Blood in the Water (Kairos) (17 page)

It looked as though Matty wanted to say something else, but Ashleigh cut him short.  “Michelle, would you show Matthew and... Hannah our residents?  I think some of our calmer, slightly older residents might me more appropriate.”

Whatever message Ashleigh was trying to get across to Michelle was marked received and understood with a couple of sharp nods. 

Michelle turned on her professional charm.  “Follow me.  We had a cat come in last week, a young one, but not a kitten.  The family discovered allergies...”

Michelle’s voice faded out as she walked away, trailing Matthew and Hannah in her wake.  Paul stepped up close to Ashleigh.

“You okay?”

He watched as she shook herself.  “What?  Yeah. I’m fine.”

He reached out to rub a hand up and down her arm.  “Fine, huh.  ‘Fine’ coming from a woman usually means anything but.”

“An expert are you?”  Her tone was sardonic, matching the arched eyebrow, but she was in good humor. 

“No way, ma’am, not at all. Wouldn’t even pretend to be.”

“I really am fine.  It was just a surprise to see him here.  He hates animals, can’t stand when they shed fur on his clothes.  And he hated that I spend so much time here.”  She’d been smiling when she’d started talking, but it had fallen by the end.

“There a lot of animals to keep you busy?”

“There’s plenty to keep us goin’, but I work for free for the shelter.  Sometimes that means goin’ out on rescues or investigations out of town.  They can take a whole day and more and then you’ve got to play catch-up with the bread and butter stuff.”

Paul wanted to ask more, about her work as well as her state of mind, but they were interrupted by a couple looking for advice on how to look after the goldfish that their twins had just won at one of the game stalls.  By the time Ashleigh had finished her spiel on feeding and tank care, Michelle had returned, minus Matthew and Hannah.

“What happened?”  Ashleigh asked her smirking colleague.

“He persuaded her they needed to think about it some more.  She didn’t look happy, the bottom lip was out and everythin’. I swear I think I saw her stomp her foot.”

The idea of prissy Matthew dealing with a fully grown petulant child amused the hell out of Paul.  “Maybe she’s not the simperin’ idiot he thinks she is.”

Ashleigh glanced at him, seeming almost surprised that he’d grasped the circumstances so quickly.  Paul shrugged.  The guy was a fucking idiot, a pompous fucking idiot.  He was just calling it how he saw it.  They were interrupted again by some more visitors, a couple wondering how to go about breeding their Dalmatians.  When Ashleigh was done with them, she rolled her shoulders and dug her fingers into the muscles that she could reach in her back.  Paul was only to willing to offer a massage, but it wasn’t the ideal time or place, not for what he had in mind.  Instead he offered the next best thing.

“Come on.  I’m goin’ to take you for somethin’ to eat.”

Chapter Nine

For a moment Ashleigh looked like she was going to jump at the opportunity, until her face fell a little.  “I need to help clear up.”

“Oh no you don’t.”   Michelle joined in. “Your mama has that all under control.  Look, she’s got your boys on it already.  I’ll take care of this stuff. I’ve got my keys.”

You sure?”  Paul could see that Ashleigh was torn between her responsibilities and his offer.

“Wouldn’t have said if I wasn’t.”

“Thanks, you’re an angel.”  Paul wasn’t about to disagree with Ashleigh’s assessment of Michelle, but he didn’t say so out loud.

“Yeah, yeah.  Get Dolly to make me some of those cookies.”

“It’s a done deal.”

With a grateful smile Ashleigh followed Paul through the organized mayhem that Moira was directing as the event was broken down and cleared away.  Paul noticed that Moira saw them leaving, but she was tied up trying to stop Kong from taking the cotton candy machine back to the clubhouse.  Paul didn’t want to think about the plans that he might have for it, so he turned back to Ashleigh.

“You ride?”

“Seriously?  Since I could sit on a bike without fallin’ off.  Mama hated it.  Daddy used to sneak me out of the house.”

“Okay, stupid question.  Was just checkin’.”

The shadows of the day were beginning to stretch out, the light turning golden in anticipation of the coming sunset.  It was cooler now and Paul was glad that Ashleigh was still wearing his hoodie.  She offered to return it to him, but he refused to take it back.  The sight of her wearing it was keeping him plenty warm.

When they got to where his bike was parked on the street, he handed her his helmet before swinging his leg over the seat.

“You have a bitch seat but you don’t have a spare helmet?”  Ashleigh said as she clipped the chin strap in place.

