Page 15 of Role Play
His smirk was back and he folded his arms as he stared down at me. Literally down since he was a whole foottaller.
Oh, God.What have I done?I just yelled—literally yelled at my boss in the middle of a fetish bar where he was apparently one of the few people who knew about that back area. My knees trembled and I tightened my quads in a failed attempt to stop thequaking.
“Well,” Ash said slowly. “Alright, then. Sorry about thatAndrea.”
Both Andrea and I stared at him, mouths agape. He lifted an eyebrow and directed the next question at me. “You think I can’tapologize?”
I gulped. “I think you’re a powerful man. And in my experience, powerful men tend to see apologies as a weakness.” I lifted my chin just a touchhigher.
“That’s probably true of a lot of men,” Ash said in a surprising twist. “But not me. I think there’s power in someone knowing when they’ve fucked up.” He looked once more to Andrea. “I’m sorry. A lot of the regulars here tend to be very private about this place.” Andrea was still standing behind the bar, frozen, her mouth hanging open. There wasn’t much that left that girl speechless. Then, turning back to me, Ash said, “We have a lot of systems in place to keep the private section of LnS hush-hush. Few people know it exists and even fewer know the details inside.” He smiled playfully and rocked back on his heels. “Guess we didn’t account for someone withyourdeductive reasoning waltzingin.”
God, his eyes. Every time he looked at me, it felt like he was seeing into my soul. Slicing me open like a surgeon, only instead of seeing muscles and organs, he was looking inside at my innermost thoughts and freaking desires. Right now? Tonight? I didn’t care he was my boss. I didn’t care that Uncle Richard was his boss. All I wanted was to rip open that shirt, scatter the buttons across this bar’s floor and run my tongue along that tannedthroat.
“My eyes are up here, you know,” Ash said, and I snapped out of it. Oh God. I’d been staring at his neck. Like I was a freaking sparkly vampire or some shit. I dove for my drink, wrapping my lips around the straw and drinking hard. Anything to give myself something else to do—something else to look at. Other than Ash and his bright blue eyes and sexy smile and muscled throat… shit, I was doing itagain.
His laugh echoed through the bar, over the thrum of the music. Then, leaning in, I could feel his hot breath against my ear. Blowing my hair back— my stupid frizzy, mousy hair. And for the first time in a year, I found myself wishing I had done more than just run a brush through it this morning. For the first time in a year, I wished I looked prettier. More like the girl I used tobe.
And that wasterrifying.
I had vowed to never dress for anyone butmyselfagain. No man should ever be able to bring back that girl. The girl who was so eager to please her mother, her boyfriend, her sorority sisters, that she didn’t even know what she really wanted in life. And the man who brought back that side of me?Hewas the one to stay awayfrom.
“It’s okay,” Ash whispered. “I’ve been staring at your neck too. I’m just a lot better at hidingit.”
He was like a spider. And now that he knew how to trap me, he could spin a web that I was sure to fly rightinto.
“This is not good,” I whispered, feeling my face gohot.
Ash chuckled and took a sip as he nodded. “You’re telling me. I just came out tonight to have a drink, get away from the crew, blow off some steam… and try to get my mind off ofyou.” I snapped my gaze back tohim.
No. No, I didnothear him correctly. Was it possible that the tingly connection I felt with him not once, buttwicetoday on set, he actually felt, too? He spoke into his glass, like he was talking to it, not me. “Had no idea I’d find you here. It’s like a damn blessing and a curse rolled intoone.”
I swallowed hard. The consistent beat of the music pulsed, matching the rhythm of my heart. The ice inside my glass was melting and the outside was sweating, creating cold droplets of water gliding over my fingertips. The dim lights somehow gave the bar an appearance of being smoky even though smoking wasn’t allowed. “So, what do we do now?” Iasked.
Ash sighed. “We finish our drinks. And each go on our way. Deal?” He held his glass out to mine. Tentatively, I lifted it and clinked the lip of my glass to the edge of hisbourbon.
“Deal.”
* * *
“You have gotto be kidding me!” I cried, leaning forward on my bar stool. “There is no way that Liza Minelli is more talented than JudyGarland!”
Ash gave me a doubtful look and shrugged. “You have your opinion and I havemine.”
“But your opinion is wrong and stupid and—and—and how can you call yourself a director and make that claim?” I knew my voice was shrieking, and yet I couldn’t help it. Not with that asinine statement he justmade.
He laughed, dropping his head. “Look. From what I’ve seen, Judy was a one-trick pony. She had a beautiful voice, but she almost always played the ingénue. Liza can do it all… sing, dance, she could play a serious role and also do comedy like amotherfucker.”
“You have clearly never seenA Star isBorn.”
“And you have clearly never seenArrested Development.” Ash tapped the tip of my nose with his index finger. Sometime during the silly, heated discussion, we had inched closer and closer together until we were merely a few inchesapart.
My breath deepened, and I could feel the intense tightness in my chest. I was so close that I could count his eyelashes; could see the way his eyes weren’t just blue, but more of a cerulean color with the outer edges, deep cobaltrings.
We said we would finish our drinks together—but the one turned into two. And now, we were nearly nose to nose staring at each other in a way that left me feeling achingly vulnerable and also ready to strip down to nothing right here at the bar forhim.
I cleared my throat and pushed away my empty glass. “I should probablygo.”
Ash tilted his head, asking why without even uttering aword.
