Moonlight upon the Sea - Chapter Six

Content Warnings: mild NSFW scene

Chapter Six

“It’s stupid, I know.”

“No, it’s not,” Ash said. “It’s not stupid to you, so it’s not stupid to me.”

After giving him an unreadable look, Tayshia got up and walked toward the hallway. She paused by the end of the couch, giving him one last lingering look before she disappeared into the darkness, leaving him with the sounds of the TV and the storm.

Ash watched her go, a statue on the couch with his elbows on his knees and hands in his hair. He hadn’t forgotten the two times they’d hooked up. After the dream, he’d tried to forget, but not because he hadn’t liked it.

Because he felt guilty.

Now that everything was different, he saw how wrong it was that he’d kissed her out of the blue. He hadn’t even asked her. He’d just pinned her against the wall and taken what he wanted, even if he hadn’t realized he wanted it. Swept up in hormones and anger, he’d reached into the void and ripped out the darkest parts of them both.

What if he’d caused her to cry the way she had in Paris?

What if he was just as bad as the man?

What if he was a monster?

As he made his way towards the hallway, he felt his heart sinking so low that it plummeted to the core of the Earth. He gazed into the shadows until his vision blurred and the faint light from the television looked hazy. His shoulders began to slump a bit.

Ash liked to think he had changed, but what if that didn’t matter?

Am I no better than the men who hurt her? Am I no better than the attacker, or than Kieran?

“I wasn’t thinking we would actually hook up again.” Her voice pulled him out of his somber reverie as he stopped right in front of her. “I know I sucked but don’t look so sad at the thought.”

“You weren’t bad at it, and I’m not sad,” he said. I’m just worried I hurt you before anyone else ever did.

“It’s not as if any of it is new to you,” she said with a harsh breath. “I know you were all over town with girls in high school.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I was.”

“And look—” Tayshia walked back to the spot on the wall, each step she took ringing in his heart. “—if we can manage this without me getting overwhelmed, then it means we...”

“Means we what?”

Could do it again?

She said nothing

Ash ambled deeper into the hallway after her, his arms crossed over his chest. He tilted his head to the side, his hair falling across his eyes as she positioned herself with her back to the wall.

“Like I said. We just ease me into it.” Her breathing hitched as though her lungs were being squeezed from the outside. “And maybe it will make me more comfortable.”

“For what purpose, though?” he asked, shaking his head. “The purpose of proving something to Kieran, the purpose of proving something to yourself, or the purpose of proving something to me?”

“I want to prove that I’m normal. That I can be just like everyone else. That I’m still...” She shook her head out, as though trying to rid herself of the end of the sentence. “It’s better than you getting into a fight and thrown back in jail.”

“You’re so confident that I’d do it.”

“Do what?”

He took a step closer to her. “Fight him for you.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

Ash moved forward again, putting their bodies within inches of one another. His heart rattled in his chest like it was trying to escape a cage. They were dancing around the subject of the dream, twirling circles around the base of the Eiffel Tower.

He looked her up and down.

“Yeah.”

The back of her head brushed the wall as she tilted her chin up. “What else would you do for me?”

He ground his jaw. He couldn’t tell her the truth. He couldn’t tell her that at this point, the answer was anything.

“This,” he said, gesturing to the situation with a nod of his head. “Easing you into whatever it is you’re wanting.”

“Even if I said I wanted to go all the way?”

He opened his mouth to respond but saw the challenge there in her eyes. It sparked like lightning. It showed him that they really were dancing around the subject of Paris. That she knew that he’d been in her dream. She knew what he’d experienced.

“You don’t want to go all the way,” he said. “You just want to know what it feels like to be the one who gets to decide.”

“I—Yes. Actually. That’s exactly it. I know it’s ridiculous, but I...I think I need this.”

Ash unfolded his arms. He saw her eyes track the movements of his arms, scanning the tattoos that adorned them like she always did. Before, he didn’t know if it was because she hated them. After their earlier conversation, he now knew different.

