by T. S. Joyce
Asher trailed nipping, sucking kisses across her jawline to her throat, then to her bra. Asher unsnapped it in the back and yanked that off too. Ashlyn came this close to sighing in relief when her full breasts were freed, but Asher put his mouth on her nipple and sucked gently, and that sigh came out a moan instead. She ran her fingers through his hair and grasped the back of his neck to encourage him. Arching her back against the mattress, she closed her eyes and got lost in the sensation of Asher’s lips on her sensitive skin. How had she lived her entire life without this feeling right here? It wasn’t just sex. It was making love with The One.
“The one,” Asher murmured. When he looked up, he was still smiling, but it had lost the edge of wickedness. It had softened. Sure, he would still terrify small children with those churning silver eyes, but to her, with the candlelight flickering across his face, those beautiful gentle-monster eyes and that breathtaking smile, he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Beautiful monster.
“Yours,” he murmured, kissing down her ribs to her stomach.
“Mmmm,” she moaned. She liked that. “Mine.”
Asher clamped his mouth over her pink lacy panties, right between her thighs. It was just a moment, and then he eased his mouth off her, but it was enough that her body rolled toward him, begging. “Mine,” he growled in an inhuman voice.
He bit down on the waist of her panties and slid them downward. Ashlyn moved her legs as he needed to make the panties slide off smoothly. He trailed tendrils of fire down her skin, following the lace fabric with his fingertips, and the entire time, he held her trapped in that striking gaze of his. It was the sexiest thing she’d ever watched a man do. Oh, he was wooing the shit out of her all right. More like seducing her completely—body, mind, and soul.
His pants went next, and she couldn’t help but be struck by the strength of his body. He was big, with defined muscles on his stomach and chest, flexing as he pushed his pants down. He had a defined V-shape right at his hips, and the soft candlelight cast his body in deep shadows and appealing highlights. His massive triceps and shoulders flexed as he settled between her thighs. She’d always been attracted to clean-shaven businessmen with bad attitudes. Men who would never settle because that’s what she had wanted, too. No settling, no being tied down to one person. She’d only wanted the aloof types…until Asher.
Now, all she wanted in the world was him and the future they’d talked about.
“Shhhh,” he said softly, crawling up her body and pressing his lips to hers. His fingertips were gentle in her hair as he pushed it away from her face. “We’ll have it. I’ll make sure of it.”
She wanted to cry and laugh and hug him tighter. His promise meant so much. Asher thought himself evil, and perhaps he was capable of it, but he cared for her heart more than any man had ever bothered to.
Asher gripped the back of her neck and rolled his hips, slid into her deeply. Ashlyn gasped against his lips at how good he felt inside of her. He pulled out and then pushed back in, over and over until she was writhing and groaning with each thrust. Her orgasm exploded through her, clenching around his thick shaft in fast pulses, and Asher slowed. He drew it out. His teeth were gritted like it was a monumental effort to force himself at the slower pace for her, and she adored him for it. God, he was so sexy, teetering on the edge of his control, taking care of her needs first and pushing his to the side. He loved her back. She could tell.
Something shifted in him, and Asher’s control slipped. Perhaps he’d read her mind as she’d determined he was in this with her, too. He slammed into her, and the gentle-monster was gone. Good. She’d gotten the gentle love-making, and now she wanted her man to take his pleasure how he wanted. And apparently, that was hard and fast because he thrust into her deeper and deeper, harder and harder, shoving her up the bed with the force of his movements. He gripped her around the back and crushed her against him as he sucked on her neck hard enough to leave bruises. Her second release came out of nowhere. It just built to blinding within seconds, and she was helpless to do anything but ride the waves of pleasure he created in her body.
She screamed out and dragged her nails down his back how he liked. Asher yelled out and arched his head back as he pushed into her again. Pulsing warmth filled her, throbbing from his dick, heating her from the inside out. She loved this. Loved everything about him. Loved everything about the moments he gave her. Loved how their bodies fit together like they were made for each other. She loved that her Asher was a titan capable of great darkness, but that he was still fighting to remain good. That he was tender with her. That he built her up and kept her steady and cared for her in a way no one else ever had.
He saw her, the real her. And in return, he let her see him, too.
He let her into his darkness, let her be a light, let her expose his shadows and dwell there with him instead of keeping her locked out with the rest of the world.
Minutes passed, and his lips went soft against hers. They sipped at her long after both of their aftershocks had faded away. And then he slid off the bed, lifted her in his arms, and carried her to the bathroom where he drew her a warm bubble bath just like she’d always dreamed of a man doing for her. And as she soaked in the steaming water, he sat beside the tub and watched the curve of her lips, like her smiles fed him, just like his smiles fed happiness to her soul. They didn’t say anything, but they didn’t have to. She could see his tender thoughts etched into the softness of his darkening eyes. There was no fear or trouble there, which made her feel better about the hunt he would go on. Asher wasn’t worried. His head was here, with her.
Ashlyn drew up her knees, crossed her arms over them, and rested her cheek on her forearms so she could drink in his perfect face, his blond, mussed hair, and his beard, only a couple shades darker. His chiseled jaw and muscular neck and tattoos.
“I think you’re perfect for me,” she whispered.
“Wolf and all?” he asked, the smile slipping a bit.
Ashlyn dipped her chin once.
Asher swallowed audibly and dragged his hand through the water, dislodging a line of bubbles. “I saw your dad.”
Ashlyn looked around the room as chills rippled across her arms.
“Not as a ghost. I saw him in your head. It was the night you hung out with Mila and Blaire in Winter’s Edge. The night we heard the wolf howl. My instincts were kicked up. I’d felt him before, but then he was too close to you. I wanted to hunt him then, but I couldn’t make myself leave you. I watched you through the window. Your worried smile. The way you looked at Mila and Blaire with hurt in your eyes. I didn’t feel bad about listening to people’s thoughts before you came along, but I saw your dad. More than saw, I felt your pain around the memories. You’d wrapped it up tight with hurt. You talked about me running. You compared me to him. I hated it. I’m not him, Ashlyn.”
Ashlyn’s eyes burned with tears. Thinking of Dad was unpleasant. “You see too much sometimes, and it scares me.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to see all the bad stuff about me. I can’t hide anything from you, Asher. You’re going to see it, and you’re going to feel differently about me. I want to keep you.”
Asher huffed a soft laugh, slid his big, strong hand up her neck, and pulled her close to the edge of the tub. He kissed her gently and then rested his forehead against hers. “Nothing scares me, Ashlyn. The more I get to know you, the more I love you. Tell me about him. Let me in tonight.”
“Promise not to run,” she whispered. “Promise not to think I’m too much.”
“I promise,” he said, like it was the easiest oath in the world.
“He was loud and embarrassing when he drank. He moved us out of a nice house to a rat-hole just because he wanted to live closer to his favorite bar. He had friends there, enablers, and he spent a lot of time there. Too much time. I have very few memories of him being sober. My mom was my rock, and I was hers, and in a lot of ways, we still are. We’re close because we weather
ed my father together. I hid him. I never talked about him to my friends at school, never invited anyone over, never had birthday parties like the other kids. I used to pray that my mom would leave him. I saw other kids struggling with their parents divorcing, but I was actually praying for it. I wanted her to move on and find someone who stuck around, who treated her nice, bought her flowers, and didn’t always smell like whiskey. One who didn’t slur all his words, and who would come home from work every night like a normal husband and eat dinner with us. She didn’t leave him until I was in college, though. I was proud of her. I just wished she’d done it sooner. Anyway, he would disappear for weeks at a time. If it went on long enough, we went to the police. He could’ve been dead under a bridge somewhere for all we knew. It was constant. He missed holidays, just…forgot about them. There was never a time in my childhood where I depended on him to follow through with something and wasn’t let down. So when I moved out and went to college, I really really wanted a man to make up for all the years of hell he’d put me through. I wanted to believe there was something different than my experience. And I let myself fall in love…God, Asher…this stays between us always, okay? I haven’t even told Blaire about this.”
“All of your secrets are safe with me, Ashlyn. Tell me about him.”
“His name was Jason, and he seemed like a nice boy. At first. I think I was so desperate for a man to be caring and love me that I ignored a lot of red flags. A lot of them. I was determined to be perfect for him, so I could feel this acceptance I’d always wanted. Like I was good enough. I changed everything about me until I didn’t recognize myself anymore. It took two years of dating, and I’d snuffed myself out of existence, molded myself into this unfamiliar shape just to fit him. He started cheating, but still I clung to him because I wanted to be good enough, but it hurt worse and worse every time he found a new girl. It took three of them before I ended it, and I thought my life was over. Love was supposed to be this beautiful thing, like in the movies, but for me, it had poisoned me and made me unrecognizable, and for a while I couldn’t figure out how to get myself back. The good parts that I’d liked about myself had all been thrown away to make a man happy. So when I finally got them back, I vowed to not get close to a man like that ever again, because love wasn’t happiness. It was pain.” She shrugged. “Until you, everyone else was faceless.”
Asher eased his forehead off hers and slid his bearded jaw against her soft cheek in an animal-like affection. When he settled his lips by her ear, he said, “I’ll make you promises. I’ve never broken one, so you can trust me to follow through. One, I won’t ever ask you to change a single thing about yourself because I adore you the way you are. To me, you’re perfect. Two, I won’t run. What I’m doing tomorrow? That’s not running. It’s fixing things so I can come back to you and spend the rest of my time trying to make you happy. And three…this is a big one, Sparkles. There won’t be anyone but you. Wolves don’t work like that. We pick, and that’s that. I’ll never see anyone else. From here until our last breaths, everyone will be faceless but you. Now…you made a deal, and I followed through with my part. Two orgasms. Your turn. I like to hear the words from your lips. I never got them from other people, and I understand that need for acceptance more than you know. Every time you tell me those three words, the darkness doesn’t feel so deep.”
Ashlyn smiled and pressed her lips against the scruff on his jaw, stalling until she knew her emotions were steady and her voice wouldn’t shake. “Asher Striker, I love you.”
He let off a long sigh as if her words were a balm to an ache she hadn’t realized he carried. And in a soft, gruff voice, he murmured, “I love you, too.”
Chapter Fifteen
“It’s not just one wolf,” Gentry murmured from where he knelt in the snow and stared at a set of massive paw prints in the early dawn light. “It’s two, maybe three, and none of them smell like Bone-Rippers. Who did you piss off, Asher?”
Who hadn’t he pissed off? He’d told Ashlyn he was a PI of sorts, but that wasn’t the entire truth. He tracked down bad guys for bad guys. And yeah, some of them were werewolves, so maybe his career choice was coming back to bite him in the ass now.
A nearly translucent Ghost Dad was standing fifteen yards away next to a cover of low brush. He was standing with his profile to them, staring down at the brambles with an empty gaze. Weird. Usually he was staring at him, or at one of his brothers. Ghost Dad liked to be creepy like that.
Asher stood and strode through the fresh snow to where the ghost was standing. A tuft of dark gray fur waved slightly in the breeze. Canting his head, Asher knelt and picked it from the dry thorns, then sniffed.
“Recognize it?” Gentry asked from behind him.
Asher tried to recall his scent again and growled in frustration. It was right at the edge of his tongue, just this faint familiarity. “No,” he gritted out.
Roman had knelt quietly beside him, his blazing gold eyes locked on the tuft of fur in Asher’s grasp. “Asher didn’t piss these wolves off.”
“Who did?” Gentry asked.
“No one. They aren’t right. They aren’t hunting Asher out of vengeance. They’re hunting him because they must.”
“Who are they?” Asher asked, but from the haunted look in Roman’s eyes, he already knew the answer.
“These wolves are from the arena. Slade will be leading them.”
“Ssshit,” Gentry hissed, pacing away. “Why?” he asked, walking back. “Why do they have to hunt Asher?”
“Because they’ve been broken, and now their wolves have to kill other dominants. Any threats have to go.”
“I’m not a threat to them.”
“You’re the biggest of all the wolves, Asher,” Roman murmured. “A challenge for broken animals. If they’ve banded together…” Roman shook his head. “I should’ve put them down instead of releasing them.”
“This isn’t your fault,” Gentry said low. “You putting them down would’ve made you go completely dark, and Mila wouldn’t have been able to bring you back. How many were there, and what do you know about them?”
“Six males, one female. Female’s name is Brayah. She’s the least dominant, the weakest link, but a complete brawler, you understand?”
Asher and Gentry looked at each other quick, then nodded. Roman was saying there was a pack of bloodthirsty war dogs about to rain down on them. “They’ll work more like a wild pack because the human in them was ripped out by the way they were pitted against each other. Unnecessary fighting drags the wolf to the surface, and the good parts go away. They aren’t recoverable. You don’t fight like that, kill for sport like that, and then go back to a normal life. You stay empty.” Roman’s roiling gold eyes had gone vacant as he stared off into the trees.
“You didn’t stay empty,” Asher pointed out quietly.
“I was in there only a couple days, and I came out of it to Mila, who wouldn’t quit on bringing me back. I was the new fighter. The others were fucked beyond repair before I even went in there. Especially the two titans Anderson had built up.”
“Titans?”
“They’re rippers. Anderson started them easy on submissive wolves. Built up their tolerance to killing and pitted them against more and more wolves as they gained their confidence and lost their humanity. They were his prize fighters. His Beasts, he called them. Slade and Carver. Anderson called him Bone-Carver in the arena, but it’ll probably be Slade leading the pack. He was an alpha before he was captured. Gentry, if you’re only seeing two, maybe three wolves, my guess is the others didn’t just split off. Slade and Carver would’ve killed them. They may have to kill now just to sate the wolves.”
“Dammit, Roman,” Gentry gritted out. “Why didn’t you tell us then? Asher and I could’ve put them down instead of letting them being unleashed onto the world.”
“It wasn’t their fault, Gentry! They didn’t put themselves in those cages or fight willingly. Not until their minds had been taken completely. You weren�
�t there, sitting in that damn cell, drowning in the fucking stink of fear and piss. We were all scared but the Beasts, and you can bet your ass when they were in the beginning stages of being turned monster, they were scared, too. I guess I really wanted…”
“Wanted what, Roman,” Asher asked. “Just say it.”
“I wanted maybe one of them to be okay, and who was I to choose who had a shot at that? I was just the lucky asshole who got sold to Anderson last.”
“All right, Asher, how do you want to play this?” Gentry asked, linking his hands behind his head.
Asher frowned in suspicion. “Roman said they’ll be like a pack of wild wolves. Right up your ally, Wolf Hunter. I thought you would want to take lead on this one.”
“First off, thanks for calling me Wolf Hunter and not Favorite, because I hate that fucking nickname, and second, you’re basically alpha wolf here. Even if I came up with a plan of attack, you could make us do whatever you want anyway, so what’s the point? Plus…” Gentry shrugged and left the rest unspoken.
Asher had to know, though. “Plus what?”
Gentry ran his hands over his hair and flung them off his head in discomfort. “You know…”
Asher arched his eyebrows, and Roman muttered something about, “emotional constipation and therapy hour,” as he dug deeper into the brambles.
“Just say it,” Asher demanded. “And I swear to God if you’re about to call me evil, or Asherhole, I’m gonna bust you in the face.”
“Man, forget it,” Gentry muttered, doing an about face. “Fuck you, Asherhole.”
“Tell me!”
“I was going to say I trusted you,” Gentry barked out as he rounded on him. “I fucking trust you, man. You’re the one being hunted, you’re as good a hunter as me and Roman, maybe better because, yeah, you’re probably fuckin’ evil.”
“At least a little evil,” Roman agreed.
Okay, the evil comment made his wolf want to rip both their throats out, but Gentry had just said he trusted him, and he’d never said anything like that before. Not to Asher’s face. It drew him up straight and left him speechless.