by Lexi Whitlow
If I make that choice. And goddamn, yes, I want to make that choice.
She examines me with her dark, thoughtful eyes and cocks her head to the side. “But?”
But I’m trying to get a divorce. And I’m failing.
“But nothing.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a relationship, Summer. But when a man comes in with those types of wounds, those types of tattoos, it usually means that he’s... well, you know him better than I do.”
Her words are like a punch to the gut. I find myself opening my mouth to defend him. There’s evidence all around me that he’s changed, but she’s right. That’s the visceral reaction I had when I first saw him. That’s the nightmare that taunted me when I lived in the Ukraine—that he’d wind up in a hospital with his body beyond repair. Or that he’d finally go too far and he’d never see the light again. When Priya reminds me, it’s like I’m taken back to that starting point, the grief I slogged through after I went away, after all that I lost when I was in Syria, wishing he was there beside me.
I let him go. I mourned him and everything we had together.
When I finally opened his first email, I thought he was long gone, on the run somewhere he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—sign the divorce papers. Just because he’s here now doesn’t mean that life has left him.
I smile at Priya, trying not to let the crushing feeling in my chest take me over. My whole body seems to have gone cold, and my hands fly around nervously as I grab my purse and jacket. “I’ll keep it in mind, Priya.”
“Hm?” She turns and looks at me, confused. I realized it’s been so long since I’ve spoken that she doesn’t quite remember what she said. “Oh, that. Yes. Have a good weekend.” She leaves the room, and I find my way out after her. She walks back to the ER, and I walk forward, like our conversation hadn’t even happened. I’m heading to Ash, my body tingling with anticipation. Maybe I can tell him we need to take things slower. Maybe he’ll listen.
There’s really no reason for me to stop seeing him altogether, I think as I walk out of the hospital doors into the warm night air. I’ll tell him that we can see each other once a week. Once every two weeks?
I jangle my keys around in my purse. Usually he’s here by now, isn’t he? I look around, expecting to see his tall figure outlined against the setting sun. But there’s nothing.
I pick up my phone and see a text.
Not tonight.
My heart starts to pound, and I forget everything. The worry comes racing through my system all at once, my breath coming in short rasps. It’s stupid. It’s inane. But Ash—and only Ash—makes me feel like this, like the floor is crumbling from beneath me if he’s not there.
“He’s here. He’s still fine,” I say, racing to my car. I’ll just have to go to him this time.
It occurs to me when I find myself knocking on the door that I’ve made my choice, and it’s the one I’ve been heading to all along.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Three Years, Three and a Half Months Ago
I watch the girl as she sleeps. Not a girl, a grown woman. And my wife. She seems like a girl compared to me, not because she’s young, but because there’s a huge distance between the life I lead and the life she was meant to lead.
We’re home now. I dropped a thousand bucks from my savings on the inn. It was stupid. But those days were worth more than a lifetime spent working for Cullen. It’s been creeping over me—this feeling and what it means.
This girl, her sun-colored hair splayed over my pillow, with her degrees and her brain, and all the things she wants to do with her life.
Where do I fit in?
I’ve never been the type of man to place value on a piece of paper someone paid for, but with Summer, it’s what she’s planning that makes me think of the things I lost. She’s got the Doctors Without Borders website pulled up on her computer, and she looks at it every so often. The tab hasn’t closed. I’m not sure she knows that I’ve noticed, but I have, and I know what it means.
I’d always intended to be a trainer, to open my own gym. Even after my muscle was torn to shreds, even after I was told I wouldn’t fight again, that’s what I kept wishing for. I was good with new recruits, and maybe better at teaching than I ever was at fighting. When I look at a ring from the outside, I can see all the moves that need to be made. On the inside, I was a piece of meat. I don’t miss that feeling, but I sure as hell miss taking eighteen year-old kids and whipping them into shape, showing them what they’re capable of.
Should have, could have.