He turned his head with a sigh, looking off down the dark hallway for a moment. His head rolled back towards her and he looked down the length of his nose at her, vision shrouded by his eyelashes.

“You need my consent?”

“Of course I do!” she cried, giving him a look that could wither roses. Then, the fire faded from her eyes and showed him the winter that etched frost along her bones. Her voice lowered, as did her gaze. “Of course I do.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Huh?” He saw her shoulders jump, as though she hadn’t expected him to ask the question. “Oh, just...maybe if you tried touching me? Kieran never liked touching me. And I mean like, in normal places. Like, you know how in the movies when characters kiss, the guy will like, touch her face on her cheeks, or the side of her neck? He never did that. He didn’t like holding my hand or touching my waist or touching any part of me. There was no affection, you know?”

Before Ash could talk, she spoke again.

“We messed around a few times. But I didn’t want to. I felt pressured. And when we did, he didn’t—” Her gaze darted up to Ash’s face and then away again. “—it wasn’t like with you. You touched me. Kieran was disgusted by me.”

Ash pulled a face. That sounded awful. He couldn’t imagine being in a relationship with someone that was expected to end in marriage, and never experience any affection from the other person.

“That’s actually really fucked up.”

“Yeah, well. I used to complain but he would just say I wasn’t respecting his personal boundaries. So I gave up after a while. It’s so embarrassing but I used to daydream about having a boyfriend who would just...” Ash saw her cast a wistful look somewhere past his shoulder. “Touch my face or show me some affection.”

Ash reached up and brushed his knuckles along the height of her cheekbone.

“Like that?”

She gazed up at him, her eyes wide as she let out a heavy breath. It was like a sigh but without the relief. Like he’d only managed to raise the bar of her anxiety.

“Yes. Like that.”

From this distance, he could see parts of her face that he hadn’t noticed before within the shadows cast in the hallway. He could see the way her nostrils flared when she was frustrated, and the animated way her brows moved when something didn’t work—like she was shocked it wasn’t working for her because she was who she was. She didn’t seem to want to touch him.

She wanted to be in control of him when he touched her.

“Can I touch you?” he asked, swallowing against the somewhat nervous way his throat was bobbing. He lifted his hands in slow, small increments.

“Yes, but...” she said and in the pause after her words, he felt it. They both knew that she was expecting him to follow along and figure out what was okay and wasn’t okay, even though she didn’t want to talk about any of it. “...nothing untoward.”

“What’s your definition of untoward, Miss Vocabulary?”

“You know.” A one-shoulder shrug.

Ash’s face slackened into a deadpan expression.

Inside, his heart continued to beat in random patterns. His stomach had coiled into a tight knot that reminded him of the day he’d had to give his first speech in high school. He could feel a storm whipping up inside his mind and body, with rumbling clouds of thunder and grey. It promised a hurricane with an unknown outcome.

Tayshia tilted her head back. It was so she could look into his eyes, or perhaps it was because it was awkward just staring at his throat. Whatever it was, it made Ash feel something like a shock to his system. It rolled up his spine, into his chest and down to his stomach, where it shifted into something completely different.

Something he recognized.

Ash’s left forearm landed against the wall above her head. His right one slipped around her waist, dragging her up onto the tips of her toes and pressing her firmly against his body. She was warm in spite of how cold her skin was. The juxtaposition of that and her cold palms pressing flat to his chest sent a chill through him. He dipped his mouth towards her left ear, effectively trapping her head between his raised arm and his lips.

“Is this too much?” he said, and his voice came out in a throaty whisper. His hand was flat on her lower back. He could feel the dip of her spine through the fabric of her top.

“No.” She shifted, his arm keeping her from lowering back to the soles of her feet. “It’s okay.”

“If you wanna do this, you’re gonna have to relax,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm in spite of the rapid beating of his heart. He hoped she couldn’t feel it slamming against his chest.

“I know that,” she whispered, and he saw a flicker of something familiar in her eyes. Something he’d felt when he was a passenger inside her mind, walking her haunted memory in Paris.

Fear.

