“Ash,” she twisted around and in so doing managed to disentangle herself from his embrace. “Maybe it’s too soon. Your health, it’s important.”
“Seriously?” He cocked up a brow. “It was bad enough being banned from touching you while in hospital. Don’t enact sanctions now that I’m free.”
“I’m thinking of you. You’ve already pushed yourself today. Spook told me what happened.”
“Did he?” Ash thumped the windowsill, making her jump. He sucked in a juddery breath. “What did he say? Did he let you know that I’m a washed up nobody who can’t play guitar anymore?”
“No. Nobody thinks that about you.”
“They should. It’s the truth.”
“He just said you’d had trouble with your hand.”
“Which is a polite way of saying I’m fucked. Iain’s buggered me, Ginny. I’m not fit for anything.”
“Hey,” she reached out to him and squeezed his upper arm. “You’ll get better.”
Ash shook her off and paced over to the wall. “Don’t say that. You don’t know. It could be that this is the new reality.” He turned, hands raised and his face scrunched with anger. “Maybe I won’t ever be able to play guitar again.”
All she could do was support him. Maybe that was reality and maybe it wasn’t. Ginny cut the distance between them and reached up to cup his face. Ash nuzzled against her hand. “We’ll get through this Ash. We will. I have faith even if you don’t.”
“Do you?” He kissed the centre of her palm. “Then for God’s sakes allow me to live a little.” He captured her in his arms again, trapping her between his body and the window ledge. “Let me prove to myself there are at least a few things I’m still good at.”
Ginny’s phone buzzed again inside her pocket. She clamped a hand over it. The timing on everything was shot to pieces today.
“Ginny, I’m not made of fucking glass.”
“I know. I know that,” she said distractedly. She slipped free of his hold again and danced away from him on the tips of her toes. “Can you just give me a moment? There’s something I need to do.”
Ash’s mouth dropped open. “It’s not that time of the month is it?” He looked positively aghast at the possibility.
“It’s not. No.” Her tongue swept anxiously across her lips. She held up her phone. “There’s a message I need to send. It won’t take a minute.”
“A message,” he called after her. “You need to send a message? I’m finally out of hospital after a three week nightmare and you have to send a message. What’s up, is the sky falling in? Did someone on the internet post a joke?”
Despite his obvious irritation she dashed straight out the door. Even outside, the signal wasn’t great, but she managed to secure two bars by sitting on the log bench outside the boot room, and resting the phone on her leg. Yes, she was an idiot. Yes, she should have attended to this before now, but it wasn’t easy delving into a past life you’d prefer to leave buried, and nor had it been easy sitting by his bedside day in day out for the best part of a month. Also, while she knew this was the right decision, that didn’t make it an easy one.
It took a couple of minutes to compose the message, and another few to read it over a time or two.
The damn thing felt like a nuclear detonation code.
“Ginny?” Ash came striding out of the house, still dressed in nothing but his briefs. Though he’d co-opted a pair of boots to protect his feet from the gravel, he hadn’t bothered to lace them.
“By all means send your message, but I’ve something in need of urgent attention too.” He positioned himself right before her and peeled down the front of his shorts. Yeah, admittedly, his cock did look painfully in need of soothing, but he could cut the pissy attitude. So what if the moonlight favoured him, and there was a spark in his baby blues that she wanted to ignite. She hated being bossed around and bullied. She didn’t take this sort of shit from anybody anymore.
“You do realise I’m not one of your groupies, right?”
She wrapped her hand around his cock and squeezed him tight.
“Gin,” he sang.
“What? Wasn’t that what you were looking for? I said I was coming back. I said I’d only be a minute.”
“You’ve been considerably more than that. What’s so flippin’ important anyway that it couldn’t wait?”
Yeah, she could level that same accusation at him. If he needed to come that badly, then maybe he ought to go and take care of it himself, instead of virtually slapping her in the face with it. Only then she saw the clawed shape of his fist, and the roar in her veins quietened a bit. They loved one another, and she didn’t want to get into a row over this and risk blurting something that needed to be revealed in a calm, careful fashion.
“Send your fucking message, eh?”
