22. Ash
Ash
My angel dashes, leaving the corridor in a blur of blonde hair and light blue silk. The crowd of people absorb her, just after her head turns in my direction.
Real, palpable fear shines in her wide eyes, along with something else... something primal.
My heart thunders viciously as I watch her make her way to the huge, open glass doors that lead out to the gardens. Cracking my neck, I stride after her, hands aching to grab her.
The crowd swallows us whole, bodies and laughter and champagne flutes closing around her like nothing happened. Like one of them didn’t just touch what was mine. Like she wasn’t just on her knees in a hallway with a fucking creature of a human being.
My jaw tightens until it aches.
She should be fucking scared
I see it all at once. Zeke’s smug smile when he threatened her and then showing up at this event with her on his arm. The way she didn’t fight when the Senator pushed her to her knees. The fear in her eyes when she saw me.
I breathe slowly, my chest expanding.
I don’t run. I hunt.
Cutting through the crowd with quiet purpose, shoulders squared and breath slowing. People step aside without realising why.
“Ash,” someone familiar says in my periphery.
Funny enough, the part of her world she tries to keep hidden from me actually includes me.
You can’t run an underground establishment without having the above-ground distractions.
To many people in this room, I’m a successful businessman.
I run clubs and bars. They just don’t know about the run-down club, full of secrets. “Fancy seeing you here!”
I don’t acknowledge any of it. My eyes never leave her.
She looks over her shoulder again, noticing me on her tail, dark eyes flashing at mine. A loose curl falls out of her done-up hair. My pulse slams.
She bursts through the towering glass doors, night air sucking into my lungs as I follow close behind.
A few guests linger in the fresh air and turn to watch my angel stumble down the stairs, dashing off into the garden.
The sound shifts, music muffled, laughter distant, replaced by the crunch of gravel under heels and the sharp scent of hedges and manicured grass.
It's just me and her now. That’s when I move faster.
The gardens stretch out wide and immaculate, moonlight painting everything silver. She veers left, dress hiked in trembling fists, breath tearing out of her chest in short, panicked pulls.
She darts into the maze, built out of manicured hedges, the wide paths darting this way and that.
“Where are you going, Angel?” My rough voice cuts through the dark, carrying like a warning growl.
I hear her gasp at my voice, and I follow the sweet sound. The monster in me rattling the cages, begging to be let out. I round a corner, and she’s gone again. The hedge blocks my view, but the perfume of flowers and her scent lingers in the air.
Sweet and addictive, a trail I’d follow into hell itself.
“Keep running,” I mutter under my breath, loosening my tie with one hand. “It’ll make catching you all the sweeter.”
The path narrows, rows of roses and trellises closing in like walls.
I move faster, every sense sharpened, every nerve thrumming.
A shadow flickers to my left, and I pivot...
too late. A flash of blue darts around a corner; my hand reaching out a second too late.
But when I step out, I realise we’ve made it to the middle of the maze, a huge marble fountain trickling water down into a white bowl.
The statue of a breath-taking angel, in her hands a vase of water.
I huff a laugh, my eyes darting to my angel. More gorgeous and stunning then any million-dollar statue. Trembling and scared, big eyes round when she realises, she’s trapped.
I bare my teeth in a grin, stalking forward towards her. The air is charged, sparking with the electricity that runs between us. Like a fucking live wire.
“I can hear your heartbeat, Angel,” I drawl, stopping just steps away from where she leans against the fountain, her knuckles white as she grips the base. “Did you really think you could outrun me?”
“Ash...” she whispers, her voice raw. “I...”
My hand whips out, fast as a strike, wrapping around her throat and squeezing tight, drawing her body flush with mine.
“Don’t you dare open that mouth of yours,” I growl, fury replacing the excitement I felt at the little game we were playing. My voice drops to a whisper. “Not a fucking word.”
Her eyes are glassy, unshed tears glistening in them, dark lashes coated in thick makeup fanning around them. She looks stunning. Truly fucking perfect. Wrapped in silk that shows off her lithe body and her hair pinned back in a way that shows off her slender neck.
The slender neck I’m gripping with barely any restraint.
I lean in, my face inches from hers. “You lie to me about tonight,” I begin, voice laced with unchecked fury.
“You arrive on the arm of another man...” My mortal enemy, I want to add.
But from what I witnessed, he didn’t make that known tonight.
