Her Independence Day

by Victoria Belle

  That was probably due the beating that must have happened after I got Ashley out. They hadn’t wanted her to see or hear what went down, but Nick was in a much worse state than he had been moments before when I got the knife from the kitchen. There was blood all down the front of his shirt from his bloody mouth and nose, which hadn’t been bleeding when I saw him last. One shoulder hung lower than the other from the break and a possible dislocation. And one of his ears was bloody.

  Ashley was watching him through the window. She had gone stiff and somehow managed to press herself even more firmly against me.

  “You’ll never have to see him again after this,” I told her.

  She nodded slowly. “It’s just so strange.”

  “How do you mean?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I was going to marry him. I had dreams at night of walking down the aisle in my dream dress with a bouquet of white roses and baby’s breath. I could see him in his suit, looking handsome and perfect and excited to marry me. He was all I wanted. And now? Now everything has fallen apart.”

  I rubbed her shoulder absently with my thumb. “You never could have known that he would become this.”

  “There were signs.”

  I didn’t say anything. Nothing seemed like it would be enough.

  Ashley sighed and looked back at me. Fresh tears were rolling down her cheeks. “What happens now?”

  “We take it in steps. One thing at a time. First, we’ll have to make our statements to the police. You’ll decide, when you’re ready, if you want to press charges.”

  “I do.”

  “Good. I’ll go to court with you. We all will. And he’ll be put away. And you’ll be on the outside with us where he can’t ever get you.”

  “With you?” she whispered.

  “With me. With all of us. Whatever you want, Ashley.”

  She licked her lips nervously as the back of the car was flooded with red and blue lights from the cop car pulling up behind us. Two ambulances and more cruisers pulled in seconds later. I saw Dean wave them over to deal with Nick first, which afforded me and Ashley a little more time to prepare for the wave of questions she was about to endure.

  She swallowed and leaned away from me. Her tears had stopped, and her jaw was set. Ashley took a deep breath and blew out slowly through her mouth. “Come on, Jesse. Let’s go get your shoulder looked at.”

  “We can wait until Nick is in the back of the cop car if you want.”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m not afraid of him. Not anymore.”

  30

  Dean

  The events of that evening would forever be burned into my memory.

  After we got Ashley out and the cops showed up, we endured a grueling hour and a half of questions before the police were willing to let the three of us go. They checked Ashley out and found her completely unharmed, like she kept saying, which was a huge relief. I’d been worried about a head injury or something we couldn’t see, but she checked out fine.

  Jesse, on the other hand, was a bit of a mess.

  The bullet was wedged right under his shoulder blade, and he would need surgery to remove it. He’d gone through this sort of thing before, as had Ethan and I, but it was still a hard thing for Ashley to hear after everything that had happened. She sat with him in the back of the ambulance after the police asked her all the questions they had and moved on to us.

  Nick sat in the back of one of the cruisers the whole time, watching Ashley. She ignored him as best as she could, and I ended up moving to stand in front of him so he couldn’t see her.

  I went to the ambulance after the cops asked me all their questions and crossed my arms. Jesse gave me a sheepish look, and I shook my head at him. “You just had to be the hero tonight, hey?”

  “You and I both know it would have been bad news if you tried talking to him. He’d have shot you right between the eyes.”

  “You’re probably right,” I admitted. “You saved all our necks.”

  Jesse shrugged and then winced with regret. The paramedic who was wrapping his shoulder clicked her tongue at him for being so reckless. Ashley reached out and took his hand in hers. He ran his thumb over her knuckles and nodded at Ethan, who was talking to the police behind me. “What’s the plan for you three? I’m going to head to the hospital with these guys. They can get me in for surgery right away.”

  I nodded. “Good. As soon as Ethan’s done, we’ll see what he wants to do. Probably go to the hospital with you. And Ash, you should probably get some rest. It’s been a long night.”

  “I’ll go to the hospital too,” she said.

  Jesse shook his head. “There won’t be anything for you to do there. I’ll be in surgery for a couple hours and then in recovery. With any luck, I’ll be out within twenty-four hours. Maybe less. But you should go home with Dean and get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow, and I won’t have a bullet in my shoulder.”

  Ashley rubbed her lips together and looked at me. “You don’t mind if I stay with you?”

  Mind? Was she crazy? All I’d wanted for years was for her to stay with me. It would have been better under different circumstances, but that was besides the point. “You’re more than welcome at my place, Ash. We can go home and get you cleaned up. Maybe get some food and water in you. What do you say?”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  Ethan finished up his questioning with the police fifteen minutes later and said he would go to the hospital with Jesse. The paramedics told Jesse to get in the back of the ambulance, and as he went to follow their orders, Ashley pulled him back to her and planted a kiss on his lips.

  A part of me wished I had been the one to get shot after all.

  Once Jesse and Ethan pulled away in the ambulance, Ashley and I got back in my car and pulled away from the cabin. She watched it disappear behind us in the passenger mirror.

  “You going to be okay, Ash?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I just need to scrub away the feeling of his hands on me.”

  “We can do that.”

