Ash: A Bad Boy Romance (32 page)

He finishes the cake and then brings the dessert plate to his mouth and licks the whipped cream. “Still fighting. Still got men doing what I say. But this time, it’s for their own damn good. I’m running a clean club, and I’ve got everything in line.”

“In four months,
nothing
will be in line.” I lean back on the sofa and pat my belly. The baby kicks gleefully. I don’t say it, but it seems like he’s a fighter, just like his dad. And I have the strangest feeling he’ll be born with a shimmery tuft of bright red hair. “You won’t be able to lick the plate in front of Henry.”

Ash laughs and pulls me into his arms. “We’ll see about that. We can figure out rules when the time comes.”
 

We talk about Henry and eat more shortcake until long after the sun sets, arms and legs tangled together. It finally feels like we’re back where we both belong, like this place has been waiting for us the whole time, like the drama and the time and the space apart was only preparing us.

I’d like to say I knew it all along, but I was never that smart when it came to Ash. He was a piece of the puzzle I didn’t know how to fit into my life.

But sitting here, with this life inside of me, I close my eyes and finally know that every bit of it is complete.

Three Years and Four Months Ago

She isn’t my type of girl—well
wasn’t
. I’ve been reconsidering whether she is my type of girl over the past month or so of this endless damn summer. She’s been finishing up nursing school, and much to everyone’s surprise, she decided to go straight to medical school. I never heard anything of the damn sort. But there you go.

That in itself makes her
not
my type of girl. Or it
should
make me stay far, far away.

 
I’ve never gone for the straight-A class president, the college graduate, the crooked-toothed island girl turned medical professional.
 

But Natalie and I, we’ve got history. Back when I met her, I decided I hated her right off the fucking bat. Her Daddy was the one who came and took my recently sober mother back to the townie bars, got her sloshed every night and married her on some kind of whim. I hated Natalie for what she represented, for all the ways her family screwed up mine. But it wasn’t long before I realized we were really one in the same, victims of our parents screw-ups, Roanoke Island white trash born out of violence and living next to a trailer park.
 

At least we’re
next
to it,
she’d said
. Not in it.
 

I watch her as she takes the plates off the table. Even in a plain black funeral dress, Natalie looks as fine as any woman I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen just about every woman in this town. I’ve bedded more than a few of them too.
 

But those other women are just passing entertainment, compared to Natalie. It’s not like I want to
be
with her. That would be a fucking disaster for both of us. No one ever heard of an MMA fighter and a
doctor
getting together, and they never will.

What’s that song? “I know where I belong, and nothing’s gonna happen.”
 

The words get stuck in my head, and I can only remember that one part and the cheesy-ass refrain. I cross my arms and lean against the wall of the shack my mom called a “bungalow” when we first moved in. Natalie’s old man had owned the damn thing for years and never kept it up. I admit, it would have been cute if he’d actually given a shit about his home. But he never did. Nor did he give two shits about my mom, or even his own daughter. Today’s wake was a joke. Everyone just came for Natalie’s sake. Natalie had babysat everyone’s kid at one point or another, she’d made meals for new moms, and she’d been a doula for a bunch of these crazy ladies who wanted to have their kids at home.
 

Ask me if I knew what a doula was before Natalie went to nursing school
.

I watch as she wipes everything down in a house that ain’t her home anymore, and she’s agitated, I can tell. We haven’t seen each other in so long—it’s mainly been emails and texts, some flirty, some not—and the space between us has felt a mile wide. But in this light, in this house, it almost seems like no time has passed at all. Her blond hair cascades over her shoulders, and the hint of makeup she’s wearing makes her amber brown eyes deeper and lovelier than ever.

“Today reminded me of what trash I am, Josh. You better get on out of here before I start crying to beat the band.” Her father’s funeral didn’t have many people in attendance—some of his drinking buddies, a few family members here and there. More people came to the damn wake, just because there was alcohol.

“You’re nothing like your old man, Nat.” She takes a wet rag and wipes down the dining room table, clearing away the crumbs, then shakes it out into a trashcan and starts wiping down the hutch. Her body shimmies when she wipes down the glass cabinet where my mom keeps her Precious Moments figurines.
That ass
. Even before I
liked
Natalie, I liked her ass. It’s always bounced a little when she walks. I know she’s self-conscious about it, but I’ve always kinda wanted to take a bite out of it. For a second, I imagine what I’ve fantasized about a thousand times. I’ve always wanted push her up against that cabinet, bury myself hip-deep inside of her from behind, feel her as she comes on my cock. I feel blood rushing to the area in question, my eyes locked on Natalie’s ass.
 

Down boy. Now’s not the time.

Like she’s reading my mind, Natalie swivels around, biting her lip hard. That bottom lip is all swollen and red, and I know she’s been worrying it all day. The look she gives me is so fucking sexy I can hardly stand still. I want to take her right now, part those sexy fucking lips—and
fuck
, make her come like a million times. I barely hear what she says next. I don’t think anyone would blame me. Nat’s hips and ass make for a pretty distracting picture.
 

“I stole medical supplies. I
am
just like him.” Tears form on her eyelashes, and she wipes them away. It takes me a moment to process what she said, not only because I’m having a hard time looking away from her tits stuffed tight in a dress that’s clearly too small for her girls.
 

Let them free, Nat
, I’m thinking when she speaks again.
Let them be free!
 

“Did you hear me, asshole? I
stole
medical supplies. Bandages, and sutures, and fuck! I stole morphine. Not to get high—it was for one of the moms in labor and delivery. I went to take care of her after she came home from the hospital and she needed her stitches redone, and she was hurting
so
bad. But I
stole
that shit!” She’s totally worked up, and she’s angry-crying like she used to do with me when I’d come and throw stones at her window after her daddy kicked me out.
 

