AUTHOR'S NOTE: This part has some Mature Content and deals with the topic of cheating. It's not for everyone and so be warned.  Highly recommend Part 1 of BARBED WIRE and LOVING ASHE 

"Don't you dare," Paige hisses, reaching across from him to grab hold of the picture frame. "You said you weren't here for that."

"I'm not," he says, not letting go of the frame so that they're forced to hold it together and their hands touch. He feels the electricity race through him, a tingle running down his spine. It excites him and terrifies him more than anything he's ever felt before.

He may have told her he was there for Riley when he first came in, but he's also alone with her now. It's probably the only time he ever will be, before he leaves New York that evening, and hopefully for good. He's got a movie to film in Tennessee and he's got to look like he knows how to play a damn guitar by the time shooting starts in a few weeks. It had never been in his schedule, but damn Isobel had talked his manager into it and it was squeezed into his already busy schedule. All because the spoiled little brat couldn't get her Englishman to stay with her after his sister died, so she had to find a way to punish him.

"Did it ever occur to you that I have a right to them, too?" He asks her.

The question turns out to be too much for her.

Gareth sees her confidence break, starting with her eyes. Her gaze falters, she blinks and then her lower lip trembles. Her eyes well up with tears. Paige, the blogging queen of Manhattan, who never makes a misstep out in public or anywhere there's someone watching, becomes human in front of him.

"You promised me then that you wouldn't want anything to do with whatever came out from that one night," she says, her voice trembling as her grip on the frame loosens and Gareth returns it to its place, only he places it face down so he can't see them. He can't bear it. He's had to lean forward a bit more than he did earlier, the same scent of her hitting him, only this time there's something else there. The scent of a woman.

"Yet what we did that night sent me all across the other side of the country because I couldn't bear to see him with them - like they were his - "

"Because they are his," she whispers and Gareth smells the fear emanating from her skin. It's strong, and it's intoxicating.

"Then tell me why they have my eyes, Paige. And I'm not just talking about the color."

It's his turn to hiss at her. They haven't moved from their places. She's still leaning against the table and this time, though her arms are crossed in front of her, they're almost so to protect herself, to wrap around herself in comfort.

He doesn't want to see her like this, as if afraid of him. She's probably been living in fear for this moment since the day the triplets were born, or maybe even before then, when she knew she was carrying them.

"How long has it been?" He asks suddenly, though he doesn't exactly know what he means with the question. Maybe he's asking it to ground him, because he feels suddenly lost in front of her, his senses hurtling back in time.

He asked it before, one night almost five years ago. He'd been sitting at the apartment drunk after an afternoon rehearsing with the guys at St. Anns Warehouse in Brooklyn, when Paige had come to the apartment looking for her sister. She was in tears because the latest fertility treatments were not working, that no matter how hard they'd tried, that damn stick still kept mocking her. But Riley had to fill in for a co-worker whose daughter had to be taken to emergency for food poisoning. She wouldn't be home for another four hours at least.

Gareth should have let Paige go to some other friend of hers where they could collectively commiserate about ovulation, temperature, and hormones. Or he should have let her return home to her husband, twenty years her senior. So much for the so-called guarantee that comes with marrying a rich old fart with an insane fortune if no babies would come out of it. He could still replace her with someone who could pop the kids out one after another. Wasn't Paige wife number 3 after 1 and 2 failed to give Clint the kids he wanted?

But Paige looked so sad, her tear-stained face breaking him inside. So he told her to stay, popped open one of Riley's wine coolers for her to drink and calm down, and tell him what was wrong even though she'd already told him what was wrong.

And that's when everything went wrong for Gareth. That's when all the should's and the could's faded into nothing, and out of the blue, after they'd been shooting the breeze for the past two hours, he asked her the question.

"How long has it been?"

"For what?"

"Since you've really been...you know...fucked? I mean, for real, not this we-gotta-make-a-baby-now-because-the-thermometer-says-it's-the-right-time kinda thing, which I bet must be very stressful."

Paige didn't even blush. She laughed so heartily that at first Gareth thought it was because she was on her third wine cooler. Or maybe because she was just so frustrated about it all that she couldn't even be bothered to lie.

