28. Always Remember What Goes Up…
Ash said we’d talk at home, and for once, I’d listened.
After a long, silent car ride where we both stayed in our own heads, we were home. I stepped through the doorway from his garage into his kitchen.
We were home. And it was as long as I was waiting.
Spinning to face him, I asked, “What happened to the guys who attacked me?”
Ash took his suit jacket off and tossed it aside while he answered my question with a warning. “Think this through, sunshine.”
“Think what through?”
He crowded me until our bodies nearly touched. His hazel eyes were shockingly cold as he looked down at me. It sent a shiver through me, and his jaw clenched. “Whether you can live with knowing that answer. If you need some plausible deniability in your head in order to be happy, then drop this now. Because once it’s out there, there is no unhearing it. And there is no leaving.”
“Ash—”
My words were cut off when he lifted me suddenly and spun before slamming my ass down on the island. His palms slapped the counter on either side of me. “You do not get to call me Ash like that’s all I am to you.” He pressed in farther, forcing my legs to spread. “I told you what would happen once you became mine. I warned you I could become consumed by you, but that was a lie. I was already consumed. Fucking obsessed. But I still gave you the choice, and you gave me you. Now there’s no going back. You don’t get to make that decision.”
“Then who does?” I asked, lost and confused.
“Me. I’m your Daddy because you trust me to take care of you. To do what’s best for you.” Ash stepped away just long enough to tear my pants down my legs and free his cock. He didn’t even bother to step out of them in his rush to be inside me. Holding my legs spread, he filled me in one brutal thrust before freezing. He gripped my chin to crane my neck so I was looking at him. So he was all I could see. “And I’m what’s best for you. I’ll always be what’s best for you because I’ll live and fucking die to take care of you. And yes, Camila, that includes murder.”
My chest tightened until I could barely breathe.
But Ash wasn’t done. “Those fuckers hurt the woman I love. They scared her.”
“Love?” I breathed, a million thoughts going in a million different directions at a million miles per hour
He kept going like I hadn’t spoken. “So I made sure they hurt. That they were scared.” He lifted his hands, flipping them back and forth. “And then I came home with their blood added to what already stains my skin and touched you.” He wrapped those same hands around my upper thighs. Sliding out, he slammed back in. Even with his hold pinning me in place, I scooted up the island. He pinned me back where he wanted me and then thrust deeper. “Got you off.” He plunged in again. “Made you mine.” Again.
And again.
And again.
I wanted to give in to it, but I couldn’t let myself.
Ash had done so much for me. He let me stay with him. Supported me. Showed me what it was like to be wanted for once. Made me feel like my neediness wasn’t a flaw because it was something he couldn’t live without.
True to his promise, he’d taken care of me.
I needed to do the same. “But what about the news?”
His fingers squeezed until they dug in. “Anything I did to them, they had?—”
“I don’t care about that. What if you get caught?”
He froze again. “What?”
“I watched a segment on the news, and they think it was an overdose. So if they do an autopsy or whatever, and it comes back not drugs, they’ll start looking into it more.” When I’d seen the news and realized what Ash’s version of deal with them entailed, panic had seized me. It grew at the possibility of everything imploding around us. “You could get caught.”
“You’re worried about me?”
I nodded.
The world was filled with bad people. I wasn’t going to get in a moral outrage that there were two less of them walking around, trying to assault women in alleys. I didn’t have to wonder what kind of person it made me because I already knew it made me a shitty one. I also didn’t care about that.
Ash grinned at me like I was adorable.
“I’m serious. What if it traces back to you? Are the police or FBI or whoever going to bang that door down to haul the man I love off to prison?”
Ash’s smile fell. His body went so rigid, it might as well have been etched from marble. His hands clenched my thighs tight enough that I could see the veins popping out under the tattooed skin. I wasn’t even sure he breathed. “Say it again.”
“Prison?”
“Camila…”
It was fast. Illogical. Insane.
That didn’t make it not true.
I knew without a doubt that I loved Ash.
I wasn’t confused, like having never experienced love meant I didn’t know how it felt.
I was certain because I’d never experienced love. There was no mistaking that untainted beauty for anything else.
“I love you,” I said, my words ending in a moan.
I thought I’d seen him desperate.
Wild.
Unhinged.
But I hadn’t actually seen Ash lose control. Not until right then, with his mask of civility gone to show me the ruthless monster that hid behind nice suits and charming smiles.
My monster.
My protector.
MyDaddy.
