Esteem

Chapter 42

ASHTON

I take the stairs two at a time, the half-cleaned mess forgotten behind me. "Claire!" I yell, scrambling. The only sound is my frantic feet on the stairs. "Claire!" I let out a strangled, terrified shout as I burst through the door to her bedroom.

"Claire?"

I nearly crash to my knees when the bathroom door opens and I see her standing in the doorway. I collapse on the end of the bed, body shaking and head in my hands.

"Ashton?" Claire is at my side in a second, prying my hands away from my face. "What happened? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I thought... You were so quiet, I thought..." I don't even want to face the reality of what I thought.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. She knows, she knows exactly which conclusion I jumped to. The scariest part is that she doesn't even try to reassure me about it. "I'm sorry I scared you." She nuzzles her face into my neck and I feel like I can breathe for the first time all day.

"What were you doing?" I ask.

"Thinking," she whispers.

"About what?"

"Everything." Her voice is so sad.

"Don't leave me," I blurt out.

"What?" She draws back, looking at me wide-eyed. "Ashton, I love you, I'm with you."

"I don't mean like that, Claire. I mean that you better not leave me... leave us all... for good, you better not do anything stupid like that, I would never forgive you. Ever."

The corners of Claire's mouth pull up just slightly and she kisses my cheek, running her hands through my hair. "I love you, Ashton Irwin."

"Promise me," I breathe.

"I promise that I love you."

"No. Promise me that you won't leave."

Claire pulls her head back again and moves so that she is straddling my lap. She gazes into my eyes and I am worried about what she will say. "I promise," she finally whispers.

I want to make her say it as a complete sentence. Hell, I want to make her sign a contract, put it in writing. But before I can speak, her arms are around my neck and her lips are on mine with so much longing that I forget everything except for her body.

Claire's fingers scramble with the bottom of my shirt before she tugs it over my head, her fingernails gently running up and down my back. The movement, the emotion, the moment causes me to shiver. Claire's body rocks on my lap as she kisses my neck, and through her sadness I can feel a love so potent that it almost takes over. Claire has too many emotions battling for dominance these days.

"I love you," she mumbles against my neck.

"I love you," I tell her back. It comes out as almost a groan, the way she is sucking at my skin intoxicates me.

Claire pulls away and puts us at eye level with each other before she buries both hands in my curls and kisses me passionately. When she pulls away from me, her hands go to the hem of her own shirt, but I stop her before she can lift it.

"You don't want to do this," I whisper to her as my hand stops hers.

"Yes I do," she breathes, squeezing my hand. I had always looked forward to this day with a mixture of fear and longing; Claire's abstinence with Jeremy always at the forefront of my thoughts. I'd always intended for her to make the first move, but not like this.

"Claire, you're emotionally wrecked right now. I can't do this."

She sighs, her shoulders deflating. Her hands move back to my hair and she turns my head so that our eyes meet again. "I want this," she whispers. I shake my head but she grabs my chin and turns it back to her. "Ashton, I love you. More than I have ever loved anyone. Ever." Her words are like a god damn nuclear bomb to the fragile guard I've put up between us. "Let me show you," she breathes, her lips less than a centimeter from mine.

I wrap my arms around her back and groan, giving in to her. She pushes against my chest gently and I fall back, taking her with me. Claire laughs a little when she falls against my chest, but I find myself wishing that I could always be beneath her to break her fall.

CLAIRE

My cheek rests against Ashton's flaming skin, his chest rising and falling gently with sleep.

I am so warm. His arm is wrapped around my body, his hand resting against the bare skin of my back. I roll off of him a little and prop myself up on my arm, gazing at his face.

The panic in his voice when he had burst into my room erased all thoughts I ever had about making any permanent decisions. And to say that those thoughts hadn't crossed my mind would be a lie.

But there is too much to lose. In the twenty minutes of separation that apparently scared the living daylights out of Ashton, I was sitting on the cold tile of my bathroom floor, my exhausted mind churning up reason after reason to stay.

Ashton's and Alyssa's faces took the forefront of my mind. They need me, but not as much as I need them.

I thought of my fans, the countless beautiful people who tell me that I saved their lives. If I can save their lives, I can sure as hell save my own.

But, surprisingly, the face that made up my already half decided mind was... Calum. My memory seemed to be playing a sort of old-school film reel of faces, people that I love, people that I see every day. For whatever reason, my mind stopped on Calum, and I knew I had to stay.

I bring my hand to the skin on Ashton's chest and begin drawing little patterns over his heart.

"What are you thinking about?" His half-asleep voice sounds into the silence.

I smile. "Calum."

Ashton's chest rumbles under my cheek as he chuckles, his hand beginning to rub the skin of my back. "Should I be worried that after that, you're thinking of Calum?"

I laugh again. "No, I was just thinking that I don't really know him that well."

"So get to know him," Ashton says. I can hear the smile in his voice.

"I think I will."