"Just before my wedding three years ago," she said. "Don't get me wrong, Gar. I love Clint, but I guess when people get older, things change. The plumbing down there, I mean. Maybe that's why when we're younger, we better screw like bunnies because when we get older, that's when you got to worry about other things. Like just how much blood is draining from the guy's brain if everything's going down there, you know? Or you don't want him to croak on you in bed - that would be so embarrassing to have the call 911 for that - so you've got to do all the work and get so creative with the positions that you just don't want to do it anymore."

Gareth still remembers how hard he laughed at the way she said it that he cried. Only Paige wasn't laughing - or at least she didn't laugh as long as he did. Instead she watched him.

He straightened himself on the couch and cleared his throat. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to laugh at you."

"I know you didn't," she said, before her face turned serious. "But why did you ask me that question?"

"How the hell should I know?" Gareth said, shrugging. "Maybe I'm just drunk."

"Ri told me once that there were two kinds of orgasms," Paige said. "Can you believe I didn't even know that?"

That got Gareth's attention immediately. He stared at her, disbelieving. "You didn't know? Oh, honey..."

She shook her head. "She said there was the clitoral orgasm, which I'm familiar with. I mean, I've got a drawer-full of the best toys out there so I better know that, right? But then there's the other type, like when the man hits the G-spot."

"And you didn't know that? Seriously?"

"Of course, I did," she said defensively, leaning back against the couch as she crossed her arms in front of her. "But just because I know about it doesn't mean the guy manages to hit it at all."

This got his attention, too. Worse, a part of his anatomy down south thought it just got issued a challenge.

"And when was the last time someone managed to hit it?"

Gareth can't forget how Paige didn't even flinch then either when she answered him. I told you. Three years ago, she said. Two nights before her wedding, when her friends got her a gigolo as part of the bachelorette celebration. Riley wasn't there because she was under-age, so she wouldn't know. Not that she'd have wanted Riley to know. She would never understand.

"So to answer your queston again, three years," she told him. "Now it's your turn to tell me why you asked me that question to begin with."

Gareth can't remember his answer because that's when he kissed her. He can't remember if he did it out of pity, or because he'd always wanted to kiss her since he was ten years old and Paige was eighteen. He only remembers how she kissed him back, and how somehow they ended up on the bed, the same bed he shared with her own sister. He remembers how when it was over, he left her body trembling, quivering, how her legs wobbled so he had to help her down the stairs and get her into a cab, how the whole experience left her dazed and wanting more but he told her it would never happen again, that it had been a huge mistake.

"So how long has it been?" He asks again, his mind back to the present and she's still there, leaning on the front of her desk, the scent of her making his nostrils flare.

"A long time," she answers in a low voice, turning her head so she's facing front, her eyes downcast.

He realizes he wants her. Gareth knows it's wrong, but since when has he ever done anything right since he made that mistake five years ago?

Gareth straightens up, and stands in front of her. He should leave - now, if he can. He should turn around and walk out that door and forget about her. Out of sight, out of mind. Wasn't that how the saying went?

Not that it's worked for him for the last four years. Not since he found himself at the hospital standing next to Riley who couldn't understand why he had no interest in accompanying her to the hospital to see the triplets. How could she know that seeing them would be seeing his mistake with his own eyes, his betrayal of her manifested in not one, but in three human forms?

They'd been born prematurely, reminding Gareth of tiny dolls in glass boxes, with paper thin skin and big eyes that were blue at first, their faces marked with white tape to hold the tubes that kept them alive, their little hands opening and closing around their mother's finger. She looked so happy then, ecstatic even, despite the pain that wracked her body everytime she moved. Something had gone wrong during the delivery, he'd overheard one of the nurses say.

At first, he could only marvel at the miracle in front of him, at the sight of Paige, half of her face covered in a mask as she needed one more hand to allow the third baby an adult finger to grab onto.

But jealousy took over him when Clint showed up, gowned and masked and offering the third baby - Trevor, he remembers who now - a finger to wrap his tiny fingers around. Gareth can never forget the feeling of barbed wires tightening around his heart, piercing through him even though he'd long convinced himself that they weren't his at all. They couldn't be, for such things just didn't happen. Not after just one night. Or did they?