His thrusts were vicious as he pounded into me, filling me until I ached and then taking more still. Leaning back on my arms, I wrapped my legs around him to give it all. Little zaps of electricity mixed with fire started shooting through me but didn’t have the chance to build. He eased back, and so did my release.
With only the head of his cock pressed into me, his thumb circled my clit. My pussy tightened, greedily trying to get more, but he didn’t give it.
He teased me.
Tormentedme.
Used my body against me until I wanted to cry and beg.
Ash built my need until I thought I’d die, and then he froze.
“Please,” I whimpered.
“Please who?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Please, Daddy.”
He gave me what I needed, but not by fucking me. Gripping my hips, he stayed still and used his hold to move me. Sliding me up and down his length. Making me fuck him.
“Look at how you take me,” he growled. When my eyes stayed on his blazing ones, he slowed. “I said look.”
I stared down my body to where I was obscenely spread around his width. I could see my wetness coating him, my thighs, and the counter below me. I watched his length disappear as he pressed in, and the visual was enough to make my orgasm hover just out of reach.
He planted deep and stayed there, not letting me move even an inch. I could feel his hand vibrate with restraint as he wrapped his fingers around my neck. “You’re not leaving.”
It wasn’t a question, but I agreed anyway. “Okay.”
“You’re never leaving.”
Again, it wasn’t a question. It was a deranged order, but I agreed anyway. “Okay.”
I tried to rock against him. When that didn’t work, I tried begging again. “Please move, Daddy. I’m so close.”
“You don’t get to come,” he shared plainly, like he was telling me a mundane fact.
“What?” But I already knew. My punishment for running the night before. My added one for accidentally calling him Ash.
His fingertips squeezed the side of my throat as he slowly slid his length out of me, ignoring my whimpers and pleading. “On your knees.”
Not giving me the chance to obey, he lifted me and set me down on my feet before pushing on the top of my head. I dropped to kneel as I looked up at him. Waiting.
“Christ, how did I get so lucky?” Despite his tender words, his tone was harsh. The way he wrapped my hair around his hand and tugged was even more so. “Open your mouth.”
Even though he went down on me often, I hadn’t returned the act yet. I had no clue what to do or how to make it good for him.
But I didn’t have to worry about that because I wasn’t in control.
When I did as he ordered, Ash fisted himself and pressed between my lips. Fed me his cock. I could taste the tangy sweetness of my own arousal mixing with Ash’s taste. My mouth burned at how wide I had to open, and I wasn’t able to take much before a gag clenched my stomach and throat. He withdrew to just before that point. “Play with your pussy.”
I wasn’t sure I could do that kind of multitasking, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try. My hand went between my legs, and my fingertip landed on my clit. I moaned around Ash.
“Fuck,” he gritted out through clenched teeth as he rocked against me.
I breathed deep through my nose and tried to keep going.
“That’s it. That’s my good girl.”
I swallowed around him as my body tensed. Nearly there. On the verge of combustion.
And Ash must’ve known because he gruffly ordered, “Stop touching your pretty pussy.”
But I didn’t. Couldn’t. I was too close.
He yanked my hair harder. “Remember a few days ago?”
I did.
When Ash had wanted to eat me slowly so he could savor the taste, I’d threatened to take matters into my own hands.
And he’d allowed it.
Just not in the way I’d needed.
While he’d watched and lazily stroked his cock, he’d forced me to play with my pussy until my fingers had pruned. But he hadn’t let me come. Not until I’d been a whimpering, pathetic mess. Not until I’d been desperate and shaking. Not until I’d promised to never touch what belonged to him without his permission.
It still took all my willpower to force my hand away, and I had to grip the fabric of his slacks that were still pooled around his legs with the effort.
“If I tell you to stay somewhere, that means stay there. Don’t know what I would do if something happened to you. It’d fucking kill me.” Ash’s thrusts sped up but remained shallow. “And never, fucking ever call me Ash again. Understood?”
Since my mouth was full, all I could do was nod.
He pushed deeper. “Relax your throat, Camila. Let Daddy in.”
I tried to release him and lean back. Not because I wanted to stop. I wanted to beg. I needed to come so bad, it hurt.
Trying to pull away from him was the wrong move. His irate gaze narrowed.
“I’m not letting you go.” Moving his hold from my hair to my face, he pried my mouth open wider. “I’ll never let you go.”
He moved me how he wanted me as he used me how he needed. Brutal and unrestrained, he fucked my face until tears blurred my vision before they trailed down my cheeks. That didn’t give him pause. He didn’t stop or even slow.
