Ash: A Bad Boy Romance (10 page)

Maybe it turned out I mourned the surgery more than I ever mourned the loss of Ash. When I saw him again today, it was like no time had passed at all. Old wounds tore open, and I felt like a bloody mess in his presence. The only defense I had was my irritation, the way I could cut him down with my words.
 

How dare he claim he'd contacted me? But the emails were all there, copied and dated. And the lawyer had shrugged like an idiot.
 

Just give me a chance.
 

I must be an idiot too. Because I want this chance too. I want that day to be all wrong. If I could erase it from my memory like it never happened, covered up with a second chance, then maybe these old scars would fade.

But there it is again, the interminable pulsing at the bottom left of my abdomen. It feels like a nail catching over and over again, like the worst day of my life is rewinding and repeating over and over again.
 

Outside, it starts to rain, gentle drops falling over the tin roof of my mother's inn. It's three in the morning, and I'm as alone as I always am.

It's stupid. It's foolish. But as the raindrops fall, I start to wonder what the harm is in letting Ash into my life again. As a friend, as a fantasy. Until the separation ends, at least.

Maybe I'll let him walk me home again tomorrow, too.

It couldn't do any harm.
 

Three Years, Four Months Ago

I still don’t have a plan, and the clock is ticking. I’ve been able to hold Cullen off bit by bit. And apparently Bianca saw to her own safety for another few weeks by paying up five thousand.
 

But things are desperate, and Summer is getting scared.
 

I lie awake, thinking, as she sleeps next to me. Since the night she saw her aunt crying, she’s been here. I’ve distracted her as well as I could with what I have to offer—but both of us know that Cullen’s vendetta against Bianca is coming to a head.
 

Before all of this, Summer thought it was all fun in a way—visiting the mafia man in his fucked up world, getting goosebumps while we watch her aunt’s bar. Not that she hasn’t been scared—any person in their right mind should be. But it’s like it hadn’t occurred to her that her life could contain
actual
danger.

I’ve told her Cullen is growing more and more impatient, that we need to figure out what happens next. We only have five more days, and he’ll be delivering on his threats—starting the process to reclaim the property he sees as his.

Summer stirs next to me, and moves to get up, like she can slip out of the bed without me noticing.

“Where you going, Sunshine? It’s three in the morning.” I catch her hand, and in the dark of my bedroom, she gasps. I keep my tone light, but my heart beats just a little faster.
 

If she’s leaving right now, she’s not going anywhere
good
. I bet it has something to do with protecting her ridiculous aunt—and that’d be all good and well if Cullen weren’t the threat lurking in the dark.

A ray of moonlight hits her face. Her eyes are big, lips parted. In the dark, she looks sad and tired and vulnerable.
 

I’ve come to know this side of her too quickly. We should just be fucking, but something deeper has happened, driven by this mess we’re in.
 

And here I am, wanting to leap out of bed after her to protect her.

If I were just a normal guy and she were a normal woman, I might ask her out. Take her to dinner, wine and dine her, that kind of shit.
 

Instead, I’m going to
somehow
undermine my boss to save her—even if it means sacrificing myself. This aren’t the kind of thoughts I like to have about a woman, but the primal piece, deep inside of me,
needs
to protect Summer. The men in the Family talk about women
belonging
to them. I always thought it sounded like a bunch of pussy bullshit, but when I look at Summer now, I get it.
 

I
want
it.
 

And it means something deeper than having what’s between her legs—though, my God, that’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted—it means possessing her, protecting her,
never
letting anything bad happen to her.

She bites her lower lip, and I feel myself stiffen even as I fear losing her.
 

“I’ve got to go back and check on my aunt,” she whispers. “She said
your
men have been outside of the bar since midnight, and they forced her to close early.” She tries to maintain that haughty attitude she gets sometimes, but there’s real fear in her voice. Her phone flashes in her hand, illuminating her naked body for a second, rosy pink nipples and the curve of a perfect hip. The look on her face conjures a feeling of shame—and that’s not something I’m used to—a crushing sensation in my gut. After that brief flash, the room is dark again, and she pulls her hand away, pulling on her clothes over her round, high breasts and her alluring, pear-shaped ass.
 

When I first met Summer, I wanted to lose myself in her—to forget all the pain I’ve inflicted in my life as a mafia soldier. That’s all she was, a cheap hookup to forget. But with each time I see her, I see something new—the way she purses her lips when she’s thinking, that sharp, helpless intake of breath when I enter her, and last night, when she begged for me to come inside of her, face turned back to me, hair splayed over her shoulder. And I obliged—no woman has ever felt so good, and no woman has ever made me want to keep her, not like this.
 

I don’t want to
lose
myself in her now. I want to keep myself sharp and sober, so I can remember every detail.
 

“Don’t go so soon, Sunshine. I could help you relieve some of that stress.”
 

The men won’t attack. It’s just a threat on this go round. Let Bianca deal with it.

“Ash—don’t. This is fun. But I need to go.” She sighs, and I can guess she might be smiling.