“The seat’s there ‘cause I’d rather have it than be stuck without it.  Helmets aren’t mandatory in Texas.  It’s taken me a while to get into the habit of always puttin’ my own on, so no; I haven’t got around to carryin’ a spare yet.”

She got herself seated behind him.  “Touchy.  Just askin’.  Better hope Chief Hooper doesn’t spot us then.”

“Don’t worry, we ain’t headin’ far.”

Paul gunned the throttle and pulled out onto the road, heading for a diner he favored which was situated on the edge of town.  They were close enough that he didn’t think there was much chance of bumping into the Chief.  He’d just have to do his best to talk his way out of a ticket if they were caught.

Paul had never had anyone he actually cared about on the back of his bike.  It was simultaneously both exhilarating and scary as fuck, and not much scared him these days.  The feel of Ashleigh wrapped around him, the way her body pressed against his was mighty addictive and distracting. But at the same time he was more than aware of what happened to a body when it met blacktop at speed.  He found himself riding with a lot more care and attention than he usually did.  She hadn’t exaggerated her experience; she was as comfortable riding as he was.

The diner was about half full.  The presence of the other patrons forced them both to be on their best behavior.  Although the food was as good as ever, Paul barely tasted any of it.  It was the first opportunity he’d really had to just sit and talk with Ashleigh for any length of time and he found that, in addition to the intelligence he could already credit her with, she had a wit was every bit as sharp as her mother’s.

The ache in his soul that had started when he’d been watching Ashleigh at work that afternoon was easing steadily.  He began to understand what it was that he was feeling.  Old feelings of anger and resentment had resurfaced briefly on seeing the kind of life that, as a child, he’d once longed for.  He’d abandoned those dreams in favor of the brotherhood of the MC a long time ago, thinking that he was never meant to have that picket fence life.  Seeing Ashleigh exhibit her natural inclination to nurture just about anything, even big hairy spiders that scared
the shit out of her, made Paul want to want that life again. 

By the time they’d finished eating and he’d paid the bill, Paul was about ready just to whisk her off into the sunset to start a new life somewhere, anywhere, that was as far away from the devastation that he knew had to follow.  But sense prevailed, and instead he reluctantly led her back out to his bike.

Ashleigh paused when he handed her the helmet again.  “You have anythin’ you need to get back for?”

“No.  Why?”

“There’s a spot I know.  It’s kinda beautiful on a day like this around this time.”

“What, like a make-out point?”  Paul didn’t relish the thought of being surrounded by horny teenagers, even though he’d fit right in, with the way he felt right now.

Ashleigh threw her head back and laughed.  “No.  When your daddy’s president of the town MC, nowhere like that is private.  All the boys at the club know about those spots, hell, most of them have left their scent there.  I had to find somewhere else.”

Paul was curious.  “Okay then.”

Ashleigh quickly outlined the roads he’d need to take and Paul set off. They would be heading further out of town.  This time when she settled behind him, she seemed to press herself even harder against his back.  She had her arms wrapped tightly around his torso with her palms pressed flat against his abdomen.  Half his brain was willing her to lower them; the other half was busy pointing out that if she did any such thing he’d probably lose control of his bike. 

When they got to the bridge over the tributary that she’d described, she tapped him on the shoulder.  Paul rode across the bridge as she’d instructed and pulled onto the gravel spit along the side of the road.  He followed it as it tapered into the trees and knocked the kickstand into place when the bike was virtually hidden from the road by the trees and bushes.

Ashleigh dismounted and handed him his helmet, which he hooked onto the handlebars.  She didn’t speak as she turned towards a barely beaten path through the undergrowth.  He followed as she led the way down the side of the bridge pilings to the bank underneath.  There was a smooth boulder that the pilings had been built around.  It probably spent a lot of the year virtually submerged, but at the moment it was clear of the water.  Ashleigh led the way over to it.  They sat down, Ashleigh in front of Paul in between his knees.  It was cooler in the shadow of the bridge that the sunlight probably never penetrated.  She struggled out of his hoodie and handed it back to him.  When Paul put it on, he was able to wrap both of them in it.  He pulled her back tight against his chest, and she leaned her head back against his shoulder as they watched the colors of the sunset play on the sluggish water.

“I bet you were a heartbreaker at school.”  He said softly against her ear.

“Oh no, not me.  They all thought I was a whore or one of the sweetbutts or somethin’. I never felt totally safe around the boys at school.”  Her voice was flat, mostly.

Paul swallowed back the sudden surge of impotent rage and tried to keep his voice light.  “Who’d you bring here then?” 

“No one mentioned it?”  She half turned a raised eyebrow to him.

“What?  What has no one mentioned?”

