-10-

 

Four laps of the island did little to soothe Ash’s mood. Nor could the shower rinse away his hurt. Ash slumped on the bed, wishing the duvet would eat him up. He’d been in the same position for almost half an hour when Ginny returned carrying a wad of paper, which she slapped down on top of the sideboard. Ash raised his head, only marginally interested in the documents. That interest evaporated the moment he clocked her attire.

No bra. No panties. Just the T-shirt Spook had been wearing earlier.

He watched her dump her underwear in the washing basket along with the dress she’d been wearing when he left her.

Fuck!

He blinked a dozen times or so, while trying to frame a rational explanation for why his girlfriend was wearing another man’s shirt.

Maybe there even were a few besides the one hammering his frontal lobes and making him want to scream and beat his chest. He settled for propping himself up on his elbows and watching her breeze around the room, doing he wasn’t really sure what.

“Ginny?”

“We need to talk,” she said, coming to an abrupt halt to the side of the bed.

Oh, Jeezus. Effing. Christ.

“With him. Really? You’re not serious?” He knew the two of them were close, and that they often had a good chinwag together about all his faults, but he hadn’t seriously thought…

Ginny’s eyes narrowed down to slits, and she squinted at him, one elbow bent so that it rested on her hip. “What? Oh my God. You think… You honestly think.” She coughed and tottered backward on her heels. “Christ! That’s what you believe of me, that I was about to admit to shagging Spook? How do you come up with this crap?”

“You’re wearing his shirt.”

She looked down at her attire. “Yeah. I got wet. Did you forget that? You wanted to be alone, and I was freezing. Your mate happens to be a gentleman.”

Yeah… Yeah, Spook was that, and no, he hadn’t forgotten. Of course, he hadn’t forgotten she’d pushed him in the lake and jumped in afterwards. Okay, so actually he’d totally mislaid that fact. Only temporarily mind, probably a side-effect of having her flash that much leg at him. “You took your panties off,” he claimed as a defence.

“I don’t enjoy sitting in wet knickers, and this shirt’s longer than the skirt I was wearing the night we met. I don’t remember you moaning about my lack of panties that evening.”

Ash bit his lip, and studiously ignored the heat he could feel rising through his neck that was also making his ears burn. “Sorry.” It looked as if yet again he’d proved himself a humungous dick. “What did we actually need to talk about?”

“Oh, no.” Ginny planted her other hand on her hip too. “I think we’ll stick with this topic, actually. I’m not sure we’re done yet. What the fuck, Ash! Really, you think I’m screwing one of your mates behind your back. No, no, maybe you think I’m at it with all of them. Now, why would you think that, eh? Is it because a) you believe your girlfriend is a slut and your mates don’t care about you, or b) because you have such a crushingly low opinion of yourself that you can’t believe someone this hot would fall for you, and be devoted to you, and stay with you, even though you’re a fucking self-sabotaging idiot and you haven’t screwed me properly in weeks?”

Fuck! He’d evidently hit a nerve, and she was going to make him pay for it. “You never said you wanted to,” he bleated. He’d not really got the impression she wanted him near her. He hadn’t forgotten how she’d pushed him away that first night here.

“You never said you wanted to,” she shot back at him. “Well, apart from once. But then you’re so tied up in yourself, you’re not aware of much, are you?” She walked towards him, something he couldn’t quite make out grasped within her hands. “That has to change, Ash. It has to. You have to start working with them, not against them, and you have to start believing that you can be everything you want to be. If you put in the effort and work for it.”

“I am.”

“You are not. Stop pretending, Ash. Please, just stop it and think about what’s going to happen. They’re going to drop you if you don’t do something fast.”

“It’s not my fault that Iain screwed me up.”

“It is your fault that you’re not working as hard as you could to undo that damage though.” She pushed him flat against the mattress and slapped something hard against his wrist. By the time Ash had twisted his neck to figure out what it was, she had him handcuffed to one of the bedposts.

“Ginny, what the hell?”

She straddled his chest, and captured hold of his other arm. “Don’t struggle.” She bound that wrist with one of her many, many stockings.

Ash stared up at her, bewildered. Don’t struggle? This was getting surreal, and he really wasn’t all that sure he liked being tied up and at her mercy. Well, perhaps a teeny tiny bit, but that wasn’t the point.