“This is because it’s me,” he said, “and you don’t trust me. I get it. But I have no intention of hurting you.”

Her hands were still flat against his chest, pushing slightly, as though she wanted to shove him away. He didn’t move, knowing that she would say the words if she wanted him to.

“I know that, too,” she said, sounding breathless. Her gaze was focused on his neck now. “I’m just—I’m sorry. I’m trying.”

“What did I tell you before? Do not apologize to me. If you want me to move back, I will.”

His hand slid along her back as he began to move, but she made a sound of protest. One of her hands clenched in his shirt while the other slid up to his shoulder and curved over the top of it.

“It’s not you. It’s me.” She took a deep breath, which he felt brushing the hollow of his throat. “I think I just need to get used to you being here, or something.”

“We don’t have to do this tonight. We don’t have to do this at all, to be honest. We can go finish the movie and—”

“No!” she cried, voice shrill. “No. I want to do this. I need to be able to do this.”

“Okay.” Ash ducked down a little until he caught her gaze with his. “You’re in control. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, Ash.”

“Good girl.”

Tayshia’s eyes widened a fraction, never leaving his face as he stood upright again. He kept his arm on the wall and his hand against her back.

“I’ll just get comfortable with you,” she said. He could feel her body trembling. “I’ll touch you now, okay?”

“Do whatever you want with me.”

Still on tip-toe, Tayshia lifted her hand from his shoulder and reached for his face. He tried not to flinch when her fingertips brushed his stubble-lined jawline. Because in reality, Ash hadn’t been touched like this since his mother died.

Not exactly what he wanted to think about right now.

Tayshia trailed her fingers down the side of his neck, raising pebbles on his flesh along the way down to the outer edge of the furthest rose on his neck. He could tell she was struggling to keep her breathing even, and he made sure not to move lest she spring up like a bird and fly away.

Even though his skin was sensitive, he forced himself to remain as unmoving as a mountain as her fingers traced every petal and link in the chains that were etched into his skin. Above his shirt, her touch drifted across his collarbone and down into the center of his chest where the neckline of his tee shirt dipped. She traced everything she could see.

Girls had touched him before, but something felt different about this. It was there, lurking in the waters that existed within him. Ash was powerless to stop the shiver that rippled through his body.

Her gaze snapped upward.

“Sorry,” he said, one corner of his mouth twitching.

Wariness passed over her face. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Looking at me like that. Stop.”

“Like what?”

“Like that. Like you—like you see me, or something. I don’t like it.”

“So you can touch me, but I can’t look at you?”

She frowned, lines furrowing their way into her brow as she glared at his chest again.

“Why would you want to?”

Ash opened his mouth to reply but realized that he didn’t know what to say. Everything he wanted to say was too earth-shattering. Too confusing. The words that were bouncing around his head were out of control, flung from the left side of the field. If he uttered them, he knew it would change things between them when he didn’t even understand what they meant.

He wanted to tell her that she was the only girl he wanted to look at.

“If you want me to stop looking at you,” he said under his breath, “then stop touching me.”

She said nothing, looking only curious as her hand went back up again, along his pulse where she felt his heartbeat for a halting moment. Then it was on the move again, fingers traveling the length of his jaw and brushing his earlobe. His eyelids fluttered shut in spite of himself.

Tayshia’s fingers sunk into his hair.

His stomach twisted tighter and tighter, his chest feeling narrow and his diaphragm constricted. Her fingernails scraped along his scalp. They scratched up to the top of his head, sifting through the bleached strands of his hair, and back down to the base of the right side of his skull.

Ash’s mind went completely blank.

“Holy fuck,” he whispered as he nuzzled into her touch. “That feels good.”

She scratched her fingers along his scalp in long, wide circular patterns. Ash was a puddle. He was turning into a puddle. He’d never felt anything so nice or so soothing.

So good.

His fingernails dug into her back a bit as he tried to keep control of himself, tried to remember that this wasn’t just any other girl. This was Tayshia. This was a girl that had been through something he could never understand, even if he’d been present in her memory of it.

