Chapter 30
ASHLEY
Heath: Are we going to the ice event?
Royce: Yes.
Nate: No.
Carter: I don’t know.
Heath: Okay, this is exactly why I’m asking. My grandfather wants us to be there…the implication being that we can’t say no.
Nate: I guess that’s that, then.
Carter: Fuck.
M aybe I was being paranoid? Despite everything that’d happened lately, I was no secret agent or international spy.
What the fuck was I even looking for, in working out whether someone was following me or not?
It was only because the silver van had been exactly two cars behind us the whole way from town that I noticed.
Or maybe because vans in general were suspicious?
“Carly…” I finally said aloud. “Do you see the silver van sitting two cars back from us?”
My friend glanced in her mirror rather than turning her whole head around, thank fuck. “I do. Are they following us?”
I bit my lip, doubting myself. “Maybe? Maybe not. I don’t know. I’m extra jumpy at the moment, I think.”
“Slow down,” she told me with a steady calm I was desperately lacking. “Drop to a solid ten under the speed limit, then wait until the very last minute before taking our exit. Don’t indicate either.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded. “Okay. I can do that.”
Carly tapped furiously on her phone, sending a message to someone as I followed her instructions carefully. She lined up her camera with the side mirror and zoomed in to get a photo of the van’s license plate.
“Good thinking,” I murmured, forcing myself to breathe.
She flashed me a quick smile. “Ed is at my dorm. He’ll meet us in the parking lot just in case.”
Chewing my lip, I nodded again and eyed the upcoming exit. The van had slowed behind us, but so had several other cars. Maybe they thought there was a speed trap ahead, or maybe they weren’t even paying attention to their speed?
I continued straight as if I were going to bypass the exit to Nevaeh, then jerked the steering wheel sharply to divert onto the exit before it was too late. That would tell us, surely. If the van also made an abrupt exit…
“They didn’t exit,” Carly told me with a rush of relief.
I nearly crashed simply due to how intense my exhale was, realizing I had indeed just been paranoid as fuck. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to?—”
“Shush, nothing to apologize for,” she scolded me. “Always better to be safe than sorry.”
For the rest of the drive, I checked my mirrors no less than thirty times every ten seconds, to the point I was giving myself a headache, but no silver vans appeared. It was just a coincidence.
When I pulled up in the Nevaeh dorm’s parking lot, two broad-shouldered guys lurked near the building and approached as we slowed. “Oh, great, why the fuck did he call him ?” Carly grumbled as I pulled into an empty space. At my questioning look, she grimaced. “Spencer. He doesn’t even go here .”
“The brother? So…they know about each other?” I don’t know why that surprised me, considering my own situation, but it did.
“Sort of. Anyway, you don’t have to—” I was already unclicking my seat belt and climbing out, not wanting to miss my opportunity to meet the boys consuming my best friend’s headspace. “God damn it, Ash… Fucking hell, fine. Guys, this is my bestie, Ash.”
“We’ve heard a lot,” the first guy said, smirking a grin my way as he extended a hand to shake. He was ice blond and had an almost angelic face, but absolutely wicked eyes. “Carls keeps finding wild excuses for us not to meet.”
Carly threw up her hands. “Oh right, because a bomb exploding and nearly killing her was a wild excuse ? Right. Silly me.”
The blond guy shifted his gaze to Carly and lifted his brows. “Are you mad at me, babe?”
“Yes,” she hissed back, her furious gaze darting past him to the second guy. “Why’d you call him?”
Whatever was going on between the three of them, I was definitely not in the loop.
Nor did I really want to be right now. “I should go,” I murmured, grabbing Carly’s arm to tug her away before she could start throwing punches or something.
I popped the trunk of my car and helped her gather all her shopping bags while speaking with her quietly.
“Are you going to be okay? You can come home with me, or I can stay with you?”
She seemed startled by the question, and her frosty expression shifted to an easy smile.
“I’m fine, I promise. Those two look scary but they’re giant pussycats.
