Ash: A Bad Boy Romance (5 page)

“What’d you do, leave it blank on the paperwork?” A hot blush starts to rise in my cheeks, and Ash’s grin grows wider, like he’s enjoying this. “Or did you tick it off so little that Della wouldn’t notice it?”

“Debbie.”
 

“Debbie, that’s right.” He steps closer to me, the ugly cut on his arm covered in a bandage that somehow got ratty between this morning and now. There’s a fresh bruise spreading over his jawline, and I wonder if it’s from sparring—or if he’s back in the game like he used to be, picking fights with people who can’t pay up. It’s sleepier down here, but there’s no shortage of D-rate criminals to get involved with. And it never seemed like Ash was too picky. I move to go towards my car, but he puts one arm out and scoots over to block me, legs spread like he’s getting ready for a fight.
 

My heart catches in my throat. Something tells me that if he touches me again—if I feel that calloused hand against my skin, I might incinerate from the inside. Even being this close to him makes me feel weirdly
hot
. “Ash, can you fucking not?”
 

“Can I fucking not what? Not touch you? Not be in your line of vision? What?”

“All of the fucking above! Get out!” I shout. “Go! Just show up when I tell you to. We need to get this settled.” My voice is hoarse, cracking as I shout at him. Several of the patients, including a mom with a new baby, look our way as they pass, giving us a wide berth. I try to duck to the side again, but I can’t avoid him this time, and he catches me by the arm. His hand holds me tight, but not hard enough to leave a bruise. He was never like
that
. Just firm enough that I can’t wrench myself free.

“We need to get what settled? Our divorce?” He pulls me in close, his bicep rippling with muscle. His skin looks healthier and fresher than it did when I first met him. My eyes move down his shoulder and to his arm again. He’s
definitely
bigger. That uncomfortable heat comes back, starting deep in the pit of my stomach and moving lower, lower, lower.
 

No, no. NO.

“Let. Me. Go. I have a shift at six again tomorrow morning, and I need some food—”

“I’ll take you out to dinner.”
 

“No. I’m not going anywhere with you—”

“If you’d give me a chance to explain—”

“Explain
what
?” I try to break free again, but he won’t let me.
 

He wipes the smirk off of his face and looks at me seriously. “Did you read my emails? Any of the letters?”

“No,” I say, knitting my brows. “I read the first email, saying you wanted to talk to me, but after that I deleted them.”

“Goddammit, Summer.” He lets my arm go, and I nearly run off to my car, but something about his tone stops me.
 

“What? What were you going to say to me to undo what you did?”

“What I did? What about what you did—running off to God knows where after all that shit—”

“All the shit
you
put me through, you mean.” My voice cracks again, but I stand firm and stare at him. His hair almost looks white in the twilight, and I wonder what he might look like as an old man. Distinguished, maybe. With a scar across his cheek that I patched. That scar will always be with him, every day of his life. I purse my lips, and Ash is silent. He crosses his arms, muscles pulling against his shirt sleeves. He’s changed into a gray t-shirt, like the one he was wearing when I first saw him. “You want me to spell it out? You left me long before I ever left you, Ash. You talked me into an obligation—”

“I saved your aunt.” His eyes don’t leave mine. “And I—” He pauses and looks down. “I saved you, didn’t I?”

“You’re just as arrogant as you’ve always been. I needed you then, and you abandoned me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m fucking starving.” Even though my words ring true when I say them, I’m not moving. I’d forgotten what it was like to be stuck in this man’s thrall.
 

I’ve stayed hung up on him for three years—that’s not something he needs to know. I might even forgive him—but that’s not a road I’m willing to go down.

He takes a pack of cigarettes from his jeans. “Trying to quit. But I’ve quit everything else. This is my last vice. Two a day.” He gestures the pack at me, and even though I want one, I shake my head. He shrugs and takes out a cigarette, and I watch as he lights it and takes a long drag. “Come on. Let me take you to dinner,” he says, exhaling a plume of smoke.

“Why would I do that?”
 

“You owe a man that.” He puffs a ring of white smoke, and it dissipates quickly in the breeze.
 

“I didn’t think I owed you much of anything,” I say, my tone haughty. He married me, which saved me from getting punted out of New York with a scar on my face or a bullet in my knee—and then he let me leave by myself, refusing to sign the divorce papers, refusing to come with me. Seems pretty cut and dried—I don’t owe him time or explanations. He’s the one who broke my heart.

My chest grips at the thought of him, the promises he made back then.
 

I shouldn’t have associated promises from a sham relationship with anything real. That was my mistake. And I shouldn’t be standing here right now, letting him look me up and down, letting him lure me in with a grin and a half-baked explanation after three years of hurt.
 

“Blue Moon Diner. They have crab cakes right now.” He takes another drag from his cigarette, and I cross my arms against the breeze. I was going that direction anyway, and I need to get him to sign some papers before he goes mouthing off about being married to me. I don’t think my employers—or my mom—would take too kindly to a random, violent husband showing up out of nowhere.
 