Gareth takes a deep breath and flashes her a smile, one that he hopes will tell her just how much he regrets having to leave so soon, that because his brain has taken over and is yelling at him, he can't stay. He watches as her shoulders go down, wondering if it's because of relief - or disappointment.

He turns away from her, pleased that there is still some good left in him yet, that Hollywood hasn't corrupted him completely, that he hasn't allowed Collette to fuly repackage him, erasing even the little boy who once knew right from wrong, who never for once gave up on that little thing called hope because that was all he had.

"Gareth," Paige whispers and he turns to look at her. "I love them more than life itself."

"I know you do. And I'm sure you'll be blessed with more," he says, and he means it. He's never told this to anyone, but he's read her blog from its first entry to its latest. He's printed every picture of the triplets, cropping out Clint's face because he can't stand to look at him. It wasn't till they turned two that he was certain they were his for they looked exactly like him when he was of the same age, multiplied by three.

Her voice broke. "Three was all my body could give me."

Gareth doesn't know what to say so he turns back towards the door, the one that leads outside, not the one that leads up to the stairs. He feels like a thief about to escape in the night, this time for good.

"Thank you, Gareth," she says.

This time, at the sound of her voice saying his name, a voice so vulnerable, Gareth's resolve crumbles completely. She's never thanked him before, not that it would have been appropriate for her to do so.

For to do so would be an admission of guilt, that the three beautiful little boys were a mistake. His mistake. Theirs.

That's what slays him completely, the truth behind his really being here. It's what's driven him to put the blinders on the moment he landed in L.A. three years ago, wanting nothing but distance between him and his mistake, even if he had to hurt Riley in the process. It's what driven him - and continues to drive him - to be ruthless in everything he does, to remove every ounce of himself as he takes on each role that comes to him, even if the roles he's best suited for are the ones so much like himself. The soldier who betrays his comrades, the best friend who sleeps with his best buddy's girl, or the stepfather whose gaze upon his stepdaughter is filled with veiled desire and contempt for himself. So-called experts called it Method acting, but to Gareth it's his survival. It's him being able to look at the demons face to face and know they haven't yet claimed him for their own - not completely.

Gareth pivots on his heel and marches towards Paige, his eyes pinning her in place and then he's right in front of her all over again, just the way he was minutes earlier. Only this time, his hands are in her hair, pulling her face towards him, his mouth kissing her hungrily, their teeth meeting, almost grating as his tongue tastes what is his, his olfactory senses smelling the scent of her perfume, her fear - and her desire.

"Gareth, I can't do this," she whisperes as his mouth descends on her neck. "Not to Ri. I can't."

"You're not," he breathes, capturing her lips to silence her, his hands lifting her skirt, feeling the soft skin of her thighs, the curve of her hips. "I am."

No one has to know that for three years, Gareth's hated Riley for leaving him, for moving out of the apartment they shared and never answering his letters to her. He poured out his heart to her in those letters. Yet who was to know she had never received them anyway for they were all returned back to him, unopened, undelivered for she no longer lived in that tenement they shared and loved. Realizing they'd both been led to believe a lie for the last three years grated at Gareth. He's been taken for a fool and he needs the release of every emotion coursing through him, burning through his veins.

And it's not that Paige is the only woman within a twenty mile radius who could sate him then. He's got them waiting for him, hungering for him. No, Paige is the only woman who can fulfill him now, for she is something no other woman he's ever had will ever be to him, not even Riley.

She's got something he's yearned for for so long, long after the effects of all the alcohol, the cigarettes, and even all the women have faded away to dull his senses.

Paige's resolve crumbles then. Gareth feels it. She kisses him back, her tongue slipping between his teeth and he captures it, hearing her moan when he sucks it into his mouth, his fingers finding the zipper of her dress and lowering it.

He's a bad man. A terrible man and Gareth knows he will burn in hell for this, and he'll take her with him if he has to. But he's waited four long years to feel her in his arms again, hear her heart beating against his chest, and claim her for his own one last time. One last time before he leaves her forever.