Wouldn’t hurt a damn fly unless it begged.
We are just having a little disagreement, which you definitely don’t want to be involved in.
” Her grin was full of mischief, and I sighed.
“If you’re sure ? I worry…” I bit my lip, frowning. Maybe it was just the earlier anxiety and paranoia riding me.
She nodded firmly, then grabbed me in a hug.
“You’re a good friend, Ash. But I’ll be in good hands here, I swear.
” With a sassy wink, she walked over to the blond guy— Edmund, I remembered having met him once before—and handed over her huge collection of shopping bags.
He took them without even a hint of annoyance, which was something… I supposed.
“Get home safe, Ash,” Carly ordered me. “I’ll call Heath and let him know you’re on your way.”
Still biting my lip with worry, I got back into my car and locked the doors before pulling out of my parking spot. It was only midafternoon and there were other students around—it’s not like I was leaving her to the wolves, right?
Sure felt like it…but Carly seemed more than okay with that vibe, so who was I to judge?
She was a big girl. When I glanced in my mirror, I caught sight of her getting up in the other guy’s face with her finger pointing and her whole posture raging while he just stood slouched against the wall. Yeah, she was fine.
Alone with my anxious thoughts wasn’t a great idea, so I cranked the stereo and sang along to my favorite playlist until my phone rang to cut through the music.
“I’m like five minutes away,” I told Heath when the call connected. “I’m driving carefully so I don’t damage your car before I return it.”
“Your car,” he corrected. “You can do whatever you want to it. Carly told me what happened. Are you okay?”
I winced, feeling silly for panicking everyone. “Yeah, it was just paranoia. Totally fine. Carly’s credit card is probably looking worse for wear right now, but otherwise, it was a really fun day.”
“That’s good to hear. Can you pin me your location?”
“Why? I’m only a few minutes away.” I grinned, slowing to a stop at a red light. “Besides, I thought Carter has me GPS tracked with his funky app.”
“Yeah, but Carter isn’t home right now, and I’d feel a whole lot better if I could keep an eye on your location.
Please?” He made a convincing argument, and if I was honest, I loved that he was being protective even if I wasn’t actually in any danger.
The silver van hadn’t really been following me at all.
I picked up my phone from the console where I’d placed it on speakerphone—since the car wasn’t Bluetooth enabled, due to its age—and unlocked it to send my location. “Two seconds,” I murmured to Heath. “Let me remember how to?—”
Someone knocked on my car window, and I screamed. Fucking screamed . I fumbled my phone as I flinched, dropping it as I turned my panicked gaze to find a giant hot dog standing at my window with a pissed-off look on his face and a flyer in his hand.
“Two-for-one Tuesdays,” he said through my window, his voice muffled. “Only at Harry’s Hot Dogs. Please take the flyer, ma’am.”
My heart thumping hard, I lowered my window only an inch and took the flyer he fed through. “Th-thanks.”
The dude in his giant foam hot dog suit just shrugged and moved on to the next car waiting at the traffic light to offer them a flyer while my fight-or-flight response short-circuited. If that reaction wasn’t evidence that I was a little on edge right now, I don’t know what was.
Shit, Heath was probably confused as hell.
I looked around for where I’d dropped my phone, only to realize it was wedged between my seat and the hand brake.
I was only retrieving that by getting out of my seat and fishing around underneath, so I sighed and resigned myself to leaving it there.
Like I’d told him, I was only a few minutes away.
As it was, I hit green lights the rest of the way and pulled into the parking garage sooner than I’d anticipated.
Heath was right there waiting for me, though, with a stricken expression and his bike keys in hand.
When I turned off my engine and unlocked the door, he basically dragged me out with his hand on the back of my neck.
“Whoa, what—” Before I could get the question out, he had his mouth against mine in a desperate kiss that turned me to jelly under his hands. It was a long way removed from a casual hey, honey, I missed you today and way more in line with I thought I’d never see you again .
