Scandal: A BAD BOY Romance Novel (7 page)

"Where are you going?" I asked, panicking when I realized he wasn't sitting, too. My mind was screaming at him to not leave me. I almost screamed it, too, but I held my composure. Freaking out wasn't going to help me.

Asher held onto the various furnishings as he moved towards the cockpit.

He turned around quickly, a reassuring smile on his face. "I'm going to go see what the hell is going on so I can fix it."

I nodded, understanding the words but not fully believing them. I could see through his smile: he was putting on a brave face for me, but I knew this wasn't normal. The fact that he was trying to reassure me that we'd be okay warmed my heart, even though I was absolutely petrified.

The seconds dragged on while I waited for Asher to return. I glanced out the window and was met with a blur of clouds. Tilting my head, I looked at where we were heading, then quickly closed the curtain along with my eyes. We were headed straight for the water.

Breathe,
I commanded myself, practicing the breathing exercises I'd learned to control myself around Asher at the office.

"Here," Asher said, shoving an orange ring onto my lap. "Put this around your neck. Listen to me carefully, because I'll only have time to say this once: pull your head towards your knees, like this, and hold onto the back of your neck. Like this." He took a moment to demonstrate before continuing, "Don't inflate your life jacket yet, and make sure you put on your oxygen mask. It's under the armrest."

I shook my head, trying to understand. "What is going on?" I asked, my eyes wide. I didn't want to ask, but I felt like if I didn't ask now then I would never get a chance to again. "Are we crashing?" My voice was softer than I'd expected it to be. Calmer than I felt.

Thoughts and memories raced through my head. Everything from the fact that I would never see my parents again to the fact that I would never be able to have children and a family of my own. My chest filled with sadness at the loss.

"I don't want to worry you, but you deserve to know... The pilot had a stroke. The co-pilot is doing what he can and I'm sure we'll be fine, but you need to do a I say. Please."

My heart thumped a mile a minute and fear seized my body.
A stroke,
I thought, horrified.
Oh god, I'm too young to die.
I didn't know what to think about. I didn't know who to blame. I met Asher's gaze, he didn't look as sure of himself as before, but he reached over and squeezed my hand.

"Hey, it'll be okay," he said calmly. "Just put your oxygen mask on and your life jacket. For me."

I wanted to crack a joke about how that made me
not
want to do it. Before I could, Asher cupped my face in his large hands and mashed his lips into mine. My heart thumped even harder then, which was silly considering the circumstances. I couldn't help how he made me feel, though.

"See you when this is over, firecracker." Asher winked at me, then put his oxygen mask on and assumed the position he'd told me to do.

I wasted no time obliging his orders. As I rested my head on my knees, I couldn't help but smile. Even when my stomach was lurching from the drop, he had somehow succeeded in making me feel safe. It felt like he knew exactly what he was talking about, and for a brief moment it reassured me. Then it all went black.

I was stumbling down a familiar hallway. A sticky hallway. People were stumbling around me, laughing and taking sips from red cups. I was in the Hamilton dormitories. It looked exactly like the dormitories I lived in across campus, but the Residence Assistant in my dorms were much stricter and didn't let us party since we were freshmen. Residents of Hamilton were all juniors or seniors.

My heel got stuck to something on the ground and I held onto the wall to steady myself, almost toppling over instead.

I knew I shouldn't have had that last tequila shot.

"Need a hand?" a warm, deep voice asked me, cupping my elbow to steady me without waiting for my response.

Turning, I faced the mystery man and remembered him to be the guy hanging out near the beer keg. His blue eyes were full of concern, and my stomach fluttered as I looked up at him. He had this boyish charm to him. When he smiled at me, my heart melted, even though I felt a wave of nausea. Yep, definitely had too much tequila.

He was nice though, I thought in my drunken haze. Why was he nice? Then I remembered: my asshole ex, Ben, had shown up and was being grabby with me. I pushed him away, but he grabbed my wrist, spewing bullshit, claiming I was his. Nice Keg Guy shoved him away from me and told Ben to leave me alone. Ben whipped around and glared at me, as if I was the one who had done something wrong, before storming off. My friend Vanessa grabbed my hand and led me away from the shit storm, insisting that I needed a shot of tequila with her thick Mexican accent. I couldn't say she was wrong.

It was all such a blur and had happened right when I'd arrived hours ago that I wouldn't have even remembered the fiasco if he hadn't come to help me again.

"Are you okay?" Keg Guy looked concerned.

I nodded, my heart racing faster the more I looked at him. He was definitely hot. He had shoulder-length black hair, parted to the right; it made the blue of his eyes even bluer somehow. I took a step--or more like a stumble--backwards, my eyes sweeping over him shamelessly. His build was lean, but muscular.

When I looked back up at him, he was smirking at me. It felt like he knew exactly what I was thinking, and it was making me blush.

"I'm okay," I finally responded, my voice coming out more of a croak than I would have liked. I cleared it and tried again. "Thank you for helping me. Earlier, I mean."

He arched an eyebrow in amusement. "My pleasure. Didn't think you'd remember."

I smiled at him and slowly continued my trek down the hallway towards the exit doors. Air, I needed air. Hot Guy followed alongside me, matching my pace.

"I'm Natalie," I offered, glancing over at him shyly.

"Asher," he responded.

Asher, I thought, letting the name burn into my mind. That's a good name.

"Ash is a pretty badass nickname," I said, deciding that that's what I would call him from now on. He laughed in response, and the butterflies in my stomach intensified. To my horror, they were turning into nausea, and I hugged my stomach.

Eyeing the bathroom across from us, I made a lunge for it. "I'll be right back," I barely squeezed out.