  ***

  I flicked on every light in my condo when we got back, and Ashley wandered inside. I took her hand and brought her down the hall to my master bathroom, which had a rain shower and floor-to-ceiling glass walls. It was like a mini spa, and it would be just the thing she needed.

  I turned on the hot water for her and pulled down a clean towel from the linen closet. I hung it on the hook beside the shower door and rummaged through my cupboards for some soap that might smell a little less manly. “Sorry, Ash. I’ve only got shit I use. You’re going to smell like me when you get out of there.”

  “That’s all right,” she said from behind me.

  “Do you need anything else?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at her.

  She shook her head. The shower was already filling with steam, and the air in the bathroom felt humid. Ashley reached up, pulled her hair tie out, and let her hair fall in tumbling curls down her back. I watched, transfixed, as she hooked her thumb in the waistband of her shorts and pulled them down.

  She stepped out of them, now wearing nothing but a thong and her sweater, and put her back to me. Her sweater came off next. She tossed it on the floor on top of her discarded shorts. She was now wearing nothing but her black thong and the gold anklet she always had on her right ankle.

  I stood slowly and soaked in the sight of her.

  She was a strong, fit woman. I could see the tight lines of muscle in the backs of her thighs and up her spine. Her shoulder blades were defined by muscle, and she had dimples in her lower back that begged me to press my fingers to them as I bent her over.

  Ashley glanced over her shoulder at me and worked her thong over her thighs, then knees, and then calves until it gathered at her ankles. She stepped out of it and opened the shower door. Steam rushed out, and she nodded inside. “Will you join me?”

  “You want me to?”

  She nodded. “I told you I wanted to forget the feeling of his hands on me. I
need someone else’s hands. Your hands. Please, Dean?”

  There was no universe where Ashley Rowe would ever have to ask me twice to get in a shower with her.

  I dropped my pants and pulled my shirt over my head as she stepped under the falling water. She ran her hands over her hair, and I watched in rapture as little snaking vines of iridescent water rushed across her tanned skin to the floor. It wrapped around her thighs and over her ass, her tits, and down the middle of her back.

  I got in the shower behind her. She turned to me, lips slightly parted, and stepped forward until her breasts grazed my chest. Little drops of water clung to her lashes.

  “You’re so damn beautiful,” I whispered.

  She stretched up and kissed me. The kiss was soft, warm, and sweeter than I ever could have imagined. A decade of waiting and longing all came to a head in this one single moment.

  My cock hardened and stretched toward my belly button. Ashley must have felt it because she giggled softly into my mouth before she reached down and took me in one hand. Her strokes were gentle but needy. I couldn’t believe she had her hands on me like this.

  I backed her up under the stream of water. Our lips never parted, and my tongue plunged into her mouth. She opened up to me, and we drank deeply from each other.

  Ashley pulled away and went to her knees. I grabbed her wrist. “Let me take care of you tonight, baby.”

  Ashley shook her head. “I want to taste you. Please?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer from me. Instead, she parted her lips and took the meaty head of my cock into her mouth. She massaged the base of my shaft with her tongue as she eased me deep into the back of her throat and held me there until I thought I might come undone. Then she bobbed her head in a delicious rhythm, and I had to brace myself on the side of the shower where I left a handprint on the steamed glass.

  She moaned as she sucked me off, and the vibration was ecstasy. “Ash, I’m gonna come if you keep going.”

  Ashley’s lips popped as she released my cock. She ran her tongue in a circle around the tip, and then I pulled her up to her feet again. I spun her around, and she giggled.

  The warmth of the sound was music to my ears after the night we’d had. I moved her to the back of the shower where I could see her in the mirror. I held her against the glass and admired her breasts pushed flat to the surface in the reflection of the mirror. She caught me looking and smiled.

  “Fuck me, Dean,” she cooed, wiggling her ass.

  I pushed a knee between her thighs to spread her legs apart. She obliged. “You’re sure this is what you want right now?” I asked. There was still a small part of me that was hesitating. Her night had been rough. Traumatic. Fucking in the shower seemed the wrong thing to do after an experience like that.

  “I want to so bad,” she said, looking over her shoulder at me. “Please. Put your cock in me. Make me remember only the good things. Only you.”

  I did what she asked and dragged the tip of my cock along her pussy. She was so wet and slick that she practically pulled me inside her. I grunted with pleasure as she took all of me in one deep plunge. Her breath whispered out of her in a euphoric sigh, and she arched her head back.

  I took a fistful of her wet hair and held in her place like that. The muscles in her back strained, and I put my free hand in the small of her back, placing my thumb and forefinger on those maddening back dimples of hers. She was so fucking sexy.

  And I fucked her exactly how I’d always imagined I would. Hard and fast. Deep and long. She moaned and sighed and whimpered until her legs started to quiver, and she screamed my name as her first orgasm rolled through her.

  I released her hair and gripped her ass. Ashley pushed back harder against me, taking all of me deep inside her.

  The view was intoxicating. Her ass bounced with every thrust, and her cheeks spread to show me her delicious core every time we came apart. I couldn’t help myself from reaching down and pressing my thumb into her ass.

  Her second orgasm had her shaking so fiercely that I held her up with my other hand around her waist.

