And that turned out to be so much more precious than I’d ever dreamed. I didn’t have to let anyone tread on me ever again. I could choose the path my life would take, for good or ill. I was finally in control.
Of course, I’d immediately wanted to indulge in all things English. I was convinced that everything I’d been told about the outside world—all the things my family had labeled “bad” and “wrong”—was absolute crap. For the most part, I’d been right, and one of my favorite highlights through all the time I spent experimenting with English culture involved this very fair.
The same one that rolled into Bright Falls every year around this time. The one that had dazzled me, spellbound me, with its lights and colors. Captivated me with its myriad of sounds. Threatened to drown me in a sea of people and balloons.
On top of being utterly amazing, the experience had also been… overwhelming. So when Beth turned to me at the ticket booth and told me in our mother tongue that Sarah looked unwell, I was hardly surprised at all.
I’d been talking with Ash, trading innuendos with him about what might go down between us tonight if he played his cards right. The way he’d taken me over in my apartment still haunted me, possessed me, made my knees feel like Jell-O long after the fact. All I could think about was getting him between my legs again, putting a period on the end of that sentence we’d started in my foyer. I was itching for it. Craving it. I wanted nothing else.
But as soon as I saw Sarah’s face, the fire inside me extinguished to a low smolder. She was pale and drawn, clinging to Reid’s arm in a way I’d seen too many times before. Out here, we called it anxiety. Back home, they simply referred to it as unwell.
Sarah had always had something of a delicate constitution. As a child, she’d straddled the line between bravery and terror, climbing to the tops of the tallest trees she could find, then panicking when she realized she’d have to come back down. Someone always had to help her, the poor thing—we’d learned early on that there were just some things Sarah wasn’t capable of.
As an adolescent, she took on the role of mediator, finding some solace in keeping the peace between her family, her friends, and even her sisters. As noble as it was, I recognized that she performed this duty as a compulsion—discord unnerved her, triggered spells where she had difficulty breathing and staying on her feet. Sarah felt comfortable only when her life was completely in balance. I doubted there was a more uptight person on the planet.
Except, perhaps, for the church elders—the way they conducted themselves inside the village bounds, anyway. But I knew from experience that looks, and even reputations, could be deceiving.
“I’m all right,” Sarah said, before I could even ask the question. I scrunched my nose, disbelieving, and in Dutch she added, “Everything here is new and a little scary. But Reid has offered to take care of me, so I think I’ll manage.”
I regarded Reid a moment. Ash had made him out to be an enormous tool, but the way he stayed close to Sarah, the protective manner in which he embraced her, told a different story. His warm, brown eyes were shadowed by his brow, knotted with concern. He cared. He was worried. And that, at the time, was good enough for me.
She needs to branch out, I told myself in an attempt to soothe my own apprehensions. Live a little. And she can’t do that if you’re hovering over her shoulder too closely.
Slowly, I nodded. As Beth and Wyatt chattered next to us, we entered the fairgrounds proper.
“I was thinking of maybe heading into the funhouse first,” Ash said, nudging me in a mostly inconspicuous way. I took that to mean he’d like to split off from the group, and when I looked up at him, I could tell exactly why. He had that same look in his eyes he’d had the other night at Trick Shots when I’d proposed our arrangement, and then again in my apartment when I’d goaded him into getting rough with me. That was the way I liked it—hard, bruising. And in some ways… predictable.
“I was gonna take Beth over to the freak show,” Wyatt said, his boyish grin almost too sweet and summery to bear. How a kid that utterly adorable could have the temper of a berserker, as Ash told it, was beyond me. He was chewing gum, and I was sure by the end of the night, that particular piece would end up in my sister’s mouth. The way Beth looked at him… it was like Wyatt was the moon itself, come to Earth to put stars in her eyes. They were so full of youthful excitement it was sickening. I waved them off.
“Go,” I told them, “you’ll have fun. And you will too, Sarah, if you can get outside your own head for one whole minute.” Sarah blushed, but Beth was already disappearing into the crowd with Wyatt and I wasn’t sure she even heard me. “Be careful!” I called after them.
