The woman behind the counter shook her head. "I'm sorry, but we're fully booked."
"Can you recommend another hotel nearby?"
"All the other hotels I usually recommend are booked, as well. This tends to happen whenever a really big musician comes to town." The woman's eyes drifted to the newspaper on the counter, which had a picture of Drew on the front page. "Are you here for Drew Morrison's show tomorrow night?"
Knowing how the woman would react if she found out Ashley was on tour with Drew, she simply said, "I just really need a place to stay tonight. Are there any other options? Maybe a B&B or--"
She stopped when the woman gasped. "Those models were with him earlier. I think he must be about to come this way."
Ashley shoved away from the front desk so fast she nearly fell. She needed to get on the bus, grab her things, and then figure out where to go from there. Anything but trying to fake it with Drew and the models.
So much for the big night she'd been expecting. Looked like she was going to keep being the good girl her father expected her to be...and that everything made perfect sense after all.
Because the rock star wasn't going to end up with the normal girl.
Chapter Nineteen
Drew hadn't wanted to tighten his grip around the stranger's waist, especially after she'd pressed her mouth to his in a sloppy approximation of a kiss he really didn't want. But she'd been so drunk it had been nearly impossible to keep her upright.
"Let's get you somewhere you can sit down."
"Don't wanna sit down." Her words slurred together. "Wanna be with you."
He helped the woman into a seat and texted James to let him know there was a problem he needed help with. A big one, considering that one moment Ashley had been smiling at him, and the next, when the model had draped herself around him like an octopus, she'd gone completely pale. And then had turned and left the party.
The next text he sent was to Ashley.
Can we talk now? I'll be on the bus in five minutes.
He stared at his phone, waiting for her response. But there was none. He knew he shouldn't have let the damned circus take over. The label had already gotten enough from him today.
And now he needed to find her right away. Needed to explain what had just happened. But most of all, he needed to talk with her about what they were doing. About where their attraction and friendship were taking them.
He'd never wanted anyone as badly as he wanted her--never liked anyone as much either--but having a fling while on tour with her still didn't feel right. Not just because of her father. Of course, he wanted to respect his former professor's wishes. But if there was one thing that Drew had learned from his mother, it was that the most important thing was to follow his own heart, no matter the sacrifice, regardless of how difficult.
And Drew's heart had been leading him toward Ashley since the moment he'd met her.
Ashley deserved more than a fling while they were on the road. They both did. Drew was ready to take the next step, not just into bed with each other, but toward having a real relationship. She'd be his girlfriend, he'd be her boyfriend, and the whole world would know they were together.
But would she want that, too? Or had she meant what she'd said to him out on the beach in Los Angeles? "No one needs to know. Just you and me here on the tour bus having a good time for as long as we're both enjoying ourselves."
If he'd seen the woman coming toward him, he might have been able to sidestep her lunge into his arms. But he'd taken one look at Ashley in that pretty pink dress and had been stunned stupid. Her dress wasn't anywhere near as revealing as the ones the models were wearing, but to Drew it was the sexiest damn thing he'd ever seen. The kind of dress that made a guy wonder about the secrets she had hidden beneath.
Secrets he'd only just begun to learn that afternoon.
Secrets he was dying to uncover completely tonight.
A night that he had been ready to begin hours ago, rather than being here at another party in what felt like a long string of them over the past few years. It was a stereotype that he'd played into for way too long.
He liked hanging out with his family, his friends, his crew. But he didn't need the big flashy parties. Didn't need to see his face and name plastered on walls as some sort of stroke to his ego. It was yet another thing that Ashley had helped him see.
Only, had he realized it too late?
James appeared at Drew's side and looked down at the girl, who was now holding her head and moaning. "Too much to drink?"
"At the very least," he told his bodyguard. "Can you take care of getting her some help? I've got to find Ashley. I'm afraid she has the wrong idea about what just happened here."
"Go find your girl, Drew. I'll make sure this one gets the help she needs to make it home in one piece."
Your girl. He was glad James realized just what Ashley meant to him, even without anything being spelled out publicly.
Drew headed through the crowd toward the exit. He kept his gaze on the door, but people from his label attached themselves to him anyway, all of them wanting a piece of him for something. To take pictures with more people at the party. To sign a hundred more photos for them to send out. To do "just a couple more quick interviews."
A hundred--maybe even a thousand times--before tonight, Drew had given his label whatever they wanted. But he'd finally found something--someone--more important than his music and career. And if he didn't get his act together fast, he was going to lose her.
Now, as the group tried to follow him out, he channeled his father--one of the most easygoing guys in the world, someone everyone liked. "Great party, guys. Great shoot today, too." He made himself smile as genuinely as possible, even though he had a bad feeling that the clock on fixing everything he kept screwing up with Ashley was running out. "Let's reconnect on those extra interviews tomorrow before I leave town. Thanks again."
Before they could try to convince him to stay, he made a fast beeline for the front desk. Ashley still hadn't responded to his text, so he asked the hotel employee, "Did you see a woman in a pink dress leave?"