If she didn’t want to talk about the dream yet, he’d take this.

Ash relaxed and his head tipped forward, his cheek resting on top of her head. She stiffened up at first, but his hand sliding around to her other side, fully ensconcing her in a one-armed embrace, seemed to assuage her. The tension left her body in waves as she lowered back to the soles of her feet and let her arms hang down at her sides. His right palm smoothed over the dip of her waistline, his left hand sliding into the curls at the back of her head.

Finally.

“It’s all right,” he breathed, as if it were second nature to comfort her. He couldn’t stop seeing the hotel room with its blue décor. He closed his eyes and saw her curled up on the floor, sobbing the words I can’t like they were a healing song. “I got you now. It’s all right.”

Tayshia turned her head to the side, resting it on his chest.

“Ash?”

“Yeah?”

“Tighter.”

Art by Meialoue

Ash obliged, tightening his arms around her. Tayshia let out another tremulous breath and sagged against him.

And he fucking held her.

He had never been the comforting, soothing type. He’d never been the sort of guy who liked to sit with girls while they cried. But there was something about Tayshia that had rent his heart in two when he heard her sob that first I can’t that made him want to shed his skin for her. And even though the embrace was for her sake, Ash couldn’t help but feel his own emotions rising to the surface.

The last person to hold him was his mother.

After a few minutes of silence, Tayshia spoke.

“Do you regret it?”

“Regret what?” he said, straightening up to look down at her.

“Hooking up with me.” She wore a shy yet open expression on her face. “Do you regret it?”

“Some parts. I should have asked for your consent before I kissed you like that.”

“Yes, you should have,” she said, and it was her turn to lift her chin. Her hand slid up to his shoulder, her thumb brushing the base of his neck.

The coil inside Ash’s stomach loosened a bit, his curiosity piqued.

“Are you saying you would have said no?”

“Not necessarily. But that’s the point—how are you ever going to know the truth if you don’t ask?” Her upper lip curled and she glowered at the carpet in the shadows. “There’s no reason to take what isn’t yours when there are people who would be happy to be with you, provided you’re not a complete creeper. Maybe if more people asked for consent, I wouldn’t feel like everyone wants to hurt me all the time.”

She grew more and more agitated. Her body stiffened up again, her teeth beginning to clench. Her fingers dug into his flesh. In her eyes, he saw her anger burning bright.

Ash leaned forward before he could stop himself, his lips brushing against her ear. She stopped in the middle of her sentence.

“And do you?” he asked, glancing off to the left, towards the living room where he could see the faint blue flickers of the still-playing movie.

“Do I what?”

“Do you think that I want to hurt you?”

“I don’t know.” She said it like an epiphany of her own.

Ash inhaled, deep within his chest. “If I would have asked you before I kissed you, what would you have said?”

“Does it matter? It was weeks ago.”

“Come on.” He straightened again, pulling back to look at her and leaning his weight against his hand on the wall. Letting go of his hold on her waist, he reached up to trace the swirls of her edges along her hairline. He could feel the product there, the smooth crispness of the hair fascinating him. “I asked you a question.”

“I don’t know."

“You would have said no?”

“No,” she said, and then he felt her body go rigid once more. “I mean—that’s a lie. That’s a—it’s a lie.”

Ash’s heart skipped a beat. “If I said to you, can I kiss you? If I looked you dead in the eyes and asked you that, would you have said yes or no?”

“I would have said no.”

“And what about now?”

She looked terrified. Absolutely terrified.

“I’d say yes.”

"Can I kiss you?"

"Yes."

Ash felt something cracking inside of him, splintering and shattering like glass. It drove him to bend down, where he planted a kiss to her lips that was way more heated than he meant it to be, yet nowhere near the temperature that he wanted. He continued to kiss her skin, up and down her throat, close to her jaw and then with his lips laid over her pounding pulse. He heard her trying to complete sentences, starting words that fizzled into short breaths.