They were arguing. You didn’t willingly put yourself in a position of vulnerability in those circumstances. On the other hand, maybe he needed to prove that his nonsense of a few moments ago was something he regretted and consent to being at her mercy in order to prove he absolutely did trust her.

Ash stilled.

Ginny crossed her arms before her and lifted the offending T-shirt over her head, revealing all her naked glory, high breasts with those big nipples, abs that rivalled his, and, of course, his very favourite bit, that little landing strip that pointed the way to her jewel. “Better?” she asked, watching his expression as his gaze raked across her. “I think it’s better.”

Yeah, better.

“Naked’s good.”

That was something they did agree on. Not that he wasn’t still as confused as hell over what was going on here.

All right, so while his brain was still trying to climb on board with what was going on, other parts of his anatomy weren’t having nearly so much problem. One bit in particular was more than a little keen to nod its agreement to anything she said. Actually, maybe that accounted for his lack of reasoning power. His vital blood supply had been diverted. Also, his cock didn’t much care about the whys and wherefores of this current craziness. It just liked her bossy, mean and fiendish.

God help him if the fact that he liked being taken and had ever got out. He’d get mobbed. Or worse. An image of being squashed under a pile of marauding groupies flashed through his mind.

Scary.

And not in a good way, like say, Ginny binding his ankles as well as his wrists.

“Comfortable?” she asked, having secured the final knot.

“Not really.” He was way too exposed, spread for her pleasure like this, especially after she’d deprived him of the towel he’d had snagged around his waist. Of course, his dirty demoness shrugged like that didn’t matter. “Why are you doing this? Are you gonna torture me?”

“I could.” She snaked her hands over his body, leaving his skin tingling and hypersensitive. “You probably deserve some comeuppance for your behaviour, and all the crazy nonsense you keep coming out with, but I’m not cruel enough to walk away and leave you like this, or call Rock Giant and see if he wants to laugh his arse off over the sight of you all trussed up, and take a few candid snaps to slap up on Instagram.”

Yeah, those things weren’t the sort of torture he had in mind. He was thinking slow, seductive torture, the sort that would have him begging for mercy and seeing stars. The sort that would temporarily allow him to forget how screwed up every other aspect of his life was at the minute.

Ginny walked her fingers down his abs towards his loins, but only circled the area, avoiding the sort of contact his cock was begging for.

“Please,” he mouthed. Somehow, she heard him.

“Please what? Are you going to tell me how I need to wrap my lips around him again? I’ve other plans.” She smoothed her hands down his thighs, then drew them back up again. Then she lowered her head and blew across his skin, sending a tremble through his restrained limbs. She purred in appreciation when he wriggled. “Set yourself still.” She slapped her palm against his abs. “Don’t imagine I don’t know what you want. I know everything. I’m going to touch everything.” She demonstrated with a few grazing touches to sensitive places he hadn’t realised he possessed. “There’s not a single part of you that I’m not going to know by the end of this. I’m going to rub a whole lot of me, against a whole lot of you. I think oil may well be involved, so you’re all slick and slippery.”

Oil? He hadn’t seen her pick it up. Didn’t even know she possessed such a thing, but there it was in her hands. “Hm, now where shall I start? Best bits first, or save them for last?”

The scent of black cherries settled over him as she warmed the liquid in her hands, but she didn’t dribble it over him, or rub it into his skin as he’d expected. No, she rubbed it all over her breasts, until her skin was shiny with it, and her nipples had grown all steepled and jutted towards him as if they couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t yet worshipping them. “Now for the rubbing part.”

The woman was torment incarnate. Anywhere and everywhere, she used her tits to massage the sides of his knees, one of his shins, hips, abs, chest. He came close to capturing one nipple in his mouth, before she reared back on her haunches just as his mouth was ready to claim the prize. “Sorry, I almost forgot, you’re not really a boob man.”

Actually, he was just fine with having hers waggling about before him. More than fine. He liked that she was all delicate and perky. However, Ginny was on the move. She flipped herself around so that she was facing his feet, then shuffled back until her bottom was mooning him at a distance of no more than an inch.

“You’re more of a legs and arse man, correct?”

