Page 24 of Flames and Flowers
I considered that, wondering if I should ask. If she’d tell me, or tell me to mind my own business. “Just one guy at a time?”
“So far.” She hesitated, looking out the window, like she was weighing her options. Tell me more; tell me nothing. “We did have one casual make out with a guy at a party,” she confessed. “Before we got married. Ash wanted to experience sharing me with another man, and I wanted to try it out to see how it felt.”
“And how did it feel?”
She seemed to think about that, choosing her words carefully. “What I told Ash afterwards is that, for me, it can’t just be casual sex. For me, it needs to be someone who’s part of our lives.”
“Part of your lives,” I repeated, considering that.
“Yes.”
“You’re married to Ash. Your life is with him. What happens if your heart gets involved with this other person?”
“If there’s another person, I need the chance that I could fall in love with them. I can’t have the sex without that possibility.”
She met my eyes in silence.
Was she talking about me?
Was she trying to tell me how she felt about me? Ask me how I felt about her?
“I’m really not sure how you feel about me,” she said, like she was reading my thoughts. “But I know how you feel about Ash, Matt.”
“He told you.”
“No. He didn’t. He didn’t have to. I don’t even know if he knows. If he fully understands. But… I see it. I see how you are around him, how you look at him, how you talk to him. How you touch him. And I know, because I recognize those feelings in myself. Before me, Ash never had someone in his life who loved him like I do. He’s told me that, many times. And he may be open to things that I’m not, but he’s married now. He really doesn’t need anyone else in his life who doesn’t love him like I do.”
Yeah. I could feel how true that was. I could feel her love for him, and Ash deserved nothing less.
I said nothing, just nodded.
We were both silent for the rest of the drive as I absorbed her words. Her gentle warning.
When we pulled up in front of the building where she lived with Ash and parked, she turned to me a little and said, “I know you kissed him when you guys were in England. At that castle last summer.” She held my gaze, steady. “He and I weren’t quite together then. But he told me about it later, when we were together. Did you know he told me?”
“I wondered.”
“I know the attraction between you two goes both ways. I’m his wife. I know what he feels for you, too. The attraction between you… Ash won’t act on it without me and he definitely won’t cheat on me. But I can feel it. Just like you can.” I said nothing, and she asked me, “Are you gonna try to tell me you don’t feel it?”
“I feel it,” I admitted. I couldn’t stand the thought that anything I said, however honest, might hurt her, though. “I’m sorry. I’d never want to make you feel like your marriage is threatened. Or worry about him when he’s with me.”
“You’re going to be a big part of our lives, Matt,” she said gently, matter-of-factly. “It doesn’t end in the studio. We’re going on tour together, all of us. That includes the rest of the band, too. This band is so important to Ash. And so is this marriage.” She hesitated. “I’m really not sure how deep your feelings for me go, but I would need to know how you feel before I’d be able to explore anything seriously happening between the three of us. And if it’s only between the two of you… I’m telling you right now, it won’t work.” She held my gaze. “If you try to take him from me, you’ll break his heart.”
And mine.That was the part she didn’t come right out and say, but I knew the words were there in her silence.
My eyes burned as they filled with tears. “I wouldn’t do that, Danica.”
“Good.” Her eyes shone as she turned away, and I blinked my own tears back. “Thank you for helping me with this.”
“Anytime.”
She got out of the car and I went around to the back to help her get out her bags. Then she stood on the curb, hesitating as she met my eyes. “Did you delete that photo from your phone?”
“If you want me to,” I told her, “I will.”
“Oh, God.” Her cheeks turned pink as she realized what that meant. That I still had the photo.
“Taylor told me to delete it. But… you didn’t.”