The woman gaped at him for a few moments before finally saying, "You're Drew Morrison."
Drew went out of his way not to be rude to his fans. He got what it was like to meet someone whose songs you listened to on the radio. Every time he met one of his music idols, he had to fight through the same kind of speechlessness. But tonight he didn't have time to waste.
"I really need to find her. Her name is Ashley."
Finally, the woman snapped back to his question. "Does she have wavy, light brown hair? Really pretty, but not in a flashy kind of way?"
"That's her." Although as far as Drew was concerned, pretty didn't even begin to describe Ashley's beauty.
"I was just talking with her. She asked if I could rent her a room."
Drew bit back a curse. He'd tried to get the model off him at the party, but she'd been so drunk that if he hadn't put his arms around her when she'd tried to kiss him, she would have fallen. Clearly, Ashley had misinterpreted what had happened. And for good reason--it had looked like he'd been kissing someone else. That would have been bad enough after the past week they'd spent together on the road, but after what had happened between them this afternoon? Kissing someone else would make him the biggest douche bag in the world.
"Did you rent her one?"
"No. We're all booked up for the night."
"Did she tell you where she was going?"
The woman shook her head. "She said something about maybe trying to find a B&B, but we were cut off before she told me what her plans were for sure."
Drew ran through the hotel's foyer and out toward the back of the building, where his bus was parked. If Ashley planned to stay in a B&B for the night, she'd probably need to grab her computer first, wouldn't she?
He could barely type in the code next to the door correctly, he was in such a rush, and when it finally clicked open, he nearly tore it from his hinges in h
is haste to get inside. "Ashley?" he called as he hurried up the steps.
Thank God, she was standing right in the middle of the bus. But she had her hands on the bodice of her dress, and it looked like she was trying to rip the fabric apart.
"Ash?" He quickly moved to take her hands in his. "What are you doing?"
"This dress, I hate it. I want it off. Now."
"No, it's beautiful. You're beautiful."
"Stop!" She shook off his hands and moved away from him. "You don't have to keep up the act. You can have them, any of those models and actresses. You didn't have to come here to try to convince me that I'm special, that I'm beautiful, when we both know I'm nothing compared to any of those models or their friends, or even the women in your audiences."
"You're usually right about everything, Ash. But right now, you're wrong. So damned wrong." He'd come to apologize, but he hated hearing her talk about herself as though she were less than anyone else, and he wasn't going to back down about this. "How can you not see that you outshine every single one of them?" He moved close again, put his hands around hers. "What you saw at the party, I swear it was innocent. She was drunk and could hardly stand. I only put my arms around her so that she wouldn't fall. If I could have stopped her from putting her mouth on me, I would have. I swear I didn't want her, Ash. I only want you."
He watched as Ashley's expression slowly changed from angry to surprised. But then, instead of looking happier, she simply looked resigned.
"I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions," she finally said, "but the two of you just looked so natural together. You don't understand how I'm not seeing things that seem obvious to you, but how can you not see that someone like her--like any of the women you've been with today--are a better fit for you?"
"Because she isn't. None of them are, Ash."
"But when your hands were on her hips..." She broke off with a shake of her head. "When I saw you touch her, I realized just how foolish I'm being. You and me--whatever we've been feeling is probably just because of our close proximity on the bus. Or because we each know the other is off-limits so that makes it seem more exciting. But out in the real world--"
His mouth was on hers before he even knew what he was doing. He just couldn't stand to listen to her tell them both lies. Not when everything they'd said to each other before tonight had been completely honest.
This was the real world.
The only world that mattered.
He was too wound up to be gentle. Too scared that he was going to lose her to do anything but thread his hands into her hair and deepen the kiss. He'd tried to show her with words just how much she meant to him, but she stubbornly refused to listen. Which left out every option but this--his mouth on hers, their bodies straining together, the aching need that had been building between them about to combust from nothing more than a kiss.
But then, he realized she was trembling, and sanity washed over him like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head.
"Ash." He slid his hands from her hair to stroke her cheeks, as gentle now as he'd been rough just seconds before. "The last thing I want to do is hurt you. Or scare you."
"You aren't hurting me. And you've never scared me." But when she inhaled deeply, he saw the way it shook through her. "I just...I've never felt this way. Never felt so much. I don't know how to process it. First, I was so happy after this afternoon. And then I was so jealous at the party. And now, after that kiss..." She shook her head. "It's like I'm completely full and yet empty all at the same time. Empty and aching."
"I've never felt like this either. Just with you. I know I'm going too fast, but the thought of losing you--" His chest squeezed tight at the thought of not seeing her every day. Of not being able to talk with her and laugh with her. Of never holding her in his arms again. "I don't want to lose you. Tell me what to do so that I don't keep screwing this up."
"If it were just us..."
She stopped and looked down at their entwined hands, and he finally realized just how small hers were inside his. She was so capable, so strong, that he'd never noticed before just how delicate she was--and it only made him angrier at himself that he'd just been so rough with her. All because he couldn't stand the thought of her leaving his bus tonight and never coming back.