Groaning low and rough, he surged deeper. Went faster. Using his hold, he tugged me forward at the same time he thrust, taking me to my limit and pushing past it. My breaths came in whatever small bursts I could get each time he withdrew from my throat.
He pulled free suddenly to fist himself. “Shirt and bra off.”
I didn’t ask why. I just did it.
I’d seen him touch himself before, but it was always slow. Leisurely. A tease.
That time was different.
Each long stroke was so fast, his hand seemed to blur. It was rough. Violent.
With a harsh grunt, he aimed so the first spurt of cum hit my breasts. Gripping my head, he kept it close enough for the rest to splatter across my face.
Marking me as his.
One second, I was on my knees. The next, I was back on the counter. I barely had time to process the change when Ash’s thumb began rubbing my clit in tight circles. He used the index finger on his other hand to swipe some of the mess from my face. I thought he was just cleaning it away, but he slid his finger into my pussy.
Pushing his cum inside me.
I was already on the verge of coming apart, but at that, I didn’t break.
I shattered.
Ash’s skilled fingers worked me through one orgasm and straight into the next. When it finally passed, his pressure eased, but his finger still glided in and out.
I tried to close my legs against the sweet torture, but his palm spanked my oversensitive pussy, and my legs shot back open.
Our whole conversation seemed to cycle through my head like my brain was committing each and every moment to memory. His claims of love and obsession, but also the rest. What he was willing to do to protect me.
What he had done.
Like his words were rays of sunlight made just for me, I wanted to bask in them. Let them seep into my soul to warm me from the inside out.
Before I could do that, though…
“We still need to talk,” I said.
And I wouldn’t be put off—again.
He took his touch away and began redoing his slacks. “I’m not going to get caught.”
“But when they do testing?—”
“If they bother to—and that’s a big if—it’ll show exactly what they suspect. Drugs. After a week in that dump without the AC on, I doubt they’ll look close enough to spot the broken hand. Even if they do, that won’t jump out as odd since he’s a known shithead.”
“What about the other guy?”
“They won’t find him.”
“Are you sure?”
His expression softened as he shook off his shirt. I tried—and failed—to ignore the wetness on it.
Oops.
“Yeah, sunshine, I’m sure. This isn’t something we do on the daily, but we’ve still done it enough to be good at it.”
“We?”
“Me, Maximo, Cole, and Marco.”
My brows lowered. “They know about the guys?”
“I know you didn’t want people to know?—”
I waved it away. “No, I mean they know what you did to those guys?”
“They know ’cause they helped me.”
I mentally added yet another item to the list of reasons I was dysfunctional. Because at hearing that, my heart melted like I’d just found out they’d gotten together to throw me a surprise party and not a murder.
I set that aside to bask in later, too.
I got momentarily distracted as Ash tugged his tee off, slowly revealing muscles and tattoos like they were works of art.
Because they were.
I forced myself to stay on topic. “If you weren’t worried about them overhearing, then why didn’t you want to talk until we were home?”
Taking the tee in his hand, he pulled it over my head. I automatically moved to slide my arms in. Once it was on, he kissed me sweetly like he hadn’t just roughly used me. And then he smirked. “Because it would be harder for you to run from me here.”
That shouldn’t have been romantic, yet there we were.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “With how serious Maximo takes security, I thought maybe there were cameras or something in your company vehicle, and that’s why you didn’t want to talk. I just kept thinking about all the…”
His gaze dropped to my flushed cheeks. “All the filthy things I’ve said in that SUV?”
Yes.
That.
Ash had given me the reassurances I needed, but it was his turn to demand them. “Why’d you call me Ash?”
“When you didn’t answer my texts or call, I was scared you’d already been caught. Then I went down to this mysterious space to find you covered in blood. I was freaked. And when I did it here, it was because I was still freaked and needed to know you weren’t about to get taken away from me.”
“I fucking dare anyone to try.”
“What about the guy today? Won’t he just go to the cops?”
He shook his head. “He knows we have footage of him assaulting the server first. And if you think the cops don’t know what happens in the back rooms, alleys, or basements of casinos, you’re wrong. They know and don’t care.”
With that settled, I finally let the happiness sink in.
Only it wasn’t just warmth. There was also stickiness.
At the way the tee clung to my chest and what was rapidly drying on my face, I asked, “Any chance you’re going to let me go upstairs to shower this off?”
“Not a bet I’d make.”
I didn’t think so.