“Shall we?” Ash asked, offering me his arm.
I rolled my eyes at him, but took it. “So gallant,” I muttered. But I still smiled.
That was the thing—even though I saw right through Ash’s charms, he still made me smile like no one else could.
He guided me through the teeming masses in the direction of the funhouse, an attraction I’d never actually gone into before. Despite its name, it looked more terrifying than fun—the doorway was nothing more than several white, narrow sheets of plastic hanging from the mouth of a gigantic clown face that framed the entrance. Like teeth. Like we were entering through its jaws.
I shuddered. God, it was creepy. But Ash was insistent; he didn’t so much as break stride on our way in.
“Ugh, why do people like clowns?” I whispered, letting the darkness of the funhouse interior settle over me. It felt sticky, in a way. Like we were walking through cold cobwebs. The scent of stale popcorn bordered on overwhelming. “They’re so… weird.”
“Statistically, they don’t,” Ash answered, pulling me through the rows of bare bulbs, like vanity lights, affixed to either side of the long hall we found ourselves in. “There was a poll a couple years back. Something like forty-three percent of Americans hate clowns, twelve percent have an outright phobia of them, and only forty percent actually find them endearing.”
I side-eyed him. “How the hell do you know that?” I asked him. “And what about the other five percent?”
“I assume they didn’t give enough of a shit to answer,” Ash said, responding to my incredulous stare with a grin. “And I end up bouncing at a lot of trivia nights.”
I shook my head and laughed. “And you just… remember it all? File it away for moments such as these?”
“What, you thought I was stupid?”
“No!” I said, maybe a little too quickly. It was true—I hadn’t—but I hadn’t exactly thought he was smart, either. I really hadn’t given it much thought at all; I was interested in Ash for a lot of reasons, but none of them had much to do with cleverness on his part.
“Well, I have a pretty good memory,” he said, and it sounded to me like there was almost a sadness to those words—like maybe there were things he wanted to forget. I understand that, viscerally. There was plenty in my life I wished I could forget, too.
“I guess that’s why we’re kinda short on company,” I mused, noting the emptiness around us. Despite the crowds outside the funhouse, inside we were utterly alone. “The clowns, I mean.”
“Well, if I were a betting man…” Ash began, but then he stopped short and never finished his thought. “C’mon. I have it on good authority this place has got some of those crazy mirrors. The ones that make you look super tall or all… wiggly, or whatever.” And instead of letting me take his arm, he grabbed my hand, weaving our fingers together in a way that made me feel like we’d been doing this for years.
That small gesture was so… oddly intimate. More so than fucking in the Trick Shots bathroom had been. It made me feel vulnerable and uneasy; and yet I cherished the warmth that flooded my body almost as much as I was unnerved by it. This wasn’t supposed to be… a thing. Ash had a reputation. It was well-known, and to his credit, he never tried to hide it from me. And to be honest, it wasn’t like I faulted him for it. I just couldn’t see myself open
ing up to someone like that, knowing what the cost would ultimately be. I was the one who did all the running away, not the other way around.
I wanted to get us back to the parts of being together that felt the most comfortable. So as soon as we made it into the chamber of mirrors, I knew what I had to do. What I’d been longing to do ever since Ash pinned me against the wall back at my apartment.
And surrounded by mirrors? Kinky.
Ash was standing in front of one that made him look incredibly tall—taller than he already was—and terribly skinny—which he was not. No, Ash was broad and well-muscled, built to hold his ground. Built to hold women down as he fucked their brains out. Built to manhandle, and built to last.
Yet there was such gentleness in him when he took my hand, and before that, when he cushioned the back of my head from slamming against the bathroom mirror our first time. Mirrors were becoming a thing with us, it seemed. I wondered if he remembered the significance.