His right hand cupped the other side of her neck, fingers tickling the curly tufts of hair at the back of her scalp, brushing through the ones that hung down her back. His thumb pushed upward on her jaw, tilting her head so he could have better access as he tasted her flesh like it belonged to him. His tongue was soft, his lips gentle, but his teeth scraped with a ferocity that had her panting harshly into the sudden silence.

A storm inside of him swirled into an inferno of colors, so many that he couldn’t name them all. His heart was singing. He felt like he was floating.

When his tongue found a sensitive spot near the junction of her shoulder and neck, she gasped. Rising up on tip-toe again, Tayshia’s fingers fluttered along his skin, as if she had to feel the tattoos one more time, and then went to the back of his head. Long fingernails massaged his scalp again, right in the depths of his hair, and he couldn’t help it.

He moaned.

Ash pressed her so hard against the wall that she couldn’t have stood flat on her feet if she wanted to. He intensified the press of his tongue and the caress of his lips. The breaths she was pushing into his ear turned to pants that bordered on whines.

“Yeah?” he practically whimpered between kisses to her throat. “That’s good?”

Her response came right as he sucked a bruise into her pulse point. His right knee found its way between her thighs.

“Yeah,” she whispered, whimpering and arching her back until her chest was tight to his. Her trembling increased as he felt her trying to rub her thighs together without being able to—they pressed to either side of his leg.

Ash’s knee hit the wall right as she lowered to the soles of her feet, bringing her down onto his thigh. Her head fell back in a moan as she ground her hips down against him.

This felt like a tidal wave of unavoidable chemistry. His hands went to her hips, pulling her sharp and hard. His breath was harsh in her ear.

"Is this okay?" he pleaded. "I’m going to rip your fucking clothes off. I can’t fucking think.”

Her answer was to let out her own moan, her back arching as one of her hands dug its fingers into his thigh. She tilted her hips forward, the pace of her rocking slowing. It grew firmer and more targeted. It was as if she wanted to hold him in place while she got herself off.

God, she had one of the most sensitive, responsive bodies he’d ever encountered .

His hand went to her breast.

“Is this okay?” he asked again between kisses to her pulse, his voice and heartbeat frantic. “If you want me to stop, then tell me it’s not okay. Is it okay?”

“Yes,” she moaned, breathless. “Only with you.”

“Is this good for you? I mean, does it work?”

“Yeah,” she said. She made a choked sound. “I’m really…wet…”

"Fuck."

Tayshia sucked in a sharp, halting breath when he moved his hand on her chest in massaging, gentle circles. Ash slammed his lips against hers. She gasped into the kiss, her entire body trembling. Ash’s heart beat so hard that he was losing his breath, too.

“Are you gonna make yourself come, baby?” His voice was hoarse against her lips, his mind traversing nonexistent planes as he forgot himself. All he could think about was the fact that she was only wearing his hoodie and her underwear. “Gonna make yourself come for me?”

“Yes,” she whined, her other hand leaving his hair so it could hold the other side of his thigh. His body pressed her even harder to the wall so all she could do was move her hips. Their tongues tangled as Ash tilted his head to the side and swallowed half of her desperate moans.

“Fuck, I love how sensitive you are,” he said as he kissed down her throat again. He was barely thinking—just saying whatever words materialized in his head. “You’re so perfect when you come for me like this. Come on—you’re so close. Come on, sweet girl. I want you to get there.”

“Huh?” Her fingers clenched around his thigh. “What did you—you call m-me?”

He ran the tip of his tongue up to her ear.

“I said you're a sweet, sweet girl. And I want you to fucking come.”

The moment he pulled her earlobe into his mouth, Tayshia lost whatever faculties she’d maintained for the past five minutes. Her hips rolled and twisted, grinding against his thigh twice more before her climax washed over her. It was slow and deep, causing the back of her head to smack against the wall behind her as she groaned a long, low please out to the ceiling.

He had to stop. He needed to stop or he was gonna fuck her in the hallway.

And Tayshia didn’t deserve that.

Ash threw himself back from her, staggering a couple of steps.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice hoarse. His stomach was slow to untwist, the blood even slower to return to the rest of his body. “Forgive me. I got carried away.”