Her hands don't remain idle. They unbutton, unzip, unbuckle, pull down and almost rip the designer clothes off him. She's breathing as hard as he is, their breaths mingling as they continue to kiss and suck and nip. There's a hunger between them and it excites him more than anything he's ever known.

He's slept with movie stars, aging stars, newbies, oldies, and whatever else they wanted to call themselves. He's had them single, married, divorced, soon-to-be-divorced, and even the ones soon-to-be-married. They've come and gone, and most of them, he can't even remember their names. Maybe places, but not their names. There's been Chateau with her many colored nails, each one a different hue it made him dizzy, and her twin sister, Marmont, who had a laugh that was so grating it had the power to shrivel him. There was Paris with one golden tooth because she was still saving up to have the rest of them gilded (or whatever the word was), Milan with her exotic half Asian face, Seoul who had nothing remotely Korean about her other than her name, and even - simply because they were shooting in the area - Pacoima with a genius IQ wasted on Hollywood wanna-bes she hoped would give her her big break.

But none of them could ever be - can be - Paige Eames, the mother of his children. None of them holds his heart and soul like a vice that tightens at the mere thought of her, at the way she trembled beneath his touch so many years ago, how she begged him for more, and how she hated herself when it was all over for what she'd done, not to him, but to her sister, for allowing herself that one selfish moment, those two hours spent in bliss after too many miscarriages stole them away from her.

When Gareth plunges himself into her, he loses himself, out of breath as he feels her hands on his skin, her finger nails digging into his shoulder blades, her heels hard against his buttocks as she gives in, calling out his name. Somehow he's carried her to the daybed that smells of honeysuckle and vanilla, for he's not taking her on a damn office desk, not when this is the only time he'll ever be with her again.

He knows this is all so wrong, but like that old song, it feels so right. Why did her body feel like it was made just for him, her hips meeting his own every time he drives into her, deepening each stroke, heightening the expectation for more each time he withdraws?

When she comes, he knows he's hit that spot, for she's trembling, quivering in his arms even as he rides his own wave to its highest point, allowing himself to fall and take it all in. His own orgasm rumbles from deep inside his gut, mingling with the regret of the three words he's never said to anyone since he left Riley three years earlier. Words he's denied himself to say to anyone else unless it was real - only it was never real with anyone else. He almost sobs the words as he buries his face in her hair, inhaling her scent once again, memorizing the notes he'll never smell again, and hearing the sounds she makes that he'll never hear again.

Only there's another sound, too, one that catches him by surprise as he lays over her, recovering from his release. It makes the hairs at the back of his bare neck stand on end. He hears Paige gasp as she hides her face in his chest, her shame written in her sobs as Gareth turns to look at the door, the one leading to the rest of the house.

He should have locked it, he thought then, as he stares at the face that stares right back at him, the betrayal written in her big blue eyes.

Then another thought hits Gareth then. Gasping for breath, he takes Paige's dress and covers her up with it, stands up and straightens his back so the woman at the door can see with her own eyes that she's not dreaming it all.

"Riley," he says, and there's relief in his voice, one that surprises him.

Better that he didn't lock the door after all then, he knows now, for he can't bear to keep on hiding.  Not anymore.

THE END

AUTHOR'S NOTE: 

When I first started writing Loving Ashe, Gareth was supposed to be a side-side character and just mentioned in passing so you don't see him at all in the first couple of chapters - until he popped up at Library Cafe and I knew then that he was a "wild card," a character who was determined to keep me on my toes... and he sure did. 

Eight or nine years later (it's 2023 when I'm writing this), his book is still hiding from me but he's finally ready to tell his story and maybe then I'll find out more about him and what makes him tick. 

Thank you for reading my stories and keeping my favorite characters alive with your comments and your votes. I wrote Loving Ashe in 2014 as a short story (first 2 chapters) and in 2015, completed it as part of NaNoWriMo and it's been a wonderful ride - and it still is. Ashe, Riley, Gareth, Paige, Clint, and the triplets have been living rent-free in my mind since then and I can't wait to complete their story!