I slipped my arms around Ash from behind, letting him watch the reflection of my hands sliding up underneath his shirt. I grazed my nails along his abs, tracing each ridge, getting to know the smooth, hilly terrain that was his body. I hadn’t had enough of him before. I hadn’t gotten to feel him the way I wanted to. And here, again in public, I still wouldn’t be able to have my fill. But I could sate my appetite, just a little.
And his, too.
Ash’s muscles went taut as I dragged my hands down to his belt, ripping it free from the buckle. He never suggested I should stop. He never even asked what I was doing. It was like he knew, instinctively, how very badly I wanted this. How badly I wanted him. Without explanation, without conversation, we were somehow on the same page. We were… in sync, when it came to this. Desire was a language we both deeply understood.
I understood even better when I opened Ash’s fly and pulled his dick out, feeling the weight of it, its taut texture. His skin was so warm, so hard I could feel his pulse through the long, swollen vein along the underside of it. There was no doubt about it—he wanted me. He wanted this.
He inhaled sharply and I felt his shoulder blades flex. The ripple and shiver that rolled through his back was delicious, worthy of my tongue. With my free hand, I lifted the hem of his shirt and jacket and licked a hot, slick trail toward his nape. I could not reach it, even on tip toes.
In the mirror, Ash watched as I stroked him, gripped him, savored every inch of his aching, filling manhood. His eyes were glued to the motions of my hand, his lips parted, curled a little at the corners in a lazy smirk. I watched his eyes glaze, watched that animal hunger slip over his features like a shroud. This was lust, pure and simple. This was my jam—my comfort zone.
“Fuck me,” I whispered as close to his ear as I could manage. He let out a grunt and in the silvery mirror, I saw his eyes flick toward the doorway we’d come through to get here. I didn’t hear or see anyone, but his brow creased with concentration and concern. I tried to wipe the look from his face with a firmer grip and a quicker flicking of my wrist, but Ash turned in my arms, his hands in my hair suddenly, tethering me to him as he pushed us both into the gallery of mirrors behind us.
But my back never connected with any of them. Out of my periphery, I saw we weren’t just backing toward the mirrors—we were going through them. Through a narrow gap between them that I hadn’t seen, and into darkness.
“I’ve heard about this,” he rasped, “from some of the security guards, back when I worked this event myself. An out of the way place to drink on break. To smoke. To fuck.” His eyes glinted in the hazy yellow light. “Never tried it for myself, though.”
I wrapped my legs around his waist as he lifted me. “Glad I could be your first.”
Then Ash crushed my mouth with his, and I said no more.
The funhouse floor was sticky. It was not suitable for lying on, for kneeling on, or for touching with any part of ourselves besides our shoes. This would be another hot, breathless fuck where most of our clothes stayed on, where much of Ash’s body was lost to the shadows. It was thrilling. Dirty. So right, and yet so wrong. Sex like this was my go-to. The adrenaline rush, the possibility of being caught, got me off almost as much as a man’s fingers and cock did. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had sex in a bed.
Well… I could. But I didn’t want to think about that. Not with Ash lifting me higher and pulling my jeans down to my ankles before settling my cunt against his face.
Oh, fuck…
I had never been licked like this before—not held up by a man’s strong arms so effortlessly it almost felt like I was floating in midair. I’d sat on plenty of faces, but none so talented or sexy as Ash Brody’s. His tongue was as stiff and unyielding as a hot poker, and yet pliable when it counted, diving into my pulsing channel just so he could lick his way back up to my tingling, neglected clit.
When he sucked my inner lips into his mouth and lapped like a hungry dog, I almost screamed. I curled forward, burying my hands in Ash’s hair as I ground my hips into him, sliding my pussy along his flickering, slithering tongue.
“God, yes!” I moaned a little too recklessly; a little too loud. “Fuck, Ash—don’t stop!”
Digging his thumbs into my hips, Ash enthusiastically obeyed my command, thrashing his head as he endeavored to sample every inch of my wet, wanting vulva.
My breath escaped me. “Shit… I’m gonna come…”
This did not deter him, and I slapped him on the back, hard, as I made good on my promise, seizing and squeezing his head between my thighs as he made me buck and writhe on his gifted, gorgeous mouth.