"Honestly," she finally continued, "even just us is complicated, since you're a superstar and I'm just me."
"Just you?" Frustration bubbled up inside him again. "Why can't you see how amazing you are?"
"I know I'm good at numbers. And research. And being a good girl." She made a face. "But I don't know how to do the kinds of things normal, sexier girls do. My mother tried to teach me about clothes and makeup and boys, but I never felt like I measured up, so it was safer not to try to compete."
"I could tell you a million times over how special you are and how sexy," he said in a gentle voice, "but maybe that's where I'm getting it all wrong. Maybe I need to show you, instead. Can I show you, Ash? Can I love you the way you should be loved?"
At the word love her eyes widened and her gaze locked on his. "What about the promise you made to my father?"
"I put you on my bus to make sure that you left the tour the same way you came. But it's too late for that already, isn't it? Both of us have changed. From that very first conversation, nothing has been the same, has it?"
"No," she agreed, "it hasn't."
"I respect your father a great deal. And I'm a man who believes in keeping my promises. But this isn't about your father. You're right that you're not a little girl anymore. You're a woman who can make her own decisions about what she wants. You're a woman I've fallen head over heels for. You're a woman I can't stop thinking about. You're a woman I want to be with more than I've ever wanted to be with anyone in my life. More than I thought it was possible to want." He brought her hand to his chest and held it over his heart. "But you already know that, don't you? Deep in your heart, you can feel that mine is beating only for you, can't you?"
She didn't say anything for a few long moments. Long enough that renewed panic began to sprint up his spine. Ashley had made him happier in the past week than he'd been in a very long time.
Losing her right after he'd finally found her would be unbearable.
Finally, she nodded. "I can feel it, Drew. Everything. I feel everything."
Relief washed over him with such swift strength that he nearly had her mouth crushed beneath his before he realized she still hadn't given him the all-clear. And he'd never forgive himself if he took something from her that she wasn't ready to give, no matter how much pleasure he knew he could give her.
He could feel the unsteady beat of her heart crashing against his as he brushed the hair back from her forehead, looked into her eyes, and said again, "All I want is to love you. But what matters more than anything is what you want, Ash."
Thank God she wasn't shaking anymore as she met his gaze and whispered, "I want to love you, too."
Chapter Twenty
Ashley's heart had been pounding so hard when Drew burst onto the bus that she'd barely been able to hear him say her name through the rush of blood in her ears. And then when he'd tried to get her to stop ripping off the dress, it had only pounded harder. Louder. So hard and loud that she'd felt as though her head were going to explode.
He'd kissed her before that could happen, before she could get any more wound up, before her insides could twist into any more knots. And though her heartbeat was still racing, it wasn't because she was upset. It wasn't because she was nervous either.
Amazingly, now that she'd made the decision to be with Drew, nearly all of her fears about her first time disappeared.
The two kisses they'd shared had been full of so many sexy promises that she couldn't wait one more second to be with him. Because if someone from his crew or the label knocked on their door tonight needing Drew, as had happened so many times before, her head really would explode. The past week had been nothing but one tempting moment after another.
"Giv
e me your phone," he said.
She pulled her phone out of her bag, and he put it next to his on the kitchen counter. "I don't want any interruptions either," she said with a smile she couldn't contain. As he reached for her hand, she asked, "Does James know where you are?"
He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "He does."
"With me?"
He looked into her eyes. "With you."
Of course they couldn't keep this from James. Not when his job was to know exactly where Drew was at all times while on tour. "Your whole life is so open, so public." Her words were halting, and though she didn't want them to come out the wrong way, she still needed Drew to hear them. "Do you think we can keep this private?"
"I want to tell the whole damned world that you're mine, Ash." He paused for a moment. "But I'll do anything you want. Anything you need me to do."
She wouldn't let herself think about the future right now, wouldn't let herself get twisted up in worries. Not tonight. So she lifted her mouth to his and told him exactly what she needed. "Kiss me again."
His lips curved up into a sexy smile even as he lowered them to cover hers. Just minutes ago, his kiss had been rough, and oh so raw. Now his kiss was barely more than a whisper of breath and heat.
A low moan sounded from her throat at the stunningly sweet kiss. She'd never known there were so many ways to kiss or to be kissed.
The next thing she knew, he was saying, "Hold on to me, Ash," and then he was lifting her up as if she weighed nothing, with one arm under her knees and the other around her rib cage.
"Drew!" His name bubbled out along with her surprised laughter. "What are you doing?"
His eyes were so dark and full of heat that she nearly lost her breath when he looked down at her and said, "Taking you to my bed." With nothing but those five words, even though he was simply holding her in his arms, she nearly came apart right then and there. "Is that where you want to be?"
"Yes." Instinctively, she knew why he was asking her again--because he didn't want her to regret one single moment with him. But Ashley needed him to know that no matter what happened after tonight, she would never regret it. Never. "It's the only place I want to be tonight. And you're the only person I want to be with."