“About me and Crash?  We were a couple in school.”

“No, no one said anything about that.”  Almost as a reflex he pulled her closer against his chest.

“We were together until just after he got hurt.  He pushed everyone away for a while after that.  We found our way back, but it was to a different place.”

Paul figured that if Crash had any jealousy about Ashleigh getting together with someone else it would have reared its head by now, but that someone else being a fellow patch might be a touch different.  It was just another complication to add to the mix, but probably one of the smaller ones, hopefully. 

Instead of dwelling on any of the other men that had been in her life, Paul decided to remind Ashleigh about the one she was with in the here and now.  He nuzzled her hair out of the way and pressed his lips to the soft skin of her neck, just under her ear.  He continued a trail of light kisses down the column of her neck until he reached the collar of the t-shirt that she was wearing.  When he raised his head, Ashleigh turned her face to his.  He looked for any sign that she was unsure about what was happening, and finding none, he kissed her.

The kiss moved quickly from chaste to carnal.  Ashleigh shifted and turned in his embrace until he was cradling her in his arms.  As they explored each others mouths, she lifted her hand to skim her palm over his smooth scalp and down his neck until she was holding onto his shoulder, her fingers buried in the muscles there.  Paul dropped his hand to the hem of her shirt.  He traced his fingers just above the waistband of her jeans, causing the skin to twitch and Ashleigh’s body to jump.  She didn’t protest, so he slid his hand up under the light cotton, rubbing small circles on the skin of her belly and over her ribcage until he brushed the underside of her breast through the lace of her bra with his thumb. Ashleigh arched, instinctively seeking out more of his touch, and when he brushed her nipple, stiffened by her arousal, she moaned into his mouth.

Paul’s cock, solid since the diner, turned to stone. He squeezed his hand a little, testing the firm globe, which caused Ashleigh to moan again.  Paul pulled his head back, needing to look at her, to see her face.  Her lids were heavy, her cheeks rosy and her lips looked swollen and well-kissed.  Her expression, filled with desire, was far better than any of his fantasies.

“What?”  Ashleigh stumbled.  “Why’d you stop?”

Something about her guileless response made him ask.  “Ash, I gotta ask.  You were with Crash through school, Matthew in college.  You ever been with anyone else?”

She looked down.  Her skin was still flushed and her breathing was still a little erratic.  Paul pulled his hand out from under her top so that he could tilt her chin up with one finger so that she’d look at him.

“No need to be embarrassed about that, beauty. No need at all.”  He murmured.

His reaction to discovering that he was only the third man to touch her so intimately was intense.  She could have completed the Kama Sutra with both of her previous lovers, but in his book she was almost virginal.  That told him something about her as well.  She didn’t do casual.  Unless she’d had a major shift in her worldview, the fact that he was here with her at this moment meant that there was something serious building.  Good, he would hate to be signing his death warrant over a one-night stand.

He kissed her again, trying to communicate everything that he felt in the press of his lips and the sweep of his tongue.  He lowered her gently until they were almost lying on the boulder, Ashleigh still nestled in the crook of his arm.  This time when he returned his hand to her waist, instead of heading north, he went south.  Paul flicked open the fastening of her jeans and slipped his hand under the denim and into her underwear.  Without seeing it he couldn’t tell if it was panties or a thong, but the lace felt like it might match the bra and oh Holy Mother of God it didn’t matter because he’d just encountered perfectly smooth skin.

He had to tear his mouth away from hers to ask.  “Shaved?  You expectin’ someone?”

It was hard to tell if she was blushing again, since her skin was thoroughly flushed with arousal.  Paul decided he didn’t care what the answer was.  He leaned down to kiss her again, and as he did so he slipped his fingers between her folds, finding them slick and wet.

“Oh fuck, beauty.  You feel so good.”  He whispered against her lips.

Ashleigh tilted her head back as he began to move his fingers inside her while he pressed his thumb against her clit. Soon her hips were moving rhythmically along with his hand.  Her heat was scalding and enticing, but he wasn’t going to fuck her on a rock under a bridge, however much he wanted to sink into her pliant body.  His cock was about ready to find its own way out of his jeans, but his need would just have to wait.  When he did eventually get her naked, he damn well intended to be able to take his time.

Ashleigh’s hips began to buck more frantically against his touch.  Breathless moans were the only sound she was making, but that was enough.  Paul increased the pressure and pace of his fingers and when her moans grew in volume he swallowed them with a deep kiss.  The feel of her sheath gripping his fingers as she came, the scent of her skin heated with arousal, nearly brought him to his own release.  The sensations ripped a groan from his chest.