The Ashtons - Cole, Abigail & Megan

were hard to fight.
    Still, she tried.
    “Why would I be nervous?” she countered and hoped that her voice really hadn’t creaked on that last word.
    “We are married, you know,” he said, and this time, his voice was just an arm’s reach away.
    She did not reach.
    “Yes,” she agreed, trying to hold on to the slippery silk sheets despite his attempts to pull at them. “But we agreed to no sex for a week.”
    “Who said anything about sex?” he asked.
    Megan closed her eyes and gulped. His voice was a whisper of temptation in the shadows. The night closed in tight around them and she swore she could hear her own heartbeat crashing like a bass drum.
    “Then what are you talking about?”
    “Just,” he said as he slid up next to her, stopping just short of touching her, “being close.”
    Megan laughed and her nervousness disappeared in a flash. “Oh, boy, I haven’t heard that one since junior high.”
    He stopped moving closer and she could almost hear the insult in his voice. “Excuse me?”
    Ridiculous, but the affront in his tone had her relaxing. Loosening her grip on the silky sheets, she turned onto her side and finally looked at him. She was only mildly surprised that they were nearly nose to nose.
    “Close?” she repeated, smiling. “You just want tobe close? Is that along the lines of ‘we don’t have to do anything, I just want to hold you’? Or is it more like ‘I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do’?”
    He frowned at her. “I only meant that we don’t have to sleep on the edges of a very big bed to avoid having sex.”
    “True,” Megan said, studying his face as well as she could in the moonlight. But his gray eyes were more shadowed now, almost unreadable and his expression was closed. “I think I can restrain myself—and you. ”
    His jaw worked as he studied her and she wondered what it was he was trying so hard not to say. But she’d probably never know, since he took a deep breath, blew it out in a rush and said, “You don’t have to worry. I don’t force myself on women.”
    Okay, she’d insulted him and she really hadn’t meant to. But jeez, he was really encroaching on her personal space and the fact that she didn’t really mind was especially irritating.
    “I didn’t mean that.”
    “What did you mean?”
    “Just—oh for heaven’s sake, I didn’t mean anything, okay?”
    “Good.” He jammed his pillow up beneath his neck, sighed and then closed his eyes.
    Megan watched him for several seconds before whispering, “What are you doing?”
    He opened one eye. “Going to sleep.”
    “Um…don’t you think you should move back to your own side of the continent?”
    His mouth curved. “No. I’m comfortable.”
    She just stared at him for a long minute, but he didn’t open his eyes again and in seconds, his breathing was deep, even, telling her he was sleeping.
    “Well,” she murmured, “at least one of us is comfy.”

Chapter Six
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    T he next couple of days slipped past in a rush.
    Megan managed to avoid any confrontations with her father simply because he was nowhere to be seen. He left the estate before Megan arrived for work and returned long after she left.
    Which should have calmed her down a little.
    Instead, it had the opposite effect.
    She felt like a turkey the day before Thanksgiving—on edge and waiting for the ax to fall.
    And Simon was being no help at all.
    She couldn’t relax at work because she was just too busy—not to mention keeping a wary eye out forher father. And she couldn’t relax at “home,” because Simon was everywhere.
    At least that’s how it felt.
    If she took a swim in the pool, she climbed out to find him standing there holding a towel for her. If she took a walk in the garden, he was right behind her. If she tried to sleep in that gigantic bed, he slipped across the mattress to lie right beside her, guaranteeing she wouldn’t be nodding off.
    But tonight, for the first time since her all-too-hasty marriage, Megan had the big wood-and-glass house to herself. Simon was working late—he’d left a message for her on the answering machine saying he didn’t know when he’d be home. And if she felt a small stir of disappointment, she told herself it was only because she was now used to having him dog her every footstep.
    So to prove to herself that she was indeed enjoying the solitude, Megan cranked up the CD player and let a little classic rock and roll vibrate through the empty house. Then