The lights above us blurred, morphing into orange-yellow halos as ecstasy swam through me, making my whole body tremble. Shuddering bursts played down my vertebrae as though someone had struck them like the keys of a xylophone, a resonance that only fueled the fire burning in my core. Ash made me hold myself up then, my legs over his shoulders as he tore open a condom and rolled it down his cock. I panted, trying to catch my breath enough to make some flippant, yet sexy remark—but before I could, I felt his fingers digging into my waist and pulling me from him.
“What—” I began, but trailed off into a yelp as Ash peeled me off his face and practically dropped me onto his jutting cock.
I hissed as a deep, delicious stab of pain pounded through me, the result of Ash violently bottoming out in my pussy. Then I rolled my hips and dug my nails into his jacket, matching his frenzied strokes, doing my best not to cry out his name as he held me by my ass and pummeled into me mercilessly.
Harder, I wanted to say—only because I knew guys liked that kind of thing—but I remained speechless. I really didn’t think Ash could fuck me any more brutally than he was right now, but part of me wondered, and that made me all the wetter.
“Goddamn, Hannah,” he groaned into my ear, widening his stance so he could bury himself up to his balls inside me. I wailed. I couldn’t help it. It was just too good. “You’re so fucking tight. You feel so fucking good!”
I could tell by the strain in his voice he was close. At this pace, that was hardly a surprise—not to mention he’d been hard since we left the apartment. Maybe even before that. I was reeling from the force of his thrusts, biting his shoulder to stifle my delight at being penetrated so damn deeply. It was like Ash was fucking parts of me no one ever had before, and while I wanted it to last, I knew it couldn’t. Not here. Not like this.
With a strangled moan, Ash pulled my hips to his one last time and filled the condom. I gasped and squirmed. Even through the latex, I could feel his cock throbbing, pumping the sheath full of hot, desperate come. My writhing only served to incense him, and biting his lip, Ash gave me a few more short strokes of pleasure before he pulled out, setting me on my feet.
My thighs ached. My knees threatened to knock together. I was soaking wet, completely used. At least this time my panties remained intact, though judging by my state of affairs, they’d be clinging to me until I got home.
I slid my jeans
up my body as Ash tied the condom closed. I could feel that my cheeks were red, and I got the impression my hair might have been a little wild. “Fuck. I think maybe I could get used to this.”
He grinned at me, tossing all evidence of our fucking into a nearby waste bin. Without even looking at it, I could tell it was full of cigarette butts. “Careful, love. Someone might think you wanna date me.”
I laughed and buttoned my jeans, closing the distance between us so I could kiss him. “Oh,” I murmured against his swollen lips—the ones that tasted vaguely of me, “we’re definitely not dating.”
Ash pulled away and looked down at me. “You say that like it’s absurd.”
I raised my brows. What was he getting all sensitive on me for? “Well, isn’t it?” I asked him. “Come on, Ash. You’re a player. I could never, you know… date a guy like you.” I helped him zip up his pants, then started working on his belt. “Fucking you is fine. Better than fine. It’s phenomenal. But catching feelings for you?” I secured his buckle. “I don’t think so.”
When I looked up at him again, the expression on his face was not at all what I expected. There was a tightness to his mouth, a furrow between his brows, and a slight wrinkle to his nose that looked to me like he was… hurt. Like I’d wounded him somehow. I fumbled for an apology, or at least another dose of humor to diffuse the tension between us, but I was too startled by his reaction to come up with anything good.
In a hushed tone, Ash eventually broke the silence. “I’m not a player,” he said. “I don’t go around breaking women’s hearts.”
He said it so earnestly that I almost believed him… right up until I heard a voice from the shadows behind him.
“Really, Ash? What the hell do you call this, then?!”
I watched as Ash’s face blanched. Closing his eyes, he muttered a curse under his breath.
The Brody Bunch Collection: Bad Boy Romance Page 23