The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (18 page)

‘You shouldn’t be alone
tonight,’ he said.

Ah, so that was why he was
sticking around. Protecting her honour. Which had been thoroughly fucked out on
the leafy carpet of Dublin’s mountains. The damage had already been done. She
chuckled a little, tossing her keys into the bowl and stretching out a kink in
her spine. Her yawn was so wide it made him look blurry, his concern fuzzing as
she blinked.

‘He knows where you live,
Ashling. Look, if you won’t believe me, I have friends who will back up
everything I’ve told you. They know about Connal, and about that
thing
that attacked you. Knowledge is power, and I think you need to be armed.’

Ash frowned. Yes, Connal knew
where she lived. He had a damn key. If he really wasn’t safe ... If he could
make her feel and do ... that ...

‘Please,’ the doctor pressed.
‘I know a place we can talk. It’s public, safe. There’s a club, Form, I’m a
member there, as are my friends. Plus, someone needs to show a pretty girl like
you the nightlife, sans feral dogs.’ His grin would, under any other
circumstance, have had her pretty good and warm, dazzling as it was. He was
gorgeous, but her body wanted someone else and his handsome charm was an
elephant tromping over all her sex happies.

Despite the war between
exhaustion and arousal raging inside her, Ash exhaled and nodded. Her curiosity
was rapidly morphing into unease and he dangled this new thread of information
in front of her like a shiny carrot. Maybe, just maybe, he knew something about
who killed her mother. What killed her mother. That insidious need for truth
spread within her, clawing dirty fingers through the remnants of her lust.

‘You want me to go now?’ Her
nose crinkled, everything in her aching, half for her bed, the other half for
him. Maybe she shouldn’t be alone right now. She’d probably do something stupid
like hunt Connal down and beg him to take her again. ‘At least let me shower
and change.’ She was pretty sure she looked like she’d just been ravaged. When
he only nodded, she waved him towards his car, and left him to his own devices.
The man thought to tell her what to do, he could stuff it. Setty stalked her
unwanted guest, pacing in front of the door, growling softly as she bounded up
the stairs and locked herself into her bedroom with its en suite.

Right, Ashling, shower,
clothes, out. Don’t even look at the bed. You know if you lay down, you’ll
never get back up and we won’t get what Doc knows.
Her logical brain prodded at her as she peeled her
sweats from her thighs and unzipped her jacket.

Quicker, quicker. We’re
running on sex fumes and curiosity. Neither will fuel us for long.
She shed her tank in a wriggle, twisted the shower’s
tap to scalding and stepped in, sliding along the tile until her ass hit the
floor and she could pull her knees to her chest. It felt so wrong, a betrayal,
to be washing his scent from her skin with another man waiting on her
downstairs. Her body still throbbed with every thought of Connal, but those
feelings were tainted with the suspicions that Madden may have been right, that
her reactions weren’t natural, but influenced.

Ash shook violently. She
couldn’t think of the ‘R’ word that rhymed with grape, couldn’t set her mind
solely on that idea. It didn’t fuse well with how she felt. How could she be
aroused if he’d really done that to her? Limply, Ash drew the washcloth towards
her, slipped it between her thighs, scrubbed gently. She could still feel him
there, a presence within her. The backs of her thighs felt slapped raw, his
scent rising up with the wildness of the forest as steam shrouded her in heat
and the water swirled threads of mud down the plughole. Ravaged. Thoroughly and
completely fucked. In more ways than the obvious.

What if the doc was telling
the truth, really?

All her careful calm, her
happy bliss, her sex-is-on-fire smoking hot lust, shrivelled into a cold worthy
of her ice maiden.

What if he had some weird
serial killer diseases?

She scrubbed harder, watching
through drenched lashes as her skin pinkened to a bright red.

What if ... Oh God ... What
if she was pregnant with a psycho baby?

Ash couldn’t remember for the
life of her if he’d worn protection and she was pretty sure hers had run out.

The shits in her head
streamed out. She could feel herself slowly unravelling at her tightly stitched
seams.

It’s done, DeMorgan! Grab
the pieces before they sluice down the drain and patch yourself back up.
Knowledge is power. And you need your head to gather all the shit the doc
knows.
She mentally shrugged into her
ice maiden suit, turned the flow of water until it dropped sadly to the tiles
and cuddled herself into a towel.
We should rename you Sally, Ashling.
Falling apart.

Time meant nothing as she
planted her forearm on the wall and breathed, ignoring the feel of her skin,
freshly raw, stinging like she’d attacked it with a scouring pad. It could have
been hours or mere minutes that allowed her the breaths, the clarity, the cold
trickling refreeze of her emotions, to gather herself into something suitable
for a club.

W
e make a pretty robot, DeMorgan
. Suddenly, Ash was all hard edges despite the curves
she’d hidden under a black and red paisley dress. Setty exploded into barking a
second before steady knocks rained against the front door.

‘I’m coming! Do not rush me,
Asshole.’ Muttering curses, Ash jerked the last zipper up on her knee-high
boots, tossed the towel to her bed and ran her fingers through drying curls.
She’d do. Never really club material, Ash wasn’t in the least bit excited, nor
did she know how a bar could be quieter than a Starbucks or a park bench for a
conversation. Tramping down the stairs, Ash swiped the door open, petted Setty
as he lapped at her fingers and barged Madden out of the way so she could
secure the door.

‘You ... look lovely, Miss
DeMorgan.’