  “Fuck me until you come,” she said breathlessly.

  I pushed another finger in her ass. She bucked against me, and I growled with pleasure as my climax approached. “Fuck, Ashley. Fuck!”

  “Yes!” she screamed and clawed at the glass, leaving clear streaks beneath her fingertips. I came inside her as she cried my name, and I didn’t stop. I wanted to hear her letting go of it all over and over.

  And she did until we were both exhausted. Then she let me lather her body in soap and run my hands over every inch of her. After, I brought her to my bedroom, where she crawled into my bed, curled up under the blankets, and asked me to join her.

  I did. The sheets were a warm welcome from the horrors of the night.

  But those horrors felt much further away now. We had drowned them with our pleasure and become so engrossed in one another that everything with Nick at the cabin seemed like it happened to somebody else in some other life.

  Ashley pulled the covers down and moved to swing one leg over me. She straddled me and pushed her hands into my chest, and then she rode me like the vixen I didn’t know she was until neither of us could stand to keep our eyes open any longer.

  31

  Ethan

  Lulu’s home looked like it had been ransacked by red, white, and blue elves overnight. Every surface was covered in a Fourth of July themed table cloth. Flags hung on the walls, and she had even gone so far as to put red and blue lights behind her sheer white window curtains—for ambiance, she claimed.

  Even the snacks we were setting out on tables in every room were patriotic: little strawberries on top of brownies and whipped cream covered in blue sprinkles, chips in theme-colored bowls, platters of fruit set up like the American flag. Lulu had been the master event planner for as long as I’d known her, and she was pulling out all the stops for tonight’s barbeque.

  As I stepped up onto one of the kitchen chairs to hang a string of blue lights above the patio doors, Ashley came and stood beneath me. She put her hands on her hips and smiled.

  I would never get used to that smile. So bright and big and radiant. Her eyes glittered with happiness that I was over the moon to see. Her recovery since the drama with Nick had been exceptional. That might be because we never left her alone, and she seemed to appreciate that. Maybe there was a chance she wasn’t processing everything. Maybe we needed to help her stand on her own two feet again.

  There was a time and a place for such things. For now, she needed us and her friends around her.

  When she cocked her head to one side, her ponytail swished over her shoulder. I could see straight down the front of her low-neck white T-shirt to the lacey pale blue bra beneath. The view would never get old.

  “Do you need any help?” Ashley asked.

  “You don’t think I’m capable of hanging a string of lights all by my lonesome?”

  “You’re capable enough, but I don’t think you’ll do it to Lulu’s standards.”

  “Oh.” I chuckled. “Well in that case, you’d better hop up here and help a guy out.”

  Ashley pulled over another kitchen chair and stepped up beside me. She began wrapping the strand around the curtain rod in equally spaced distances, tightening it as she went along to ensure everything stayed in the right place. “I figured you would just drape them or something and have to start over. It’s a good thing I’m here.”

  “It’s a hell of a good thing you’re here.” I grinned.

  Ashley climbed down from her chair, and I followed suit. We bumped clumsily into each other, and I steadied her with my hands on her shoulders. “Are you looking forward to tonight?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I’m a bit nervous, though. All these people. I imagine word has gotten out, and they will all know what happened with... you know.”

  “I imagine it has, yes.”

  She smiled again. “I love that you never lie to me. And the truth never sc
ares me when it comes from you.”

  I wrapped my arms around her waist. “Are you sweettalking me, Ashley Rowe?”

  “Is it working?”

  “It works just when you look at me.”

  Ashley giggled, and I kissed the tip of her nose. It felt damn good not to hide how I felt about this girl anymore. Lulu was more than open to the fact that Ashley had dabbled in escapades with all three of us. In fact, she seemed rather encouraging of the whole thing.

  Dean passed us by with another platter of meats and cheese to put on the kitchen table. “Are you two getting any work done or just goofing around?”

  Ashley leaned farther into me and swayed her shoulders in a teasing manner. “A little bit of both. Don’t be such a sourpuss, Dean.”

  He laughed and shook his head at both of us. “A sourpuss, hey?”

  Ashley nodded. “You heard me.”

  Lulu and Jesse were working in the kitchen. With his bad shoulder, he wasn’t as useful with hanging lights or carrying anything heavy. So, Lulu had assigned him to being her assistant in the kitchen where he was mostly doing one-armed jobs like plating the food in an appealing arrangement or checking the appetizers baking in the oven. He wasn’t a happy camper about it. I knew he’d rather be decorating with Ashley.

  Lulu glanced up from whatever she was chopping and gave us a wry grin. “The lights look good, you guys. Nice and tight.”

  “That’s what she said.” I snorted.

  Lulu rolled her eyes, and Jesse shook his head beside her. He muttered something under his breath that made her giggle, and she waved a kitchen knife at him.

  “Whoa, whoa,” he said, stepping away. “Easy there, Cujo. One hole in my arm is plenty, thank you.”

  Lulu returned to chopping. “Don’t mess with me, Jesse Thomas. I don’t take pity on you for one minute.”

  Jesse looked up at me, Dean, and Ashley. “Your friend is a menace, Ash. A heartless, cruel menace.”