He pressed kisses against the inside of her thighs as she drifted back down, rocked by pleasurable aftershocks as her orgasm subsided.
As the carnal need subsided, she was left to face the flood of thoughts that she’d pushed away in the moment. What was she doing? He hadn’t been back in town for two full days and already she was crawling back into his bed, ready to let him screw her again?
She didn’t even know if she believed him yet. Hell, she wanted to. She wanted to just give into this and let the chips fall where they may, but she didn’t have that luxury. She didn’t want some one-night stand with her ex, and she sure as hell didn’t need to start anything with her daughter’s estranged father. Especially not one who claimed to have gotten under the skin of some local drug lord.
“Alex,” she murmured, pushing herself up and dragging the sheet over her exposed body. “Alex, I can’t do this. I shouldn’t have started.”
Alex looked pissed. He pushed himself back up so that the bulk of his body overshadowed her. “What the fuck do you mean you can’t? You just did. Don’t you fucking tell me you didn’t like that.”
“Shit, you don’t get it,” she snapped, dragging herself out of the bed and bringing the sheet with her. She wasn’t letting him keep the upper hand in this. “You think things are simple? That if we’re good in bed together, we’re good together? How many goddamn times do I have to tell you that I have a kid now? I have a life. And I want to believe you, I really do, but I’ve got your word and nothing else right now. You could fuck me tonight and be gone tomorrow, and I’m not going to put myself through that, not again.”
Alex jumped out of the bed, chest heaving. She could make out a few veins bulging in his neck. “I told you what happened,” he snarled, advancing a few steps toward her. “I had to leave then. But I’m back now, and I’m not going anywhere, you hear me?”
Ashleigh just clutched the sheet around her more firmly. She was going to stand her ground. “I want to believe you. But I can’t just think about what I want right now. If I get involved with someone, I have to know he’s going to be good for my baby girl. Best case scenario, you’re tangling with a drug lord who would’ve used me to get to you. I don’t my daughter on his short list too.”
Alex stayed tense for a moment, looking for all the world like he was fighting to stay angry. But after a few seconds the tension faded, giving way to grudging acceptance.
Protecting loved ones—that was a language Ashleigh knew he spoke.
He kept advancing, though now there was no intense energy in his movements. When he stood just before her, he placed both hands on her face and held her there. He didn’t hold her tenderly; his palms crushed against her face with restrained strength—not painful but solid enough for her to know that she wasn’t going anywhere. To feel like he wasn’t going anywhere either.
The thought brought with it an unexpected swell of tenderness. God, how long had it been since she’d been able to lean on anyone else like this, even for a second? She’d been fighting so hard to stand on her own two feet for so long that she’d forgotten what it was like to have someone prop her up. She felt the traces of tears gathering in her eyes—a bittersweet mixture of gratefulness for his strength now and grief for the years they’d spent apart.
“I get it,” he told her in a low voice. “You need time. Space. I’ll keep back as much as I can. But I am going to prove to you, Ash, beyond the fucking shadow of a doubt, that I can keep you safe, that you can trust me.” He pressed a forceful kiss to her forehead, then let her go.
Ashleigh drew a trembling breath into her lungs. She lifted her arm to her eyes to swipe away all traces of her tears. “I’m going to go take another shower.”
Alex grinned crookedly at that. “I thought you might need one,” he teased her, his suddenly lewd gaze dropping to the apex of her thighs.
She smacked him in the shoulder and turned quickly to hide the flush that rose to her cheeks.
She really didn’t want to stop this, she realized. She wanted to turn right around and pick up where they’d left off.
Why did doing the right thing have to be so hard?
Chapter 8
Ashleigh
Ashleigh lay beside Alex, staring up at the ceiling. It was early in the morning, and daylight was just beginning to filter through the window.
She’d slept beside him last night, even if she hadn’t slept with him. There was a second bedroom and she’d initially settled herself there after a goodnight phone call to Penny. But it had felt too cold and empty beneath the sheets, especially when she knew he was just down the hall.
She’d eventually crawled into bed beside him. He didn’t say a word, and she didn’t either. It was nicer that way—less complicated. She didn’t have to tell him what it meant, or rationalize to herself why she felt better under the covers next to him. It simply was.
Alex was still sleeping next to her. He lay on his back, his chest half-exposed, head turned toward her on the pillow. His mouth hung open, and he snored softly. She would shift her eyes back to watch him on occasion, letting herself become mesmerized by the easy rise and fall of his chest.
If only they could stay like that forever, she thought. Nothing behind them, nothing in front of them. Just their two bodies sharing heat beneath the covers. It would be perfect.
But she couldn’t stay there beside him. Not now. She’d woken up hours ago, inundated by thoughts of what she should do about everything.
