“I’m not a good man, Rae,” he said. “I ruin everything I touch.”
“You haven’t ruined me.”
Ash’s eyes raked over my face, and down to my heaving chest and then back up. “It’s only a matter of time.” He loosened his hold on my wrists and sat back on his haunches, my legs still immobile between his thighs
Propping up on my elbows, I said, “You’re talking in riddles. Help me understand.”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
I nodded. “You know so much about me, but you’re a complete mystery. I want to know you, Ash.”
“Even if it means when you look at me you see a killer? A man not worthy of you?”
Tentatively, I slid my hand to his thigh. “When we met, I was in a really bad place. I hadn’t hit rock bottom yet, but the crash wasn’t far off. You know what I’ve done. Who am I to say who’s worthy?”
“That’s different,” he whispered, his voice turning to gravel. “You never hurt anyone but yourself. What I did though …” He looked away, his guilt a tangible thing hanging heavy on his shoulders, weighing him down like a ton of lead.
In the face of something heavy enough to bow a man like Ash, I asked myself if I could truly face the truth. He’d called himself a killer. He’d been in the Special Forces, so it stood to reason he’d been involved in some heavy combat. I could only imagine the things he’d seen, what he’d been forced to do—to endure—in the name of duty. If that’s what this was about, he didn’t need to tell me the details. Not that I didn’t think I could stomach hearing them, but I didn’t want to make him relive something so traumatic.
“It’s okay,” I murmured. “You don’t have to talk about the Army if it’s too much. I understand.”
“That’s not it,” he shook his head. “I won’t lie to you, I’ve got a lot to make right with God for what went down over there, but that was war.” He shrugged. “I don’t know anyone who came back without feeling the same. Ask any of the guys at McClintock who’ve been deployed and they’ll agree. We had our orders and we saw them through. It was ugly, and it could be hell on earth at times, but everything we did was for the greater good of the world.”
If that wasn’t it, what could it possibly be? “I’m afraid you have me at a loss.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I’ve never talked about any of this before and I’m fucking it up.” Ash rolled away from me and off the bed. Pacing a line in the rug, he confessed, “The only woman I ever loved is dead, and it’s because of me.” He stopped at stared down at me. “If I’d been a better man she’d probably still be alive.”
His fresh anguish hit me in the gut and a sick realization took hold. “You’re still in love with her,” I whispered, as the notion that Ash could never love me because he already loved someone else ran riot through my brain and straight to my heart where it fisted it in a crushing hold. “That’s why you’ve kept me at arm’s length.”
Of all the fucking men to fall in love with, I’d found the one whose heart belonged to a dead woman. There was nothing I could do to compete with that. More to the point, I didn’t want to. I’d already lived through being someone’s second choice, so as much as I cared for Ash, I wouldn’t put myself through that again.
“What? No,” he answered and my head swung back around.
“No?”
He stepped closer and placed his palms flat on the mattress. “No, I’m not still in love with Sonia.”
Was it wrong to hate her name on his lips? Did it make me a bad person that a dead woman could affect me so?
“You’re not?”
He climbed on the bed again, like a panther stalking its prey. “I promised I’d never lie to you, and I won’t start now. I loved her once, but not anymore. Hell, sometimes I wonder if maybe I only loved the idea of her.”
“What happened?”
Straddling my legs a second time, he whispered, “October 26.”
Fuck.
“October 26” was akin to saying, “September 11.” Everyone remembered where they were and what they’d been doing when the bombs went off in San Francisco, practically leveling the city’s Financial District. I’d been across the bridge in Oakland, preparing to run through my sound check for a show later that evening. Almost immediately, the entire Bay Area went into lock down and when the dust had finally settled—quite literally—over one thousand people had been murdered, most of them in a two-block radius of back-to-back skyscrapers.
“What happened to Sonia?”
I could understand being broken hearted the woman he’d loved died in the attack, but what I couldn’t wrap my head around was why he held himself responsible. Why he took the blame for her murder when it’d been just another terrorist attack on American soil.
Leaning forward, he laid of soft kiss on my forehead. “Every damn day I watch you give me a small piece of yourself, and then your big brown eyes beg for a piece of me in return. But you have to understand something about me: I don’t talk about my past. Ever. It’s not personal. It’s just who I am. Who I’ve become.” He rubbed his thumb over my trembling bottom lip as his eyes bored into my soul. “Please don’t make me say it, Rae. Just …” he sighed. “Can’t you just accept me for who I am today? I’ll gladly give you all of him.”
Maybe if I were a different sort of woman I could have said yes. I could have nodded and told him he was all I needed, but I wasn’t that type of woman. I was who I was, and I couldn’t be with a man who knew everything about me, but wouldn’t share his whole self in return. Given what I’d been through, I would never use Ash’s history against him, but a part of me had to know what his scars were and how he’d gotten them, just like he knew how I’d come to have mine.
And so, with tears in my eyes, I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Ash, but if you want me, you have to share it all. I can’t accept anything less.”
