Roman Holiday: The Adventure Continues (13 page)

Roman, it seemed, went where Ashley went.

But to think of each person’s individual motivation diminished the extent to which
Ashley’s personality was stamped all over this trip. Watching Carly and Jamie’s camper roll into the campground this afternoon, Roman had thought of funeral caravans making their procession through his hometown, driving slowly with the lights on.

He’d thought about how funerals were one way that the living created meaning from loss.

Maybe this trip was Ashley’s version of a funeral—her way of asking her friends to help her honor and commemorate Susan Bowman. Because Ashley wouldn’t put her grief on display; instead, she would celebrate life. She’d turn a funeral into a holiday.

Even as she’d cried in her trailer, sorting through her grandmother’s effects, Ashley had found a way to keep her focus on living.
You want to see a ghost town?
she’d asked him, and she’d taken him there not to mourn the town that had died but to be alive herself, with him. To study the asphalt wangs and climb the steps, sweat and talk and hold hands and kiss.

That was Ashley. Defiantly alive.

Ahead of them, they still had a long haul up to Door County, Wisconsin. One long day’s drive or two shorter ones, if they broke it up. Then Ashley could finally have her conversation with Esther.

I want Esther to tell me why Grandma felt like she needed to keep so many secrets
, Ashley had said in Camelot this morning.
I just need to understand why
.

Roman hoped she got her answers. He liked to think Esther would have something to say to Ashley that would put the hurricane of her emotions to rest and give her some peace. But he had his doubts.

He thought maybe Ashley’s peace was going to have to come from inside her.

He thought, too, that it was already there, waiting for her to find it.

He wondered what it would take to get her to stop moving long enough to look.

She hadn’t stopped moving all afternoon. The moment they rolled into the campground, she’d become a liaison—securing a two-room cabin with comfortable beds where Nana and Stanley could sleep, demanding sites on the water with a good view, checking the gradient and making sure the water and power hookups were working for Jamie and Carly.

She’d organized dinner, taught Jamie how to make s’mores, mixed gin and tonics, and set up a card table so she could play a few hands of poker with Nana and Stanley.

And all the while, Ashley had been winking at Roman across the fire ring, circling her arm around his waist, brushing her ass against his fly when she knew no one was looking. He’d
spent half the night fantasizing about getting his hands on her hips. Inhaling a deep breath of the smell of her neck, bug spray and soap, artificial citrus and salt.

She played him the same way she played the rest of them, giving him just enough of what he needed that he felt satisfied. Coming and going, leaving him slightly stoned on gin and fizzy tonic water. Drunk with anticipation.

She played them all—from Nana and Stanley down to that sweet little toddler—and she was so fucking
good
at it, he didn’t even resent having to share her. He sat and observed, content to wait his turn.

Content to stay on this ride until it came to a full and complete stop.

Ashley started toward the trailer, then turned around, laughing.

“No way! …”

“Right, right …”

“Okay, you guys sleep well. If I’m not out here when you get up, just knock. I don’t need much sleep … What?”

“No! Well, okay. Maybe. But wake me up anyway. I promise we’ll be decent.”

The metal treads rang as she mounted the steps, and then he had a nice view of her taut calves and hamstrings as she leaned out to get the door.

It shut with a bang.

Ashley pivoted on her tiptoes, arms above her head like a ballerina’s, and then let gravity take her down—hands dangling, shoulders slumped, head dropping as if she barely had the energy to hold herself up. “I am so tired, I could die.”

She kicked off her flip-flops.

“Long day,” Roman said.

“So long.”

“Come here.”

The boxes from her grandmother were stacked in a row in front of the bench like a coffee table. Ashley skirted around the end and crawled across the upholstery to him. She threw herself across his lap facedown, legs stretched out.

Roman stroked her back. Stretched over his thighs, she was damp and hot. He’d been sitting here a while, waiting. Cooling off.

“This trailer is well designed,” he said. He’d given himself a tour, pleased by the clever
way the pieces fit together—the hidden storage areas, the efficiency with which the designers had used the allotted space.

“It’s a classic,” she boasted.