She’d promised Alex that she wouldn’t go back to the bakery, and at the time she’d meant it. She’d believed in the danger he’d described, and she had no desire to risk her life for a few cupcakes, as he’d put it. She’d seen what those goons had done to her basement. The memory of the blood on the walls was still vivid in her mind.
But that didn’t mean that she could just sit by idly, either. She’d built that place from the ground up. She’d first moved into the building when it had been just a vacated space that had been on the market too long—busted windows and graffiti tags on its brick front.
She’d put the elbow grease into it, doing most of the dirty work herself. She’d given up weekends while working her other jobs in order to rip up the rotting flooring, repaint the walls, scrub the interior.
Even all the equipment inside the bakery was uniquely hers. She’d spent hours shopping on eBay and Craigslist to find used models and save money wherever she could. Every dime she didn’t waste could be reinvested in other crucial elements—décor, advertising, extra ingredients for experimentation.
She wasn’t going to let her business sink just because there was a chance of danger. She hadn’t let those creeps scare her off before, and she sure as hell wasn’t about to now.
But if something happened to her, she argued with herself, what would Penny do? How could she forgive herself if her recklessness endangered her daughter’s life, or even made it more difficult?
She pivoted between staying and going for too long, until the cold of the night began to creep away and the new day started to filter in. Staying seemed reasonable, but going seemed essential, and she could not for the life of her make a decision.
After much internal deliberation, she arrived at the decision that she could at the very least scope the place out. If everything seemed fine, then she could go into work and start sorting through the debris of her storeroom. If not, then she could just calmly turn around, sneak back into the house, and slip back into bed before Alex had noticed she had gone. It was perfectly sensible.
She slid out from beneath the covers carefully. Alex used to be a heavy sleeper, but she didn’t know if that had changed over the years, especially after going on the run from Jasper. She swung her feet as quietly as possible over the side of the mattress and placed them on the floor, sneaking a glance back at him to see if he’d noticed.
He was still out cold, snoring quietly. She heaved a small sigh of relief.
She stood up slowly, carefully shifting her weight forward to min
imize the decompression of the mattress. Then she backed away, feeling each step out with her foot behind her to be sure that nothing was blocking her path.
As she watched Alex, she felt the urge rise in her to plant a kiss on his cheek. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days, and there was a thin smattering of stubble ringing his mouth. She wanted to feel the tickle of those prickly ends against her cheek, to move her lips down to his mouth and taste the sleepiness in him.
He had always been the one to wake her that way on the weekends. She’d loved to sleep in, but he’d come to at seven every day, operating by an internal clock. He’d always said that the best part of the day was watching her wake up slowly, knowing that he was the first thing she felt and saw that day.
Now she had the chance to turn the tables, to see if he was onto something there.
She couldn’t, she reminded herself. There were a thousand reasons she couldn’t. She needed to check on the bakery, for one. He would never let her. And that wasn’t even getting into the can of worms she’d open up by that little gesture.
They couldn’t be together—she had to keep reminding herself of that. No matter how badly her body wanted it.
She forced herself to keep moving backwards toward the door. She had to get through this crisis first, she told herself. Once Alex had straightened things out and taken care of the drug lord and his men—assuming he could do that—then she could step back and reevaluate. Saying no now wasn’t saying no for forever.
She made it to the hall without waking Alex. She allowed herself a small sigh of relief, but kept moving. She had to get dressed and get herself put together quickly. There was no telling when Alex would wake up.
She managed to get herself ready fairly quickly. Her hair was a little wild when she glanced at it in the mirror, but she decided it would have to do and hustled to grab her things and get out the door.
# # #
Thankfully the nearest bus stop was just a block and a half away. She kicked herself for agreeing so easily to riding with Alex back to his place. He’d insisted it wasn’t to keep her trapped, just to keep her from running off on him. She’d disliked it at the time, but she’d told herself that she was resourceful enough to work around it.
But now the inconvenience was adding unnecessary time to her trip. She’d have to catch the bus to the stop closest to the lot where she’d parked her car, then drive from there to the bakery. She would definitely be opening late that day.
She reached the bus stop quickly, and luckily the next bus wasn’t too far out. It was just a short loop around the town and neighboring residential areas, and usually there wasn’t much of a wait time, but every second counted now. Alex wasn’t going to be happy if he woke up to find her gone.
She couldn’t stop herself from fidgeting nervously as she rode the bus. It was a short enough ride, less than ten minutes, but it felt like forever, especially since sitting alone in the near-empty interior left her too much room to think.
She started to question her decision again. So what if she fell a little behind in her business. She could always bust her ass to make up for it, right? One day wasn’t going to sink her. She was taking unnecessary risks here.
