Ash stumbled back into his seat, increasing the distance between them. “Shit, I’m sorry. I keep fucking this up, pushing you and breaking the rules.” A long string of curse words followed, and thenhe returned to her, gathering her in his arms. “I’m not used to going slow.”
She placed her hand on Ash’s chest. “We need to talk.”
So much about her wasn’t normal. This was what had Spencer hiring professional escorts. This was why she would never have a normal relationship.
Overhead, the call light blinked.
The pilot’s voice sounded. “Please buckle up and prepare for landing. You know the drill.”
Ash stared at her with haunted eyes. A frantic edge lined them, but it was the hollowness in his expression that knifed deep into her heart. Her rejection had wounded him.
If she could, she would kill her foster father all over again for the pain he inflicted on those she loved.Wasn’t it enough—what he’d done to her? To Forest?Yet the ghost of a monster continued to reach out from the grave to wreak havoc on her life.
Before she could speak about her past, she needed a moment to regroup.
Despite the pilot’s orders to buckle up, Skye stood. “I need—I need to freshen up.” She pushed hot tears from her cheeks and stumbled to the lavatory.
The plane pitched down, and she wondered if this was the beginning of the end for her and Ash.
Ash said nothing, but the sound of his heavy breathing followed her the entire way to the back of the plane.
He’d asked if she felt it—the thing growing between them. Yes, she felt something—an unsustainable attraction.
She pressed a hand to her stomach, sick with the mess of her past. She needed Forest. He would understand.
When she returned to her seat, Ash glanced up from his cell phone.
Was he writing another song? Who knew what rock stars did?
And it changed things, knowing who he was, but then again, he was exactly the same. Same penetrating eyes. Same quirky lift at the corner of his mouth. Same everything…except different now.
The easy way he held himself portrayed his confidence as a man who commanded the adoration of millions. The quirky humor and easy smiles he tossed her way, she now understood as snarky expressions of a rough and jaded celebrity.
The old Jeep and the beat-up guitar?Why did he hold on to those things from his childhood? What was he clinging to? And what was she going to do with him now?
She chewed on her lower lip, studying him.
For a rock star who surely had his share of groupies to choose from, what was he doing in a plane, twenty-five thousand feet in the air, headed to Niagara Falls, with a woman who had such a complicated life?
She wasn’t supermodel hot. She wasn’t tall, sexy, and lean. She was simply herself. She spoke her mind, took care of her patients, and had only ever loved one person—her foster brother, Forest, not even a romantic love. Sad, how now she realized she never truly loved Spencer.
Ash’s words whispered in her head,“Do you feel this, too?”
Much like his song, she felt the insanity of whatever had brought them together.
The plane banked sharply to the left. She gripped her armrest, and buckled her seat belt.
Their gazes snagged with unspoken words hanging in the balance.
The pilot’s voice sounded over the speaker again. “We’re coming in for our final approach. It’s going to be a bit bumpy.”
Bumpy? He had no idea of the turbulence buffeting the passengers sitting in the back.
“Ash, I?—”
He held up his cell phone. “I booked a suite. It has two rooms.” He brushed the hair off his face. “We’re both tired, and I think we need a good night’s rest.”
“We need to talk.”
