Down to Ash (#Dirtysexygeeks Book 2) (8 page)

But there was always something different with Victor. He never put her in headlocks or gave her tips on fighting or gave her boy insights. When he thought she wouldn't notice, he'd watch her intently.

Years later, she could now name what she’d felt for Victor in her teens—lust. It wasn't girlish or fleeting, but the emotion would strum at her core, and it had for years. Lust was not love, so it was easier to ignore. Until she'd drowned her filters in rum and created an unmitigated mess. Ugh.

Iris leaned over and pulled the cup of coffee away. “I will give this back when you tell me everything.”

Ash glanced at the ceiling then shook her head. “Well, he was being Victor, and I didn't have all my filters in place.”

“Ashley?”

Nothing about Friday was fuzzy. She remembered all of it in great detail. Though she may have been a bit more drunk than tipsy...

“I've known he's had a thing for me since forever. And I was curious, too. You know that.”

“Just curious, my ass.” Iris looked like she was going to claw some eyeballs soon if she didn't get the full story. “
Ashley
?”

Ash sighed. “I told him to kiss me so he could do away with the mystery. He's always looking at me like if only I could grow a second head then maybe he'd want me less. And you know me, I'm a problem solver. So I solved the problem.”

“Ashley Hicks,
what
did you do?”

“His angst was annoying so I kissed him when he didn't go for the idea.” She winced at how she’d downplayed what happened. “Okay. Okay.” She spread her hands on the table. “I kissed him once, and then again because my world started to spin and it felt right. Then again because I couldn't stop myself. He—he tasted incredible and so damn addictive.”

Iris said nothing. She just tilted her head before she closed her eyes. “How drunk were you?”

“I kissed Vic. More than once. How drunk do you think I was to do that?”

Her friend started to shake her head. “What did he do?”

Her face flushed at the memory. Or rather, the memories. “He kissed me in a way that confirms he's had a thing for me for forever.”

“That good?”

It hadn't felt truly real until she'd spoken these words to someone else. She inhaled deeply and then forged ahead with the confession. “And then we had sex for about thirty hours.”

Iris's mouth dropped and her eyes widened from shock. Ash stole back her cup as her friend continued to attract flies to her mouth. If anyone could understand just how significant the affair was, Iris would. She could also provide a bit of perspective being on the outside looking in. Ash really needed some, especially now, knowing Vic was at her job.

“So it was that good.” Iris's voice was so high-pitched, Ash worried her coffee mug would shatter. “Did you tell Porter?” she asked in a scandalized gasp.

Ash’s stomach sloshed the coffee around at the question. “It's none of his business who I sleep with.”

“Tell that to the guilt on your face.”

True. “I haven't heard from him since Friday.”

“And Victor? Has he seen Porter, yet?”

Ash rubbed a hand over her belly to soothe it. “I don't know. He has it in his head that we won't have sex again.”

“Will you?”

“Stop pelting me with questions. I'm still all over the place. I want him, but then I keep imagining Porter's reaction. He'll go to the ends of the earth for me. The least I could have done...”

Ash pressed two fingers to each of her temples. Her friend hissed at the movement. Hell, probably the situation. Iris had been on the outside looking in for five years, and that was still close enough to pick up on the sheer weight of what had happened.

Iris just shook her head for a moment. “Did Victor act like he wanted to have sex again?”

“Yes...and no. It's complicated.”

Ash sucked in air as the world threatened to whirl. In all the ways she'd lusted after Victor—worried for him—he'd never, not once, crossed a line with her. His friendship with Porter meant more than she could ever understand. It was why she’d curtailed her screw-the-consequences nature when it came to him. Until Friday.

So she took Vic's stares, the grouching, the acting like she barely existed because they did it for Porter. Not wanting to hurt her brother hadn't been enough, and that started an ache right in her heart.

“I'm a horrible, selfish person.”

“Oh, Ash.” Her friend's tone softened. “You're not.”

“It's okay.” Ash put up her hands to stem the flow of comfort. She didn't deserve it—not for this. “I know I am, and still...”

