Steele: Into Your Heart (Carolina Bad Boys #3

by Rie Warren

  “Do you want me, Ashe?”

  She didn’t answer but she bit her lip, and I knew she was dying to cry out. So I thumped her wet pussy with my straining cock again. “Do you want me in your life, Ashe?”

  “No!”

  Another wet slap.

  “Tell me you want all of me and mean it,” I growled harshly in her ear.

  She arched her neck, baring the soft column to me. I sucked and bit and teased as her tits trembled against my chest. Her legs spread wide, she cradled my hips and my cock. Gentling my lips, I caressed her mouth with mine. I dragged my cock up and down the valley of her cunt.

  “Tell me,” I hoarsely whispered.

  “Yes, damn you!” Her eyes flashed to mine, her legs winding around my hips. “I want all of you. I want you, Brodie.”

  Exhaling with a low groan, I sat back on my heels with her waist in one hand. I held the base of my cock and aimed it inside, greedily watching as I entered her. I made love to her long and slow, with all the restraint I could muster. I kept my body off her except for my cock penetrating her, gritting my teeth with the need to fall on top of her. Wrap her in my arms, let her loose so she could touch me, too. Her hips rocked against me, and she kept turning her head from side to side, crying out in hot frustration with each torturous inch-by-inch thrust.

  “You don’t wanna talk about feelings. Then I’m gonna make sure you feel me,” I grunted.

  “Nononono.”

  “Yes, Ashe. Deep and slow. Making love to you, just like this. Feel me.” I leaned over and tangled my fingers with hers.

  She wouldn’t look me in the eyes. I wouldn’t give up.

  I kissed her, the softness and sweetness of her lips against mine pulling me in. Then with a gasp, her eyes opened, her gaze connected with mine. She drummed her heels on the backs of my thighs.

  “Yes,” she moaned.

  I rewarded her with a deeper sharper lunge.

  “Oh, God, yes, Brodie.” She bowed up against me, a moan driven from her throat with my next solid thrust. “Get me out of the cuffs. I need to touch you.”

  Grinding against her with my cock fully seated inside her slick cunt, I grunted, “Keys?”

  “Side pocket,” she huffed out. Her fingers curled around the handcuffs in desperation. “Please, Brodie.”

  I fumbled with the key and undid the cuffs, tossing them to the floor.

  Her arms wrapped around me, and she touched me everywhere. “I’m falling for you. I’m falling for you . . .”

  She was with me all the way as I pulled her up to my chest with my arms around her back.

  “I want to be buried inside you.” I thrust deep. “I want to be somebody to you. I want you to respect me.” I lunged again, and she arched against me. “I want breakfasts, and fights, and finding out how annoying you can really be.”

  “That’s not really something to say when you’re fucking me,” she moaned breathlessly.

  “I know. Because I’m not fucking you. I am making love to you. Here and now. I am not your fling or your weekend hookup. I . . . am . . . making love to you.”

  When Ashe came it was with a soul-piercing cry, echoed in the distance by Twatson yowling. I reared up and laughed—I’d never laughed with a woman like this before. She moaned again, constricting around me, sealing me inside her pussy.

  One last harsh chuckle burst from my lips before I groaned. My body seized. I lost myself inside Ashe, pumping and jerking and bucking and coming. Coming until my body from the soles of my feet to my balls to my cock fizzled like fireworks, and I couldn’t see anything but her hazy gray eyes looking back at me.

  A couple hours and two more rounds later, I trekked back from the kitchen, carrying a glass of juice for Ashe and water for me. I set her juice down beside her and drained my glass. I’d figured out she liked orange with ice after we had sex. The non-pulpy kind, and fresh-squeezed was better, so I’d done that after I’d given Twatson and Shitlock some extra lovin’ and cat kibble for not totally meowing the house down while I got my fuck on.

  I did all this bare-assed in the kitchen in full view of the windows with the lights on.

  How you like me now, neighbors?

  I crawled back in bed beside Ashe. She always drank her OJ, and then she would flip onto her belly because she liked to lie there with a contented smile while I traced the length of her back with my fingertips before we fell asleep. Every single time we’d been together.