He stroked her ass and down her leg to her knee, then back up, trailing the pad of his thumb over her inner thigh. “In what sense?”

“All Airstreams kind of are. People love them. This one isn’t precious or anything—it’s not that hard to come by a Sovereign from the seventies. But it’s still great. Well designed, made to last forever. I’d like to fix it up someday.”

“What would you do to it?”

“Strip it to the bones and refit it. Update the carpet, fixtures, oven, furniture, everything.”

“Why not just buy a new one?”

She lifted her head enough to wrinkle her nose at him. “Because I already
have
one.”

“You could have a better one.”

“Exactly. By fixing this one up.”

“You’re misunderstanding me on purpose.”

“And you’re teasing me.”

“No, I really think you’d be better off buying—”

“I meant with your thumb.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Roman grinned. “That.”

He’d been tracing the seam of her shorts from hem to crotch, then up over her ass to the small of her back and down again. Over to the side. Up around her hip. Drawing her in a circuit of fabric.

He paused with his thumb pressing against the hard bump of sun-bleached cotton where all the seams met. “You like it?”

“I don’t like being teased.”

“Okay. I won’t tease you, then.”

On each side of the seam, the fabric was thinner, softer, and through it he could feel the shape of her lips. He investigated the whole area. Thoroughly.

Ashley bit his thigh.

“Ouch!”

She kissed the spot where she’d bit. “You were still teasing.”

“This isn’t teasing. It’s exploring.”

Ashley flipped over. Roman placed his palm flat on her chest, spanning her collarbone. “Here, for example, is a new vista for my hand to investigate. I’m going to start with these hills, then work my way to the valley beyond.”

“You’re such a geek.”

“I’m not a geek.”

He explored her hills for a while. If the squirming was any indication, she liked it just fine.

“Did you ever want to see more?” she asked.

“Mmm.” Roman pulled up the hem of her T-shirt to expose her stomach.

“Like, did you ever want to get in the car and drive and keep driving until you run out of road?”

“Sure.”

“When?”

“Today.”

Ashley smiled. “You just wish we weren’t bringing all these people with us.”

“They don’t bother me.”

Ashley arched an eyebrow—an expression he recognized as his own.

“Okay,” he admitted. “They bother me some. But you want them here, so it’s fine.”

“What is it, then?”

He’d talked to his assistant, who’d made it clear that if Roman spent much more time out of the office, he might not have an office to come back to. “Work stuff,” he said. “Worrying about what’s going on back in Florida. More than a few times today I thought it might be easier to make a break for it.”

Ashley rested one arm on his chest, cupping the back of his neck in her hand. Roman let his head fall, enjoying the play of light and shadow over her face.

“Go on the lam?” she asked.

“Bonnie and Clyde.”

“You can be Bonnie. I’ll grow a mustache.”

Roman huffed a laugh, and she broke into a grin, twisting on his lap to tickle his ribs. He captured her hand and brought it to join the other on his neck, and then he ducked down as she
rose up to meet him, and they kissed.

There was nothing like kissing Ashley.

Nothing like the way she felt in his arms, warm and sinuous, light and full of hope. He would follow her anywhere to feel like this, do whatever she asked. It had been this way from the beginning, although he hadn’t understood at first.

What bound him to Ashley was Ashley.

When she gave herself, she gave everything, and when he took from her, he wanted nothing more than to give it back, give her more.

He loved her.

That was what you called it. That was the size and shape of it, the tough kernel of hope at the center of it, the tenacious tangled neediness of it.

Love.

It didn’t scare him anymore. There was no one he would rather love than this weird, wild, wonderful woman.

Roman hauled her closer. Their kiss kindled and lit, tongues dancing, bodies sinking and shifting until they were side by side, legs interlaced, hands moving anywhere they could find a plane to glide over, a curve to hug, a hill to climb, or a crevice to sink into.

“We
can
do this in the trailer, right?” he asked. “It won’t fall off the blocks?”

“It won’t fall. It’ll just, you know, bounce.”

“So anyone who happens to walk by to take a leak or brush their teeth—all those little kids riding around on bicycles—they’re all going to know I’m getting laid.”

“
You
’
re
getting laid? Nice.”

