“Which one are you?” my grandmother asked.
It had happened before, but the comment still stung. Sometimes she knew me, and sometimes she didn’t. It was times like this, when she had an episode, that I wished she could at least remember me.
“I’m Ash, Gigi. I’m your only grandson.” I walked closer to her until I was standing so close to the foot of the bed I could feel the footboard pressing against my shins. I stood, frozen, watching her study my face for what felt like a hundred years before she was satisfied.
“Nonsense. Ashley is a little boy. You’re a giant.”
“Sorry, ma’am. I’ll try to stop growing for you.”
“Where’s Dexter?” She looked around like she was trying to see behind me, thinking maybe he would come through the door at any moment.
Don’t be a dick to your Gigi.
“He couldn’t come today.” I smiled around the words as I pushed them out of my mouth with my tongue. It was a physical effort to even pretend like I liked that obnoxious asshole, but saying anything otherwise would upset Gigi in her already delicate mental condition. “He wanted to, but he had work.”
“He has very important work. He owns a company you know?” I knew. I knew all about Dexter Truitt. When his birthday was, what his favorite food and color was, and even the tv shows he liked to watch as a kid.
“So does my Ashley. He visits me sometimes too. You look a little like him.” She closed her eyes and smiled, wiggling back down into her blankets before opening her eyes again. She spooned a little applesauce into her mouth with a shaking hand and swallowed. She was so thin I swore I could see the whole damn bite roll like a lump all the way down her throat.
Ignoring the fact that Becky just told her I was her grandson coming to visit, I smiled and swallowed thickly. “That’s a big name for a guy you know? I bet he’d like it if you just called him Ash.”
Another second and another complete personality change. That’s how it happened, except this time she went from angry and scared to mischievous. “Oh, he hates his name.” She giggled a little, sounding many, many years younger than the eighty-four I knew her to be. “But I gave it to him. I named him after a character in my favorite book.”
“Gone with the Wind.” We said it at the same time.
“You know that movie?” Her pale blue eyes lit up. A sunny day in the middle of a washout of rainy ones. I knew the story because I’d grown up hearing about it. But we’ve had this conversation so many times before I could recite it in my sleep.
“Who doesn’t? First movie of its time with an actual curse word in it. I bet you picked that name for him because you had a crush on that character in the book.” She did. I knew it.
“You know, most women all liked Rhett best. Everyone always falling over themselves for the bad boy. But you know what? That Ashley, he was a proper gentleman. And I wanted my grandson to grow up to be a gentleman too.”
“I bet he’s a terrible rake.” I grinned at her, knowing that her grandson was more Rhett than Ashley on any day.
“Hmph. You look like you might be one yourself.” But her eyes were still twinkling, and she was happy. Happy to talk about her favorite movie and her grandson, not knowing that the man in question was standing right in front of her. In her mind I was a stranger, because her grandson…well, who knew how old I was in her mind. I could very well still be a little boy. It didn’t matter, she was just talking about Dex and I, and our jobs. There was no rhyme or reason to the thoughts of someone with Alzheimer’s. Every thought was the truth, whether it made sense or not. I’d just learned to roll with it.
“Alice, I will leave you alone for a bit, can I borrow your handsome guest for a minute?”
I’d honestly forgotten Becky was there, but that’s just what happened sometimes. An assisted living facility always had someone on staff, and Gigi had required the extra care for so long most times I didn’t even notice when they came in and out of the room. Sometimes knocking, sometimes not. I guess it depended on what they were doing there.
Gigi took her applesauce cup with one bite taken out of it and set it on the nightstand. She yawned and leaned back against the pillow, the whiteness of her hair a beacon of light against the maroon pillowcase. She’d had those sheets and pillowcases for a long time. I remembered them from when I was a kid and my parents and I would still visit. I was glad I thought to have them brought here. Sometimes it’s the little things that bring comfort. I bet Dexter Truitt didn’t think about things like sheets. I wondered if he ordered the applesauce cups or if my facility provided them. My mood instantly soured and I fought to keep my face neutral.
“I’m tired, Jessica.” My grandmother was already resting, her eyes closed, her head leaning back against the pillows.
“Well, take a nap, then.” Becky didn’t miss a beat, just walked to the nightstand and picked up the discarded, still full applesauce cup and dropped it neatly in the trash. She knew better. It would sit there completely forgotten if she left it. Possibly to get thrown the next time my grandmother got pissed off about something that didn’t happen. “What’s the joy in being retired if you can’t enjoy the perks? I can’t wait until I get to have unlimited daytime naps.”
My grandmother snorted, but it was a quiet noise. She was already drifting off. I wanted to stay longer. I wanted to sit down and watch her silently while her eyes were closed and not staring at me in confusion, wondering who I was and why I was in her room. But Becky was leaving, and I couldn’t think of a valid reason to stay in my grandmother’s room and watch her sleep, so I followed the nurse out of the room. Right before I clicked the door shut behind me, I heard her frail voice call from across the room.
“You can visit again. Could you bring my grandson with you?”
In a voice that sounded like it came from some other man, some man on the verge of tears, I answered. “I’ll see what I can do, Gigi.”