He dropped his head forward and his chin rested against his chest as he pushed a deep sigh from his lungs. The room went silent, the only sound our breathing. His choked, and mine erratic. There were certain moments in life when your future literally rested on the next words someone said, where life could go one of two ways. And as I waited to hear what he’d say next, I knew this was one such moment. If Ash told me he couldn’t give me what I needed from him, that would be the end of us.
Maybe it was selfish demand something he’d never given anyone else and hadn’t ever planned to, but with my heart on the line, if I didn’t look out for it, who would?
Mentally, I prepared myself to walk out of this room, pick up my phone, and tell Rocky he needed to fire McClintock and put a new security team in place. Because if Ash told me he couldn’t be the man I needed him to be, our situation here would be untenable. I couldn’t go on living like strangers, as if he didn’t mean the world to me. I couldn’t force myself to pretend this conversation had never taken place.
When Ash raised his face to mine, his eyes were determined and his cheeks were flushed. I held my breath, waiting to learn which way the pendulum would swing.
“Okay then,” he said on a gust of anguished breath and my heart skipped a beat. “I want like hell for you to accept me as I am, but more than that, I want you. God help me, Rae, but I can’t stop wanting you.” He surged forward, slid his big hands into my hair, and captured my lips in a frenzied, hungry kiss. Pulling back, his eyes flicked between mine, searching. “Tell me it’s the same for you.”
I licked my lips, tasting him on them. “It’s the same Ash. You’re all I want.”
This time when our lips met, our kiss wasn’t hurried or frenetic. Licking his way inside my mouth, our tongues danced and moved in perfect harmony, our sighs and moans and breathing synced to create a perfect beat. The music of us.
“I promise to tell you everything,” he said against my lips, “but first I need to be inside of you.” He kissed his way down my jaw, along the slope of my neck, and across my chest. “I need to bury my cock so far inside of you there’s nowhere else for m
e to go.”
“Yes,” I said, running my hands through his hair and holding him against my beating chest.
Ash stared up the length of my body with hooded lids. He licked his lips, and said, “I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything,” I answered.
And I meant it. Now that he’d promised to give one hundred percent of himself, I would do anything he asked, be anyone he needed me to be. At least I thought so.
But when Ash reached into his nightstand to pull out a ball of silky black rope, my breath hitched and my stomach lurched. “Ash?”
While we’d explored his dominant side, our play had been limited to whispered commands and an abundance of dirty talk. I knew he’d tied me up that first night together because he’d told me he had, but since finding our way back to one another, we’d never taken things that far again. He’d held me down and gripped my hands tight above my head, but he’d never actually restrained me.
Sensing my panic, he kissed me again. “I need this, Rae,” he said, raising my right arm to the slats and wrapping my wrist against it. He tugged on the cord, testing its tightness. When he was satisfied I was restrained, but couldn’t hurt myself, he leaned across and did the same with my other hand. “I need you like this, just this once, I promise.”
Being tied to a bed wasn’t something I was comfortable with in just any old situation, but in a moment of blinding clarity I understood why Ash needed this. I’d asked him to give up a part of himself he’d held onto for years. By revealing his past, he would be giving me complete control over our future. And that made him feel out of control. Him saying he needed me bound wasn’t just a figure of speech for him. He literally needed to exert control over my body since he was giving me control of his heart.
When he was satisfied with his handiwork, Ash sat back to admire the knots. And then he dragged his eyes to mine. “I won’t ever hurt you. You know that, right?”
I nodded, and a whispered “yes” slipped from my lips.
Ash reached into his back pocket and pulled out a bandana. When he rolled it into a makeshift blindfold, I swallowed my trepidation. I closed my eyes in invitation when he brought it to my face. With the cool cotton resting against my closed eyelids, I dropped forward so he could tie the scarf behind my head.
“Good girl,” he said, dropping a kiss on the top of my head. When he rubbed his palm down the side of my face, I leaned into his caress. “Such a good, good girl,” he whispered adoringly, the unabashed praise sending a surprising spiral of warmth through my core.
“I’ll give you every part of me, Rae, but I’m going to ask the same in return,” he whispered seductively in my ear, the kiss of his breath against my skin causing goosebumps to dance along my body. “You can have all of me, but you have to give me all of you, as well. You’ve held back too, but not anymore. This time, I’m going to take everything you have to give.”
“Please,” I begged, not sure what I was asking for.
“Please what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know,” he whispered in my other ear, the change in direction startling me. I hadn’t even realized he’d moved to my other side. “What do you want, Rae?”
“I want you.”
He licked my ear, and I jumped, the bindings at my wrist pulling taut. “What else do you want?”
I thought hard about what he was really asking of me. This wasn’t our usual playful banter where I told him I wanted his body and he told me he wanted mine. His need was deeper, and so was mine. “I want to know you. I want all of you.”
“Be sure about that.”
“I am,” I answered. “I want everything. I want it all, Ash. The dark and the light. The past, the present, and the future. Give me all of you, and you can have all of me in return.”
“I am so fucking happy you said that,” he said. Then he ripped my t-shirt from my body, rending it in two, baring my chest to his eyes, hands, and mouth.
When his teeth clamped over my nipple, my pussy clenched, and all I could think was, “So am I.”