  Only this time she didn’t roll over. She didn’t drink the juice. She sat up and stared down at her hands, which fidgeted in her lap. The sheet fell away and her breasts bounced, and I wanted to touch them but I couldn’t. I couldn’t because fear gripped my stomach. Fear of something bad coming. The same fear that hit me when I answered my phone to the police on the night my parents died.

  “I don’t think I can do this anymore, Brodie.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jilted

  “NO.” I GOT OUT of bed and pulled on some jeans. I strode across the room, stony and stubborn. “Just no. Whatever crap you’re about to say, forget it.”

  “You don’t get it, Brodie. It doesn’t matter if I’ve fallen for you. This isn’t going to happen.”

  “Why the fuck not?” My heart beat so savagely it pounded against my chest.

  She walked to the bundle of our clothes and pulled on a wispy scrap of underwear. With her dress slipped over her head, she zipped the back. The damp fabric was clingier than ever.

  Sitting on the bed, she focused down at her hands again. “I’m scared. I tried to put my heart out there for you, but I just can’t. It’s too hard, Brodie. I don’t want to end up hurting you, and I don’t want Cara to get caught in the crossfire.”

  “Fuck you. You’re already hurting me.” My jaw pulsed, and my fists clenched under my armpits.

  “Let me tell you what happens when a Special Agent trainee in the FBI program has an affair with a higher-up.”

  Her words left me reeling. “What?”

  When she glanced up she wore a rueful smile. “I went to college, got my political science degree, and then enrolled in the FBI program at Quantico. I was twenty-three. I always dreamed of being Sabrina Duncan—the smart one—from Charlie’s Angels, but then it became real. It sure as hell wasn’t like the TV show. It was hard. Proving myself capable in a man’s world almost cracked me. Grueling, mentally and physically, but I was so damn good at it.”

  “Jesus Christ, Ashe. You were going to be an agent?” The idea was half-terrifying, and half hotter than hell.

  “I was.” She nodded. “Right up until I did something really, really stupid. I slept with one of my instructors. He wasn’t married or anything, but c’mon. That’s pulling a Monica Lewinsky and doing President Clinton and getting presidential spooge all over her dress, right?”

  I snorted. Only Ashe would come out with something like that at a time like this.

  “So that happened. It wasn’t like I was totally moony-eyed over him, over Carter, and I wasn’t looking for an easy way through the training program. I got lonely, and he was there.”

  “I don’t want you to be lonely, Ashe. That’s what I’m telling you. I don’t want to be alone either.” And I never wanted to hear the name Carter again.

  “That’s not all. I got pregnant by him and had to withdraw from the program because of it. The moment every woman should celebrate—becoming a mother—I felt shame about. I’d failed in making my dream come true. But I won’t fail Cara.” Steely determination hardened her eyes into slate.

  “Ashe.” I moved toward her but she held up her hand to block me.

  “I have to get this out, Brodie. I have to make you understand. I moved back in with my folks—that’s something no self-respecting woman wants to do. I had Cara. Carter sends money and sometimes visits, but he’s given up his parental rights. We certainly don’t, didn’t, and never really had a relationship, so Cara never really had a father. I went to the Law Enforcement Training Center in Charleston an
d got on the force. It’s not the FBI, but it’s good enough for me, especially with Cara. It’s good enough.” She tilted her chin at the stubborn angle I knew and loved.

  “It’s more than fucking good enough. It’s admirable—scary as hell—but admirable, Ashe. You care about people.”

  “That’s the thing. I don’t know if I have enough room to care for more people.” She blinked her big gray eyes at me, and they were shiny and wet. “I know what I do scares you, and that terrifies me.”

  “I’m not in danger of breaking down every time you go to work.” I groaned in frustration.

  “But it worries me, and I know it makes me sound cold, but I can’t . . . I don’t know if I can fit you into my life and make all the pieces work.”

  “Fuckin’ A, Ashe. You’re not giving me a chance!”

