Heart of Stone (Rock Star Fairy Tales #1)

Chapter 18

C h apte r 18

The L ast Woman in the World

“B ut not enough,” she said, bold now that he was on her level. “Not enough to pr otect me.”

“I cannot,” he repeated.

“Tell me why,” she dared. “I’ll bel ieve you.”

Ash reached out to brush a stray lock of hair behind her ear, his touch trailing little fires across her skin. “I would,” he said softly, moving closer, “if I could.”

“Why can’t you?” she pressed, needing to know.

“I…” His mouth moved, words trying to force their way out, but then he was shaking his head, defeated, lips together in a hard line.

“Is it someone else?” she asked quietly.

“Isn’t it always?” he ask ed sadly.

His words cut deep, and Margot leaned away from him, suddenly too close and too overwhelmed by his presence.

Someone else, she reminded herself. It’s always some one else.

“Then go,” she insisted, then recalled they were alone in the mountain park after dark. It wasn’t like he could walk across the parking lot to his RV. “I mean, we can go. I don’t want to keep you f rom them.”

“From who?” Ash asked, confused by her sudden shift in mood. Realization crossed his face a second later. “Wait—no. Go, it’s not l ike that.”

“It never is,” she retorted, scooting back into h er chair.

Ash caught her shoulder, preventing her from spinning away from him. “Listen to me, Go. It’s not like that at all.” He looked deep into her eyes, a look he had no doubt given to hundreds of eager women over the tour. Margot knew better, but it didn’t stop her for her from falling. “There isn’t someone else l ike that.”

“Then what did you mean?” she pushed. “Why can’t you Claim me?” She frowned. “It doesn’t have to be sex, you know. It can just be a connection. Don’t we have a connection, Ash?” She hated the words as they came out, but she knew she had to ask them, had to pull off the bandage and deal with this wound. When Ash said nothing, only kept staring at her intensely, she added, “Do you feel nothing for me, then?”

“I feel for you, Go,” he fina lly said.

“Gee, thanks,” she muttered, getting to her feet. “Don’t do me any favors.” She remembered that she was wearing the silly shirt and reached for a bin of clothes tucked in her closet behind the driver’s seat. Yanking a t-shirt from the top, she stepped carefully around the lead singer in her bus and into her small bathroom, sliding the door shut behind her with a bang. It was a dumb move. The room was too small to properly stretch her arms over her head and remove the weird shirt, and she ended up nearly strangling herself in the process. Her elbow thumped the wall loudly, and she heard Ash ask from outside, “You okay in there?”

“I’m fine,” she huffed, both arms twisted around her middle and the neckband tight around the back of her neck. “This shirt i s stupid.”

“You need help?” His voice was just on the other side of the door. Margot huffed, looking down at her tang led arms.

“You say that to all the girls?” she retorted, still annoyed with him.

“Only the ones trying to take off a wing-friendly halter top,” he said, and she could feel his charm through the door. “I’ve seen plenty of people get tangled up in them.” A pause, then, “Seriously, Go, let me help you. I’ve watched someone nearly strangle themselves getting one off.” Another pause, then, “I need a sign of life out here, Go.”

Margot couldn’t help the smile across her lips. She took as deep a breath as she could manage with the shirt twisted up tight around her, then slid the door open with her foot, staring up at Ash with a grimace. “Don’t you dare laugh at me,” she snapped. She stepped out of the bathroom, clutching her t-shirt in one hand, then stood in front of Ash, turning so her back f aced him.

He chuckled, said, “Arms up.”

She tucked the new shirt between her knees by folding her upper body down and thrust her arms overhead, allowing Ash to untangle the fabric from her raised arms, finally untwisting the band from around her neck and pulling the whole thing off. Her hair slid through the final piece and landed against the bare skin of her back, hair tie lost in the shuffle.

Ash let out a lit tle gasp.

“What?” she asked, pulling up the t-shirt and starting to slide it over her arms.

“Did you always have that?” he asked.

“Have what?” she asked, shirt pressed against her front, ready to go over her head.

“That mark on your back,” he said.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, remembering her attempt to study it in the mirror and then on her phone. The magical mark that wouldn’t photograph. “No, that’s new. Any idea what it means?”

Ash moved away, and she quickly tugged the shirt over her head. Snagging a new hair tie from the bathroom sink, she pulled her hair through and took a moment to redo her bun, twisting her hair back into place. She had so much hair. Ash had stepped away to the far end of the bus, the death trap shirt forgotten in his hands. Wary, she stepped closer but didn’t reach out to t ouch him.

“Oh, Go,” he whispered, the lines of his body nearly vibrating with distress, “I should ha ve known.”

Margot’s hand reached out of its own accord, hesitated, poised between them only a few feet, but so much more than that. Margot was very aware of the gap yawning between them, keeping them apart. She had thought for a brief moment that her being fae might have narrowed the distance, but she’d been wrong. Ash was as unattainable now as he ever was.

It didn’t matter. It never had. She still wanted to touch him, to help him, to ease the pain she could feel radiating off him.

She heard Tobin’s voice echo in her memory: Guard your heart, Margot, or he will break it.

I am an idiot, she told herself, then let her hand finish the journey to touch his back.

“Ash?” she whispered. “Wh at is it?”

He turned around, moving fast and tugging her close, cocooning her in the circle of his arms. Margot stood perfectly still. Ash had hugged her before over the years, but not often, and definitely never like this, not like he thought someone was about to steal her away from him forever. Though the bus was warm enough, she felt heat spool over them both, and when she cracked her eyes open, she could see the red haze covering them. It was warm, but not uncomfortably so, and she closed her eyes again, relishing the feeling of being in his embrace. She knew she would not be the last woman to enjoy his arms, but she would take what she could get, though that same small part of her hated how grateful she was that he would t ouch her.

She sank into his embrace, letting him hold her like she was the last woman in t he world.