“This is more than fun.” I roll toward her and inch my hand up her dress, cupping her breast and rubbing my thumb across her nipple.
 

“Jesus,” she whispers, and the whimper in her voice gets me harder, ready to take her again.

“Just pull up that dress and move your panties to the side. I’ve got plenty here for you. Last night you said it was too big, but you liked how it hurt. That you
needed
it.”

Gently, she pushes my hand down and back onto the bed. “Ash—I need to go. I’d like to stay—but B is scared. My aunt—she said that Cullen came by, demanding more money and telling her he’d slit the throat of everyone who worked there.” There’s a quiver in her voice, even though she’s trying to stay strong.

I sigh and sit up. It would be easier if she just hopped back in bed with me and forgot about this one little snag. Not that I have an idea of what to do—but there’s still time.

The threat of danger is close, but it’s not yet here.

Bianca never should have gotten involved with that man, and she never should have done it when she knew her niece was coming to live with her for a year.

Summer walks away and heads to the door, stumbling over my rug in the dark, and I swear, I can almost smell her fear in the dark. There’s something awful about it all—I’ve caused fear every moment I’ve been a part of Cullen’s “Family.”
 

After the employees next week, Summer is the next target. Bianca has told her that Cullen won’t hurt her, but Bianca’s wrong. That’s always how it works—he goes after the money first, then the infrastructure, and finally, the family.
 

“Summer,” I say. I hear her pause by the door, keys jangling in her purse. But she doesn’t move. “Be careful. If Cullen is still around, I don’t want him to see you and get any big ideas.”
 

Stupid. There’s nothing you can do to protect him if he has them in his crosshairs. Fuck. This is so fucking useless.
 

This girl is special, and there’s nothing I can do for her. There’s got to be
something
.

“I’ll be fine. B says Cullen won’t hurt me, right? So it’s okay if I go.”

“It’s
not
okay if you go. You stay right here where you’re safe, Summer. You’re—”
 

Mine
.
 

Before, I can finish, she opens the door and closes it behind her.

I’m up and dressing as she flies down the stairs and out the front door.
 

“Damn woman. She doesn’t know who she’s dealing with.”

He
won’t
go easy on Summer just because she’s a pretty little girl. Bianca might be an old friend, or so Cullen says, but she’s not
family
. And family is the only honor that crazy old Irish bastard has.
 

But now? I might be asked to hold her still while Cullen chops off a finger and Bianca watches.
 

In a matter of days, and there’s just about nothing I can do.
 

If I go after Cullen, his men will kill Bianca and Summer immediately.
 

There’s no money to scrounge up—not from me, not from Bianca or Summer or anyone.

Just before I run down the stairs after her, something snaps in my brain.

I laugh out loud, the sound echoing against the empty walls.
 

If I want Summer to live a life free of Cullen, I think this might be the only way. I just hope she doesn’t get any sentimental ideas about the whole thing. I’m not a sentimental man. As much as she might
intrigue
me, that’s as far as it goes—isn’t it?

Or if she
does
get sentimental ideas—

I stop the thought in its tracks.
 

This would be a business deal for the best lay I’ve had in years, and it’s nothing more than that.

Surely she’ll understand.

Present Day
 

I’ve made progress with Summer even though I shouldn’t have. I still wake up in the morning, thinking about the day she left. I didn’t even have the decency to say goodbye myself—I had another man do it for me. And worse, I lied.
 

I made him tell her I didn’t love her.
 

I made him tell her that I never wanted to marry her, that she needed to leave without me because I didn’t want to see her anymore. Something along those lines. I told him it was okay to improvise—whatever sounded worst.

The thought makes me fucking sick now. When I saw her at that divorce lawyer’s place today, pencil skirt showing off her legs, her voice haughty and hurt and angry, I was taken back to that place all over again.
 

I married her to save her life. And then I broke her heart to let her become the woman she is.
 

She only knows the first part—the second part isn’t something I was allowed to tell her. And it became something I didn’t want to pursue.

Now? Now it’s everything. It’s the lynchpin in this whole situation. But I don’t know if I can bring myself to tell her the whole story, not yet.
 

Instead of becoming the man I could be, I came here to the beach and drank myself into a ditch for five months, avoiding her calls and emails until I finally turned off my number altogether. Then I got involved in the underworld here while I got myself clean. It wasn’t the professional life I’d originally planned, but it was
something
, getting young kids trained to fight dirty.
 

I made it to the place where I can get
more
and
better
things now.

But there’s all the pain of the past still—there’s no denying that I broke Summer’s heart.
 

For some reason, she paused and looked at me today, and for a second, all of that pain and hurt melted away.
 

I think of that look as I walk into my decrepit gym and watch Josh practice. He pummels the punching bag, and I cheer him on from the broken counter, too tired to get up and spar with him. I built this place from nothing after I got sober, and it’s nothing still. Josh, the only fighter who wanted to take a chance on me, followed me here from Frank’s gym. We’re both tied up in Frank’s criminal world still, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel.