by Aly Martinez
Even as strange as it was, the biggest smile I had ever felt grew on my mouth—even bigger than any she had ever put there in the past.
I was so fucking pissed at her. So angry that she left and never gave me a chance to apologize. Frustrated that it had taken me so long to find her. But deep down most of that was because I was terrified that even if I found her, I’d never truly get her back.
As I looked down at my book that she had held onto for all those years, even going so far as to turn it into a some sort of diary, I realized that Ash had never let go of me either.
Hope filled my chest.
And time started all over again.
I shoved the book into the waistband at the back of my jeans.
“Pack her shit. I’m taking her home.” I turned around to find Till sporting a one-sided grin, and much to my surprise, so was Judy.
Chapter Eighteen
Ash
“HEY JUDY,” I SAID, DROPPING my basket on the front desk. “Dude, I’m exhausted. I had to hike halfway across the city to find Betty. How that old woman walks so far I’ll never understand. I had to stop and take a break halfway. I was lucky I took water this morning. Well sort of lucky, that just turned into me having to pee every two blocks.” I giggled. “I gave her double breakfast just in case I couldn’t make it back out there tomorrow.”
“Oh good, honey. That’s just great.” She reached out and rubbed my arm.
I quickly moved away. “So anyway. I’m gonna go take a shower, and get started on lunch.”
“Um, well. Dear, there’s a new guest in the conference room. Would you mind giving him a warm welcome?” She smiled tightly.
“Cranky old asshole?” I asked with a laugh.
We had a lot of those and for some magical reason I was always in charge of welcoming them. It worked though; they really weren’t rude with me. People were my forte; well, that and the Dewey Decimal system.
She didn’t reply as I backed toward the door, straightening my shirt and name tag, then smoothing down my hair.
“Where the fuck have you been?” a man’s voice growled as soon as I entered the conference room.
My eyes flashed to his for only a single second before I recognized them. The door had barely clicked behind me but I already wanted nothing more than to bolt. My heart raced and my mouth dried.
I have to get out of here.
“Um . . . ,” I stalled, giving myself time to formulate a plan.
“Sit. Down,” he ordered, pushing out the chair next to him, but there was no way I was getting that close.
“I’m good,” I said, taking a step backwards toward the door.
“Don’t even think about it,” he snapped. “I swear to God, if you so much as open that door. . . .” His words may have trailed off, but the threat was clearly stated.
I swallowed hard and slowly walked to the chair farthest away from him, perching on the very edge—waiting for just the right moment to escape.
He looked down at the name badge around my neck and quirked an eyebrow.
“Victoria?”
“You can call me Tori if it’s easier.” I tried to fake a smile, but it only seemed to infuriate him. He took several calming breaths, which did nothing to dampen the blaze brewing in his angry eyes.
“I’ve been looking for you, Ash.” He snarled my name.
“Oh, yeah? Well, mystery solved. Here I am.” I pushed back to my feet, but was halted when his fist pounded against the table. My whole body flinched from the surprise.
When the room fell silent, I slowly looked back up to find him staring at me with a murderous glare. Even sitting down I could tell he was huge, and as he held my gaze, the tense muscles in his neck and shoulders strained against the cotton of his grey henley. He blinked at me for several seconds before finding his voice again.
“You live in a homeless shelter,” he stated definitively, as if the words told a story all of their own.
And maybe they did.
“I work at a homeless shelter,” I quickly corrected.
Only he corrected me just as fast. “In exchange for a permanent place to live . . . in. A. Homeless. Shelter.” He enunciated every single syllable.
I looked away, because it was the truth.
A truth I hated.
But the God’s honest truth nonetheless.
Tears welled in my eyes and I battled to keep them at bay.
My life was hard, but him being there made it infinitely harder. If I could just escape that room, I could disappear again. It wasn’t ideal, but neither was him showing up.
“I want you to leave.” I lied with all the false courage I could muster.
“I can’t do that. You stole something of mine.”
“Look, I don’t have your book anymore.”
A knowing smirk lifted one side of his mouth. “Liar,” he whispered, reaching into the chair beside him, revealing the tattered book and unceremoniously dropping it on the table.
My eyes widened, and without a conscious thought, I dove across the table after it.
That was mine. Not even he could have it.
Just as quickly as the book appeared, he snatched it away and grabbed my wrist.
I slid off the table and tried to pull my arm from his grasp. It was a worthless attempt though, because even if he had suddenly released me, his blue eyes held me frozen in place.
“Three fucking years,” he seethed.
“I had to,” I squeaked out as the tears streamed down my cheeks.
“Three. Fucking. Years, Ash. You took something that belonged to me.” He released my arm and pushed to his feet.
My mouth fell open and a loud gasp escaped as he took two impossible steps forward.
Pinning me against the wall with his hard body, he lifted a hand to my throat and glided it up until his thumb stroked over my bottom lip. Using my chin, he turned my head, and dragged his nose up my neck, stopping at my ear.
Sucking in a deep breath, he released it on a gravelly demand. “And I want her back.”
My breath hitched.
I’d waited three years to hear those words.
If only I could trust them.
“Flint, please.”
“Don’t you dare ‘please’ me. I have spent years of my life looking for you.” He leaned away to catch my eyes but I was looking anywhere but at him. Tears rolled down my cheeks and in an unexpected show of gentleness, he used the pads of his thumbs to dry them.
“Why are you here?” I whined, dropping my chin to my chest.
He scoffed at my question. “To take you home.”
My head snapped up and the tears slowed. “I am home.”
Then the most amazing thing happened; the angry man standing in front of me melted away. His entire face softened and his voice lowered. “Not anymore. Your home is with me now.”
He wasn’t wrong. It always was.
I had been back to Flint’s apartment no less than a thousand times over the years—never physically, but always in my dreams. And not the ones I made up either.
A week after leaving, as I slept in my car at a truck stop, I had my very first dream. It was the most amazing thing I had ever experienced.
Until I woke up.
Then it was agonizing.
But each night as I laid my head on whatever makeshift pillow I had, those dreams kept coming—louder, stronger, and more painful every time. They were never the same, but they always started in his apartment and ended with him walking away.
Despite all the years I had wished for those late night fairytales, I would have given anything to get rid of them. For those hours of slumber Flint and I were perfect. We had a life together. One where he was walking and I was laughing. One where he touched me every opportunity he got and I snuggled into his chest just for fun.
One where we were in love.
Then when I would open my eyes, those dreams made the empty reality of my life that much harder. Which was why him being in that conference room sca
red me to death. I survived losing him once, I wasn’t sure I could do it again. He may have been searching for three years, but I had been running and carrying the staggering weight of my memories of him with every step. I couldn’t make any more memories with him. Not even that one, where his hard body touched mine and his every exhale breezed across my skin. I couldn’t bear to add it to my already overflowing burden.
No matter how deeply I enjoyed it.
“Please leave,” I squeaked out, ducking under his arm.
He pushed off the wall and staggered back two steps, roughly sitting as if he couldn’t possibly have stood there any longer. Interesting. But I didn’t have time to focus on it right then; that would have to wait until I lay in bed after he left and cried for days.
“Ash, stop. Just hear me out.”
“Listen, I don’t know what you expected when you came here today, but I’m not the same girl you remember. I have a life, Flint. Sure, we had fun for, like, a month or so a while back, but I’ve really moved on. I have a boyfriend. Things are just starting to get serious.” He flinched, but I continued. “Yes. I live in a homeless shelter, but I love it here. The people are great, and I feel like I’m really making a difference.” I smiled, and it was real but not because I was telling the truth, but rather because it was aimed at him.
The hopeful expression in his eyes when he glanced down at my smile barely covered the pain that my lies had carved on his face.
His beautiful, beautiful face.
Flint was even more gorgeous than I remembered. His thin frame was covered with layers upon layers of muscles that I could have touched for hours without feeling them all. Gone was that crazy wannabe beard; his strong jaw was covered with a five o’clock shadow that I was dying to feel brushed over my skin while his mouth trailed kisses over my breasts. I envisioned thrusting my hands into his jet-black hair that was so neatly styled James Dean would have been jealous.
Not everything was different though. Those piercing blue eyes were exactly the same as I envisioned every single time I had ever touched myself.
He wasn’t a nineteen-year-old boy anymore.
He was Flint Page, the man.
And I was still Ash Mabie, the criminal who wasn’t good enough for him.
“I have to go,” I whispered, and rushed for the door.
“Stop running from me,” he growled.
“I can’t do this.” I pushed down on the handle, only for it to remain stiffly in place.
What the hell?
I jiggled it again only to gain the same result.
“Judy!” I yelled, knocking on the door. “Judy!”
Her muffled voice spoke from the other side of the wood. “You’re lying to him. You don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Shut up, Judy! Open the door.” I quickly looked over my shoulder to find Flint donning a pair of black crutches that wrapped around his forearms and then pushing to his feet. “Open the door!”
I continued to fight with the worthless handle and Judy continued to spill all my secrets.
“I read that book you are always writing in. You’re not happy here and you do love that boy. Stop lying to him and hear him out.”
“Shut up!” I screamed as Flint closed in on me.
“Show him the tattoo,” she added, loudly enough for half of the state to hear.
Oh, I was killing Judy fucking Jenkins. She might have been my best friend for the previous year and a half, but her life was over. She was old. It would be okay.
“I swear to God, when I get out of this room, you better run.”
I heard her giggle.
Then I felt him.
His chest brushed against my back as I flattened myself against the door, moving as far out of his reach as possible. Unfortunately, it was only about an inch, and really unfortunately he followed me forward, crushing me with his hard body.
That stubble that I so desperately wanted to feel scrubbed up my neck, and his smile was so wide I could feel it on his lips as he murmured, “Yeah Ash, tell me about the tattoo.”
“Fuck you,” I snapped when a witty retort failed me.
“Soon enough,” he purred, and my entire body heard his promise. Instinctually my back arched, pressing my ass into his hips.
Foiled by my own body!