He pushed her hair behind her ear. Caught her eye. “We’re making love,” he corrected.

Her tongue hit the back of her teeth. He felt the shift in her breathing against his stomach.

Her lashes lowered.

She leaned forward and nipped his collarbone, a sharp bite that hit him hard between the legs. “I don’t think the kids will know,” she said. “They probably won’t even notice, and if they do, they’ll just assume we’re …”

“Bouncing vigorously on the couch?”

“Playing one of those Wii games, maybe, where you jump around.”

Roman braced one arm and used his thigh to scoot Ashley to the inside of the bench so he
could move above her and fit his aching erection between her legs. She sighed, a happy sound.

She hadn’t rejected his description.
Making love
.

It would be his first time.

“We’ll have to take this to the bedroom,” he said. “I’m pretty sure my head’s sticking up, and the window’s open.” He covered one side of her neck with kisses, then found the smoothest patch of skin beneath her jawline and traced the boundaries of it with his tongue.

“I’d be delighted,” she said. “As soon as
—yes
. Do that again.”

Roman made a slow, rolling thrust against her clit, and her mouth fell open. “Jesus. Kiss me.”

He did.

They let their bodies speak for a while, let their arms say
I missed you
and
I want you
and
You make me feel amazing
. He watched her expressions shift, blissed out one moment, tense with need the next. Drifting, yearning, troubled. Beautiful. She ran her fingertips along his hairline, over his temples, around his ears. “I want to see your hair curly someday,” she said.

“I can’t let it get long. It’s out of control.”

“I like it when you’re out of control.” He thrust again, and she brought her legs up. “I like making you lose your grip.”

“You’re good at it.”

She grinned. “Right? I feel like it might be what I was put on this earth to do.”

“Annoy me?”

“Make you mad, sad, happy, cross-eyed with pleasure. All those things you’d given up.”

“I’m a fan of the last one.”

“I noticed. Speaking of things we’re fans of, take off your shirt.” Roman lifted up enough to wrestle the T-shirt over his head. “Yeah,” she sighed. “I’m a fan of this view.”

He kissed her. “Shallow.”

“Aren’t I?”

Roman helped her out of her shirt, leaving her bra on. He kissed the tops of her breasts. Stroked her calves. Wondered how he could have considered her too skinny, too blond, when she was obviously perfect.

“You know,” she said, stroking the top of his head and the back of his neck. “Airstream people have a saying.”

“What’s that?”

“If the trailer’s rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’.”

“Classy.”

“There’s other ones, too. Bucking the rivets, rocking the shocks, polishing the silver tube …”

“I could use some tube polishing.”

“Only if you promise to buck my rivets while you’re at it.”

“Until you can’t hardly take it anymore—that’s how long I’ll buck them.”

“Sounds like it might hurt.”

“I’ll make it good for you, baby.”

Ashley laughed, and Roman glanced to the side, did a moment’s mental calculating, and rolled them off the couch onto the floor.

“Holy shit! Roman!”

He didn’t know why she was complaining. She’d landed on top, the way she was supposed to. He was the one who’d have a bruise from the corner of the box poking into his shoulder.

“It’s more private down here.”

“You’re the most repressed man—”

“I wanted to do this.” He unhooked her bra, pushed it aside, and drew one nipple into his mouth.

“Oh,” she breathed. And again, a minute later,
“Oh.”

His hand found the cleft between her legs and worked over the seam of her shorts, the thin fabric on either side, until she was soaked and saying his name. “Roman. Please. Roman.”

“In the bed,” he said.

“I don’t think I can stand up.”

“Crawl.”

She did. All the way down the length of the thirty-foot trailer, with Roman behind her, stroking her ass, grabbing at her ankles and calves, overtaking her just to rub his bare chest over her back and wrap his arm around to work inside her shorts and make her moan his name some more.

They got stuck near the stove for a while.

Then right outside the bathroom for a while longer.

Finally they made it to the bed, where he got impatient with her shorts and urged her onto the mattress, ass perched on the edge, torso laid flat so he could yank off what was left of her clothes, spread her legs, and lick her until she tightened around his thrusting fingers.