Ashton has always been a disappointment to his father.  Not through any fault of his own necessarily.  But Asshole Turner, Junior to the people who knew him years ago, thought his wife, Elizabeth, and mother of his child, Ashton the third, treated him too soft.

            A man needs to be a man.  It didn’t matter if you were three or thirty.  His father was like that and he turned out just fine.

            The high expectations could only make his son a stronger man.  So he had to be a harsh disciplinarian for his only son and namesake. 

            Ashton never knew his mother.  Asshole Turner never spoke of her.  And the one time Ash did landed him in the emergency room with a broken nose, arm, concussion and scare to remember forever. 

            On the few occasions she slipped into his forethoughts were fleeting moments of comforting arms and whiffs of gardenia.  That’s why he thrives in the company of a woman’s arms.  Any woman.  Lots of women.

Ash didn’t have many friends growing up.  It was too dangerous.  Oh, there were a few, though most of them he hid from his father, because his father would never have approved.  Until he turned sixteen and snuck out of the house for the hot young chick.  Hell, he was sixteen.  It was almost “a sure thing” just like the movie only he didn’t have to drive across country.  He just had to meet her at the lake.

Unfortunately, there were a bunch of rowdy kids at the lake that night.  “The sure thing” was not to be.  Ash got in a fight with one little Kenny Buford.  Why?  Because they went after the same “sure thing.”

There was a fight and the cops showed up.  Rick got lucky, Ashton not so much.

Rick was a standup guy though.  He thought they should let Ashton’s father know what happened.  How bad could it be?  He was sixteen!   Ashton vehemently fought Rick on confronting Ashton’s father but Rick was insistent.  Honesty was the best policy.  That was how Rick grew up.  Rick won.

Ashton went to his father, Ashton Turner, Jr.  Not a wise decision from Ashton’s point of view.  His father doubled up his fist planted one right on his face, breaking his nose, knocking him into the bookcase, giving him a concussion. 

But it was the questions about his mother that provoked the slash across his face.

Ashton didn’t go back home after that.  He went to stay with his grandmother for the duration of high school. 

Ashton Turner III no longer claimed a father.  He supposed his father spoke with his grandmother on occasion.  How else did the bastard know every little accomplishment in his life.  With his grandmother’s help, he made it through college. 

College!  A tall young man who was tall with blond hair, blue eyes the color of the Mediterranean was the college girl’s dream. 

Where young college men found what they could and would be good at.  And Ashton found women.  Women of all shapes, heights, sizes, color.  Variety was the spice of life.

That was his motto.  Love ‘em and leave ‘em.

College taught Ash birth control and patience.  The importance of sweet words and soft touches.  College taught him all women were the same.  All it took was a few words of an intimate nature, a touch inside the wrist and they were his for the taking.  And best of all, his father had nothing to hold over him. 

Now Ashton, at thirty-five, has built and operated his own development company.  Sure his masochistic father still lives in the old homestead outside of town, but who cares.  The old goat would probably never die anyway.

His life was finally his own.

Until one Lorianne Gentry. 

A woman who needs a man less than he needs a woman.