Ash: A Bad Boy Romance

by Lexi Whitlow

  I take a sip of my coffee and Ash swoops between my legs, burying his face hungrily between my thighs, taking my clit into his mouth and sucking it until I’m panting. He stops and looks up at me. “On second thought, you might want to put that down now.” I laugh hard and put my mug on the table. “Best not to pour that on my head. And you might...” He slips two fingers inside of me and his towel falls away, revealing his cock, completely hard. “Because...” Instead of finishing his thought, he takes my thighs between his hands and alternates moving his tongue over my clit and sucking it until I can barely breathe. I come, collapsing on the bed, every part of me shaking.

  I thought I’d get my fill of Ash, but I can’t. Even later, after he’s fucked me bare, pulling out to come inside my mouth, I’m still desperate for more.

  I’m no longer scared of this marriage, no longer wishing it had never happened. This in itself should be terrifying. But it’s not.

  When I go to sleep, it occurs to me that the worst thing—the thing that makes me doubt my future—is the idea of being without Ash, alone.

  I don’t tell him that, not even close. Instead, it’s business as usual, lives moving forward until the day we inevitably part—and lose all of this forever.

  That was the plan, after all. And we just weren’t meant to be… were we?

  Present Day

  This has got to be the stupidest separation a couple on the verge of divorce has ever gone through. Whenever I get off of a shift, Ash is there to walk me to my car. That’s all he does, just walks with me. I keep expecting to smell alcohol on his breath, or to see him show up in the emergency room with a broken arm. But he’s kept to his plan.

  Still, I have an inkling that he’s involved in something he shouldn’t be. There are injuries, hushed phone calls, and some talk about making the fights “fair” for the kids who fight at Frank’s gym. I’ve even kept my mouth closed when Ash has brought a couple of fighters to the emergency room, telling me to keep them clear of the police roaming around.

  He keeps telling me he’s working it out so my mother won’t be evicted, that there’s a plan in place to get the money he needs to open a new, full-service MMA gym with Josh.

  I’ve told him just as many times to keep his damn money in his pocket and use it for the gym.

  But he carries on. He’s organized and confident, and he seems totally sure of what he wants. And more and more I get the impression that what he wants is a real life, one with me.

  The man I knew was never calm and methodical. He was the one who rushed me to a priest at eight in the morning, the one who suggested I leave and run when I wasn’t sure what I was running from.

  But this isn’t the same man who left me waiting at the train station. I guess that’s what time does—it changes people when you’re not looking. I gather up my things at the end of my shift and get ready to go out and walk home with a man. A tall, redheaded man, tattoos over his shoulders and arms and back. One who fights and gets in trouble, one who offers to save my family without hesitation.

  “Your shift ending?” Priya looks at me expectantly. She’s changing into her scrubs and getting ready for a night in the ER.

  “Yeah. Time for some actual sleep. And this time I have the whole weekend off.”

  She nods and turns back to her locker. “That guy walking you home again? The one with the tattoos?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, whipping around to face her. “He usually does.” I haven’t mentioned a word about Ash to Priya. But she’s nothing if not observant, and it’s easy to believe that she has tabs on each one of her residents.

  She looks back at me with frank curiosity. “Something going on with you two?”

  “Not really.” Except that we’re married and he’s wearing me down about staying married to him. He keeps showing up and being funny. And kind—which wasn’t a word I would have used to describe him when we first met. But even with that kindness, that softer edge, he’s even more masculine, and I wouldn’t admit it to him, but it makes him even sexier than he was when he broke knuckles for a living. I guess that’s kind of what he still does, but at least it’s legal—kind of legal.

  God.

  “The way you bounce out after work makes me think there is.” Priya pauses and bites her lip for a second. “Just make sure that your work comes first. So far, it has. I don’t begrudge anyone a little fun, but this residency is a big opportunity. There’s a fellowship coming up for general surgery, and I’d love to be able to recommend you.”

  A little fun? Is that what he is? I see him everywhere, and I haven’t gotten any fun out of it at all.

  I think about what might be fun with Ash. Back in the day, the answer was pretty much everything. Other men I’d been with—boys, really—hadn’t given a crap about what I liked. But Ash had a talented tongue, and an even more talented cock. And he was obsessed with making me come, with seeing how hard he could push me, how many times he could take me there in one night.

  My pleasure was his fetish. I lean against the locker, and desire rises in me and pulses through my body. I can’t quite tell if it has to do with the fellowship, or with the thought of Ash’s cock—or hell, probably both.

  “Fuck. Really?” Before the words are even out of my mouth, I flush deep red. “Sorry, Priya. That’s excellent. And I’d like to be the one you recommend.” A flood of worry sweeps through me. Why did she mention Ash in conjunction with this fellowship? Is there something wrong with him? Or my choice of him?

  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 throu
gh 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 FIFTEEN

  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 back at my apartment now. I dropped a thousand bucks from my savings on the inn, and five hundred on the wedding. 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?

  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 of that woman to leave New York. Maybe Brooklyn. But she’s definitely not in North Carolina, she told us when Summer called her on our honeymoon.

  “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. Sometimes I have to stand up for myself. 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. His name is Frank, and he was my boss for a long time. But tonight, he set me free.”

  “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.