I barely remembered saying thank you and goodbye to the unfazed Elysia, Becky, Jessica. Those care givers, man, it takes a special soul to deal with that shit day in and day out and keep showing up every day. I loved my Gigi with all of my heart and soul—truly the only other person I loved in the entire world—and I could barely make it out to my car before crumpling behind the steering wheel, my head hanging down until my forehead brushed the tops of my hands. I stayed there, hunched over with my mouth hanging open, unable to expand my lungs enough to get a full breath. It had happened before, and it never got easier. It was a fresh heartbreak every single time she had an episode. A gaping wound every time I watched the light in her eyes dim more. Wondered when the day would come when she would stop recognizing that she had a grandson at all and screamed at me for even being in her room. Because surely that day was coming.
Not for the first time and most likely not the last, I squeezed my eyes shut and thought of how nice it would be to have any other family to help ease her burden. To give her more of that family connection than I could. My dad was her only child. There were no aunts and uncles, no brothers and sisters. It was just us, Gigi and me. And it looked like it wouldn’t be long before Gigi would leave me too, and then what?
As much as I loved my apartment, there was no way I could go back there and sit alone, staring at the walls in the dark.
Thunder cracked over my head and I shot straight up in the driver’s seat. The rain came down immediately, pounding against the windshield and rolling off the sides with its own private current.
I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to think about anything anymore. I just wanted to forget for five fucking minutes how bad my chest hurt. So I dug in my pocket and picked up my phone, and when the person on the other end answered, I didn’t say who I was or lead in with a hello. I barely croaked out a sentence before jamming my finger on the red hang up icon and ditching the two-thousand-dollar phone into the passenger seat. I didn’t want to use words. I wanted, no, I needed something else.
“I’m coming over.�
��
I turned the key in the ignition, slapped the wipers on, and gave them a minute to slog through the water that collected on the windshield. I pulled out of the parking lot of the assisted living facility with determination. I knew where to go to feel better. I knew where to go to not be alone.
11
Caroline
I’m coming over.
Something was definitely not right. Not because he said he was coming over. That single sentence statement was totally in character for Ash Sugarbaker. But his voice…it was just so empty and raw. No, something was definitely not okay.
I spent so much time worrying about what could be the matter that I didn’t think to brush my teeth, straighten the apartment, or even put on a bra. I’d gotten used to coming home from the office and whipping that baby off, then throwing on the softest t shirt I could find, and pairing it with a pair of terry cloth booty shorts. Best. Pajamas. Ever.
So what if I was in my pjs at six thirty at night? It didn’t matter until there was a rough knock on my apartment door and I realized my new . . . boss with benefits . . . was standing on the other side, waiting to come in while I stood there looking like a teenager, barely dressed.
He’s going to think I’m coming on to him.
He knocked again, louder this time, a single solid thump that rattled the brass chain on my sliding lock and shook the picture frames on the wall. The awesome print I picked up at the art gallery/tattoo parlor last weekend slipped sideways, threatening to slide off the nail. I’d whacked it in with the bottom of a full wine bottle because I didn’t have a hammer, and I’d be damned if I would let my handiwork be undone by a behemoth slapping his meat hooks on my apartment door. Those two broken nails would not be for naught.
Thump thump thump.
“Okay, geez, what are you trying to—OH MY GOD you’re wet.” Wet wasn’t even the right word. The man was soaked through. The rain darkened his normally blond hair which was plastered to his head, and his white dress shirt was transparent and molded to the muscles of his chest and abdomen. Rain dripped down the sides of his square jaw and trickled down his neck, disappearing into the collar of his shirt.
It was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen in my life, and also the most terrifying.
“I’m coming in.” That was all, no please, thank you, nothing. Just “I’m coming in.” Like he owned me and the entire space I occupied. There was no need to ask permission in such an instance—I couldn’t refuse. It was still two blinks and a gasp of air before I remembered to move back and let him walk in to the apartment, and even then, I only snapped out of my staring contest with his Adam’s apple because he walked into the apartment anyway, regardless of the space I hadn’t made for him yet. Until his wet slacks pressed against my bare thighs and the water dripping from his nose fell on my cheek. He was towering over me in an instant.
He said nothing, just stared at me, his eyes blazing and intense. Had I thought they were gray and cold before? I could barely remember that. These eyes were molten rock, staring into me, through me and right out the other side. The heat of his gaze slid across my skin, branding a trail from my face, down my neck, and across the exposed shoulder of the t-shirt I’d ripped the neck out of, making it fit better.
Old Caroline would never have ripped a shirt. But then again, old Caroline wouldn’t have purchased a used concert tee from a thrift store in the first place.
It was another icy drip landing on my partially open mouth that snapped me back to reality. Because while I was off in la la land, Ash Sugarbaker was standing almost on top of me, watching me watch him, and dripping rainwater all over me with the apartment door wide open.
“Holy shit, you must be freezing, get in here.” He still hadn’t said anything aside from his original greeting of “I’m coming in,” but he let me skirt around him and shut the apartment door, saying nothing, just watching me jump around. I wondered if I looked as skittish as I felt?