Look at me now. Gambling was another game, even more dangerous than fighting. The money meant freedom to me, back them. But it was just another cage I put myself into. And for the past five years, I’ve been paying off my debt, at the mercy of a dangerous man I never thought I’d work for. Cullen always had a knack for finding lonely assholes like me.
The pay is good, but I really work in trade. I’ve become numb to it. Broken knuckles, bruised throats, dislocated kneecaps. And worse. I light a cigarette and hop out of bed. Summer rolls over just slightly, enough so that I can see her body exposed beneath the sheets.
Fucking stunning.
Her cupid’s bow of a mouth is slightly open, the sound of her breath soft and gentle. My cock stirs just looking at her, remembering how she felt last night and all the times before, taking me fully, begging me for more, giving me everything she had.
This isn’t what I asked for. But I don’t know what the fuck I asked for, not really, or what I expected to get.
She wakes, eyelids fluttering open, and I brush my hand over her hip before stubbing out my cigarette.
“I’m going now, Summer. Facing what I did—”
“Stay,” she says sleepily, catching my hand and pulling it up to her breast. I cup it gently and then take my hand back, standing up before I make any more stupid decisions.
“I’ve thought about it, Summer, and you shouldn’t be here when I get back.” I avoid her eyes, but I hear her rustle behind me, and I can imagine exactly how she looks.
“Thought about it when exactly? For the hour after you woke up?” I can almost feel her eyes boring into me.
“I don’t know what Cullen’s going to do, and I think you should be out of dodge—”
“You said he wouldn’t hurt me if I was family. Or my aunt—”
“He won’t. But I don’t know what he’s going to do about me.”
“You haven’t mentioned anything to him yet.” I hear her clicking her nails together. I pull on my boxers and jeans, and when I finally turn around to face her, she’s sitting up in bed, covers pulled around her, hair spilling over her shoulders. “You didn’t tell him. I thought you—”
“I didn’t say I told him.”
“You said we were safe. You said I should come back here and wait—”
“I know what I said, Summer. But listen to what I’m saying now. You need to get out of dodge. You need to be out of New York. Bianca already is.”
Or she said she is. I’ve never known that woman to leave New York. Maybe Brooklyn. But she’s definitely not in North Carolina, like she said to Ash.
“Where do I go? I don’t have a plan—” She looks down and to the side when she says the last word. Instead of her bright green eyes, I can only see eyelashes. Sinking lower into her pile of covers, she pulls her hair over her eyes just slightly, so slight that she probably doesn’t even notice what she’s doing.
“You have a home. You don’t want anything to do with a man like me. You can send the divorce papers up here, and I’ll sign them—”
“It’s my decision,” she says, sinking down further. Her voice comes out in a whisper so faint I almost don’t hear it.
“It’s your decision what?”
“No,” she says. She raises her chin haughtily. “I won’t go—not unless you come with me.”
“Summer, this isn’t what we planned.”
“It isn’t, is it? We didn’t plan anything at all.”
Present Day
I took a beating tonight.
And what for?
“Summer won’t even notice you’re not there,” I mumble, holding an ice pack over my eye. She’s been keeping her distance, even though I show up to see her nearly every day. I know there’s something bothering her, something she’s not telling me. Something keeping her away, even as she lets me into her life little by little. “She’ll be done with this game, Ash,” I say to myself, grinning. “You stupid son of a bitch.”
I start to drift off to sleep, holding the ice pack so that it doesn’t put pressure on my eye socket or the place where Summer stitched me up. Even though the wound has started to heal, it got hit when I fought tonight. If Summer knew that I was involved with the mafia down here too, she’d flip her shit and never see me again. But it’s only temporary. It’s only until I can put that down payment on the new place in Kill Devil Hills.
A legit business. A fighter, a gambler, a mafia soldier. None of that sounds right alongside surgery resident. But a businessman, a place to call my own and be proud of. I start to drift off thinking about it.
