Ash: A Bad Boy Romance (23 page)

“Hell no. It’s from Jonathan Ash.”

I hang up the phone and rush out of the house, my heart beating fast like it does after a fight. I walk straight to the house where Josh is staying and drag his ass off of the couch that he’s been sleeping on for the past week. No matter his level of injury—and it would seem Frank got him good—this kid is training today. My phone buzzes in my pocket as I drag his sorry, injured ass to my decrepit gym that’s one step away from being condemned. I guess I don’t have any damn business sense either, so my wife and I will be depending on Linda Colington to get her shit together and run a business for once in her life.

After I finish beating the hell out of Josh and taking three or four punches I didn’t need to take, I look at my phone.
 

Six missed calls from New York, and no messages.
 

“Fucking spammers,” I mutter. I put my phone away. “I’ve got more important shit to worry about.”

“What was that?” Josh asks, clapping my shoulder where he got me with a fucking horrible elbow strike earlier.
 

I suck in my breath and push his sorry ass out of the door before the whole building collapses on us. “Just the ramblings of a poor man who’s done a very stupid thing,” I tell him.

“Sometimes a stupid thing is all you can do, man,” Josh says with a smile.
 

Three Years, Three Months Ago

“I’ll pack my scrubs. Do you think I’ll need my scrubs in Syria? Do you have a passport? It’s going to be Syria. That’s what the email said.”

“I do,” Ash says. He’s using one of his knives to trim his nails, over the trashcan, of course. His nails are already trim, and it looks like he’s just fidgeting.
 

It’s probably because he hasn’t been out of the country before. But I checked, and spouses are welcome. Especially spouses with useful skills. I said he could very well be a porter or—well, probably a porter.
 

“You do what? You think I’ll need my old scrubs? Or you do have a passport?”

“I do have a passport.” He looks up at me quickly and then back down. “Whatever happens, Summer, you can’t miss your train tonight. The flight leaves in a week. Promise me.”

I put some of my t-shirts into my bag and put my heels aside. They can stay here in Ash’s apartment—our apartment—while we’re gone. My pulse quickens. There’s something dark and secretive about his tone.
 

“What are you talking about, Ash? You’re coming with me. You said you were. I’m going to get on that bus with you, and we’ll be in North Carolina by the morning. The week after that, we’ll leave from Charlotte.” I try to sound nonchalant, like he’s being silly. Isn’t that what wives do with husbands? There are twingey pangs low in my stomach and a weird energy rising in my body.

“Just...” He looks at me and puts his knife down on the table. I notice there’s a rusty edge to it when it glints in the light. My stomach twists as I realize it looks more like old blood. “Just promise me you’ll get on that bus. I might be late—just whatever happens—get on the bus and I’ll be behind you.”

“Seriously, is this because you don’t want to go?” My body is on edge, like I’m about to jump from somewhere very high. I wring my hands. Why would I think he wanted to go anyway? Why in the hell would a man like this leave a lucrative job with his mafia boss behind? And why would I want him to? “I can request a transfer up to the third month I’m there. I can make sure we’re somewhere you want to be—maybe Turkey? I hear it’s really beautiful in some of the more rural areas—”

“Summer, stop.” He stands up from the tiny kitchen table and walks over to me, catching my hands in his. “I’d go with you to Mongolia. Or the moon. But things here are questionable right now. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be right behind you.” His face looks sad as he speaks, and I collapse into him.
 

“I know.” I bite my lip. “I think we can go to Mongolia if that’s where you want to go.”

He tilts my face to his and smooths down my hair with his hands. “I want to go where you want to go, but not everything is that simple right now.”

“What does that—” Instead of answering, Ash leans in and presses his lips to mine. When he kisses me, his movements are gentle and slow, hands strong against the small of my back. He pecks my lips and then sinks into me, his body hot and taut and full of longing. His lips and tongue dance with mine in a rhythm I’m unaccustomed to. It’s a slow, thoughtful kiss, not like the passionate, ridiculous, grandiose kisses he tempted me with when he first met me. Not like the kisses, full of confidence and bravado, after our wedding. He kisses me like it’s a goodbye.
 

As soon as the thought occurs to me, I wipe it away from my mind. I’m imagining things, aren’t I?

“You can say goodbye to your aunt, if you want. She’s okay.” He looks away when he says it, his normally confident expression changed to hangdog.

“Why would I be able to tell her goodbye? She was in hiding.”

“She paid Cullen off, somehow.” He looks at me and pauses, chewing on his lip. “But you’re still on his shit list. So you
have
to go. You’re going tonight. Promise me.”

“Yes, okay. I promise. I’m going tonight.” Nothing about this feels right. Everything inside of me screams,
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
“How the hell did Bianca—”

“Listen, I don’t know the particulars.” He says it impatiently and drops his hands from my arms, nearly pushing me away. “But he’s still got beef with Bianca. He’ll come after you again. Being
away
from everything here—that’s what you need to do.” The way he says it has such finality that my heart nearly stops in my chest. But after that, he smiles again.
 

And I convince myself, the rest of that day, that there’s
nothing
wrong.