Probably.
“Are you okay?” I babbled, rambling words together to take away from how huge and looming, wet and damn sexy he looked making a puddle in my entryway. “You’re soaked, we have to get you out of those clothes. Let me get you a towel.” I turned to run to the linen closet before I realized something important. “I don’t have anything big enough for you to change into.”
I shouldn’t have worried about it. As I turned around, I saw he’d already shucked his button down dress shirt onto the floor and pulled his equally wet undershirt up over his chest. I couldn’t see his face until he discarded the second shirt on top of the first one with a wet plop.
Fuuuuuck. Something’s not right, this isn’t normal. He’s not acting normal.
That was as far as my thoughts could take me before he crushed me to his chest and his mouth came down on me like the ocean, hard, wet and punishing. Teeth. There were lots of teeth. Grabbing at my lower lip, moving over the pulse in my neck. His mouth sucking on the skin hard, then releasing it and moving on. I could barely catch my breath. It hurt, but the pain was fleeting and already fading before he moved on to the next spot to suck and bite again.
I probably should have pumped the brakes on him right there. But I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. Sex with Ash Sugarbaker was just the drug I needed, and I ached to be possessed by him in a way only he could. A niggling pressure in the back of my mind gave concerns about how this might backfire in the long run, but fuck the long run. He came to me, obviously with a need. I’d ask him what his problem was later, but for now I would take everything he was willing to give. Everything I wanted, and more.
My hands slid over his cold wet chest to grip the thick muscles of his shoulders, the skin slick to the touch. He grunted and pushed against me more, pressing his entire body to me until my shirt was damp from his skin and my bare legs shivered in the cold.
For a second.
It was hard to stay cold with the heat radiating from his body, and the shirt didn’t have time to be uncomfortable because he slid his hands underneath the loose cotton and, hands not even stopping, slid it straight up over my head. Then it was gone and I was standing in front of him wearing nothing but my terry cloth short shorts and mismatched socks.
Scratch that. Five seconds later and it was just socks.
Burying his face in my neck, he bit me again, harder this time and not quick at all. No, he stayed there, worrying the skin between his teeth like an animal. Then, both hands palming my butt, he picked me off the ground and sat me on the back of my couch. There wasn’t really a way to separate the room, so I did it with furniture. This time it was a perch for me to sit on while Ash unbuckled his belt with one hand and kicked his wet slacks into another soggy pile. Either he didn’t wear underwear or he was really good at ditching them with his pants, because in a matter of seconds we were both wearing the same amount of clothing. His socks matched, though.
And that was the last stupid thought I had before he dropped to his knees and forced my thighs wide open, spreading them so quickly I almost lost my balance and toppled backward onto the cushions. Instead he held me there, the hard back of the couch digging painfully into my ass while he licked a searing hot line across my sensitive flesh. Instinctively, I tried to close my legs. I don’t know why women do that. It’s not like we want to keep the men out of there. We want to hold them as close to that pleasure center as possible. It’s just a natural reaction.
Ash was having none of it.
He gripped my thighs so hard I knew, just knew, bruises would bloom before morning. Dark shades of purple and blue. I would be sore. I couldn’t wait. So instead of closing my legs, I satisfied the urge by threading my fingers into his hair and pulling hard, grinding myself against his face until he moved again. I was rewarded with a tongue thrusting inside of me, in and out, rapidly. Then another bite. This one hard enough to wrangle a gasp from my throat.
“More.” I definitely wanted more. This hot, angry man wanted to eat me alive and I was on board. I could have come like that, straddling
his face while I balanced precariously on the ledge of the couch, but Ash was a demon and couldn’t stay in one position too long.
He slid me down from the edge just as mercilessly as he’d placed me there, and I mourned the loss of his touch until he turned me around and walked me to the front of the couch where he stared at it for a moment, probably thinking of what he wanted to do.
“We can take this to the bedroom, you know?” I whispered as I snaked my arms around his neck and licked his ear. Another grunt was all the response I got, but that was okay. I didn’t need words. What I needed was for him to put his hands on my body again, and mold me into something completely his. Something no one had ever touched before. Something unique to us. He untangled my arms from around his neck and turned me around gently. It was almost an unfamiliar gesture coming from him. I didn’t think Ash could be gentle on his best day, but he let me sink softly to my knees on the cushions of the sofa before he moved my legs wider apart with his hands. I thought the next thing I felt would be the head of his cock as he slammed it unceremoniously into me. That was kind of how it went with us, but this time it was different.
“Lay flat.”
Flat? How? I was leaning up against the couch, it was almost impossible to lay flat until I was lengthwise on the cushions, not pressed against it with my ass in the air and my chest against the backrest.
“Lay flat.” One hand snaked around and pinched my nipple hard. Instinctively I flattened myself against the cushions to get away from the sharp pain, and let my legs fall wider apart so there was no air between me and the couch cushions. And then he lay on top of me completely, his feet on the floor but the entire weight of his body pressing against me from the back of my knees up to my neck.
Mister Monster: A Hero Club Novel Page 7