She couldn't be someone else. God, she'd tried. Back in college one of her roommates had joked, “You should probably never get married,” after Ash had confessed her penchant for serial dating. The girl hadn't known how much those words hurt and hit so close to Ash's fears.

Was she like her dad? No matter where Raymond went, he was the life of the party. He made his own rules and broke them when the mood struck. Those traits made him both lovable and unreliable. Didn't that describe her?

The only difference she could grasp and hold onto for dear life was that she loved, truly and deeply, the people in her life. That was why she’d gone along with Porter's rule about not dating his friends. He'd needed it and she loved him. Deciding to not hurt him had been easy—until now.

“God,” she muttered.

“Well”—Iris winced—“from Porter's perspective, he'd have to sit next to the guy banging his sister. So I can get why he wouldn't want to do that...ever.”

Ash stared at her friend in horror. “Not helping. You're supposed to blow smoke up my ass and tell me I'm wonderful. That's what I need right now.”

“And he'd have to kill his friend if Victor ever says 'she does this one thing with her tongue...'”

“Shut up,” Ash said, but laughed.

Her friend shrugged. “I can see Porter’s point, but...would he really stand in the way if there's something more there?”

Ash had never tested the theory. “Sexual chemistry just means we have zing when we touch. You do not implode friendships for zing. And Vic is probably just appealing because he's the one man I can't have.”

Iris gave her a blank stare. “You don't really believe that.”

Ash didn't. If she just wanted dick to get off, she'd buy more vibrators.

Vic was loyal, smart, grouchy, handsome as sin. There were moments—too many to count—when for a second they'd forgotten themselves, and had just laughed and joked, or argued because they were both stubborn. She liked him and they had zing together—exactly what she needed in a lover.

He was still the epitome of off limits, because if anything else happened between them, Vic would go to Porter. Their small community would be ripped apart. No matter how tempting her cake was, she damn sure wouldn't dive head first into it. She wouldn't be like her father and say, “Fuck my family, I want what I want.”

“Eat your muffin,” she told Iris, frustrated with...life.

“And you've already imploded a friendship for zing. One friend just doesn't know it yet.”

Ash threw a pencil at Iris, who easily dodged it. “Drink your coffee.”

Her friend laughed, her eyes twinkling behind her glasses. “Do you want my advice?”

“Go ahead. You're going to give it to me straight, anyway.”

“It's probably why you told me.”

Iris was right. “Yes, tell me what I should do, because I honestly don't know. I know what I want. That's never been my problem. Despite the fact we grouse at each other, I like him and he likes me, so compatibility isn't a problem, either. So...I don't know.”

“For once in your life, follow his lead.”

If Vic wanted to act like nothing had happened and nothing would ever happen again then, yeah, she
should
let him.

“Because it was just sex?” Ash reminded herself and added absently, “It was great sex though.”

Iris shook her head, a knowing expression tugging her mouth into a frown. “That's not what I said. God, you're hopeless.” She paused, eyes narrowing. “From the sounds of it, so is he. I'm just going to sit in your office all day. This is a train wreck waiting to happen, and I want front row seats to this clusterfuck.”

Iris was probably right. Again. “Shit,” Ash muttered.

~Gamer Truth: When in doubt, push every damn button.~

A little bit before lunchtime, Ash finally managed to find a groove in her work as she closed out former clients' files. She’d actually relaxed, so of course Victor strode into her office.

Her fingers froze over the keyboard as she tried to take him in. He was in her space once again, except this time, he wasn't in her bed. Her office was no less feminine than her apartment. It had polka dots, family photos, and at least one half-used cake-scented candle. It also had
a
whole lot less space than her apartment, and he seemed to take up all of it.

He was tall, and his muscles made him appear solid, immovable. The only outward sign that he hadn't forgotten about their weekend was the way he gripped a small toolbox, his knuckles so white compared to his tanned skin. He had no problem meeting her gaze, though. There wasn't a hint of the man who had laughed with her in bed—who’d kissed her and touched her until she couldn't breathe.

He topped that cold reception off by saying in a lifeless tone, “Save whatever you're working on. I have to diagnose your computer. It might take a while.”