Then I hear a soft knock at the front door, and a voice that sends a jolt through my body.
“Shit,” I mutter. “Just a minute.” I rise to my feet, my body as heavy as lead, head throbbing. At least it’s not pounding anymore. I should send her away. I know I should. Do I want her to see me like this? I freeze for a second, glued where I stand. It would be easier if it were a clean fight, if it were something I could be proud of. But it wasn’t.
“Ash?” Summer’s voice travels through the space, and she jiggles the door handle. It opens, and then there’s no hiding from her because she’s barreling through my hallway and racing over to me. “Ash, what the hell did you do to yourself?”
I let the ice pack drop away and turn my black eye and the opened wound on my cheek into the light. “Didn’t think I should come pick you up like this. Della might get the wrong impression.” I chuckle, but she doesn’t laugh. Instead she brings her hand to the side of my face and gently traces her fingers over my cheek. The spark between us is still there, even though she’s frowning, brows furrowing as she looks at me.
“This isn’t from training.” Her voice is shaky, wavering with emotion. “There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”
“No. Not really. The fighting world here—” I pause. I told her I wouldn’t lie to her. “The fighting world, even as small as it is here, isn’t always perfectly legal. And I—“
“I knew it,” she says quietly, looking down. “What were you trying to do? Get close to me so I could pay off some of your debts or—God, I don’t even know.” Her voice is still shaking. “I shouldn’t have come here.” The look she gives me, eyes narrowed, hands on her hips, makes something in my chest tighten, that long lost thing that I missed feeling when she was away.
She turns to leave. “Wait,” I say.
I don’t think she’ll stop, but she does. She turns around slowly, that deathly look still on her face. “That’s all I’ve been doing, Ash. Waiting around to see if you’ve changed. I thought you had,” she says, her voice more disappointed than angry.
“I have. I won’t lie to you about what I’m doing. And some of it isn’t pretty. I had to face a man tonight—a promoter—he’s tied to the small time mafia here. He hurts people, Summer. And I wasn’t going to let him hurt my fighter, get him cut up in a dirty fight.”
“Great. A real avenger for truth and justice.”
“No. I’m just doing what a man has to do when he wants something. And there’s something I want—”
“Don’t say you want me. Don’t say it again. I can’t bear to fucking hear it.” She steps backwards, nearly falling over the coffee table from Ikea I got to make this place livable.
“Okay, then, I won’t say that.” I step toward her and take her arm. “I love you.”
“Stop,” she says. “This isn’t what I want. I want my job, and my simple little life I planned here.” Her voice cracks on the last word, her body nearly crumpling like she’s under a great weight. I catch her in my arms and pull her to me. When she looks at me, her eyes are full of tears, spilling over her cheeks. Her heart is beating fast, her body closer to mine than it has been since I saw her again.
“I want that for you, Sunshine. But I also need you. There’s no other way to break through to the other side without you. I didn’t know for sure if you were coming back. I thought you might stay away for good.” My voice goes hoarse, and I find myself at a loss for words, a tight lump forming in my throat.
“I’m so afraid,” she says.
“Of what?” Suddenly, I’m deeply aware of her body against mine, the thrumming of blood in her veins, the heat and closeness of her.
“Losing you again.”
I want to tell her she doesn’t have to be afraid, that there’s nothing in the world that will take me away from her. But I can’t say it. Instead, I bring my lips crashing down on hers, and I kiss her like I should have kissed her that night before she left. I kiss her like she might drop off the face of the earth tomorrow—she might, after all. And there’s only so much time we have together. The room stills around us, and there’s only me, there’s only her.
“Ash...”
“I love you, Summer. You might not think that’s enough to carry us, but that’s why I wanted to give us a chance. Not for money, not for an ego trip. I love you. I need you. You’re my wife.”