I lost all track of time. I was shaking and covered in sweat, my energy reserves completely depleted. From years of touring, I had better stamina than most, but it was nothing in the face of his need. Ash took me to the highest of highs, and then, when I couldn’t take another moment of his pleasure or his pain, he’d plunge me into the abyss.
“One more, Rae. Just one more.” Ash’s fingers skated to my pussy, slick with my juices and his cum, and my hips rose to meet him even as I shook my head and begged for respite.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I have nothing left,” I croaked.
“You know how to stop me, but I don’t think you really want to.”
“I’m exhausted, Ash.”
“You don’t have to do a thing. Just let me love you one more time,” he said, sliding his sweat-slicked body away.
Instinctively I reached for him, but was held in place by my bindings. “Ash?”
“Shh, just relax.” Ash laid a feather-light kiss to me cheek and then began untying my knots. When my wrists were free, he massaged my fingers and worked out the stiffness in my limbs before laying me flat on my back. And then he started massaging my whole body, starting at the arch of my foot and working his way up. And through it all, my blindfold stayed in place, keeping my senses on alert and wholly trained on his movements.
A lifetime later, I floated on a cloud of sated bliss.
When Ash’s lips met mine, I opened to him and he licked his way inside, the musky taste of our lovemaking lingering on his tongue. As he kissed me with languid strokes, he nudged my knees apart and settled his hips between my thighs, his heavy cock resting against my core. Ash rolled his hips against my slit, his crown teasing my seam.
“Let me in Rae,” he whispered, and I was powerless against his plea. I dropped my knee, and opened to him. But before he entered me, he untied my blindfold.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but as my vision came back, I focused in on the look on his face. I’d never seen him that happy. That content. With our eyes locked, he sheathed himself to the root, and I gasped at the fullness of him.
Ash held still and kissed me again—reverently, worshipfully. He pulled back and whispered my name before dropping another quick kiss to my lips as he rolled hips against me in a slow wave. With each thrust, my eyes roved his face, taking in his thick beard, the dimple I’d only glimpsed once or twice before, his high cheekbones.
“Ash,” I whispered, bringing my hand to his cheek.
He turned and kissed my palm. “Thank you, baby,” he said, rocking gently against me. “Thank you so fucking much.”
When he surged forward, my heart shattered. On his next thrust, it reformed. And when a few minutes later he came moaning my name, my past was burned to the ground. Ash was the future.
He was my home.
Chapter Nineteen
Ash
I’d heard my brothers-in-arms describe events in their lives that marked a clear delineation between the men they’d once been and the men they became. Usually, these moments of insight were tied to tragedy; of profound loss and pain. I knew this, because I’d had one such experience myself. But not for the reasons most people assumed.
And I was about to talk about it for the first time ever.
But first, I dragged a spoon through the meaty sauce she was cooking. When I swallowed, I said, “Goddamn woman, that’s delicious. And I know my sauce.” I slapped her ass and dropped the spoon into the sink. Hopping onto the counter, I braced myself for the difficult conversation ahead. Not the hardest I’d ever had, but not a walk in the park either.
“I was twenty-one when I met Sonia. She was twenty-five.”
“Ooh, an older woman,” she teased over her shoulder.
I smiled, my lips tight. I knew Rae wasn’t trying to make light of the situation. Lord knew, if there was a woman alive who understood the desire not to
be judged for your past sins, Rae was it. Which was probably why I’d let myself get close to her in the first place. While I’d never intended our relationship to go this far, I couldn’t deny that subconsciously I’d recognized she could be a safe haven.
“She was also my brother’s wife.”
The long wooden spoon stopped moving and Rae’s posture went rigid. “That must have been difficult,” she eventually answered, the line of her shoulders relaxing as she went back to stirring.
“It was,” I confirmed. “Ethan—that’s my brother—he and I were close growing up. Well, as close as you could be with a six-year age gap. But he didn’t mind taking me with him to practice, teaching me how to play guitar. Things like that. He was … well, he was just good.
“When he went away to college, he came home regularly. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter. You know, whenever he had time off. But then the summer after his sophomore year, he seemed different. Not sullen exactly, but quiet. Reserved. And he tip-toed around our father in a way I’d never noticed before.
“One night when I was fourteen, I walked into the kitchen and found our asshole father standing over Ethan, red-faced and angry. Our mother just sat there smoking a cigarette while her husband railed against her oldest son.” My mother wasn’t necessarily a bad woman, but I’d never forgotten the cold, almost bored, expression on her face that night either. She was from a generation of women who’d been taught to never question the man of the house. Even though her husband was an abusive jerk, she never spoke a word against him.
Rae set the spoon down and turned to face me. “I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been for you.”
“It wasn’t the first time I’d heard our dad yell at Ethan, but it was the first time I’d seen him just sit there and take it. Before I could jump to his defense, my mom sent me to my room. I’d argued that I hadn’t done anything wrong, but then the old man turned on me. Pulling his belt from its loops, he advanced on me, saying that if I didn’t listen to her, he’d make sure I couldn’t sit for a week. When I looked to Ethan for guidance, he mouthed, ‘Go.’ So I did.
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