“You
what?
” I take in Natalie’s bitten lip, the messy makeup under her eyes, the blond hair hanging loose and wild over her shoulders, and the rage she clearly feels—all directed at herself. Nat’s always been slick just like her father, but that’s maybe the only thing that’s like him. I think of her sneaking into the clinic in the middle of the night and stealing a few vials of morphine and a bandage or two here and there. It made sense. A lot of these women on the island couldn’t take care of themselves and couldn’t afford to go to the hospital. It was
good
, what Natalie’s doing. Even if it’s ever so slightly illegal. I grin as I watch her get all worked up. She’s about to bust, and she thinks she’s a thief just like her father. She might be a thief, but I never knew her father to help anyone with anything.
 

“Oh God, even
you
think I’m awful.” Gulping, I try to hold it in. But after a second I can’t, and I slap my knee and laugh. It’s just a chuckle at first, but then I’m laughing as hard as I can. And Nat’s getting angrier and angrier. She picks up the dirty rag and starts wiping the table down again.
 

“Get the fuck on out of here,” she drawls. Her Carolina accent is strong as hell today, probably from all the stress she’s been under. “Seriously, go home. I don’t know why you’re still hanging around here anyway. It’s not like you’re helping anything. You’re making me feel even worse.” I take a breath and stop laughing.
 

“That ain’t intended, Nat.” Nat picks up the rag again and starts wiping the dining room table all over again. Something riles up inside of me, and I want to hear her curse just
one
more time. “You just love that rush, though don’t you? The rush of going out… under the cover of dark, sneaking into the clinic like a cat burglar—”

“Seriously, get the
fuck
out.” The country is rising in her voice. I try to keep a straight face, but I fucking
love
it. If she were mine, I’d get her riled up just to hear it. Out of her mouth, it sounds like the dirtiest, sexiest thing I’ve ever heard. And that ain’t intended either.

“Nat, you’re nothing like your daddy. Nothing like he
was
. He’s gone now. You use those things to
help
people that no one else cares about. Now you might have a little of that talent for thievery, but as long as you use it like Robin Hood, I think you’re fine. Just don’t get
caught
.” I lean back against the wall, and I can’t help that my eyes are drawn down to her tits again. She looks up at me with those big brown eyes, and immediately, I move my gaze to meet hers. Tears stream down her cheeks. “You’re better than everyone here, Nat. I’ve always known that. You’re prettier, smarter—”

“Since when did you care about someone having any kind of a brain?” She lowers her gaze and wipes a tear from her cheek.

“Since I met you. I just didn’t understand that’s what I wanted till I got to know you.”

“You never acted like that’s what you wanted.” Nat’s voice is a mixture of sadness, hurt, and anger. She stops wiping the table and just stands there, holding the rag in her hand.

“You have no idea what I want, Natty.” Acting on instinct, I walk over to her and take her into my arms. She drops the rag on my foot, and her body goes rigid. She grips me hard, her hands clasped around my shoulders. I smell the top of her head—fruity and tropical—and I kiss her there.
 

“What the fuck are you doing, Josh? Why the fuck—” She tilts her head up toward me, and I look down at her sweet face. Her lips are the color of ripe raspberries, and her amber eyes are big and wide open. Her eyebrows are arched up high, and I find myself thinking for a moment that there might be a world, a place, a time where she
is
my type of girl, and more importantly, that I’m her type of man.

“Maybe I just like to hear you curse. You used not to, not ever,” I tell her. It’s the wrong thing to say, but it’s true—I like just about everything that comes out of that gorgeous mouth of hers. Without thinking, I cover her mouth with mine, groaning just a little as her full lips soften. She tastes better than any woman I’ve ever kissed, her lips unbelievably delicious, like they were fucking made for kissing. Lifting her by the hips, I sit her down on the edge of the hutch. She looks up at me and runs her tongue over her bottom lip. Her eyes are big and bright, her hair even wilder than before. She lets out a little moan, and the sound of her voice makes my cock stir.
 

I kiss her again, but this time she’s hesitant. I remember that time, after prom, we almost kissed, fumbling in the dark. We’ve been skirting around it for years. And here I am, still a little drunk, I might admit, and I want her
now
.
 

“What are we doing?” She wraps her legs around me, puts one arm on my chest and taps me gently. My mouth hungers for more, my body still wired from the shock of touching her like I’ve wanted to for so long.
 

“What do you mean, ‘What are we doing?’ I kissed you—just like
you’ve
always wanted me to.”
 

She taps her fingers against my chest again.
Tap tap tap.
“And how do you know that?”
 

“Come on, Nat. It’s always been
obvious
. You’ve always wanted this… us.” The words tumble out of my mouth, and as I’m saying them, I know they’re the dead
wrong
things to say. I chuckle, nervous, then realize that the chuckle just makes all that shit sound even
worse.
It’s my biggest flaw, among many. When I’m drunk, I sound even more like a cocky asshole.
 

Natalie purses her lips and pulls her legs away from my body, letting them dangle against the drawers of the old hutch. “I’m an easy score, am I? With such an
obvious
crush on you since high school? What, you couldn’t get some MMA fan girl from the gym for tonight? Trying to book me instead?”

“No, Nat, of course not. You’re different—you’re—”
 

“The only girl in town you haven’t slept with?” She pulls her knees up to her chest and pushes me hard. I stumble backwards, and I can feel Natalie slipping away from me, retreating back into herself. “And I’m your stepsister too. A fucking novelty. The boys at the gym must really like that one.”