asked forgiveness rather than permission. "Oh, right, right, right."
"And for two, I don't share." He dipped down, brushing my hair from my shoulder and replacing it with his lips. "I don't share, Zelda."
He kissed my neck the way he knew I liked and I slipped my hand under his shirt the way I knew he liked, and for that beat and breath, the only thing that mattered was the way we fit.
"What you're saying is," I started, "you won't have as much time to be obsessive and tyrannical when your family decides I'm their new favorite thing? Because I'm good at being the flavor of the week, even if there is some wishful knitting involved."
I'd always had a knack for being the friend everyone's parents loved, the one invited to stay for dinner, spend the night, join their summer camping trip. I'd learned early how to make myself invisible yet also indispensable.
"You're not hearing me, love," Ash whispered. "I know you and I know—"
"Hold up, Ashville. You don't know me."
He hummed against the juncture between my neck and shoulder but he didn't pull back to look me in the eye for this conversation. He went on kissing me as if he required it. I did. "Maybe I don't know your favorite of the Indiana Jones films—"
"Those movies are such terrible representations of archaeology, they should come with a warning."
Smiling against my neck, he continued, "Like I said, I know you. I know my family too. They'd keep you and toss me."
"I wouldn't let that happen, boss."
And that does it.
Ash's body tightened against mine, a rope stretched to the point of fraying, and a husky breath rattled out of him. Then, "You're sure about this, Zelda? You're allowed to say no."
I was allowed to say no.
While I knew that in an abstract sense, I wasn't sure I knew it in the practical, make my own limits sense. Not until Ash granted me the right.
I scraped both hands up his back, holding him as I had all night. "I want to go," I said. It was good to touch someone this way. Good to gather him in my arms and hold him together while he nibbled my neck. It fed a need in me that'd gone untended too long. "Do you?"
"No," he replied, laughing. "I have to talk to my dad about business matters and I know it won't go smoothly."
If we kept this up, we'd while the day away with circular conversation and unending embraces. The trouble was, I was certain neither of us saw an issue with that. "Why?"
"Because—" He stopped himself, shook his head, and stared down at my breasts again. "We don't see eye to eye on the running of the firm."
This was one of those instances where there was nothing appropriate for me to say and thus silence was the only solution. I'd only learned to spot these situations in the last year or two. Before, my cringeworthy motormouth would've said something snarky about Ash's micromanaging or his leadership by doing everyone else's jobs for them. It'd taken too long to realize it but those comments weren't edgy, they weren't funny, and they weren't helpful.
Silence lingered between us though Ash seemed to find enough entertainment from frowning at my breasts to keep him busy. Eventually, he loosened his hold around my waist and dragged his gaze up to my eyes, saying, "We should head out. Summer traffic is ridiculous."
I followed him out of the apartment, down the hall, into the elevator. We didn't speak but somewhere between locking the door and pressing the button for the basement garage, we agreed to the terms of a new game where every touch had to be reciprocated. It was a twisted, grown-up iteration of the game we all used to play where the only objective was to keep the ball from dropping. And I was absolutely positive Ash didn't know how to lose a game.
Elbows grazed forearms, shoulders slid across chests, hands glanced down backs and over hips. Our hands lingered over each other as we walked toward Ash's car, a surprisingly cool vintage Porsche. I almost lost the game for us when I skittered to a stop several paces ahead of the hunter green roadster but he hooked his arm around my waist and urged me onward.
"I would not have expected—" I pointed at the car as Ash shot me a sidelong glance. "I didn't expect this from you, Ashville. Very nice."