Maybe. He certainly didn’t object to seeing her derriere shaking about at close quarters, especially not when it meant there were certain other bits shaking into view too. Her pussy lips rubbed over his mouth and chin, intoxicating him with the scent and taste of her. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why they hadn’t been spending more time in bed and doing this over the last few weeks, instead of whatever it was they had been doing, and right now, he sure as hell couldn’t remember what that was.

“You’re not tongue tied, Ash.”

No, just drowning in possibilities.

Ash pushed out his tongue, but she’d moved again before he’d claimed more than a taste in order to torment him with kisses that circled around the position of his cock but never quite landed upon it.

Did she want him to beg? Sure, he’d do it. “Ginny, please. You give the best damn head.”

“Is that so?” She continued to circle. “I seem to recall not so long ago I was only ranked third in your estimation.”

He would never have said that if he’d had any inkling their relationship would last beyond a single night.

“That was only an initial assessment before I’d had a chance to conduct a thorough comparison.”

“I see, so I’m better than Xane? Is that what you’re saying?” Her tongue flicked across the most sensitive bit of his cock. “Don’t even try to deny he’s your number one.”

Ash didn’t say anything. The less said about that supposition the better. His silence earned him another thirty or so seconds of torture that had his toes curling and his back arching off the bed.

“Just tell me what I have to do in order to get laid. Okay? I’m not good at puzzles.”

Ginny shot a glance at him over her shoulder. “One: no more arguing with Xane and Spook, or stomping about like some kind of grizzly bear. Two: I want to see real effort being made into getting yourself fixed. And three: you’d better get me off spectacularly at least once a week from now on, more if you’ve any sense.”

He could mutter the magic words agreeing to all that, but he wasn’t about to lie to her, not even to get laid when he was genuinely interested in earning a decent shag. His libido had been a little wayward of late. Stressing over things and flashes of pain tended to zap the urge right out of him. Of course, indulging in some intimacy would probably have helped take some of the sting out of both of those things.

“I can’t promise not to argue, and I am putting the effort in. Of course, I am.” He’d been working really hard on the material for the new album.

Deep down he knew that’s not what she meant. She probably wanted to see him doing those stupid finger stretching exercises the hospital advocated. “The last part, I have no problem with. My cock is yours to master.”

“Hm. Well, if it’s all the same, I think I’ll make a back-up.”

Say what?

“If you could hold still right there for a minute or three.” Her tormenting kisses ceased, and her oil filled hand surrounded his cock. Ash’s eyes rolled back into his head, as his tensed body arched beneath her. Jeez, what a difference a bit of lubrication made. The stuff was like rocket fuel. He was buzzing in seconds. Even his nose tingled. And his balls, they were fully loaded and gunning for the big showdown the slick swish of her palm was sweeping him rapidly towards.

Oh, this woman. She was maddening and infuriating, and everything that was good in his life.

She was right, he wasn’t sure he did deserve her. It wasn’t super clear to him why she’d stuck with him. He’d at least been a player when they met, now he was a ghost of what he’d been. The lead guitarist who couldn’t play. What friggin’ use was he to anyone?

He hadn’t given up though, despite what she might think, but fixing himself wasn’t a simple task. Much as he wished it were so, he couldn’t think himself back to health. He couldn’t undo the injury to his brain Iain had caused.

“I said you needed to keep still, Ash.”

“It’s a little difficult, when you’re doing that.”

“I guess I’ll stop then. You’re fully loaded, right?”

Stop! “No, don’t do that.” Why’d she want to do that? Ash wasn’t into delayed gratification. He’d spent too much time in his past chasing orgasms that seemed to constantly slide further away, but Ginny didn’t seem to be listening. Her hands were busy doing something else. Was she stirring something, pouring something? He tried to lift his shoulders up so that he could see what she was up to, but the restraints didn’t allow him to do more than wiggle sexily.

“Ginny?”

“Hm, yeah, technical hitch. Just a minute. If I do this, that could work. Okay, got it.”

Something warm surrounded his shaft. Something warm that wasn’t her mouth, hand, or any other part of her anatomy. It felt a little like he was surrounded by custard. Not that he’d ever dipped his dick in custard. The lip of something hard and circular was now pressed to his skin.

“What are you doing?”

“Guaranteeing I have a back-up option for when you’re being Mister Huffy-Pants. Now hold still. It won’t work if you keep wriggling, and don’t you dare go down on me. I don’t want to end up with a little tiddly one. I want the full-sized model.”