I kissed him back eagerly as he crushed me against the side of my car, my palm against the side of his throat where I discovered his own pulse racing harder than mine had been a few minutes ago. He was scared as hell, probably because I’d screamed and then likely hung up.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered against his lips, trying to soothe him with gentle caresses. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“I thought I’d lost you,” he confessed in a husky, pain-filled voice. “Fuck, Ashley, I thought I’d lost you .”
“I’m sorry,” I said again, guilt rippling through me. “It was just a hot dog.”
That seemed to confuse him enough that he pulled back and squinted at me. “Sorry, what?”
Grinning, I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.
” Then, I grabbed his face in my hands to kiss him again.
Because why the fuck not? Kissing Heath was like coming home, each stroke of his tongue and caress of his lips melting away my fear and anxiety and lingering loneliness.
Kissing him reminded me that I was loved and that this wasn’t a passing romance.
“Holy shit,” he murmured with a low voice as I kissed his throat and grabbed his T-shirt in my fists to pull him closer. “I was so fucking worried, Ashes, and now I feel like I might climb out of my own skin if I don’t…” He trailed off, but I knew exactly what he was saying.
So I made the decision real fucking easy for him by unbuttoning his jeans and tugging open his fly hard enough to make him gasp. “So do it,” I ordered, palming his hard length through his boxers.
Heath, as polite as he often was, didn’t need to be coaxed or encouraged any more than that.
His mouth claimed mine once more as his hands swept under my butt cheeks, carrying me to the hood of my new priceless car.
He made quick work of my shoes and jeans, and somehow my panties ended up getting torn in our combined frantic haste, which only made me smile since I’d just restocked for a good reason.
“Shit, there’s CCTV down here,” he groaned as I tugged his jeans and boxers down just far enough to free his huge cock.
I lay back on the hood of the car, legs spread wide in invitation as I waited for his indecision to click over.
Which, in fairness, really didn’t take long. “Fuck it, Nate can erase it later.”
When he slid into me, it was like everything was right in the world.
The earlier fear and paranoia and anxiety just disappeared, and in the void left behind it was just…
Heath . And love. So much fucking love, it almost hurt.
Tears pricked at my eyes, and I covered it by grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him down onto me, crushing our mouths together once again as his hips rocked between my thighs, fucking me with the entirety of his emotions.
It was no shock to me that my eyes leaked when I came, unable to hold back any longer. Fuck, I was a mess, but Heath was the perfect person to fall apart under. He kissed my face, licking up my falling tears as he found his own release while I locked my legs around him to hold him close.
“Ashes…” he groaned, threading his fingers into my hair and flexing them to make me hiss. “You’re crying. Why are you crying, sweetheart?”
I spluttered a laugh, stupidly entertained by my own fractured emotions.
“I screamed earlier, when you were on the phone,” I said softly, sniffing back my tears.
“Because of a hot dog. And that’s really fucking funny, but at the same time…
the fear I felt before realizing it was a hot dog?
That was real. And I’m so fucking glad I have you.
Were you going looking for me? Is that why you were down here? ”
He stared at me for a moment, really looking into my soul before kissing my damp cheek softly.
“Yes. Shit, I need to tell the guys you’re okay before they do something stupid.
” He straightened up, releasing me, but I gave a needy whimper and grabbed the front of his T-shirt when he slid out of my pussy.
A grin curved his lips, and he shook his head at me in reprimand.
“Trust me, you also want me to call them off, unless you never want to leave the apartment alone again.”
Okay. Yes. He had a valid point. I let him send that message as I slid off the car to pull my jeans back on. Then pursed my lips as I eyed the very obvious butt print and cum smear on the otherwise shiny paintwork. “I don’t suppose you have a rag down here somewhere?”
Heath glanced up from his phone, following my gaze, then smirked. “Nope.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed as he extended his hand to me, leading the way over to the elevator with my feet still bare. Oh well, I’d grab my shoes later when I cleaned my car. Unless one of the guys found them first…