“It’s okay,” she panted out, a hand covering her neck where his mouth had been. She leaned back against the wall for support. "I think you left a mark, though. A lot of marks.”

Ash pushed his fingers into his hair for a second, closing his eyes against the wild urge he had to grab her and pick up where they’d left off. He let out a strained breath.

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Something for Kieran to accidentally see.”

“Stop.”

“Huh? Stop what?” Panic bloomed in his chest and he took a step toward her. “Did I hurt you?”

“What? No! No, I...” She winced. “Stop saying good.”

Ash raised his eyebrows.

Well.

“But thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“Thank you for asking for my consent.”

She left, walking into her bedroom, and closing the door behind her.

---

Ash woke up on the couch with the streaming app asking him if he was still watching.

After Tayshia had gone into her room, she hadn’t come out for the rest of the evening. He’d returned to the couch to finish the movie marathon by himself but had fallen asleep during the third one in the franchise. He couldn’t hear the sounds of the wind and rain anymore, showing him that the storm had passed. Checking his phone, he saw that it was almost one in the morning.

He went to the bathroom for a late shower, enjoying the way the warm water felt against his skin. He sighed and pressed his forehead against the tiles on the wall, feeling the tension in his body easing bit-by-bit. His eyelids falling shut, his mind spun back to the hallway and the shadows. To the feeling of his arms around her, holding her tight against him. To the way he wished he could have held her like that in Paris, and how he wished he could have been there to handle the situation with Kieran before he’d ever gotten the chance to fuck her over as bad as he had. To the way she’d rested her head against his chest and let herself be held by someone she’d once considered a passive bystander to her father’s near-death. To the way he could still feel her shaking in his embrace, and the way he wanted to do it one more time.

“Only with you.”

When his shower was done, he stepped back into his joggers but chose not to put his shirt back on. He was going straight to bed so there was no point. After pushing his fingers through his hair and messing it up the way he liked it, he used the toilet.

As he lifted the lid up, he paused.

Why were there orange flecks under the rim?

Back in his room, Ash tossed and turned for a while, trying to quiet his spirit so he could drift off to the land of slumber. It was difficult when he could still feel the press of her body against his and hear the sounds she made ringing in his ears. He wondered if he would dream about her again.

Fuck. It was a nightmare trying to sleep when his mind was this full of consternation.

Lying on his stomach, he reached over onto his bedside table for his pipe. He was out of weed until he could get more from Andre so he was going to scrape it.

Not wanting to deal with the jarring brightness of turning the lights on, Ash grabbed the small bobby pin that he’d stolen from Ji Hyun ages ago and scooted over to the other side of his bed. He leaned sideways against the wall beside the window, shouldering it to keep himself upright. Pulling his knees to his bare chest, he used the light of the moon and stars to guide him as he spent the next twenty minutes scraping resin out of the bowl of the pipe. Once he had enough, he used the lighter to light it and began to smoke.

It tasted fucking awful but he wasn’t complaining. He was bone-tired, his mind way too alive to get to sleep without something to help. Gazing out the window at the golf course behind the complex, he wondered when he would ever be able to sleep without dreaming again.

By the time the resin was gone, Ash was sufficiently high. It felt like the Earth was spinning slower and there was a pleasant feeling that had washed over his entire body. It was enough to lower his eyelids and infuse lethargy into his muscles.

Perfect.

He fell into bed after putting the paraphernalia away and closed his eyes.

Knock, knock, knock.

Ash sighed and rolled back over. He hadn’t realized that he’d fallen asleep. He glanced at the clock on his bedside table, the moonlight falling across it from the window.

Now, he knew she was not knocking on his door at two in the morning.

He swung his legs until his feet were flat on the floor. Resting his elbows on his thighs, his mind spun from the deepness of his interrupted sleep. He rubbed his face with his hands and struggled to wake fully.

Knock, knock, knock.

