Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Even if “nowhere” ended up being a quiet hotel bar, dim-lit where he could hide himself in the shadows and sink himself into shot after shot of vodka.
He tried to take it slow, pace himself…but what the fuck did it matter? Maybe he’d follow in his dad’s footsteps. Give himself liver cancer. Not tell anyone about it until he was almost dead, but who the fuck would even mourn him? He didn’t have an ex-wife or a kid or anyone but a valet who didn’t even like him; he just coddled Ash for a paycheck, and before the week was up Brand would probably figure out working for Ash wasn’t worth it and just…quit.
And then he’d have no one.
No one except Vic looking at him with pity, and the people whose beds he shuffled through just to pass the time.
There was Andrew. Andrew wasn’t anyone and he wasn’t anyone to Andrew.
But if he was with Andrew tonight, he wouldn’t feel so alone.
He wasn’t sober enough to be making this decision. But he wasn’t sober enough to stop himself, either, and as he paid his tab and wove out of the bar, he called for another black car pickup. He saw the world through a haze of street lights, running in the vodka blur like a city seen through a rain-fogged window, as the car took him out to the waterfront bank of ridiculously high-priced condominiums where Andrew lived on his mother’s pension. Hell, he might not even be home. Ash didn’t know what he’d do, then. Go home, maybe.
Go home, and wait until Brand Forsythe fell asleep before slipping into his bed, pressing against his back, and begging the man not to look at him, not to make him feel ashamed of this quiet and lonely need.
The black SUV let him off outside Andrew’s gate, tall wrought-iron that creaked open to Ash’s touch. The lights were on upstairs in the sleek modern-deco townhouse, and when he slouched against the entryway and pressed the doorbell, the echoing chime inside was followed by Andrew’s call of “Coming!” and the heavy clatter of feet on the stairs.
Then he was there—handsome and familiar and easy, and his face lit up with a touch of curious interest as he saw Ash. “Ash, hey—thought when you didn’t answer my text—”
“I had shit going on,” Ash said.
He bit his lip, looking up at Andrew—tanned and boyish and disarming, utterly shallow and vapid and perfect for what he wanted right now and all wrong for what he needed. Andrew was so passive, always went along with what Ash wanted…and until now, he’d always thought that was exactly what he craved.
Only now he wasn’t sure what he wanted at all.
Only that it was easy to forget with Andrew, and he’d take that if nothing else.
“I’m drunk,” he said, then stepped closer, curling his fingers in Andrew’s shirt and jerking him close. “And I want you.”
He stretched up on his toes and pressed his mouth to Andrew’s. Andrew made a startled sound—one that melted into an eager murmur as he leaned in, his hands grasping at Ash, rough and clumsy and fumbling at his clothing.
“Oh hell yeah,” Andrew gasped, dragging Ash inside and into the foyer, his tongue tracing Ash’s mouth and then teasing inside. Ash almost thrust away right then and there; he was used to Andrew’s fumbling, sloppy kisses, but he didn’t want Andrew inside him like that, knowing him, making it intimate. He tore his mouth from Andrew’s and distracted himself by pressing his lips to his strong, tanned throat, kissing and licking and biting. Groaning, Andrew went limp—and didn’t protest when Ash shoved him against the wall inside the foyer, slipping his hands under his clothing to run his fingers over his hard, toned body, that beach-body athleticism that Ash used to find casually appealing but now felt plastic and fake.
Fuck.
Fuck.
He could feel Andrew’s cock pressing against his belly, hard and hot through his jeans, but Ash?
Ash wasn’t hard at all. Wasn’t anything.
If anything, he felt slimy. Sick. Violated, even though he was here willingly. Even though he’d started this.
With a groan, he leaned into Andrew, resting his brow to his chest and slipping his hands out from under his shirt. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I can’t. I fucking can’t. This is fucked up.”
Andrew’s hold on him tightened, then loosened and fell away. “Ash…?” he asked, voice thick with desire, breaths rushed—but Ash only shook his head, pulling away.
“I shouldn’t be here.”
“What…?”
“I shouldn’t be here.” Ash swallowed roughly, watching Andrew’s confused face in complete misery. Andrew looked like a confused puppy, adorable but completely empty and without substance. “I…I shouldn’t have come here just because you were easy and it would make me feel better. I’m sorry.”
Andrew looked puzzled, but just shrugged, smiling affably and scrubbing his fingers through his crop of dusty brown hair. “Hey. No strings, right? Never any hard feelings.”