The Bad Boy's Dance (24 page)

              “I didn’t?” he said innocently.

              “Or what brought you to
my
house, of all places,” I continued.

              “Huh.”

              I frowned. The mole was dodging my questions.

              “Do you have anything to eat here?” Asher spoke. “Getting mauled and stabbed makes a person hungry.”

              Despite seeing through his obvious attempts at changing the subject, my in-born hospitality kicked in. It must skip a generation because let me tell you, Spencer and my Dad had as much hospitality as a homicidal baboon.

              “Sure, I’ll feed you, you overgrown elusive swine,” I mumbled.

              Asher placed his hand behind his ear. “What was that?”

              I smiled sweetly. “Oh nothing.”

              He snickered. “Well if that isn’t a serial killers smile I don’t know what is.”

              Ignoring him, I marched to the kitchen and opened the fridge, scouring the shelves for anything easy to stuff down his gullet. If only I was in Harry Potter so I could knick some of Snape’s truth serum…

              “And I thought dudes spent a long time staring into the fridge,” Asher commented unhelpfully.

              My left cheek spasmed, signaling that I was about two seconds away from releasing a battle cry and diving for Asher’s neck. “Do you want food or not?”

              “Is someone PMS’ing?” Asher smirked at me.

              I gave him the one-fingered salute.

              His sapphire eyes narrowed on me, and he lithely slid to his feet. Okay, world, you’ve got some answering to do. How was it that even recovering from long slash wounds, Asher had more grace than I did?

              “That’s not very nice, angel,” Asher scolded, stepping slowly towards me. “Haven’t we had this conversation before?”

              “You mean the time you called me an idiot?” I snapped, flouncing to the freezer and extracting a box of Toaster Strudel.

              Asher snapped his fingers in remembrance. “Right! You were being rude and ignoring my friendly attempts at conversation.”

              Snorting at this, I plugged in the toaster oven and popped in four Strudels. I turned- and smacked into a wall.

              Or, more accurately, Asher’s chest.

              “Wasn’t this how we met?” Asher smirked. “If I recall correctly, you were rude then too.”

              It took me a few seconds to get my breathing under control. I placed hand on his chest-
dayum,
what did that boy bench?- and attempted to push him away. “Your breakfast is burning,” I warned.

              Without removing his sapphire peepers from mine, he reached over and extracted the toaster strudel. “No, it’s not.”

              Asher bent, and my heart climbed to my throat. Instead of telling him off or trying to escape, the words that came out of my mouth were, “Why did you come to my house, of all places?”

              He braced his hands on the counter, on either side of me. “Do you really want to know, angel?”

              “Yes,” I answered immediately.

              He paused and searched my face. “Derevko’s men ambushed me, three cars in total. I was forced to pull over to the side of the road. They wanted to deliver a message, and not a verbal one. I fought them off, but there were too many. They hit me with a tranquilizer dart, like a
fucking animal
and took off. They left me bleeding on the side of the road, barely conscious.”

              I stayed calm, although I wanted to go find Derevko’s men and kick them so hard in the balls that they’d fly out of their butts for what they did to Asher. My rage on his behalf set my blood aflame, and I was ten seconds away from finding a shovel and beating the daylights out of some thugs.

              Asher lips tilted up at the corner. “I got in my car, forgot to turn the headlights on, and drove here. It was snowing, and I was bleeding to death.”

              He leaned in closer to me, until our breaths mingled and my eyes were captured by his. A lock of dark hair tangled on his forehead. “And yet…” he said slowly, coming closer with each word. “All I could think about…was…
you
.”

              My heart thundered as he swooped closer, and my eyes began to drift shut.

              We were rudely interrupted by Guy Sebastian.

              The ringtone of my cell snapped me from my Asher-induced haze, and I managed to duck under his arm and find my phone.

              Asher muttered something under his breath. Grabbing a toaster strudel, he popped the whole thing in his mouth.

              “Hello?” I said, pressing my phone to my ear and ignoring Asher, who was staring at me with raised brows.

              “Honey! Your Dad and I have been trying to call you since last night!” Mom clucked over the phone.

              “Sorry, I was…busy,” I replied, feeling my cheeks flame when Asher chuckled.

              “Keep your phone with you at all times, Ivy, we’ve said this a million times. Now sweetheart, have you checked the weather report yet?”

              Switching the T.V on, I found the remote and flipped to CNN. “I am now.”

              Oh crapola.

              Darting to the window, I pulled the curtains aside and groaned.

              “Yup,” Mom said. “Everyone’s snowed in. That means no school, and another day in L.A for me and your father. Are you going to be alright alone?”

              I pressed my forehead to the frosted windowpane and sighed. I almost told her then and there I wasn’t alone, but knowing Dad, he would probably grab an axe and hike his way back here, blizzard or not. “Yeah, Mom, I’ll be fine. You’ve got the kitchen stocked with enough food for a small army anyway.”

              “Preparation is key, hon. Aren’t you glad I did?” she said smugly. Rolling my eyes, I bid her goodbye and hung up.

              With heavy footsteps, I slowly swiveled in Asher’s direction…

              …and found him extracting everything from my pantry and stuffing his face.

              “Hey!” I protested, marching over to him. “That’s the emergency food!”