No, tonight was just a game for him. A taunt.
“You run away from me. Run to the arms of another man, a man who obviously has taken liberties from you before...”
Her bottom lip trembles, a heavy tear running down her pale cheek. Her breaths come in short, sharp gusts, barely making it through the tight grip around her neck.
“But do you want to know what I’m really fucking mad about?” My voice is rising, and I can’t bring myself to calm down. “You want to know what really makes me see red?”
My eyes flick between hers as she doesn’t answer, my lip curling back as I sneer at her.
“The fact that I found you with that... That fucking asshole,” I spit the words out, my stomach turning at the image.
“I find you on your fucking knees, while he touches what is mine and... And you didn’t...
” I’m shaking, falling the fuck apart. Anger, like I’ve never felt before, leaking into my veins.
“You didn’t fucking run to me! Couldn’t even look me in my fucking eyes! ”
My voice breaks, and I shove her away from me softly, my fingers sliding through my gelled hair as I fall apart.
“You didn’t come to me,” I whisper again.
Her knees buckle.
She stumbles back against the stone lip of the fountain, fingers clawing at the marble like it might keep her upright. Her chest caves in on itself, a sound tearing out of her that isn’t quite a sob.
“I was ashamed,” she cries, the word ripping straight from her chest. “I am ashamed.” Her voice collapses.
My hands curl into fists at my sides.
“No,” I snap. “No.” I step closer, towering over her. “He should be ashamed. Not you. He should have his hands cut off.”
She shakes her head violently, tears streaking down her face, mascara smudging beneath her eyes. “You don’t understand.”
“How many times?” I ask.
She stills.
“How many times has he laid so much as a finger on you?” My voice is low, controlled by nothing but restraint. “How many times, Angel?”
Her lip’s part. No sound comes out.
I take a step closer.
“Maddison,” I say, my hand gripping her chin and forcing her to look at me. “Answer me.”
She shakes her head once. Something inside my chest fractures.
“Fuck,” I breathe, running a hand down my face. “Fuck.”
She reaches for me then; grabs the front of my suit jacket like she’s drowning.
“Make me forget his touch,” she begs, voice wrecked. “Please... make me feel something. The way only you can.”
“Angel,” I growl, stepping flush with her soft body.
“I need you,” she whimpers, voice laced with urgency. And fuck does it make me want to give her everything she is asking for. “I need you, Ash.”
My fingers glide through her hair, closing into a fist as I tilt her head back. “If you want me to remind you who you belong to, Angel, then I’ll fucking show you.”
Our lips collide in a flash, my tongue delving into her mouth as she moans with need.
My hands grapple with her zipper until the silk pools on the ground, my fist closing around her lace panties and ripping them away viciously, until she’s in nothing but her heels before me.
Her hips feel like heaven in my hands as I grip them tight, groaning into her mouth.
Opening my eyes, I see her. She glows in the darkness, perfect skin glimmering under the stars. So beautiful it almost hurts to look at her.
I spin her, hands falling back to her hips as I pull her back against my chest so that she can feel how much I want her, my cock nestling between her cheeks, separated by just a few layers of material. She moans at the feel of it as I press a gentle kiss to her neck.
“Mine,” I growl against her skin.
“Yours,” she whispers, arching into my body.
Need vibrates through me as I push her gently onto her knees, falling onto the soft grass. My cock is out in seconds as I follow her to the ground, pushing her small body down onto her hands.
I don’t take my time. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. My cock slips into her cunt, my balls throbbing at the feel of her tight, wet hole, swallowing me in one single thrust. She cries out into the night, nobody here to hear the sins happening just outside.
Using her own body, I grip her hips brutally, pulling her off my cock a few inches and then slamming her back onto it. The way her perfect ass jiggles at the movement has me leaking pre cum already. I do it over and over, slamming her tight body over mine, using her.
“You feel like heaven, Angel,” I murmur, breathless. “Fucking heaven.”
I watch as her fingers dig into the manicured lawn, trying to find purchase as I manoeuvre her onto my aching dick.
Her hair falls loose from the pins she had in, cascading over her shoulders.
When she twists her head to look back at me, a small grin creeping onto her flushed face, she looks fucking undone.
All for me.
She looks nothing like the weak, cowering girl I just found on her knees.
Instead, she looks powerful. Strong. Fierce.