When I came back out, I somehow felt better and shittier all at once. I glanced around for my new friend but couldn't see him anywhere. He probably went home--no point in hanging out with the girl too drunk to walk. Damn.

I looked around for a few seconds, but instead of seeing Asher, I saw Ben. He was headed for me and he looked angry.

Turning on my heel, I headed for the exit again but was stopped when Ben grabbed my arm. "What do you think you're doing?" he snarled in my ear. "Whoring yourself around with any guy you see at a party?"

"I didn't do anything," I said through gritted teeth, breaking from from his grasp. "We broke up a month ago, Ben. Get over it."

I quickened my pace, anger driving each step now. I could feel the blind, drunken rage overcome me with each step. He was such a prick, I had no idea what I saw in him to begin with.

"I'm not done talking to you," Ben snapped as he caught up with me. He was a lot taller than my petite height, so it felt like ten of my steps were only two of his. I was almost at the door now, but Ben was holding it shut, towering over me.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I glared up at him. "Let me go, Ben. It's over."

"It's not."

"Well, maybe you should've thought of that before cheating on me then blaming
me
for it."

I turned around again and reached for the door, but Ben grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked me back. My elbow instinctively jabbed him in the stomach as hard as it could, and I squeezed my eyes shut when I saw his palm swing up in the air, ready to strike.

Then he let go of me, followed by a loud 'thump'. Glancing down, I saw Ben on the floor with Asher on top of him. I counted three hard blows to Ben's face before Asher stood up, rolling his shoulders.

"Let's go, Natalie," he said, leading me to the exit with his hand on the small of my back.

Holy shit, I thought, only glancing back once to make sure Ben hadn't come after us.

"Thank you, Ash," I breathed, my heart still racing at what had just happened.

No one had ever stood up for me like that before, so I had to learn to stand up for myself. Unfortunately, that didn't always carry over well when I was trying to defend myself against men more than twice my size. No one until Asher. If I thought he was attractive before, he was a billion times sexier to me now for not even thinking twice before defending me. I looked at him in awe, my heart swelling and pounding for him in a way that it hadn't for any man or boyfriend in my life. I never even got this turned on at photos of Beiron Andersson, whose photos adorned my walls and who I had previously thought was the hottest guy in the world. I stole another look from Ash and realized that he actually kind of looked like Beiron Andersson, once his face matured a bit I think I would see a striking similarity. Even his hair length was the length Beiron's was in his younger years. The main visible difference were the eyes; Asher's were much bluer.

"Don't even mention it."

We wandered aimlessly for a little while, talking about everything, from our favorite food to what I even saw in Ben in the first place. It was funny, because after our four-month relationship, all I could come up with was that he had a tattoo and I thought it was hot. I backtracked quickly then, realizing that Ash didn't have any. I pointed out that I thought guys without tattoos were hot, too, but my heart was racing as fast as the words were tumbling out. He just watched me in quiet amusement as we walked.

Eventually, we'd ended up outside of the Fraser dormitories.

"Do you live here, too?" I asked, hopeful.

He shook his head, his hair sensually whipping him in the face. "No. My ride is parked here." He nodded over to the only vehicle parked there: a red motorcycle.

Hot and rich, I mentally noted to myself.

"Oh. Well, if you ever want to hang out, or not hang out, together, let me know."

Ash grinned. "Yeah. Hit me up on Facebook. We can plan a day to not hang out together."

"Sure, I'll add you. What's your last name?" I asked.

"Harding."

I spluttered as I came to. A million confused thoughts flooded me. Where was I? What happened? Was that a dream or a memory? Where was Asher?

The last one answered itself when Asher's lips pressed against mine, his fingers plugging my nose. I recognized his scent.

What the hell?
I thought, but then he started breathing into my mouth and I couldn't help but giggle underneath him, in spite of it all.

I opened my eyes to see that he had pushed himself off of me and sat back. The sun was blinding me and my eyes snapped shut again before I shielded the rays away from my line of vision.

Asher's lips were moving, but I couldn't process anything he was saying. All I could do was stare. The dream felt so real, but the more I thought about it, the more it slipped out of my grasp. Chunks of that night stayed with me. The main chunk being Asher. He looked the same, but different. He was more built now, he had tattoos, his hair was shorter. He looked even hotter than before.

As I watched him, the rest of my senses slowly began to trickle in. The first was the sound of waves crashing. The second was that I was soaking wet. The third was the throbbing pain I felt all over my body.

Pressing myself up slowly, I looked around. Asher's words were beginning to process, but I was too distracted to listen to him now. We were on a beach. It looked like it was straight out of a luxury vacation ad, all white sands and turquoise waters and palm trees. The main giveaway that we
weren't
at a luxury resort was the lack of people and buildings. It was just us and the nature.

"Am I dreaming?" I asked hoarsely.

"Would answering that question confirm it if you were?"

I let out a soft laugh and shook my head, immediately wincing. "I guess not. Ow."

Asher's brows knit in concern as he leaned in closer to examine my head. He pulled a shard of seashell out of my scalp, and I cried out.

"It didn't cut you very deep. We'll need to clean it up later and keep it bandaged. You're actually lucky, not a scratch on you after the accident. Well, other than the seashell, but that's my bad."

"Where is everyone else?" My heart was pounding, and I feared I knew the answer to that already. One look at Asher's grim face and my suspicions were confirmed.

"I don't know," he responded truthfully. "The jet split and we separated from the others. I was too busy dragging you out and making sure you were okay to check for anyone else. If anyone else was on our end, they didn't make it."

My eyes followed his finger, I turned my head to see what he was pointing at and my jaw dropped at the sight. It was half the jet out in the ocean, flames licking the parts that weren't already scorched.