It was at that point I believed I must have had a small seizure—or perhaps a stroke? Because there were a full three seconds that I had absolutely no recollection of. One second I felt Flint shift to my side, then the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back on the ground with Flint on top of me.
I guess he swept my legs with his crutch and caught us both on an arm before we crashed into the tile. However, with my luck, it could have been that my brain had suddenly figured out the miracle of teleportation and wasted it on moving me to the nearest horizontal surface. It didn’t really matter either way though, because ultimately I was on the ground.
With Flint.
On top of me.
“Tell me about the tattoo,” he repeated.
His mouth was entirely too close to mine . . . but really it was only entirely too close without actually touching mine. Now, that would have been just the right amount of close.
“It’s nothing. You’ve already seen it,” I breathed, trying to shake off the desire to throw consequences to the wind and take his mouth in any and every way he was willing to offer it.
“Show. Me,” he ordered.
“It’s just a rock. It’s silly. I was sleeping with a guy who owns a tattoo shop—”
“She’s lying!” Judy’s voice once again entered our conversation. “He’s a volunteer, she wasn’t sleeping with him.”
“God damn it! Shut up, Judy!”
I felt Flint’s chuckle as I dropped my head back against the tile floor and stared up at the ceiling.
This was not going as planned. Although, there never really was a plan for when Flint showed back up into my life. It was the one thing I never allowed myself to even consider.
The whole thing with Flint was an adolescent childish fling I had for one month when I was sixteen. He’d been completely right all those years ago—I couldn’t love him. I was just young and stupid.
Unfortunately, I must have still been young and stupid because I was still in love with Flint Page.
Defeated, I scooted over a few inches and lifted the hem of my shirt. Unwilling to see his reaction, I stared at the ceiling as he traced his callused hand up my side to my dream catcher tattoo.
He blew out a hard breath then asked, “When?” He cleared his throat. “When did you get this?”
I didn’t even have it in me to lie anymore. “About six months ago.”
That time the breath was sharply drawn into his lungs. “Look at me,” he urged gently.
I shook my head while chewing my bottom lip.
“I’m gonna kiss you. This is your only warning.”
“Flint,” I objected to the ceiling, but even to my ears it came out as a plea.
Closing my eyes, I darted out my tongue to moisten my lips and waited for his mouth to find mine.
However, that’s not what it found at all.
Chapter Nineteen
Flint
I PLACED AN OPEN-MOUTH kiss to her side just below her tattoo, sealing a promise I was wholeheartedly making to both of us.
That tattoo.
That fucking tattoo.
Ash had made a few additions to her dream catcher since the last time I saw it. Hanging from the bottom were two black feathers. Fitting and simple enough. However, in between them was what looked like a simple rock at first glance, but the grey teardrop piece of flint wasn’t formed with lines. The tiny letters of my name were painstakingly repeated over and over to create and fill the entire design. Even the shading used to produce the curves and contours giving it dimension were done within those tiny letters. The stone wasn’t any larger than the palm of her small hand, but the amount of detail was unreal.
Ash had marked herself as min
e, even when I wasn’t there to do it myself.
I dragged my tongue across her flat stomach, sending chills over her pale skin.
She moaned as I pushed her shirt up to just under her breasts. I had a lot to say to her, but I also had an insatiable need to feel every inch of her that I had been missing.
I’d have to multitask.
“You don’t know me anymore.” I trailed kisses down to the waistband of her jeans and teased my fingers just underneath. “But we’ll fix that. We’ll start over.”
“I can’t,” she breathed, lifting her hips, encouraging me further.
“I’m taking you home, Ash. We’re giving this thing a real try.”
“I can’t try.” She suddenly sat up, but I was nowhere near done yet.
I had just gotten my first taste of Ash in three years; there was going to be an all-out feast before she was going anywhere. Pushing up on my arm, I used the other to grab the back of her neck and drag her down to my mouth. She stiffened in surprise, but it was short lived. The moment my tongue swept hers, Ash proved that she was in the mood for a feast of her own.
One of her hands flew to my hair, tugging roughly in a needy attempt to take the kiss impossibly deeper as she reclined again. She was suddenly frantic, but even as her fingers made their way under the edge of my shirt, gliding up and down my back, she mumbled, “I can’t.”
“I wasn’t giving you the choice,” I replied, pulling away from her mouth long enough to peel the shirt over her head. An action she quickly returned, tearing mine off as well.
“I can’t be with you again.” She rolled over, pressing me down on the cold tile and swinging a leg over my hips.
“Well that’s too bad, because it’s happening.” I reached up to unsnap her bra while she raked her teeth over my neck. “Fuck,” I hissed when her core settled against my straining cock.
“You don’t understand,” she said, letting her bra fall down her arms. “I can’t try. Not with you.”
“Then don’t try. But you’re still coming home with me,” I told her chest, unable to drag my eyes away.
Her long hair flowed over one of her shoulders and I immediately brushed it away. Nothing should have obstructed that view. Her creamy pale breasts were much fuller than I remembered, and those small pink nipples were screaming my name, pleading for me to take them in my mouth.