“Okay,” I mutter. “Fine. I’ll meet you there.”

“What was that, Sunshine?” His mouth lifts into a grin, and he steps closer to me. My pulse quickens, and I gulp. I step back again, nearly falling off the curb and onto the hard, black asphalt.
 

“I said okay. But don’t think I’m buying what you’re selling. I’ll meet you there.”
 

“I’d prefer if you came in my truck, but I guess we can’t have everything.”
 

“No. We can’t have everything.” I turn and walk to my car, my back to Ash and his soul-melting gaze. His steps fall in line right behind me, then he gets into a polished silver pickup three cars down from mine. “If you can afford
that
—” I shout, gesturing to the truck, “You’re buying dinner.”

He nods, and I follow him down the road.
 

Three Years, Five Months Ago

Her name is Summer.
 

The girl.
 

The one I went back to the bar looking for.
 

Turns out this is the bar I should have been coming to all along. Turns out it’s hard to pick up a woman when you’ve been sent to threaten her family. And with the talk from Cullen, it’s clear that Bianca is short on her payments. And she’ll continue to be.

There’s something about this girl—something that makes the prospect of burning down the bar where she lives or breaking her aunt’s fingers—that starts a pit of nausea in my gut. Cullen says she could be the lynchpin, the key to bleeding Bianca dry. I don’t know why he’s so hung up on this one woman, on the measly amount of interest she’s paying him each month. But he’s determined as fuck, and Bianca is directly in his crosshairs.

That means Summer is too.
 

I’m sitting in what qualifies as a park in this neighborhood, eyes on Bianca’s Pub. If I lean to the left, I can see Summer when she comes down the stairs to the bar and begins wiping down the tables for the night. She’s not there yet, but I check my phone and see that it’s five. She’ll be down in about thirty seconds. I close my eyes so that when I open them, she’ll be standing there and I can watch her for a moment before she sees me.

I imagine taking her back to my apartment again, slipping off one of those tight, white tops she wears while she’s tending bar, cupping those gravity-defying tits and taking them into my mouth until I hear her delicate whimper.

When I open my eyes, Summer Colington is standing across the street, arms crossed under her creamy tits. She’s drinking the remainder of a beer and staring at me with an expression that could turn boiling water to ice.

I grin at her in response and light a cigarette, taking a long drag. Her expression stays the same. Cullen once told me that Bianca had cut his arm down to the bone with a broken whiskey bottle—and I’d imagine B might have looked exactly how Summer does right now, right down to the pale golden freckles sprayed over her cheeks.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” she shouts.

“No. This is my job.”

She slowly raises a middle finger, her gaze locked on mine.

“Fuck off. Go back where you came from, Jonathan Ash.”

Summer walks back inside and I sigh heavily, my breath making clouds of white mist in the air. Even though it’s technically spring, New York hasn’t gotten the message yet. The wind is still cold, the sun setting early. I find myself wishing I could watch Summer from inside the bar, but I’d probably get kicked right out on my ass by two freckled, Irish women. And I’m not quite ready to use firearms inside the premises.
 

I look back at the bar, hoping for another glance at Summer working the tables. But the few customers Bianca still gets will be here soon, and Summer’s about to start working the bar. When I squint, though, I see a glint of something in the fading evening light. It’s a bottle, and it wasn’t there before Summer came outside.

Against my better judgment, I sprint across the street and pick it up.
 

Jack Daniels, with four or five shots left inside.

I look inside to see Summer, breasts bouncing as she wipes down the bar. She looks up for a second and nods at me, very slightly, then points back to my bench with a frown.

I take a swig of whiskey as I walk back across the street.

This one, she might be conflicted. But she likes a little bit of danger.

There are ten texts on my phone right now, all from women less complicated than Summer Colington. But something about this woman, both devilish and pure, makes something inside of my chest clench tight.

No matter what debt my family owes to Cullen, no matter how bound together we are, I know now I won’t do anything to hurt her.

The realization is primal, like an instinct, something deeper than my ties to Cullen or anyone in the Family.

Present Day

“Coffee? Beer?” The waitress leans across the bar and places menus in front of us. “Got fried green tomatoes on special. And a peach cobbler for dessert.”

“Thanks,” Summer says. “I’ll take a coffee. And fried green tomatoes, I guess.”

“A coffee for me too. And grits for the girl. Fish and grits? Even though that’s totally disgusting—”

“Shut up, Ash, you’re lucky I came with you at all.” The waitress laughs and saunters off like we’re a normal couple just being playful with each other. Summer puts her head in her hands and leans against the wall, angling her body away from mine. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, her face somehow more angular than it was when I knew her before. She was still delicate back then, but her cheeks were fuller, her eyes more full of spark. I can’t believe I’m the thing she blames for all this growing up she’s done, but it would seem that’s the story she’s sticking to.