But there were too many dangers of getting just a little behind. She knew that too well. Desperation didn’t look good on anyone, especially her—a single mom in a small town. And being in a difficult position financially meant that she would have less control over her life.
She needed her bakery to be a success because it was the only way she could keep control over her life and her daughter’s.
Ashleigh kept repeating that to herself like a mantra all the way to the bakery. She chanted it to herself as she descended down the bus, as she crossed the parking lot to her car, as she drove down the lonely streets toward the downtown area.
She rolled up onto the street slowly, stopping at the four-way kitty-corner to the bakery and scanning the empty sidewalk for any sign of movement. There was no one that she could see. It was too early in the morning for anyone to be out and about. Still, she wasn’t going to jump to any conclusions just yet. She was taking a calculated risk here, not blindly jeopardizing her welfare.
She cruised slowly down the length of the street, shifting her gaze from the left to the right. Everything from the streets to the narrow alleyways between building groups was deserted. She turned around, came back up the street, and paused before her storefront.
It was still dark inside, and empty as far as she could tell. She peered inside for a while, idling in the street since she wasn’t holding up traffic. Even after ten minutes had passed, she couldn’t detect anyone inside. Satisfied, she drove around to the community lot where she normally parked.
There were a few familiar cars there, she noted, but nothing out of the ordinary. She did a few loops around the lot, senses on high alert, but even after that everything seemed kosher. So she parked up in the top left corner, her usual spot, gathered up her purse, and slid out of the car, locking it behind her.
She kept her eyes wide and her ears open as she walked her usual route to the bakery. Once she thought she heard the scuffle of footsteps behind her, but when she whipped around it turned out to only be a fat city squirrel scampering over the pavement, searching for abandoned scraps. She kept one hand on her phone and the other laced through her keys, though, just in case.
She reached the front of the bakery. Even though she’d scoped it out just minutes ago, she couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by anxiety as she approached. Being sheltered in her own car, where she could just floor it and speed off at the drop of a hat, was a different feeling from standing out in the open like this, unarmed and completely vulnerable. If anything happened now, she wouldn’t be able to defend herself. She froze before the door, paralyzed by thoughts of what might happen to her.
They’d already broken the cupboards, her fearful inner voice reasoned. If they come back, your bones are next.
No. Ashleigh shook herself out of that spiraling pattern, knowing that it was only the beginning of a slippery slope. There had always been uncertainties in her life, and she knew from experience that giving in to the what-ifs meant debilitating paralysis. She was stronger than that.
She’d taken precautions, she told herself. She’d been smart about this. She had nothing to fear but the shadows conjured by her own mind.
She unlocked the door and walked into her business, assuming a stride that looked a lot more confident than she felt.
She had work to do.
Chapter 9
Ashleigh
Ashleigh took a moment to survey the state of her bakery. It had really only been a day since she’d been here, but it felt like the last time she’d been there was weeks ago. So much had happened in the last few days.
She’d had to close down the day before. She hadn’t even had time to take care of her day-old baked goods. That would be her first priority, she decided. After that, it was a question of how she was ever going to get anything out before her official opening hours.
She couldn’t greet her early customers empty-handed. The sign she’d tacked up yesterday had excused her closure due to a family emergency. One day wasn’t too much of an inconvenience, but any longer than that and it would be an interruption to their routine. They’d move on, find a new morning habit. She couldn’t afford to lose the few regulars—not now.
She hurriedly moved around the front room, flipping on lights, her mind already spinning as she walked around the shop. Her supplies were ruined. How could she forget that?
She’d have to run over to the supermarket to pick things up. She was going to have to eat the loss for everything destroyed in the basement, and add onto that by buying small-scale from a retailer rather than a supplier. More mark-up meant less profits.
She paced over into the kitchen, looking her equipment up and down, hoping to find some inspiration there. She had less than an hour and a half to get something out of the oven. What was quick and easy and
still gourmet-quality? Did anything in her repertoire even meet that criteria?
God, what a headache. She could already feel her temples throbbing. Maybe she could just forget all this. She could go back to Alex’s place, crawl under the covers with them, and hide her head from this disaster.
It would be so much easier to just give up. Let the business fail. Life had stacked the deck against her from the very beginning, so why bother trying to fight it?
No, she admonished herself. There was no time for a pity party. She just needed a good, strong cup of coffee. That and a magic wand.
She started to grind the beans and get the coffee machine set up. She’d have to put it on to brew soon anyway. She was busying herself with unwrapping a new stack of paper cups when she heard the door chime behind her.
She turned around slowly, part of her fearful that it was Alex. She was already preparing an airtight argument for him, but her mind went blank when she saw who was actually at the door.
BAD INFLUENCE: A Dark Bad Boy Romance Page 34