‘You might as well call me Ash,
Doc. I think we’re a little past formality.’ Brushing him aside, she was
halfway down the path to his car before she realised he already had the engine
running. He’d known, the bastard had known she’d come with him.

Madden engaged his seatbelt
and waited for Ash to follow suit. Cop shows said you were safer in the back
seat and as she clipped her belt in and listened with heavy dread to the locks
clicking down, she prayed to the gods that they were right.

‘Just a precaution, Ash.’ He
turned to offer her a reassuring smile as he reached up to adjust the rear-view
mirror, flashing the gold cufflinks in his formal shirt. The doc had been
nothing but gentlemanly, a little overzealous in his care of her, but
gentlemanly nonetheless. Yet something wouldn’t let her shake the uneasiness
that followed her like a cloud, running its fingers through her
self-preservation until she wondered if she should be doubting everything and
everyone in this damn city. Connal was hardly a good example of trustworthy and
safe, and with every second she spent in the doctor’s presence, Ash couldn’t
throw the feeling that he wasn’t either.

His eyes seemed to search the
darkness and the dim interior lighting failed to disguise the sheen of sweat
that broke across his upper lip. ‘The club isn’t far,’ he said, ‘but we pass
through some rough neighbourhoods, and this car tends to draw attention.’

The engine revved to life and
they fell into an uncomfortable silence.

Ash fidgeted. She played with
the fastening of her bag, spun her mother’s silver band around her finger,
tugged at the hem of her dress so it covered a little more thigh as she caught
his gaze in the mirror and promptly skipped it back to the outside.

The city swept by in a
glimmer of reflections. She let the awkwardness grow into an almost corporeal
being, an airbag within the car pressing in on them both, wall filler creeping
into every available silence and going rock hard with tension. It wouldn’t do
for her to freak out without cause. The man was quite probably qualified to
have her sectioned.

When the engine halted and
the locks flicked up in her peripheral vision, the valve was released on their
awkwardness as air rushed to dispel the tension.

‘Thanks,’ Ash managed to
mutter to the valet as he shut her door behind her and stood aside. The doctor
handed over the keys and a crisp colourful note before he took to her side with
a peacock flourish and an offered hand. It was a facade, feathers to hide the
true intention, but she forced her hand into his and let him guide her.
Wouldn’t do to get lost in a strange place, and the building in front of her
was only slightly less strange than the inside of her head. This was the place
everyone seemed to be talking about, the place advertised on all the posters.

The name, FORM, hung overhead
in a Celtic font. The letters hovered in a pool of black, backlit by the red
glow of a graphic blood moon. When the red rope on a smaller side door was
lifted for them, Ash stepped through, entranced by the vivid scarlet that
slashed claw-marked accents through the otherwise pitch-black decor. It was
both a cave and a giant, open space, playing on her spatial awareness and
giving her no choice but to clutch at the doctor’s hand to avoid tripping over
one of the many grinding bodies dry humping on the dance floor. She nearly
flattened into a couple trying to dance-fuck into the marble of a column, but
was saved when Madden pulled her arm, steering her to the relative, seated
safety of a barstool.

Ash let her gaze roam the
club, filled to brimming with too much skin and not enough clothing. Young and
dressed to ensnare, grinding around like it was perfectly legal to have public
sex on a packed dance floor.

Madden lifted a finger to the
young man behind the bar and Ash took to watching individual people more
closely. It wasn’t unlike clubs back home, the way the men dressed, except for
an unusual number wearing sunglasses. Pretentious pricks, hiding their eyes
‘cause they’re too mysterious and important to dwell with the lower, non-shade
wearing life-forms.

‘Ash?’ Her head came up and
she locked onto Madden’s dark brown eyes. ‘May I get you a drink?’ The doctor
was looking at her strangely and she got the faint impression he’d been saying
her name for a while. The bartender was stock still, his eyes pinned to her
face, nostrils flared, every muscle tensed so hard she wondered if he’d shatter
if she poked him.

His attention made her trip
over her words. ‘Um, uh, yeah, please, Coke, with ice and a shot of lime
cordial. Please.’ She watched every second as the barman prepared her drink.

She stirred it with the
little red and black candy cane twizzler as Madden watched her from the corner
of his eye.

‘Tell me.’ The words escaped
her, wanting to break the silence between them. The music was pounding louder
than ever.

His gaze skittered away.

‘No, Doc, you brought me here
to talk. So talk.’ Ash pressed and she could feel him withdrawing even before
he pushed off the barstool and started away from her.

‘I’ll get us somewhere
quieter,’ he said, and she lost him in the crowds that surged with a new,
throbbing dance beat.

‘Yeah. Right.’ A tiny part of
her hoped he didn’t come back.

‘You know the stick isn’t
really a candy cane, right?’

‘Liath!’ Ash’s face lit with
a smile as she turned to confront the disturber of her thoughts, twizzle stick
gnawed at the ends. ‘Hey!’ It was a relief, a familiar face in a throng of
strangers.

‘Hi,’ Liath replied, her
pretty jade eyes kind as she fixed a new drink, setting out the components of
Ash’s preference on the bar. ‘I saw Doyle do it,’ she said by way of
explanation and Ash chuckled, sipping at lime-less Coke before she mixed it up.
Liath lingered, fiddling under the bar as her eyes danced to her boss, watching
him wander off before she leant on the wooden top. ‘So, who’s the cutie? He’s
hot, very David Gandy.’

‘Doctor Robert Madden.’ Ash
raised a brow, shooting her gaze over her shoulder to find him talking to the
burly security guard near the VIP section.