Ash: A Bad Boy Romance (19 page)

This isn’t what I asked for. But I don’t know what the fuck I asked for, not really, or what I expected to get.
 

She wakes, eyelids fluttering open, and I brush my hand over her hip before stubbing out my cigarette.
 

“I’m going now, Summer. Facing what I did—”

“Stay,” she says sleepily, catching my hand and pulling it up to her breast. I cup it gently and then take my hand back, standing up before I make any more stupid decisions.
 

“I’ve thought about it, Summer, and you shouldn’t be here when I get back.” I avoid her eyes, but I hear her rustle behind me, and I can imagine exactly how she looks.
 

“Thought about it
when
exactly? For the hour after you woke up?” I can almost feel her eyes boring into me.
 

“I don’t know what Cullen’s going to do, and I think you should be out of dodge—”

“You said he wouldn’t hurt me if I was family. Or my aunt—”

“He won’t. But I don’t know what he’s going to do about
me.
”

“You haven’t mentioned anything to him yet.” I hear her clicking her nails together. I pull on my boxers and jeans, and when I finally turn around to face her, she’s sitting up in bed, covers pulled around her, hair spilling over her shoulders. “You didn’t tell him. I thought you—”

“I didn’t say I told him.”
 

“You said we were safe. You said I should come back here and wait—”

“I know what I said, Summer. But listen to what I’m saying now. You need to get out of dodge. You need to be out of New York. Bianca already is.”

Or she said she is. I’ve never known of that woman to leave New York.
Maybe
Brooklyn. But she’s definitely not in North Carolina, she told us when Summer called her on our honeymoon.

“Where do I go? I don’t have a plan—” She looks down and to the side when she says the last word. Instead of her bright green eyes, I can only see eyelashes. Sinking lower into her pile of covers, she pulls her hair over her eyes just slightly, so slight that she probably doesn’t even notice what she’s doing.
 

“You have a
home
. You don’t want anything to do with a man like me. You can send the divorce papers up here, and I’ll sign them—”

“It’s my decision,” she says, sinking down further. Her voice comes out in a whisper so faint I almost don’t hear it.

“It’s your decision what?”

“No,” she says. She raises her chin haughtily. “I won’t go—not unless you come with me.”

“Summer, this isn’t what we planned.”
 

“It isn’t, is it? We didn’t plan anything at all.”

Present Day
 

I took a beating tonight.
 

And what for?
 

“Summer won’t even notice you’re not there,” I mumble, holding an ice pack over my eye. She’s been keeping her distance, even though I show up to see her nearly every day. I know there’s something bothering her, something she’s not telling me. Something keeping her away, even as she lets me into her life little by little. “She’ll be done with this game, Ash,” I say to myself, grinning. “You stupid son of a bitch.”

I start to drift off to sleep, holding the ice pack so that it doesn’t put pressure on my eye socket or the place where Summer stitched me up. Even though the wound has started to heal, it got hit when I fought tonight. If Summer knew that I was involved with the mafia down here too, she’d flip her shit and never see me again. But it’s only temporary. It’s only until I can put that down payment on the new place in Kill Devil Hills.
 

A legit business. A fighter, a gambler, a mafia soldier
. None of that sounds right alongside surgery resident. But a businessman, a place to call my own and be proud of. I start to drift off thinking about it.

Then I hear a soft knock at the front door, and a voice that sends a jolt through my body.
 

“Shit,” I mutter. “Just a minute.” I rise to my feet, my body as heavy as lead, head throbbing. At least it’s not pounding anymore. I should send her away. I know I should. Do I want her to see me like this? I freeze for a second, glued where I stand. It would be easier if it were a clean fight, if it were something I could be proud of. But it wasn’t.
 

“Ash?” Summer’s voice travels through the space, and she jiggles the door handle. It opens, and then there’s no hiding from her because she’s barreling through my hallway and racing over to me. “Ash, what the hell did you do to yourself?”
 

I let the ice pack drop away and turn my black eye and the opened wound on my cheek into the light. “Didn’t think I should come pick you up like this. Della might get the wrong impression.” I chuckle, but she doesn’t laugh. Instead she brings her hand to the side of my face and gently traces her fingers over my cheek. The spark between us is still there, even though she’s frowning, brows furrowing as she looks at me.

“This isn’t from training.” Her voice is shaky, wavering with emotion. “There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”

“No. Not really. The fighting world here—” I pause. I told her I wouldn’t lie to her. “The fighting world, even as small as it is here, isn’t always perfectly legal. Sometimes I have to stand up for myself. And I—“

“I knew it,” she says quietly, looking down. “What were you trying to do? Get close to me so I could pay off some of your debts or—God, I don’t even know.” Her voice is still shaking. “I shouldn’t have come here.” The look she gives me, eyes narrowed, hands on her hips, makes something in my chest tighten, that long lost thing that I missed feeling when she was away.
 

She turns to leave. “Wait,” I say.
 

I don’t think she’ll stop, but she does. She turns around slowly, that deathly look still on her face. “That’s all I’ve been doing, Ash. Waiting around to see if you’ve changed. I thought you had,” she says, her voice more disappointed than angry.
 

“I have. I won’t lie to you about what I’m doing. And some of it isn’t pretty. I had to face a man tonight—a promoter—he’s tied to the small time mafia here. He hurts people, Summer. His name is Frank, and he was my boss for a long time. But tonight, he set me free.”