“I’m coming!” he snapped in annoyance, standing up and muttering to himself. “Can’t even put on a fucking shirt. I’m so fucking Goddamn tired.”

He ripped the door open and shouldered the doorframe with his arm outstretched. It was dark as pitch in the hallway, but the moonlight from his window cast blue into the shadows. Tayshia stood there, wearing oversized pajama pants and a large dark shirt with long sleeves. She was swimming in the clothes, looking quite the sight with her curly hair sticking up in several directions and her arms wrapped around a pillow. Her crystal seemed to glint where it rested on her chest.

Her gaze swept his destroyed hair, roved down to his shirtless torso, and then bounced back up to his face.

“Does your offer still stand?”

“Shit,” he said, trying not to scowl through his yawn. He rubbed his eye. “What offer?”

She gave him a look that bordered on helpless. It took him a second to remember, and then he sighed.

“Get in here.”

Ash watched as Tayshia padded into the room, ducking underneath his outstretched arm to do so. She stood halfway between the doorway and the bed with a strange expression on her face. Brows furrowed and lips frowning, eyes wide with trepidation. Like she was already regretting her decision.

Seeing Tayshia in his room again was just as startling now as it was the first time. With her pillow and the way she kept biting her lip, he thought she looked kinda cute.

Ash walked past her, towards the bed. “You can take the bed. I’ll take the floor.”

“Okay,” she said.

He grabbed one of the pillows from his bed and set it on the floor. Then, he reached for his fleece blanket.

“Wait!” she cried, her voice ringing in his ears. “Sorry—that was loud. Just wait. We can share.”

“What?”

“We can share,” she repeated. “You’ve got a full-sized bed and it’s cold. Also, you’re like, twenty feet tall. It doesn’t make sense for you to be cramped on the floor.”

“So logical,” he said, picking his pillow back up. “Why?”

“Because I want to lay next to someone, Ash,” she snapped, stomping over. She ripped the comforter back, exposing the black satin sheets. Glaring at him, she plopped down onto the mattress. “Why do you always have to make everything so damn difficult? You’re the one who told me if I had a nightmare, I could come in here!”

Ash felt old anger rising. It was like it was September and the dishes were dirty again.

“Well, forgive me if I don’t believe you’d be wanting to sleep in a bed with a felon.” He scraped his hair back. “I made the offer so you knew I was here—I didn’t think you’d actually be comfortable enough to.”

“Why wouldn’t I be comfortable?” she said through clenched teeth as she laid back beside the window and curled onto her side. “There’s nothing for me to be uncomfortable about.”

He sensed the tension pulling taut and he closed his mouth. He’d strayed too close to the memory, to the nightmare. The one he knew she was avoiding.

Paris.

Ash climbed back into bed, pulling his half of the comforter over himself and lying facing the bedroom. He closed his eyes. The silence was awkward, but he supposed it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

At least she didn’t seem scared.

“You’re not gonna put a shirt on?”

“Nah, why would I? It’s my room, bitch,” He propped himself on his elbow so he could fluff his pillow, and then laid back down. “Besides—you said you liked my tattoos. There’s plenty to look at on my back.”

“Yes, bitch, your entirely unique dragon tattoo with wings that span your shoulder blades,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Intermingled with flames and thorns. How original.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, feeling a distinct urge to roll over and kick her leg with his foot.

“It’s just that your tattoos aren’t as original as you think.” She let out a haughty sniff. “Every guy with tattoos has a dragon, an anchor, a skull, a rose, a fir tree, a—”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Bold of you to assume, however, that I’d want to look at them.”

“You seem to have no issue looking at any of the others.”

“That’s because they’re on the front of you, headass!” she snapped. “Where the Hell else am I supposed to look?!”

Ash was powerless to stop the chuckle that slipped past his lips. “You’re feisty as fuck at night.”

“Shut up!”

“Why are you always such a bitch?”

“Why are you—” She cut herself off, likely realizing that he wasn’t actually doing anything wrong. “Why don’t you just get over it?”

“I will.”

“Fine.”

“Already am.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“I said okay.”

