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Ellie rose gracefully from the lounger, and my cock, ever hungry for her, hardened.
She came over to me, glancing down at my unapologetic hard-on, then back up at me. ‘I accept you for who you are. Even when you’re being rigid and uncompromising and arrogant.’
‘You especially like me when I’m rigid.’ I reached out and grabbed her hand, guiding it down to my aching cock to prove my point. ‘Stop trying to pick a fight with me and do something else with that sassy mouth of yours.’
Her fingers closed around me and the combative light left her eyes and she smiled. But there was something wistful in her smile. Something painful.
She doesn’t want this to end.
No. Which made it even more imperative that we end it. Because the longer this went on, the worse it would be for her when it came to a close.
And for you, too.
Maybe. It would hurt a little. But I was good at bearing pain. It was like a gut punch. At first it would take the air from your lungs and you’d fight to breathe, and then, once you could, the pain would set in. But it never lasted. Pain never did.
Only anger, right?
No. I was starting to see another way. And so I used it on her and the pain she was trying to mask, pulling her down with me on the lounger.
And as the sun went down, I used pleasure to make her forget.
At least for a while.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ellie
THE FLIGHT BACK to London was miserable, even though I tried to tell myself I was fine with it. That of course I was going to be feeling slightly sad about our affair ending, but it was only post-holiday blues. Soon it would pass.
I had lots to look forward to, after all: the unexpected thrill of the Monaco opportunity and the chance for a new market for Australis.
I was planning on going to France when I got back to London and visiting Dad at the new workshop Ash had set up. I wanted to check it out and see what Dad thought of the opportunity.
Apparently he was pleased with it, or so Ash said, but it was always difficult to tell with Dad.
You always want his approval. What do you hope he’ll say?
It wasn’t true, though. I didn’t always want his approval. I just...wanted to connect with him. And it wasn’t wrong. And as for what I hoped he’d say... ‘Well done, Ellie’ would be nice, though probably a bit much to hope for.
Ash spent most of the long flight on his computer or on the phone, and I could sense that he was purposefully putting distance between us. I didn’t mind. It was good he was putting that distance there. We were not, after all, an official couple.
We’d both agreed that once we’d got back to London, we’d wait for a month or so and then let word get out that we were no longer ‘officially’ together. Purely for Delaney’s benefit, of course.
I felt bad for deceiving the old man, but since Dumont had basically given Ash the islands he’d wanted and Delaney had seemed to find that more convincing than me being Ash’s girlfriend, I was okay with it.
After a few hours in the air, I was feeling tired and, since I’d hardly had any sleep the night before, too busy drinking my fill of Ash before we ended it, I curled up on the couch with a blanket over me, trying not to remember how he’d taken me here.
He’d made me feel so good that day. So powerful...
I curled in on the ache in my heart and tried to pretend it wasn’t there, shutting my eyes determinedly.
I didn’t think I would sleep, but I did, only waking when Ash shook my shoulder lightly and told me we were coming in to land.
It didn’t take long and with customs formalities surprisingly quick, we were in Ash’s Land Rover and on the way back to my flat before I was ready.
A heavy silence had fallen between us and I didn’t know how to break it. I didn’t want this to become too heavy or too dramatic, because it shouldn’t be. This was only the end of an affair. A really wonderful affair, but only an affair nonetheless.
Certainly it had been about more than sex, yes, I’d admit to that. But nothing worth extending. Nothing worth making permanent.