“Great. A real avenger for truth and justice.”

“No. I’m just doing what a man has to do when he wants something. And there’s something I want—”

“Don’t say you want me. Don’t say it again. I can’t bear to fucking hear it.” She steps backwards, nearly falling over the coffee table from Ikea I got to make this place livable.

“Okay, then, I won’t say that.” I step toward her and take her arm. “I
love
you.”

“Stop,” she says. “This isn’t what I want. I want my job, and my simple little life I planned here.” Her voice cracks on the last word, her body nearly crumpling like she’s under a great weight. I catch her in my arms and pull her to me. When she looks at me, her eyes are full of tears, spilling over her cheeks. Her heart is beating fast, her body closer to mine than it has been since I saw her again.

“I want that for you, Sunshine. But I also
need
you. There’s no other way to break through to the other side without you. I didn’t know for sure if you were coming back. I thought you might stay away for good.” My voice goes hoarse, and I find myself at a loss for words, a tight lump forming in my throat.
 

“I’m so afraid,” she says.

“Of what?” Suddenly, I’m deeply aware of her body against mine, the thrumming of blood in her veins, the heat and closeness of her.
 

“Losing you again.”

I want to tell her she doesn’t have to be afraid, that there’s nothing in the world that will take me away from her. But I can’t say it. Instead, I bring my lips crashing down on hers, and I kiss her like I should have kissed her that night before she left. I kiss her like she might drop off the face of the earth tomorrow—she might, after all. And there’s only so much time we have together. The room stills around us, and there’s only me, there’s only her.

“Ash...”

“I love you, Summer. You might not think that’s enough to carry us, but that’s why I wanted to give us a chance. Not for money, not for an ego trip. I love
you
. I need
you
. You’re my
wife.
”

My lips brush over her neck, her skin creamy and smooth. Hesitantly at first, she moves her hand to my stomach, fingers trailing over my muscles. She looks up at me, her face full of emotion. She doesn’t say anything, she just looks at me, lifting my shirt and then putting her hand down the front of my shorts. My cock is at half-mast already, just from being close to her. I’ve dreamt about this moment for what feels like an eternity—the simple act of being close to her.

“That’s just—we’ll just—” She stumbles over her words and then bites her lower lip. “We’ll just keep this between us for now.”
 

I nod, helping her slip off her clothes, and then mine. She steps out of her panties and unhooks her bra, a far more confident version of the woman I knew before. My hands find her hips, and I turn her around, trailing my fingers over her back and then moving forward to cup her breasts. I twirl one nipple between my fingertips and then the other, listening to her gasp like it’s music. The throbbing headache from my black eye is a distant memory now. Here, now. This is everything. Hands moving over her torso, down to her sex, I slide my fingers over her wetness, roaming over the delicate folds, circling the sensitive bud of her clit.
 

“Ash,” she sighs. “I missed you.” She looks at me over her shoulder, every trace of anger gone from her eyes. Instead, I see longing, a ripening need that’s been lingering under the surface of her every interaction with me. That was the secret she’s been keeping from me. That was what she was hiding all along. Far from wanting me out of her life, I know now that she was scared to keep me in it.
 

“I missed you too, Sunshine.” I grab her sunlit hair in one hand, then pull her head back and kiss her neck hungrily. “And now I’m going to make you remember
everything
.”

She moans, throaty, deep, sweet little sounds that remind me of the girl she was in New York, innocent and high-heeled. Without a doubt, this woman is more refined, so sensual she’s spellbinding. I grab a condom and undo the foil with my teeth, rolling it onto my length in one swift motion.
 

“Do it. This is what
I
want.” Her hands creep down her body and find her sex, a perfect blond V. She groans and sighs as she touches herself. I watched her do this a dozen times when we were together, and my body remembers those sounds—the begging whine in her voice, the look of her eyes, hooded with lust, and the feeling of her as I push my aching hard cock against her ass.
 

“Fuck, you’re so pretty,” I growl. I push my length into her from behind as she touches herself. I hold the head of my cock inside of her, feeling how tight and sweet she is, jolts of arousal rolling through me. “Bend over the table.”
 

She bends over and places one hand on the dark wood, pressing her ass against me and taking me in deeper. Her fingers move languidly over her clit, her wetness encasing me, inviting me in. I drive into her, taking her waist into my hands and thrusting into her, each movement welcoming me deeper. The way she pushes her body against mine, her quickening breath, the blush rising over her body—combined, it nearly undoes me. Her movements speed up, her body desperately seeking release as I push into her time and time again. She starts to shake and shudder, whimpering, her hips bucking against my cock.

Holy shit, she’s fucking sexy, coming hard against my cock like I’ve dreamed about for so long.

What I love about this woman is that she never did anything I wanted her to—except marry me and fuck me exactly how I like.
 

“Come inside me,” she whispers as she looks back at me. “Please.” With a deep groan, I thrust hard inside her, my muscles tightening, the world slowing around me as I come hard and fast inside the woman I love. I run my fingers over her back, then pull her up and turn her around. I bring her into my body and kiss her again, biting down on her bottom lip. I want to watch her come again—and I’d like to come inside of her for real, completely bare. I want to taste her and see if she’s as sweet as I remembered. And I want to watch her lips wrap around my cock, her gaze meeting mine as she takes me to the back of her throat.