              He stuffed another handful of chips into his mouth. “This is an emergency,” he insisted once he’d swallowed. “If I don’t get enough sugar in my system to overcome this ridiculous injury, I might just have to eat
you
.”

              Damn my red cheeks. Asher laughed, and I took the opportunity to jam a pretzel in his open mouth. He spluttered and choked it down. “Oh, you’re going to pay for that,” he smiled cheekily, stalking towards me.

              I giggled fearfully, and my eyes widened when he trapped me under the crook of his arm.

              “Unhand me, villain!”

              Asher chuckled, and I felt the vibrations from his chest. “You want me to unhand you? Sure thing babe.”

              With that, I was flipped onto my back on the couch with Asher braced on top of me. “Now where were we?”

              My mouth went dry, and as my nervousness mounted, I found myself, as usual, saying the last thing I should.

              “Are you dating Brenda Curtis?”

              Asher raised a brow and sat up, releasing me. I scooted away, but I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

             
What the ding dong?

             
“Why?” Asher asked, tilting his head and sending dark locks of hair tumbling to the side.

              He didn’t deny it. My heart sank into my stomach. “Because as much of a meanie she is, no girl would want their boyfriend stuck in another girl’s house,” I explained, fixated on my hands.

              “Good thing we’re not dating then.”

              What? They weren’t dating? “But then why is she so nasty to any girl who gets within a yard of you?”

              Asher stretched, his muscles pulling taut across his body. He winced, running a hand across his collarbone.

             
Drool Alert-Code Red!

             
“Does she?”

              “Asher,” I groaned. “Stop dancing around the question.”

              “Speaking of dancing, we’re going to practice tomorrow. We need to win the NDT to get out of Knut’s class and graduate, remember?”

              “No, I forgot,” I said sarcastically. “Where are we meeting?”

              He shrugged mysteriously. “You’ll see.”

              I opened my mouth to protest but realized he’d done it again. He’d somehow distracted me from my original train of thought.

              Asher sighed loudly when I didn’t speak to him for three straight minutes. “I don’t know why this is bothering you so much. My relationship with Brenda was the same with the other girls: sex. That’s it.”

              My mouth twisted. “You just used them for sex?”

              He turned to face me, anger starting to simmer. “No! They knew what I wanted, and they wanted the same. It wasn’t like I promised them fantasies of ponies and castles in the sky.”

              Shaking my head, I laughed softly. “Now I understand. Brenda wanted more than you were willing to give.”

              “Yeah, she did,” Asher scowled. He leaned back into the couch cushion and sifted a hand roughly through his hair. “Is that what you wanted to hear, Ivy?”

              I stood, steadfastly avoiding his gaze. My signals were so mixed, and I vaguely wanted to apologize, but I was too annoyed. And annoyed that I was annoyed. “It’s none of my business, Asher. I already knew about your reputation with women.”

              Heading to the kitchen, I started cleaning up the mess he’d made. A sick feeling had blossomed in my tummy, and for some reason all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and hug my teddy. With all the time I’d spent hanging out with Asher, the rest of his ‘qualities’ had fallen between the cracks. I was too distracted by the bad boy part.

              He used women, and they didn’t mind. He was devastatingly gorgeous, smart, and the object of every girl school’s desire. Sadly, I could now understand why Brenda acted the way she did. When Asher was affectionate, he made you feel like the center of his world…losing that must hurt.

              Why was this bothering me so freaking much?

              I didn’t notice that Asher was standing behind me. He yanked on my elbow, forcing me to face him. “Stop it. Stop trying and convicting me in there,” he growled, tapping my head with a finger.

              “Why would I?” I failed at trying to pull myself from his grasp. “It’s none of my business.”

              “Ivy! Cut it out!” Asher shouted when I continued trying to escape his grip. He raised a hand…

              …and I froze. Fear flooded my system, and before I knew what I was doing, my hands reached up to hide my face.

              Asher released me like I was on fire. Dropping to the floor, I curled into myself, keeping my face buried in my hands, shaking violently. It had been a long while since I’d had a panic attack. I’d forgotten how awful it was.

              I heard the sound of rustling jeans as Asher crouched next to me. “Ivy, I…what can I do?”

              My phone beeped, and I managed to croak. “Phone.”

              The sound of his footsteps as he went to retrieve my phone gave me enough time to try to get myself under control. I lowered my hands to the ground and met Asher’s sapphire orbs as he handed me my phone.

              I kept it clutched in my hand, not opening it.

              “I wasn’t going to…angel, I would
never
lay a hand on you,” Asher said gently. “I put my hands in my hair when I’m frustrated.”

              Oh. I knew that. I’d noticed him doing it every time we argued. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Asher unfurled my fisted hands. “I’m sorry.”

              “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, Asher,” I whispered tiredly. “You shouldn’t be friends with me. I’m too screwed up to be much of a friend.”

              Before he could reply, I flipped open my phone. I had a new text message from an unfamiliar number.

              My fingers shook as I pressed the
Open
key.

             
“
He’s out. He knows about the restraining order, and he doesn’t care. Keep your eyes open, and be careful.”

             
The phone clattered to the floor.

              Asher picked it up and an instant later, he was dragging me onto his lap. I curled into him, burying my face in the soft cotton of his shirt. His arms wrapped around me, and I felt his mouth move in my hair.

              “He’ll never hurt you again, Ivy.”