The door slammed, leaving her on the porch. Even the crickets fell silent at that parting jab. If you decide to leave…
Now what? Well. She wasn’t going to run away after that challenge.
“I have a laptop,” she grumbled to herself. “I can work from here.”
She marched inside, shouldered her bag, and headed for the couch. Through the window in the studio, she watched Asher prop the guitar on his lap and pluck in earnest.
She settled into the cushion and stared unseeing at the screen, wishing she could hear him play through the soundproof windows and door. Wishing a lot of things. She opened her computer, having no idea how they’d ended up here or where they’d end up with each other tonight.
Typical, she thought, then began answering her e-mails one by one.
Chapter 16
Asher had gone into his studio to work off his frustration from yet another argument with Gloria, not sure why he was bothering to argue with her at this point. If she was so hell-bent on being problematic, why did he care?
You know.
That thought he ignored.
He spent the next hour writing and playing and living in bliss. Right in his sweet spot. Feeling every note in his bones, losing time and space as he hummed along with each strum. Lyrics came and he jotted them down, then closed his eyes again to return to the music.
After who knew how long, Gloria walked into the studio. He looked up from his notes. With leftover creative bliss saturating his bloodstream, it was hard to look at her and feel anything but want.
The almost pedestrian gray dress with faded white polka dots rode high on her thighs, and the front crisscrossed over her breasts, showing ample amounts of cleavage. Tall shoes sat at the end of her tanned legs, red toenails peeking out. Her ink-black hair was down, windblown from the boat, and an oversize pair of black-framed glasses were settled on her pert nose. She was a recipe for a hard-on if he’d ever seen one.
She took off her glasses and rested them on the table he was leaning over. He set his pencil next to them.
“So…I’m done,” she said, looking around the studio instead of at him.
“Yeah.”
“Are you mad?” she asked, craning an eyebrow as if to say, Not that I’d care if you were. But she did care. That was Glo. She cared; she just didn’t want to admit she did.
“You’re hard to stay mad at,” he admitted.
A small smile, then, “I know the feeling.”
“Wanna make up?” he asked, meaning it.
Her smile grew and she met his eyes with her penetrating blues. “Maybe. What do you have in your bag of tricks?”
“Hmm. Romantic walks on the beach are so cliché,” he said. His eyes scanned her dress, down those legs and up again. He felt a smile inch across his mouth. “But now that I’m looking at you, maybe a few romantic slaps on the ass are due.”
One eyebrow crawled up her forehead, then dropped again. “Whatever, Knight.”
“You’d deserve it for that shit you just pulled.”
“You don’t get to punish me.”
“No, you do that on your own.” No one else could keep Glo down because she was too busy doing it herself. He reached over to the keyboard and pressed a button for a bass drum, adjusting the tempo and volume. “Let me find a good rhythm.”
“If you think I came in here so you could spank me, you have another thing coming,” she said, her voice going a little higher.
He stepped around the instrument and came to her. She liked to be pushed. He had no problem pushing her. Heat stole her cheeks and that fire he loved so much lit her eyes.
“I’m not into the rough stuff.”
“Not rough, Sarge.” He reached around and palmed her lower back, pulling her close enough that her breasts brushed his torso. She was warm and kind of grouchy and that was exactly the way he liked her.
She palmed his chest but didn’t push him away, resting her hand there instead. “I’m not a kinky girl, Ash.” His name came off her lips on a breath and his smile widened.
“You sure about that?”
Blue eyes went wide. She wasn’t sure.
He slipped his hand lower, giving one rounded ass cheek a squeeze, and then slipped beneath the soft cotton of the dress to touch her bare skin, edged by a silky pair of panties. Pedestrian on the outside, but bad girl beneath. God. He loved this woman.
“It’s not kinky. It’s fun,” he said, pushing the words through a clogged throat. Love. Where the fuck had that come from?
“For you, maybe.”
“For me, definitely. But for you, too, sweetheart.” At the drum’s next beat, Ash drew the fabric up, exposing her skin to the air. In the windowed room, he could see her reflection on the pane. And God, she was beautiful, her hair arrowing to a point down her back, black panties doing little to cover the expanse of her ass. With his other hand, he gripped the material of her skirt and held it up. And on the next beat, drew back his hand and delivered one sharp slap onto her ass cheek.