My lips brush over her neck, her skin creamy and smooth. Hesitantly at first, she moves her hand to my stomach, fingers trailing over my muscles. She looks up at me, her face full of emotion. She doesn’t say anything, she just looks at me, lifting my shirt and then putting her hand down the front of my shorts. My cock is at half-mast already, just from being close to her. I’ve dreamt about this moment for what feels like an eternity—the simple act of being close to her.
“That’s just—we’ll just—” She stumbles over her words and then bites her lower lip. “We’ll just keep this between us for now.”
I nod, helping her slip off her clothes, and then mine. She steps out of her panties and unhooks her bra, a far more confident version of the woman I knew before. My hands find her hips, and I turn her around, trailing my fingers over her back and then moving forward to cup her breasts. I twirl one nipple between my fingertips and then the other, listening to her gasp like it’s music. The throbbing headache from my black eye is a distant memory now. Here, now. This is everything. Hands moving over her torso, down to her sex, I slide my fingers over her wetness, roaming over the delicate folds, circling the sensitive bud of her clit.
“Ash,” she sighs. “I missed you.” She looks at me over her shoulder, every trace of anger gone from her eyes. Instead, I see longing, a ripening need that’s been lingering under the surface of her every interaction with me. That was the secret she’s been keeping from me. That was what she was hiding all along. Far from wanting me out of her life, I know now that she was scared to keep me in it.
“I missed you too, Sunshine.” I grab her sunlit hair in one hand, then pull her head back and kiss her neck hungrily. “And now I’m going to make you remember everything.”
She moans, throaty, deep, sweet little sounds that remind me of the girl she was in New York, innocent and high-heeled. Without a doubt, this woman is more refined, so sensual she’s spellbinding. I grab a condom and undo the foil with my teeth, rolling it onto my length in one swift motion.
“Do it. This is what I want.” Her hands creep down her body and find her sex, a perfect blond V. She groans and sighs as she touches herself. I watched her do this a dozen times when we were together, and my body remembers those sounds—the begging whine in her voice, the look of her eyes, hooded with lust, and the feeling of her as I push my aching hard cock against her ass.
“Fuck, you’re so pretty,” I growl. I push my length into her from behind as she touches herself. I hold the head of my cock in
side of her, feeling how tight and sweet she is, jolts of arousal rolling through me. “Bend over the table.”
She bends over and places one hand on the dark wood, pressing her ass against me and taking me in deeper. Her fingers move languidly over her clit, her wetness encasing me, inviting me in. I drive into her, taking her waist into my hands and thrusting into her, each movement welcoming me deeper. The way she pushes her body against mine, her quickening breath, the blush rising over her body—combined, it nearly undoes me. Her movements speed up, her body desperately seeking release as I push into her time and time again. She starts to shake and shudder, whimpering, her hips bucking against my cock.
Holy shit, she’s fucking sexy, coming hard against my cock like I’ve dreamed about for so long.
What I love about this woman is that she never did anything I wanted her to—except marry me and fuck me exactly how I like.
“Come inside me,” she whispers as she looks back at me. “Please.” With a deep groan, I thrust hard inside her, my muscles tightening, the world slowing around me as I come hard and fast inside the woman I love. I run my fingers over her back, then pull her up and turn her around. I bring her into my body and kiss her again, biting down on her bottom lip. I want to watch her come again, but this time I want to see her face. I want to taste her and see if she’s as sweet as I remembered. And I want to watch her lips wrap around my cock, her gaze meeting mine as she takes me to the back of her throat.
“We shouldn’t have—we shouldn’t have done this, Ash. This isn’t who we are anymore.”
I’m lost in thinking about her body, how it felt to finally touch her again, so I don’t respond right away. Instead, I kiss the top of her forehead and pick her up, wrapping her legs around my waist. I lean in close and bite her earlobe. She sighs in response, and I can feel the gooseflesh rising on her skin.
“It’s exactly who we are. You’re mine, and I’ll remind you of that every day that I’m breathing. If you can’t see it, I’ll keep proving it to you, over and over again. You have a shift in the morning?”