me. So I do my best to take some of it back. “You’re right, my walls are high. But the reason they’re falling down is because I’ve decided to let them. I don’t want to keep pushing people away.” I shoot him a sexy smile as I trail my finger down his chest. “Boston is in the past. You are my future. Now, can we please stop talking so we can start getting naked?” Getting naked is much easier than continuing this conversation, especially when my gut tells me Ashton is right about this.

32

Ashton

She’s fucking killing me here. I want to keep pushing her to open up to me, because everything about this fucking Haynes situation is telling me there’s more to it than just her need to control the losses in her life. But fuck, maybe I’m imagining something that isn’t there at all. Maybe I’m the one off base here. It wouldn’t fucking surprise me. Lorelei has me by the goddam balls, in a way that no other woman ever has.

I take in the smile she’s giving me—the one begging me to fuck her—and I struggle to think straight. For the last couple of hours, I’ve been going over and over the fact Lorelei said no to Haynes’s marriage proposal, trying to figure out why she wouldn’t want to marry the man she’d given years of her life to. The reason she’s giving me doesn’t make sense, and I have a burning need to know the truth. I know deep in my gut that Haynes is back with a mission—one that involves not giving up until he has Lorelei back in his arms. And the one thing I know about winning a war like this is that you need to be armed with every last scrap of knowledge you can get your hands on.

“Ashton?”

Lorelei’s voice draws my attention back to her desire to get naked. Wanting to forget all the thoughts plaguing my mind, I lift her into my arms, turn, and back her up against the wall in her kitchen. Her legs wrap around me as I drop my lips to her collarbone. I’m a starved man after not having her for a couple of days. Controlling my urge to rip her clothes off and sink myself as deep inside her as I can is proving almost impossible.

“Mmmm,” she moans, angling her head back to give me full access to her neck. “God, how I’ve missed you.”

Those words tip me over. I grip her hair with one hand, pulling her head back further, while snaking my other hand up her body and over her breast so I can wrap it around her throat. Not tightly so she can’t breathe. Rather, I apply just enough pressure to gain her full attention. When those beautiful green eyes of hers meet mine, I see the same raw need there that I have for her.

“I’ll never forget that first day I laid eyes on you.” My declaration catches her by surprise, and a smile dances across her lips at what I say. “I knew then that you were a ballbuster. I just didn’t realise it would be mine you’d be busting.”

The surprise on her

face intensifies as her mouth falls open. “You flustered me so much in that meeting and then you pissed me off. If there was anyone who needed their balls busted, it was you.”

I grind my cock against her, needing the friction. Fuck, I need more than that. I need every goddam thing she has to offer. “Well, beautiful, you excel at it.”

“You bring out the best in me, Ashton. I have to admit, though, that I wouldn’t have thought sharing this kind of information would be in your playbook.”

My gaze pierces hers. “Haven’t you learnt by now? I don’t have a playbook where you’re concerned.”

I let go of her neck so I can slide my hand under her top, taking pleasure in the way her back arches when my fingers brush her skin.

“I’m not sure about that,” she says, unbuttoning my shirt in the sexy way she’s perfected. Neither slow nor fast, the way her fingers move over my shirt arrests my attention, keeping it hostage and distracting me from my own goal. “I think Ashton Scott has a carefully considered strategy for everything in life.”

I pull her hair a little harder and kiss my way up her neck to her ear. “I do,” I growl. “Just not with you.” As I admit this, I find her breast under her top and slip my hand inside her bra.

Her hips rock against mine as a moan falls from her lips. “If you’re telling me this to get me hot, it’s working. I am so ready for you to fuck me.”