Yeah, your intuition is probably better. For the very reason you sighted. As a smoker, you'd think I would know exactly how to rid the tip of an ash without saying it. "Ducked her ash" comes to mind. But I think that dates it back to the days of calling them fags (the fifties). Also, the word, "ash" appears in the sentence. And I thought of "tapped her cigaratte over him", too.