Even though there’s that niggling feeling that
everything
is.

Present Day
 

I walk in after my shift, utterly and totally exhausted, like there are pieces of my brain being sucked away. It hasn’t been but a week I’ve been living with Ash and utterly ignoring the idea that we were going to get divorced, but I swear, staying up with him every night has left me without a lick of energy.
 

Aren’t new boyfriends supposed to energize you?

Except he’s not
new
, and he’s not a
boyfriend
, either.

Ash said something about a letter or a package, but I don’t see it when I fling my keys down on the breakfast table and slump into one of his overstuffed demin-blue chairs. They’re not attractive in the least, but they match the couch at least.
 

“There’s spaghetti,” I hear from the kitchen, and I laugh, leaning my head against one of the pillowy cushions.
Just like an old married couple
.
 

“I’m too tired to eat. And I’m not that hungry. I think I’m sick or something.”

“Suit yourself.” Ash appears, carrying a bowl of noodles and red sauce, offering it to me like a gift.
 

I wave my hand away and laugh again. “Since when do you cook spaghetti? Usually it’s steak or burgers or something manly, or take out from Blue Moon.”
 

He shrugs. “Since we officially became poor. And your mother became—well—less poor.”
 

I groan. “Ash, you didn’t. Oh God. Your gym. You barely know us.” I look up him when I say the last part, barely opening one eye. He scowls and sets the spaghetti down on the kitchen table. It’s like the headache I’ve been carrying around all day has finally decided to come into full bloom, with Ash and his stupid masculine bravado as the final catalyst. “I said I was going to take care of it, Ash. I can’t believe you—”

But I
can
believe him. He’s standing right here, approximately three feet away from me, disapproval and annoyance on his angular face. I should be annoyed that he’s annoyed because it was my problem, my mother, my everything. But one corner of my mouth raises into a grin instead.

“Can’t resist
all this
, can you, Sunshine?” He gestures to the ratty t-shirt he’s wearing, the pink, moon-shaped scar on his cheek, and the healing black eye.
 

I laugh and then clap my hand over my mouth. “Jesus, Ash. What the hell? You can’t just go around doing Robin Hood shit behind my back. And now you have
nothing.
” I try to make my voice sound angry, but I don’t have enough energy to manage it. “Nothing,” I repeat.
 

“That’s not necessarily true,” he says, stepping over the coffee table and sitting on the overstuffed chair with me. He’s so big he nearly pushes me off, but then he picks me up and puts me on his lap. I draw my breath in sharply. When he gets close to me like this, it’s hard to remember that I need to be angry, that I
need
to tell him that he can’t just liquidate everything he has to bail my mom out. “I have like $1500.”

“Oh God. Jesus tap-dancing
Christ
.” I do the math in my head. That means we have a total of $2500—if we’re pretending we’re actually married. There’s no way he can get his gym going, no way for him to get his life together. “Jesus
fuck,”
I moan.

“You keep taking the Lord’s name in vain. I’m Catholic.” He pulls my hair over my shoulder and kisses my neck. “And I won’t have my little woman doing such naughty things.” He slides his hands under my shirt and moves his fingers over my waist, sending chills over my body.
 

“Ash, come on.”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now.” He trails his lips over my neck and nips me gently. His voice is raw and husky, vibrating against my skin. My nipples stiffen, as hard as little beads. Heat creeps over my skin, threatening to cloud my judgment, threatening to take me over.
 

“This is important, Ash.” My voice comes out in a whimper. Each time with this man, I sink deeper and deeper. “
Damn
you.”

“What’s so important, Sunshine? I know you like to be serious, but it’s much better if we just take a little time to reconnect. I’ve been training all day.” He licks his lips, gripping my waist tighter and then licking the hollow of my neck. “And I’ve been thinking about making you come all day. What’s so wrong about that?”
 

He pushes his body into mine from beneath, all heat and hardness. His body holds promises deeper than any words a man can say, his hands communicating every reason why he went against my wishes, why he did it. Muscles and bone, fine gold hair on his forearms, lips touching me, fingertips searching the expanse of my skin—I’m wrapped in him, cocooned, until all I can feel is desire.
 

He knows this. He lifts my shirt and cups my breast through my bra.

I want to push him, want to make him talk. But I’m already
wet
, panties clinging against my skin.
 

Turning my body, I sit astride him. My nerves are set on fire, every inch of me aflame. Even my lips tingle with anticipation.

“Why’d you do it?” I try to make him look me in the eye, but he only pulls me tighter and brings my face to his, kissing me desperately, tongue dancing against mine until I’m moaning. When he stops, I’m panting, fingernails scraping against the back of his neck.
 

“I love you. That’s my reason.” He kisses me again, pulling my bottom lip between his, then pulls me closer so my legs are spread, right at his waist. His hands toy with my breasts beneath my shirt, cupping them, pinching my nipples through the lace of my bra, sending shocks deep into my core. He groans and moves his body so his cock throbs hard and hot against my sex. “Because I want to be with you, here. I’m all in, Sunshine.”