Look After You (16 page)

“Absolutely,” he says eagerly. “Let me just head up to my locker then I’m all yours. I’ll be right back.” I watch him as he jogs to the elevators and my eyes zone in on his perfect rounded ass as I watch the creases of the denim as they move sexily from side to side. Without thinking I lick my lips, my entire body tingling with anticipation while my inner body clenches with sexual need. I inwardly have to slap myself when he enters the elevator and leaves my peripheral vision. I tell myself that I cannot have those kinds of feelings for him, that it is extremely bad to have such sexual thoughts about a human being while being committed to another. That doesn’t stop me visualizing what he might look like naked though, in the shower, in bed...

I have to shake the R-rated thoughts out of my head before I need to take a cold
shower, especially after visualizing how sexy he could look sprawled naked on the top of the red hood of his car, perhaps with me under him…

Shit. I can’t be having these thoughts.

I chant a mantra to myself that I am with Sebastian, that I am marrying Sebastian, that I love Sebastian. It works until Ashton comes back, all smiles and seductively kissable, then I am back to square one, totally consumed by the thoughts of him.

“You ready?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say with a smile.

He leads me through the open foyer, towards the main entrance. “So where would you like to go and eat?”

I look up at him as we walk through the cool Seattle breeze. “How do you feel about Mexican?” I answer, and I can’t help but smile when his eyes light up with excitement.

“I love Mexican food.”

We approach his car, and like a gentleman he opens the passenger car door for me. I blush when I glance at the hood of his car, remembering the naughty thoughts I was thinking minutes before. He smirks at my reaction as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking. Once I am safely seated, he gently closes the door behind me, then rounds the car to the driver’s side with a gentle jog. Once he’s inside the car and buckled up, he starts the engine up and reverses out of the parking space.

“So, I know of this great Mexican place, in downtown Seattle. Shall we head there? Or do you have a preference?”

I smile, turning towards him as I buckle in my seatbelt. “No, no preference. I’m happy to go anywhere.”

“Okay then,” he says, turning to me briefly, givi
ng me his panty-dropping smile.

After a moment of silence, I
’m the first person to speak.
“So Lily has improved even more since yesterday, they should be able to take her off the CPAP machine in the next couple of days.”

He glances at me for a brief moment before turning his attention b
ack to the road in front of us. “I know, I spoke to the hospital this morning. It’s awesome news.”

I stare at him with m
y mouth gaped open in surprise. “Really?”

“What, that it
’s awesome news? Because I-” he begins with a little confusion but I cut him off. “No. That you called the hospital on your day off.”

He smiles as he
turns to me for a brief moment. “Yeah, of course, I wanted to make sure she was doing okay. She’s one of my favorite patients,” he says with a wink. I can’t keep the smile from practically exploding from my face. Even on his day off, he wanted to check on her. I am pretty sure my feelings for him just skyrocketed. The flutter in my heart confirms it.

We chat idly for about fifteen minutes until we are par
ked in front of the restaurant. Even before I have taken my seat belt off, he already has my door open. I don’t say anything, I just laugh lightly at his eagerness as I get out of the car. I feel the palm of his hand lightly touch the bottom of my back as he leads me to the entrance of the restaurant, and for the second time since being in his presence today, the hairs on my neck stand up.

We are told it will be a twenty minute wait for a table, so the waitress leads us to an open bar in the center of the restaurant, and we take a seat on the bar stools. I can’t help the tingle that surrounds the bottom of my back as soon as Ashton retracts his hand. I take a moment to have a look around the restaurant, immediately feeling as if I have been transported to Mexico, with the traditional bright oranges, yellows and greens. The walls have various bright paintings, some of hot red chilies, one of a green lizard that is seriously giving me the creeps, a couple with colorful Mexican dancers, o
thers with sombreros and cacti. I notice that in every corner of the restaurant is a coat stand full of sombreros in various bright colors. The music keeps up with the traditional cultured theme of the restaurant as I hear subtle sounds of instrumental guitar strings creating an acoustic folk sound in the low-lit room.

