Burn (Breathless #3)(24)

“Bethany,” Ash pointed out. “You’re a lucky son of a bitch to have her. She’d give you the moon and you know it.”

“So what’s the problem with your woman du jour?”

Ash scowled. “That’s just it. She’s not just any woman. I don’t know, man. She hits buttons that a woman has never pushed for me.”

“Oh shit. It’s happened,” Jace crowed. “The smug son of a bitch who gave me and Gabe so much grief has finally fallen hard and from the sounds of it she isn’t exactly reciprocating.”

Ash flipped up his middle finger. “It’s too early for that. She just intrigues me. I want her,” he said bluntly. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to get her in my bed. The problem is, she isn’t exactly tripping over herself to get there.”

“Now this is hilarious. Women kill themselves to get next to you. You’re the charming one. Not as hard-ass as Gabe and I are.”

Ash barely held back the snort. His friends were sadly mistaken on that score. He might give the appearance of being the easygoing, laid-back one, but when it came to women, what he wanted, what he needed? There was no charm, no being laid-back. It had been years since he’d let that part of himself go with a woman. He still remembered her fondly. He’d just turned thirty. She was a few years younger than him. They both wanted and enjoyed the same things and when he’d actually let her see him for what he was, she hadn’t balked.

He still thought of Cammie from time to time. Wondered where she was. If she was married with children. And wondered if she’d found a man to satisfy her submissive streak.

She and Ash had parted as friends. She’d wanted more than he could give her. At the time he was solidly married to his career, trying to make HCM into what it was today. She wanted to settle down, have a family, live the American dream. And Ash hadn’t been prepared to do that.

It wasn’t that he minded the idea of marriage to her. She was a beautiful woman, fun to be with. He could have grown to love her. He knew that. But he’d wanted to wait. He hadn’t wanted to marry her when he wasn’t absolutely certain he could provide for her every need.

Now? Marriage and commitment seemed to be the next logical step. Gabe and Jace had taken the plunge. They were all at a point in their careers where they could step back, relax, focus on things other than business.

But while Gabe and Jace had found that perfect woman, someone who embraced and accepted the kind of men they were and loved them in spite of their imperfections, Ash hadn’t yet met a woman who fulfilled the parts of his heart that weren’t satisfied by his career and good friends.

“She wants me,” Ash said. “She wants what I can give her, but as much as I can see that she wants it, she’s hesitant.”

“I know patience isn’t one of your virtues, but perhaps this is one time you need to get acquainted with the concept.”

The heavy amusement in Jace’s voice just made Ash grumpy. Patience? Definitely not one of his virtues. And he definitely wasn’t going to start getting up-close and personal with the idea now of all times. Not when he wanted something as badly as he wanted Josie.

And he still couldn’t explain it. Obsession. It was a word he’d associated with Jace when it came to Bethany, and Ash had come down hard on Jace for it. He hadn’t understood it. He’d even tried to talk Jace down, going as far as doing a background check on Bethany and then warning Jace off.

It wasn’t one of his better moves, because Bethany had been the best thing that had ever happened to Jace. It was a good thing his friend hadn’t listened to Ash’s advice, and now that Ash found himself in a similar predicament, he could well understand Jace’s uncharacteristic reaction to Bethany.

“Let me ask you something,” Ash said, his tone serious. “In the beginning with Bethany. Did you sit back and wait or did you move in, take charge and take over?”

Jace winced, his face contorting with a grimace.

“I tried at first to be patient, take things slow. But that lasted a very short period of time. I wanted to give her time to adjust. I mean, her circumstances were different than most. It made me crazy to think of her not having a place to sleep, and when I moved her into Mia’s old apartment it made me crazy because she wasn’t with me all the time even though we were together every day. But I wanted her in my apartment. As long as she was living somewhere else, I didn’t feel like she was completely mine. It sounds nuts but I wanted to know where she was every minute. It makes me sound like a f**king stalker, and maybe that’s what I was. Hell if I know. I just knew that I wanted her with me. Every day. In my apartment when I got home. In my bed every night. Not in another apartment where she could bolt at any time even though I had men on her.”

“Yeah, that didn’t work out too well if I remember right,” Ash said dryly. “Didn’t she bail on them and disappear for a few hours?”

“An entire day,” Jace muttered. “Hell, I thought she’d left me or walked out, but all she did was go find Jack, and I still get tense just thinking of all that could have happened to her in those few hours.”

“I didn’t get it then,” Ash admitted. “I thought you’d lost your mind. But I get it now, because I feel the same way about Josie. And it’s crazy. We’ve only seen each other a few times and had only one date where we actually spent more than a few minutes in each other’s company. I’m still kicking myself for not pressing her harder at dinner. She was so close to agreeing, but the dumbass that I am, I backed off because I didn’t want to overwhelm her, so I granted her wish for time to think. Well, that was a f**king week ago and I haven’t heard shit since our dinner.”