Jeezus! She was using one of those flipping Make Your Own Vibrator Kits, like the one she’d given Xane for his birthday, to take a cast of his cock.

“You didn’t have to tie me up to do this. You could have just asked.”

“Yeah, but I like you all tied up and helpless.” She planted a kiss on his hipbone.

“How long do I have to play statues?”

“Four minutes. Another forty seconds left. Want me to give you a countdown?”

Nope, not especially but she did it anyway. She wriggled the mould off him once they hit zero, and put it safely aside on the nearby table. “We’ll finish that off later.” She disappeared into the en suite and came back holding a face cloth. “Now for a bit of clean up.”

She didn’t get onto the daybed with him, but knelt by the bed and used the warm, rough flannel to clean the oil and cast residue from his skin. While her efforts were functional at first, they soon incorporated distinctly non-essential flourishes, meaning it wasn’t long before she dispersed with the notion of cleaning him, and was instead giving him the hand job of a lifetime.

How on earth had he ever managed to stumble across someone so perfect, and who was actually prepared to put up with him?

“I’m sorry,” he said, not sure what he was apologising for exactly, but knowing he needed to say something.

“Shut up. What are you sorry for? That you haven’t come in two point three seconds? I’ve iron wrists, we’re staying here until that need rises up and overwhelms you. I’m going to watch you make a proper mess of yourself, and I’m going to know it was all my doing. I touched you. I stamped my mark all over you.” She proceeded to leave lip prints all over his skin. “And there’s not a damn thing you could do about it other than lose your shit and come all over your own abs.”

“You could climb up here and fuck me.”

“Could,” she mused. “Not going to. This is punishment after all, for what was it—oh yeah, being a dick and imagining I’m screwing your celibate mate. You know, the cute one with the swishy blond hair and a snow leopard lurking behind his beatific exterior. I think he’d like to plant some dynamite under your arse right now just to be rid of the constant headaches you cause him. I’m a sweeter alternative to dynamite, Ash. You’re going to leave those boys be to finish off that track without your interference, and you’re going to accept that they’re going to Australia without you and maybe even find it within yourself to be okay about that, because we’re going to stay here and work on making sure that it never has to happen again. Are you with me?”

Bodily, maybe. He couldn’t honestly swear that he was listening to what she was saying. His concentration was focussed further down his body than his ears. His balls were getting ready to burst, and his hips were lifting involuntarily in synch with the sweeps of her hand along his shaft. If she wanted him to do actual processing of information, this wasn’t the right way to go about it.

Two strokes of her thumb over his tip and she’d make him come. Literally, he’d be seeing stars. No one could put two and two together properly at a moment like this, and especially not when they were deliberately being held on the brink, an agonising stroke away from release.

“Ginny, please.”

“Say it. Swear you’ll let your perceived problems with Xane’s playing pass, and that you’ll not cause additional stress for everyone by digging in your heels over your exclusion from the trip.”

“I’m never going to be happy about it,” he huffed. Sweat lay beaded across his brow, and his temperature was soaring. His body was warring with his brain. His dick more than ready to fly off to Happy Land, while his mind was snarled up with migraine-inducing thoughts.

“You don’t need to be happy. You just have to accept. Say it. Promise it, and I’ll make all the pain and all the tension go away.”

He couldn’t. Much as he’d like to. He wasn’t going to lie to her.

“At least accept that it’ll be nice to spend some time here alone together.” She did the thumb sweep thing, causing his toes to curl and his breath to hiss out through his teeth.

“I always look forward to spending time alone with you.” If his words were rather disjointed, that was her doing.

Ginny smiled and nodded. “Do you want to come?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“Then come.”

He didn’t know how she did that. He couldn’t even make himself climax on demand like that. Ginny though, she simply had to purr the words and his mind and body joined forces and leapt to oblige. Okay, so it was the brush of her thumb that really tipped him over the edge. He couldn’t cope with the mental intensity of it. His nerves fired all at once. His mind gave way to oblivion. And hot spunk flew and landed all over his stomach. Ginny swirled her index finger through the mess.

“Feeling better now?”

Confused—that’s what he felt. She’d given him pleasure, yet he ached as if he’d gone several rounds with a professional boxer and got himself beaten black and blue. “Ginny, take these damn things off me, will you?”