Ash bit his tongue hard enough to silence himself. Tayshia was acting like a brat. It was so unlike the sort of person he thought she’d be, yet so much like her that it could only be described as a darker part of herself. He could handle it.

He could handle her.

They laid there for a while, his irritation running so high that he didn’t have the energy to put focus on the fact that he was lying in bed next to her. It existed so far outside of the realm of absurdity that it felt like a dream in and of itself. Like his consciousness was trying to float outside of his body so it could catch a glimpse of what they looked like as a pair.

“I was ashamed.”

He shifted, his eyelids feeling heavy as they dragged upward. He’d been halfway to slumber, but something in the quiet of her voice had yanked him back into waking.

“Mm—what?” he mumbled.

“I was ashamed,” Tayshia whispered, “and that’s why I haven’t talked to you about it yet.”

“About what?” Ash rolled onto his back and turned his head toward her kinky curls in the moonlight. She hadn’t turned around. “Talked to me about what?”

“The dream. Or the memory. Whatever it was.” She was silent for a second, and then she said, “No one knows what happened, and I hadn’t planned on telling anyone. Having someone—having anyone see it is humiliating. Especially you.”

Ash’s mind snapped to attention. He felt his hands begin to tremble from an emotion he didn’t understand. It was something like nerves but not quite. He had so many questions.

Did she know about all the dreams he’d been having of her? Did she know his mind drifted to hers at night? Did she think it was the crystals, too? As soon as he thought of the amethyst, he thought of his half of it, which he hadn’t even taken off for his shower. He felt the gem, warm against his chest.

He didn’t want to fuck this up.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he said in a soft voice. “All right?”

She didn’t respond. Instead, he saw her curl into a tighter ball beneath the comforter.

His heart wrenched, remembering what it had felt like to be inside of her mind while she laid awake and stared at the hotel room’s wallpaper. How much she had despaired, how her anguish wove its way through her veins. There’d been no reprieve until the moment she closed her eyes.

Ash wanted her to know that he was there. He wanted her to know he was there so he could fix it, even if she was pretending not to be broken.

“We can talk about it when you’re ready,” he said.

“If.”

“If.”

He turned to face the room.

As he started to drift off once again, he felt the mattress shifting. He cracked one eye open right as Tayshia rolled over. She scooted closer, until her forehead was pressed against the dragon’s head between his bare shoulder blades. He held his breath, feeling his skin prickling with every exhalation that brushed against it.

When she burrowed her face into his skin, her nose and lips smoothing across sensitive flesh, he felt his mind begin to whirl. He couldn’t see them but he could feel them: the churning waters of edged confusion. The ocean that seemed to draw him towards her.

She placed a tentative hand on the wing of the dragon, her palm and fingers tracing the outline of its scales and claws. It felt like his veins were on fire, burning him from the inside out. But even as he burned, he felt his muscles relaxing into the bed, like her touch could carry him across the sky on a cloud.

Tayshia’s fingernails moved, arching down to trace the inked flames and thorn-covered branches that were embedded in his skin. She traced his ribs, pausing only when he took in a sharp breath.

“Should I stop?”

“No,” he breathed, his voice somewhat gravelly from his exhaustion. He couldn’t open his eyes even a fraction. “That feels good.”

“It does?”

“Mm.”

Ash’s eyelids fluttered and his toes curled into the softness of the sheets. He felt relaxed. Soothed, like when his mother would draw on his back as a child. It was comforting and gut-wrenching, all at once.

She resumed her tracing, only her forehead touching him so she could watch her finger travel down to the lowest part of his spine and back up. He felt her fingers touching each and every vertebrae. Sleep drew closer.

“When.”

“What?” he murmured.

“When I’m ready.”

She traced the tattoo until he fell asleep.

---

Author's note: I noticed that my emails are bothering people (no one is clicking on them anymore) so I have decided to stop sending them. I don’t know if anyone is reading my books anyway, so I will just stop sending them. I don't want to be a bother anymore. I'll keep posting the books, though, there just won't be any email updates because of this.