“What would you like to drink?” Ashton asks me as I turn towards the bar, picking up a drinks menu and skimming through it.

“Well I would love a margarita,” I say, looking down at a mouth-watering picture of a strawberry margarita on the menu. I glance back to Ashton, sighing, “But I’m still breastfeeding so I’ll have to stick with water,” I say, placing the drink menu down on the bar. I notice how his eyes flicker down to my breasts for a brief moment at my mention of breastfeeding, and I am almost a goner.

“Would it really suck if I ordered a beer?” he says with a sly smirk crossing his face. I raise my eyebrow wryly, in mocked annoyance. He chuckles at my response adding, “I’ll promise I will keep it to the one.”

Once we have ordered our drinks, and the waiter places them on the counter, Ashton turns his full attention back to me. “So, what’s your story?” he asks, while taking a generous swig of beer from the bottle. It takes a long moment for his question to register. I am suddenly lost in a trance as I stare intently at the way his neck sexily constricts and flows with each swallow. I have to clench my legs together at the heavy, pounding heat I feel at the thought of my lips on his neck, sucking against his tanned skin.

“My story?” I ask with surprise, taking a refreshing sip of my iced water through the straw.

“Yeah. I only know a handful of things about you. I want to know who Ava Jacobson is. The real Ava.” A shudder runs up my back as he leans towards me, his knee brushing against mine for a split second. I nervously take another mouthful of my drink through my straw, taking the moment of silence to gather my thoughts. It isn’t a question I have ever had to answer before. I just shrug my shoulders, as I place the glass back down on the bar. “There isn’t much to know.”

He takes another casual sip of his beer from the bottle, giving me the ‘bullshit’ look.
“Now, we both know that’s bull, Ava. I know there is so much more to you, and I’m not talking about the sadness you try to hide behind those beautiful eyes of yours.” The way he describes me as beautiful again almost has me melting into the barstool. He continues, “I’m not asking you to delve into your deepest and darkest secrets here. I’m asking about the normal, trivial Ava things. In fact while we wait for a table, let’s play twenty questions. My turn first. What’s your favorite color?”

My eyes widen with humor at his quick question, and for a moment I honestly think he must be joking because why an earth would he want to know something so mundane like my favorite color?
“Are you being serious?”

“Deadly.”

I smirk, before answering. “Well it depends, I change my mind all of the time. At the moment, my favorite color is mint-green. My turn. What’s your favorite color?” I ask without a moments thought.

He raises his eyes, mocked humor soaring through his smile.
“Hmm, how predictable and easy.”

“Just answer the question.”

He smiles at my deadpanned response. “Well if I haven’t already made it obvious,” he points to himself with his beer bottle and says, “blue, navy to be exact.”

During the next nine or so questions I find out that he was fifteen when he lost his virginity during summer camp, and it lasted a whole fifteen seconds. When he was
six-years-old, he wanted to be a cowboy when he grew up but actually formed a phobia of horses in his later years so didn’t follow through with that career. His most embarrassing moment was during his freshman year in college, where he got so wasted at a frat party that he woke up the next morning in a pair of women’s hot pink panties, and his chest hair shaved into the superman logo. That image had me laughing hysterically for five minutes straight. I would have given up my right arm up to see that.

His favorite food is his mother
’s homemade roasts. Ever since moving to Seattle nine years ago, it’s her mashed potatoes that he has missed the most and no matter how many times he makes his own, step by step from his mother’s special recipe they never taste the same. His childhood pets consisted of two hamsters, a gold fish and a chocolate Labrador. However, the gold fish only lasted a week. His younger brother Christopher purposely flushed it down the toilet, and being three-years-old, his reasoning behind it was, ‘I just felt like it.’ Typical children. I learn that he is one of three boys. Ashton is the oldest at thirty-three, Christopher, the brother Ashton lost at war three years ago would have been twenty-nine, and then there is Tyler who is the same age as me at twenty-eight. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to him, my hand grasping his at the mention of Christopher, understanding only too well the excruciating pain of his loss. Ashton gives me a sad smile, his hand tightening around mine. There’s a moment of silence and just when he is about to say something else, the waitress suddenly appears to move us to an available table.

