22. Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Ashley
T he air is chilly, but he is hot, both in body, passion, and temper. So very hot.
Aaron tears his mouth from mine, the passion and need between us palpable. “I didn’t like that man looking at you and touching you.” His voice is low, guttural, with a lethal quality to it that declares those words a threat but not to me. To Smith.
“He’s worried about me.”
“He’s a man who wants to fuck you. There is no other definition for who he is to you, not after the stunt he just pulled. That affects how a man thinks, which he just proved. It affects what he does. It affected what he did.”
“He is a good man,” I say, because denying the truth, that Smith and I had a connection, that Smith still feels it, is a lie, and I can’t take any more lies. “He was conditioned to distrust you. He needs a chance to come around. He’s just trying to protect me.”
“Don’t defend him right now, Ashley. That’s not in his best interest.”
“Because you’re going to kill him?” I challenge.
“I won’t rule it out. Does that scare you? Do you want me to take you back to him? Do you now trust him more than you do me?”
“Stop it,” I say, balling his shirt in my hand. “Stop it now. You know I don’t want him.”
“Do I? You fucking wanted to run to him the minute we had trouble.”
“Because we need someone to trust.”
“And I’m not him, right?”
“Stop it,” I order again.
“I’m just speaking the truth, and that’s what you want, right? No more lies. I can comply. I don’t have the agency to force me to lie anymore. Let’s go.” He laces his fingers with mine and eases out of the alcove to scan the walkway. I want to pull him back and confront him. I want to fight, but that isn’t exactly the smartest thing to do while we’re in survival mode, so I keep my mouth shut. We can deal with this when we’re secure and alone, though, I don’t know when the word ‘secure’ will ever become real for us again, if ever. Is that even possible?
For now, Aaron leads me back onto the crowded sidewalk, and I push aside the war between us, taking in my surroundings, practicing the skills he’s given me, he’s teaching me to protect myself. I scan. I inspect. I observe, and I wonder if the Walker team is somewhere out there where we can’t see them, but I don’t think that’s possible. Aaron is one of the few people who can defeat their level of skill, but his skills and theirs combined give us a chance, maybe our only chance, of surviving. I have to get us past what happened today.
We enter the subway again, and when we’re finally on a train, standing at a stabilizing bar, he pulls me close, his hand on my hip, leg pressed to mine, his touch burning possessively, his eyes burning with anger. I’m angry, too. I am, but the way he’s touching me, the way he clearly needs and wants me, hits all the right spots to calm my mood. I thought he didn’t care. I thought he left to never come back, but he’s here. He cares. I love this man. I love him so much. He loves me, too, or he wouldn’t be here, trying to give me my life back, trying to create freedom for us to be together.
My hand settles on his chest, but he doesn’t touch me. He just stares at me, anger radiating off him. I might have calmed down, but he hasn’t. And he doesn’t. He holds onto me, keeps me close, but through three more trains and a good mile of walking, he never comes down. Finally, we enter our hotel, and it’s more of the same. He’s silent. I’m silent. He holds onto me in the elevator and presses me into the corner, his hands on the wall by my head, his eyes glinting. Now I’m angry all over again. He just won’t ease up, and it’s pushing my buttons. Tension expands between us on the elevator ride up to our floor, the anticipation of our explosion to follow.
The doors open with a ding, and he pushes off the wall. This time, we don’t touch. We exit the car and walk toward our door. The minute he swipes the door unlocked, I open it and enter the room, whirling around to wait on him. He enters, shuts us inside, and flips the lock into place. He turns to face me. “I get angrier every time I think of you shoved against the wall with Smith pressed against you. Did you fuck him?”
“I’ve answered that question. No. I didn’t fuck him. I don’t want to fuck him, but right now, you’re making me so damn angry, I don’t want to fuck you either.”
He’s in front of me in an instant, shackling my arm and pulling me to him. “Maybe that’s because you’re thinking of him.”
“Stop.”
“Not yet. I’m not even close to done. I lived months fearing for you, wanting you. I touched no other woman. I wanted no other woman. I didn’t leave you by choice. I would never leave you by choice, and yet, you didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t know that?” I open my mouth to explain to him how insane that statement is, but a sudden thought has me clamping my lips shut.
He’s testing me, pushing me, living the same kind of hell I have in different ways. If he’s innocent of the charges against him, and I believe that he is, then he’s been betrayed and hurt. He’s lived with knowing that I was gone, that I was being told what a bastard he was and is, and yet, he stayed away to protect me until that no longer protected me. I get what he feels. I thought he betrayed me. I thought he left me.
He needs me to do exactly what I needed him to do when I was lost and alone. Show up. Be present. Claim me. So, I claim him. I press my lips to his, sliding my tongue past his lips and aching when he doesn’t respond, until he does. Until he’s kissing me passionately, so damn passionately, and I kiss him back. I kiss him with all I am, and when our lips part, I say, “This is where I want to be, right here with you, the man I love.”
He pulls back, searching my face with his burning hot stare, his hand scorching my waist. “And you’re the woman I love and that love is why I’m here, why I met with Smith. I don’t want you on the run like this. I want more for you and for us.”
“Then we have to let them help.”
“We don’t have to let them do anything.”
My heart lurches. “Are you saying we’re walking away?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“ You haven’t decided? What about me? What about us?”
“I’m protecting you and us.”
“Protecting me? Or making a decision based on emotions? You hate Smith for the wrong reasons. Are those the reasons you have to think about?”
His jaw tenses, and suddenly, he releases me, walking to the window, yanking it open and presenting me with his back. “Don’t shut me out, Aaron. Don’t—”
“Get your things,” he says, turning to face me. “We need to leave now.”
I have no idea what just happened, but something set him off, and the urgency in his voice tells me not to ask questions. Not now. Now, we need to leave before we end up dead.