She’d told him he was a good listener, and for now, something told him it would be better to listen...but first he prayed she would trust him enough to at least keep talking.
“I know I shouldn’t run,” she finally said as she slowly began to relax her tense muscles, “not after I watched my parents run and freeze each other out for fifteen years, and it only ever made things worse. All night it was so hard to try to keep our relationship a secret from your family. I kept asking myself why I was. Especially when Olivia all but asked me if we were together. Not because she’s nosy, but because she loves you and doesn’t want you to get hurt by anyone.” She shifted slightly so that she could look into his eyes while still remaining in the circle of his arms. “I swear I’m trying to wrap my head around everything that’s happened, Drew. Trying to wrap my head around us. I know you must be so frustrated with me.”
“I am frustrated, Ash. But only because I want you to love me back just as much as I love you.”
“Drew.”
“We don’t have to tell your father yet. But taking more time to get comfortable with telling him doesn’t mean my feelings are going to change.” He shifted her so that she was straddling him on the bed. “I’m still going to be in love with you. And I’m still going to hope that you’ll let yourself fall in love with me, too.”
After watching his father and mother together over the years, he knew when it made sense to back off. Ashley was a very strong woman. One who would never let anyone tell her what to feel, who would never let anyone bully her into saying or doing anything she didn’t want to.
So he wouldn’t push her more tonight. Not with words, anyway.
*
Moments after telling her just how much he loved her—again!—Drew’s delicious mouth was on hers, and his big hands were holding Ashley captive on his lap.
But that was a lie, and she knew it. She was the one holding herself captive. Utterly ensnared by a man whose life—whose entire world—was so big, and so fast-rising, that it was taking every last bit of energy she had just to keep her head above water.
She couldn’t think straight when he was kissing her, when her hands were instinctively reaching for him, when he was saying her name in that raw voice, when she was opening herself up to him again and taking him deeper than she’d ever known it was possible to be with anyone else.
She closed her eyes as she held on tight and pleasure stormed her system again. She couldn’t breathe anymore. And yet, for a few precious moments, nothing else mattered but the way Drew was saying her name over and over and over against her lips as she rose in a blaze of light and color, then fell fast and hard. And then she shattered into so many pieces against him that when the lights finally faded, she didn’t have the strength to do anything but burrow into his strong, warm arms around her as both physical and mental exhaustion finally pulled her all the way in.
Chapter Thirty
Miami, Florida
The next day was by far the craziest of any on the tour so far. Ashley had never been to Miami before—her mother had always come to California to visit her rather than the other way around—but as soon as they got off the bus that morning and stepped out onto the beach, she could see exactly how well the sun-and-energy-filled city fit her mother.
Camila had been born and raised in Miami, but when her parents passed away and she’d met Ashley’s father in her early twenties, she’d left her tropical home behind and settled in Palo Alto with him. Ashley knew her mother had always craved the hottest days and constantly wanted to take day trips to the ocean. Only, it turned out that the cool and cliffy northern California coastline was nothing like Miami’s endless stretches of hot white sand and blue water.
What’s more, the crowds of Drew’s fans were not only bigger and louder here—they were extremely passionate, too. More than one group of girls started to cry when they caught glimpses of him as the TV cameras moved around him and his interviewers on the beach.
Ashley hadn’t inherited her mother’s dark skin or hair—her father’s pale genes had won, hands down—and when she felt as though she was both overheating and burning, she told James, “I’m going to see if the owners of that slushie stand will let me hide out in their building for a while.”
James nodded, but he didn’t take his eyes off Drew or the fans who were pushing really hard against the barriers that the local police had set up a short while ago to deal with the rapidly growing crowd.