We follow her to a cozy little section of the restaurant as she leads us to a two-person table. Once we are seated, and we have ordered our food, he takes another drink of beer, resuming with his next question for me.
“So, where were we? Oh yeah, it’s my turn,” he states with a sly grin matching his smug attitude, and then continues. “What’s the most reckless thing you’ve ever done?”

The question hits me in a vulnerable place, and I don’t know what the hell possesses me to do it, what possesses me to give the answer I give him, but it seems to spew out from my mouth before I actually have a moment to register what I said.

“I ran away from home,” I blurt out, immediately regretting it. At first he gives me an amused smirk, then when he notices my serious stance the smile quickly fades, his face paling. I look down at my glass filled with mineral water, the contents of it suddenly becoming the most intriguing thing I have ever set eyes on as tension fills the air. I hear the concern in the croak of his voice immediately. He knows this is no joke. “You’re being serious, aren’t you?”

I don’t answer. I just continue to stare down at my glass of water.

“Ava?” I want to ignore him. I desperately want the ground to swallow me up into nothingness, but the way my name slides off his tongue, all husky and warm, I can’t resist looking up at him. It is almost like a magnetic force, the pull too strong to stay away. He leans forward, placing his hand on mine. “Ava, talk to me.”

I shake my head, trying to pull his hand from mine, but his grip is too powerful to loosen.
“I shouldn’t have mentioned it, just forget I said anything.” I look down as his thumb strokes the top of my hand and instant shivers cover me from head to toe.

“You can talk to me. You can trust me,” he urges, almost desperately. When I glance back to him, my heart constricts when I see the look in his eyes. The green hues show the purity of Ashton’s words and I find myself falling into them, opening up to him, effortlessly. I tell him my story of running away, but I leave out the important reason why I ran away. I am not ready to talk out loud about my demons with him, at least not yet, if I’ll ever be ready.

He must sense my reluctance to explain the why’s as he never pushes the question and I am grateful for the space he gives me, even though I just admitted part of my biggest secret.

“Thank you for telling me, Ava,” he says gently as he continues to caress his thumb against my hand, lulling me into absolute calmness. “Can I ask you one question though?” I don’t respond, I just continue to gaze
into those hypnotic green eyes of his. He continues. “Why run away? Why didn’t you get help? Surely there was somebody you could have gone to, somebody who would have helped you.” I ponder over his words for a second, understanding his curiosity. I desperately try to rack my brain for somebody who could have come to my rescue, to save me from the monster, but I come up blank. “There was nobody. I…just...running away was my only option. If I didn’t run away, then I probably wouldn’t be sat here right now.”

He shakes his head slowly, his jaw locked in a tight vice. He is quiet for a moment, his somber eyes tracing my face as if he is t
rying to memorize every fragment of it, just in case I disappear in front of him. Then he says something that will be inscribed in my mind until the moment I die.
“Well that isn’t even worth thinking about. A world without you is a world not worth living in.”

I take a sharp intake of breath at his beautiful statement, shocked and surprised. My heart slams against my chest, and for a moment it feels like cupid has just taken a
shot with his bow and arrow, zeroing straight for my heart, filling me with love.

I don’t have an opportunity to reply since the waitress appears with our food, evidently ruining our moment. I wouldn’t know what I would say to that anyway. After one last gentle stroke against my hand, he pulls away, but not once taking his eyes away from me. Immediately I hate how cold my hand feels now
 it’s empty. I miss his touch already.