He swore she actually considered leaving him tied up.

“Okay.” She pouted, and did as he asked, but left the lock on the handcuffs until last. Ash grabbed hold of her as soon as he was free. He rolled them onto the floor, so that he was stretched out above her. “I’m sorry I’ve upset you with my actions,” he confessed. “I’m sorry I’ve neglected you.” His gaze strayed for a second to the mould of his cock she’d left to set on the table.

“If you do it again, I will use Ever Ready Ash.”

He believed that.

“I don’t set out to be belligerent and unreasonable. I just need to feel like I’m contributing something useful, you know?”

“I get it, but the guys aren’t looking for the new Ash. They want the old one. The guy they’ve toured with for the past however many years. They want your flourishes, but they want them to appear as you hear them and as your fingers create them. No one can play the same way you can, Ash. Being able to pick up your guitar and play, that’s the important thing, not anything else. If you can’t play, the fact you’ve sat for hours upon hours in the studio with them working on the album won’t matter. Being able to walk out on stage with them and play for your fans is what’s important. And you need to be able to convince the guys, and manager that you can do that by the middle of next month. Right now, nobody thinks you’re going to pull that off, least of all you. So how do we change that? How do I make you believe in yourself?”

He shook his head, and rolled onto his back. “I don’t know, Gin. I don’t know.”

Was admitting that he knew she was right the first step?

Ginny sat up, with her legs bent before her, and hugged her knees. “Play something for me now.”

“Ginny, I can’t.”

“It doesn’t have to be anything complicated. What’s the first thing you learned to play? It’s okay to start small and ease back into it gradually, as long as you are doing it. Knowing that you’re going to muck up and get frustrated isn’t a reason not to try. It’s just a hurdle you have to get over.”

“I’ll try,” he promised. “But I’m not ready for an audience yet.”

She sighed, but accepted his assertion with a nod, before rising to her feet and hunting around for some clothes. She commandeered one of his T-shirts and pulled it on, along with a pair of his shorts too. “Okay, but pick the guitar up and play, and pick a pen up too. There’s no reason why you can’t write a song. It doesn’t matter if it’s not all that great. Muscles get more flexible with use. The next song might be epic, or the one after that. You can get back what you’ve lost, Ash, you can. I know you can, and if you can’t believe in yourself, then do it out of spite. Show Iain Willows that he hasn’t got the best of you. Show him his efforts amounted to nothing and that Black Halo are stronger than ever.”

“I’ll try,” he promised, catching hold of her and pulling her down so that she was sat astride his lap. “Can I have some of my clothes too, please?”

She tipped her head to one side, so that her dark hair framed her face. “No, I think I’ll keep you naked for the rest of the day. That way I can be sure you won’t go running off and creating trouble.”

He frowned.

Ginny kissed the wrinkles that formed in his brow, until they smoothed out again. “Honestly Ash, I can’t believe you ever thought for a second I’d been getting up to stuff with Spook. What sort of crazy pills have you been taking?”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Hm.” She briefly inclined her head, before rising from him. “Go clean yourself up.”

Ash got to his feet.

“For the record, Spook’s cute, but he’s a control freak. I don’t do anyone whose desire is to manipulate me, or bend me to their will.”

“’kay, so no asking you to submit to me and become my lovehoney. Got it.”

He glanced down at the mess upon his stomach. “Urgh.”

Once inside the bathroom, Ash stood in the dark for several moments sucking down juddery breaths, before he tugged the light cord, and set the extractor fan into motion. He’d promised her, so he’d have to pick up the guitar, but he didn’t know how he’d convince himself to play. His fingers wouldn’t obey, he knew that. He’d established that fact back in July when he’d attempted to jam with the guys. Things hadn’t changed since then. The same fires still flowed down his arm if he twisted his wrist a certain way, and his fingers were forever stiffening up.

He washed himself down and used the loo. When he came out of the bathroom, Ginny was gone. He caught sight of her out of the window darting off toward the woods. He guessed she’d decided to give him some space in order to do that practicing, while she spent more time on the phone to that friend who was always calling. The note she’d left him on the bed said exactly that.

 

I have faith in you. You can do it.

 

Too bad he had virtually none in himself.