“I think I need more Advil.” He brought me some more, and I washed them down, starting to feel just the slightest bit more human.

“The last person I remember seeing was Connor.”

Ash nodded. “He found you right before you passed out.”

Had he also given me a drink? Possibly the drugged drink? I wished I could remember. “You don’t think he…?”

“No,” Ash dismissed my unfinished question. “No way. Connor wouldn’t do that to you.”

I didn’t exactly share his confidence, but I had other fish to fry at the moment anyway. “So, where exactly am I? Because I thought I had plans to go to New York.”

“You did.” He nodded, looking a bit grim. “But I brought you here to a remote cabin in the California wilderness instead. Without your consent.”

My eyes widened. Nothing like ripping off the Band-Aid. “Excuse me, what?”

“I kidnapped you.” He shrugged. I didn’t find it cute.

“Ash, are you joking?” I looked around and he really didn’t seem to be joking. I was surrounded by a rustic mountain cabin. An expensively-decorated, four-to five-million-dollar range rustic mountain cabin, but still. What the fuck?

“You were passed out.”

“Because someone drugged me.”

“And I didn’t want you to fly to New York. I wanted to spend some time with you. So I rented a car and drove us here.”

“Without my consent.”

He nodded.

“While I was passed out.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Ash, that’s so fucked up and creepy!”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

I looked around, not sure whether his ready agreement creeped me out more or calmed me down. Crazy people didn’t know they were crazy, right?

I had been planning on flying back to New York today, but I hadn’t bought my ticket yet. My parents didn’t expect me back for another few days, nor did my boss at the library or my piano students. It wasn’t a disaster. But it wasn’t what I’d planned. And he hadn’t exactly asked me first.

“Where are we again?”

“Mammoth. Near Yosemite.”

“In the mountains?”

He nodded. “And I may as well tell you we’re in the middle of a huge snowstorm. We won’t be able to get out of here for a few days.”

“What?” Now I remembered hearing something about it, people talking about the West Coast storm of the century at the party before his show. People from California were saying they might spend an extra night or two in Vegas instead of trying to fly back into delays and possible airport closures.

To offer confirmation, Ash walked over to a sliding glass door and flicked on a light switch. Outside, thick swirls of white enshrouded every inch.

“Oh my God.”

“We’ve got plenty of food and firewood and a generator in case we lose electricity.”

“You are crazy.” Who did that, driving to a remote cabin, intentionally cutting yourself off from civilization in the midst of a massive storm? I could practically hear my mother’s voice in my ear, asking if we had enough canned goods and had we checked for batteries in all of the flashlights.

“Yeah, I am. But I’ll take good care of you while we’re here.” He smiled and I felt the start, just the slightest start of something else in me. Something not like a headache or a hangover or storm-induced panic. Something warm in response.

“Are you hungry? I’m not much of a cook but I can boil some mean pasta.”

My stomach rumbled in response. I realized I hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours. It was loud enough that he heard it and, chuckling, he headed into the kitchen.

I sat on the couch. Not only did my legs not exactly feel like standing up, I wasn’t ready to cheerfully pitch in on a romantic cabin dinner together. I still felt so disoriented. Hadn’t I been wanting a break from Ash?

It was still hard to remember much of last night, but I could remember feeling like I needed to get away. Catching glimpses of Ash with all those celebrities. We’d been in the same room and yet I’d felt miles apart. I’d been filled with the conviction that things were wrong between us and couldn’t be set right.

Then he emerged from the kitchen in a T-shirt and jeans, walking toward me in wool socks. It was the socks that did me in. They looked warm and homey and not at all cool. He carried two heaping bowls of pasta, topped with red sauce and parmesan cheese.

“Sorry, I just guessed that you liked sauce and cheese. I should have asked first.”

“Oh, you think? Is asking first a good idea?” I couldn’t help but jab him. You couldn’t just drag a passed-out woman off into a remote cabin in the wilderness. People didn’t do that sort of thing. Even if the cabin was like something out of a home decorating show, with accents of burnished bronze and charming antique snowshoes displayed above the fireplace. What was the ceiling, like 25 feet high? Not that something like that would impress me enough to forget how very wrongly he’d behaved.

I set my mouth into a scowl. But I couldn’t keep it like that, not as I forked a large bite of pasta into my mouth. Spaghetti, al dente. Yes, I was sure the sauce came from a jar but I could tell it was a fancy jar, some kind of gourmet sauce that probably cost over $10 a pop. I couldn’t stop a moan from escaping my mouth as I licked my lips.

“This is good.” I admitted, looking over at him. He was fixated on my lips, right where my tongue had last traveled. Heat flared up in me, but I tamped it down. What had Ash been thinking, kidnapping me like a caveman? He’d practically thrown me over his big, broad shoulder, taking me here alone where he could ravish me all day and all night. Uh oh, there was that flush again. I kept my eyes focused on my pasta and ate a while in silence.

I cleared my plate. “Thank you,” I said, placing it down on a coffee table. “I was starving.”

“Are you feeling any better?” he asked, settled next to me on the couch.

I nodded. I was. Still tired, my limbs felt heavy, but the pounding in my head was subsiding. Sitting there by the crackling warmth of the fire, Ash starting to play with a lock of my hair, I had to admit I was feeling all sorts of things. But confused was one of them.

“I’m all mixed up,” I confessed, for lack of a more sophisticated way of saying it. I guessed that was the thing about feeling mixed up, you were too mixed up to express it in a clear, coherent fashion. “I was going to leave today but you kidnapped me. The thing is, Ash, we live in completely different worlds.”

“Not right now we don’t.”

I sighed. “Not right now. But right now isn’t reality.”

“It is right now.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

He smiled slightly and kept right on twirling my hair around his finger, stroking it in the firelight. “I’m sorry you’re feeling mixed up. But I’m not sorry I kidnapped you.”

I nudged him with my elbow. “Do you realize how crazy you sound?”

He nodded. “I feel even crazier.”

Something about the husky note in his voice made me swallow. I felt so aware of his hand in my hair. This man’s physical presence affected me like no other. I’d been practically at death’s door a few hours ago, and here he was, breathing life right back into me with every stroke, every touch. A slight shiver whispered down my spine.

“Cold?” he whispered, drawing closer.

I shook my head no. He knew I wasn’t cold. He knew how he affected me. But I was still angry with him. Or at least I was supposed to be, wasn’t I?

Tags: Callie Harper Beg For It Erotic
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