No “Hi.” No “Hey, Ash.” No, “I kissed your face off and then we had wild sex for two days.”

She tried to ignore the annoyance flooding her veins like melted steel, but him acting like nothing had happened was different than him directing his arctic chill toward her at full blast. Back to business as usual. Fine. If he wanted to act like a dick, she was going to let him.

She pushed her chair away from her desk and gestured to it. “All yours. Do I need to stay to type in my passwords?”

Victor frowned at her but that wasn't new. “Yes.” He had the nerve to sound pissed.

She refused to even blink at his tone. “I can always write them down for you if me being here is a problem.”

“Never write down passwords.” He turned his back to her.

Then, only then, did she let her eyes narrow. He wanted to play a game and she wanted to screw with him, but that was always her knee-jerk reaction to Vic.

When he had pretended he didn't see her, she'd wear really short shorts in the summer and low-cut shirts in the winter. She'd waltzed around feeling the heat of his gaze on her when he thought she and no one else would know.

At some point, she should have matured enough and grown out of the impetuous reaction.
Should have.
Did she want to bait him again? On Friday night, she’d pushed for a kiss. He'd given her something raw and sharp-edged in return. The end product was something irrevocable.

Good sex should not be this complicated.

But it was. Time for damage control. She curled her lips to tamp down her need to respond and sat by as he worked.

“You have
World of Warcraft
on your work computer?” he asked.

She blinked, surprised he was talking to her and not at her. “I have hour-long lunches. Sometimes, they get boring. And what do you know about WoW? You only play crap like
Warfare
and
Saint's Row
.”

There was the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Her breath hitched. Had that been a smile? A real one? It was gone again before she could be sure.

“Neither your boss nor your IT tech have ever told you not to have WoW on your computer?” he asked.

“You forget, I'm a rebel without a cause.”

Vic laughed. “I forget.” After a moment of quiet, he asked, “Can you imagine Oliver learning about keybindings?”

She exhaled, still a little dizzy at his laugh-smile.

“Ash?”

“Huh?”

“Oliver?”

“Oh.” Right. He'd asked her a question before he tried to kill her with a sexy smile. “Not even Oliver, with his infinite patience, would have the tenacity. He'd throw his laptop.” She pursed her lips, realizing he hadn't answered her question. Apparently whether or not he played WoW was a need-to-know fact, and she didn't need to know.

“I know WoW, but I tend to play the game alone,” Victor said.

Quelle surprise, he’s a lone wolf in his downtime
. Warmth spread through her stomach because he'd answered. Maybe that was something stupid to get tingly over, but Ash could ask him if the sky was blue and, more often than not, all she'd get back was a hard stare. And sometimes he'd laugh, then tell her purple, and they'd playfully argue. She loved those days.

He was open at the moment. She was going to take advantage and do what she did best—egg him on.

“I'm not giving you my password,” she said. “All the major gaming sites advise against it. You could steal my game time for all I know.”

He snorted. “I'm going to have to delete it from your computer.”

She should have known he'd suggest that. “Fine. What else?”

“I'm just diagnosing at this point, but I will install monitoring software on everyone's computers. I’ll set it up to run automatically at the end of the day. You, along with the rest of your co-workers, have a lot of crap you don't need. If I see another Yahoo Messenger program, I'm going to start throwing computers out the window. Given your business, you people should know better.”

He was still talking to her. She should have been on her guard, but the short exchange was...nice.

“One,” she said, “you've met my friend Iris. Two, I bet you still click on shady sites even though you know better.”

“Yup, and yup.” He pulled a USB drive from his pocket and handed it to her. “Initial this and I can finish.”

She grabbed a pen from her desk and wrote on the small label he'd slapped on. Their fingers brushed and he, as always, showed no sign he'd felt a spark at the brief touch. Her entire hand tingled from the short skin-to-skin contact.

That could also be why she always poked at him. On good days their gazes would clash and she'd know in her bones she wasn't alone. He was drowning in the same lust, the same denied desire. Most times Ash had just needed to know she wasn't crazy. They were stuck in the same screwed up cycle of not crossing a line that could hurt Porter and not caring, just needing.