  She kept talking like I hadn’t even said anything. “Now I’ve got my promotion. I’ve worked so hard to make detective, to balance it all and have some semblance of the career I always wanted. Cara’s the best thing that ever happened to me, she changed my whole life.”

  “And I just want to be part of it.” I walked over and cupped her cheek in my hand.

  “There’s something else you need to know. This shit is real, Brodie. I’ve been shot twice on the job. Luckily it was when Cara was much younger, she doesn’t remember, although she knows. So I can’t go around worrying about what would happen to one more person if something should happen to me. I investigate crimes. I go after criminals. I could get hurt again—or worse.”

  I paced back and forth in front of the bed, rubbing the back of my neck over and over. Fear punched me in the stomach when she mentioned the gunshot wounds—pain, anger, the worst worry imaginable, but it wasn’t enough to make me bail on her.

  Dropping down beside her, I nudged her leg with mine when what I really wanted to do was wrap her in my arms—and then in a fucking bulletproof vest. “You’re not the only one with something to lose.”

  “It's easier if you're not attached. I don't want you to be attached to me or Cara."

  I jumped back to my feet. “You're too late! Don't you get that?”

  Ashe stood in front of me. “I can’t be with you the way you want. No matter what you say or what you do, or what I feel. I cannot risk it.”

  “Fuck this shit.” I got in her face. “You know what I did for you? I gave you a chance when I thought I hated you, because you asked me to.”

  “I said for one week only.”

  I picked up her glass of juice and hurled it across the room. The glass shattered. An orange mess splashed across the gray walls. “I don’t care about the goddamn agreement! It’s not a week. It’s been two months! I know your daughter, and I like her. I . . .” I wasn’t going to say it. “I more than like you.”

  “You are just supposed to be a fling!” She spat out, no longer calm, cool, collected Ashe.

  Good.

  I wanted her as enraged as me. I wanted her to show some fucking feeling and own up to things for a change.

  “I told you I wanted to fuck you out of my system!” She tried to push me away from her, but I didn’t budge.

  “Why?” I gritted my teeth.

  “Cara hardly knows her dad. That’s one reason I don’t do boyfriends. I’ve been doing it alone so long I don’t trust anyone else. Okay?” She hurled her fists against my chest.

  I gripped her against me, stilling her hands. “Bullshit. I’ve already proven myself with your daughter.”

  “How can I say this any more clearly?” Her cheeks were bright with anger, her eyes flashing. “I’m not looking for dates or flowers. I don’t need romance or making love from you. I have my life, my job, Cara . . . and occasionally a fling. And that is enough. That’s good enough.”

  A kick to my stomach. That was what this was. Ashe breaking up with me. More like a fake break up, because no matter what, I’d never been more to her than a goddamn booty call.

  That was what threw me over the edge. I snapped. All the pain of the past years spewed out of me in a rush. “My parents would still be alive if it wasn’t for you, yet I made room for you in my life! They’d have never been in that fucking car if you hadn’t arrested Cat!” I roared at Ashe.

  She instantly turned pale, recoiling from me. Then she shouted back, “And your sister would probably be dead of an overdose by now if it wasn’t for me!”

  “You do not get to talk about my sister like that in our parents’ house.” I spoke through gritted teeth. “Get . . . out.”

  Ashe scrambled for her purse, stuffing her bra, cuffs, and high heels inside. She stormed down the stairs but not before slamming my bedroom door behind her. I wrenched it open, watching her head-held-high stride.

  In a fucking wet dress, bare feet, carrying her overnight bag, and with no car to get home.

  As soon as the front door shut with a tremendous bang, I punched the wall. “FUCK!”

  I pulled on my boots, dragged on a shirt, and grabbed my keys. Ashe was already halfway down the road when I barged outside. Jumping into my truck, I threw it into reverse then gunned the engine.

  With the passenger window down, I pulled up beside her. “Get in.”

  “Fuck you.” She angrily wiped her face, and the sight of her tears almost weakened me, but for what? So she could tell me she didn’t want me, need me, believe I was good enough one more time?

  Stopping the truck, I put it in park. I got out, and picked her up. She struggled, but I wasn’t going to let her go, not until she was safe at home. She sat inside glaring straight ahead as I seatbelted her in.

  “I may be a dick, but I am not about to let you thumb it home like this.”

  It was the most painful ride in history.

  Chapter Twelve

  Redemption

  TEN MINUTES OF HURT silence. I kept my eyes straight ahead on the road. Ashe stared out her window. How different this strained drive was than the one to my house hours earlier.

  Once I parked in her driveway, I got out to open her door.

  Ashe planted her feet on the ground and pushed me away. “Don’t,” she spat at me. “You don’t get to do the gentlemanly thing with me after what you said.”

  So be it.

  I spun around and returned to the truck. I sat in the cab until she let herself inside and closed the front door.

  Leaving her house, I felt dirty about myself. Jesus Christ. If truth was told, I wanted to do things slow and easy with Ashe. I wanted to be her man, and if she couldn’t deal with that . . .

  Twatson was the only company in my bed that night, my bed that smelled of Ashe. Floral and dark and sexy. Twatson burrowed against me, purring so loud she put Boomer’s snoring to shame, but it wasn’t her throaty thrum that kept me wide-awake.

  I called Ashe the next morning, tossing the squeezed leftovers of orange rinds into the garbage.

  She answered with a wary, “Yeah?”

  “We’re done for good this time.”

  Maybe she slammed her eyes shut. Maybe she gripped her kitchen counter like I did mine. Maybe she swallowed an enormous amount of pain in her throat . . . like me, just speaking those words.

  Maybe she doesn’t give a shit.

  “We were done before we even started,” Ashe said.

  Wasn’t that the truth? “Just like you wanted, huh?” I hung up on her.

  ****

  August continued with hot-as-hell temperatures, and no word from Ashe. In the old days—March or April—I’d have just walked off with a got-me-some grin on my face, happy not to get straddled with a chick. Wasn’t so easy with Ashe. Maybe that was what had made everything better with her. And the aftermath so much worse.

  One afternoon my phone jingled on the workbench at Chrome and Steele. A reminder to pick up Cara from soccer. Before the big bust up, I’d taken on every other week duties with the little lady. I hadn’t deleted the reminders. I wiped my hands on my rag, then my brow with my arm. In the brightly lit garage, I looked at the chopper rake kit I
was working on. The rest would have to wait.

  In the john, I washed my hands and face, scowling in the mirror. It’d been two weeks. I hadn’t contacted Ashe. She didn’t call me either. Didn’t stop me from missing her or wanting to reach out. We’d said some bad shit to each other. Stupid shit. But I was just stubborn enough to let it ride if she was, revisiting that bad blood that had always brewed between us.

  I stepped outside where Boomer glared at a delivery order in his big hands.

  “Where you going?” he asked, tucking the clipboard under his arm.

  It wasn’t quitting time, but it wasn’t as if I punched a time clock either.

  “Gotta pick up Cara. Promised her.” I dug out the kid’s-sized booster seat I’d bought and stowed in my truck after the first time I’d done the soccer-dad run. I set it up on the bench seat for Cara.

  Boomer’s dark brows pinched together. “You broke up with Ashe.”

  “Correction. She broke it off with me.” I scuffed my boot on the pavement.

  “Semantics.”

  “Semen-what?” I raked the hair falling from my leather band out of my face. Sweat trickled down my temples. It was only ten thousand degrees outside in the glaring sunshine. “You get one of those ‘Word of the Day’ desk calendars again?”

  “Semantics: when the words you say can be turned right around and mean the same thing. Or something like that. No word calendar, just an encyclopedic memory.”

  I snorted. Right. Whatever. “Not like I’m gonna leave the kid high and dry and waiting for a ride just because her mom and I can’t get our crap together. I told her I’d be there, and I will.”

  Boomer stroked his chin for a moment before nodding. “Right on. I knew you’d grow up some day.”

  I gave him the big FU. “Thanks for the pep talk, you prick.”

  “Save those pretty words for your own personal police officer,” he called.

  “She’s a motherfucking detective. And she’s not mine.” Getting inside, I keyed the ignition.