Chapter 48
forty-eight
My woman is sexiest after she’s murdered someone. That’s something I assumed to be true about her, but never knew until this moment.
We don’t speak. We simply breathe each other’s air, our chests still heaving. When I gather her up, her heartbeat stutters against mine, erratic, alive. The room smells of iron and smoke, and for the first time, it feels honest—two monsters shaking in the dark because we survived ourselves.
“Better get dressed,” I moan against her lips. “Your dad probably heard the shot.”
“Dad?” she asks, blinking bashfully at me like she’s suddenly someone’s daughter.
Her shock makes me chuckle. “Yeah.”
She scurries to pull on her clothes as a creak of metal resounds in the room from far off.
“That’s him…”
I brush her hair back and use my thumbs to swipe blood off her cheeks. She looks proud, but also distant. As if she’s remembering something harsh, she stares at Hailey’s dead body.
A voice echoes through the warehouse, startling us both. “Ashlyn? Fucking hell!”
Ace.
“I’m okay!” He’s there in a flash, with two guards right behind him. I set her down, and she runs to hug him as he scans Hailey’s dead body. With a short nod, he points toward her. “Someone get our cleaner guy in here.”
As soon as Ashlyn steps back from his embrace, he’s on me. Gripping my shoulders, pulling me tight to his chest in a hug that’s both too close and too awkward. “Thank you. Thank you for saving her.”
There’s a weird glow in his eyes that wasn’t there before. Like he’s seeing me for the first time. And maybe I’m seeing him for the first time, too.
He slings a steel arm around my shoulders, the other around his daughter, as his men call in reinforcements.
“What kind of gun did you use?” he asks me.
I glance at it—still in Ashlyn’s hand.
“Uh, Smith & Wesson, but—”
“Nice. Nice choice.” He nods like he picked it himself, and something about that makes me grin. “And that Mercedes you brought is sharp.”
Ashlyn’s face twists in dismay.
“Actually, that one probably needs to be chopped—” I start.
“Say less. I got you.” He instructs his guys to take care of that, too. “Whatever you need, son,” he says, a little squeeze on his grip.
“Great. Thanks, uh, Dad.”
Ashlyn’s cheeks flame with rage. Ace saunters forward, leaving her behind us as we escape to his Escalade out front.
Though I do help her inside.
Nothing bonds a family like a corpse and a good getaway car. He keeps talking my ear off as we pull away—me, him, and her.
Driving straight into whatever this new, strange dynamic is.
“Oh, fuck.”
I take caution, entering her old bedroom from the actual door instead of her balcony. She’s wet. Steamy from her shower. Only in a towel. The bathroom door hangs open, the mist escaping in a cloud.
As soon as we arrived, Ace showed me one of the guest suites and the shower. I’m wearing his stuff: shorts under sweatpants, and a sleeveless T-shirt. He looked at me all proud-like when I put them on.
My eyes trail behind her to the room she emerged from. The place where things had happened…
Before she can seduce me into doing something stupid in her father’s house, I cup her face and kiss her. Long enough to taste bitter victory from our evening.
“We haven’t talked about it,” I say, voice smaller than before. “You went through something alone. And I want to know. Bring me in now. Tell me what happened.” I nod toward the bathroom. “There…with our son.” I swallow back anguish.
Tears shine in her eyes, sending painful aches across my chest.
“I ask because…well, we haven’t been careful.” I lick my lips, not even sure what I want to say. “I just need more of you,” I echo back her words to me. Because they’re true.
She nods solemnly and folds into my embrace.
“I don’t care. I haven’t thought about it.
If it happens, I’ll be happy.” Her voice is muffled until she plants her chin against my sternum and gazes up at me.
“But I’m worried I won’t be able to. Or what if…
What if what happened to me happens again? I won’t be able to survive that.”
With a stifled cry, she whispers, “For so long, I kept repeating that I loved myself. Because I didn’t know if anyone else ever could.”
My body aches as she swallows back a yelp. “I was fifteen. Alone. The tiles were cold. And I was in excruciating pain. I was too scared to tell my parents it was happening. Couldn’t reach them in time. I crawled in there.”
She looks at me like she needs me to anchor her, so I do. Bottom lip quivering, she continues in a whisper. “There was so much blood. And he didn’t cry… Didn’t open his eyes. I sat for a long time, holding him. Willing him to wake up. But he never did.”
I can see it—the sterile white, her shaking hands, the silence that must’ve followed when the crying stopped before it even began.
The ghost of that grief still clings to her skin, like it’s part of her scent.
It kills me to think of her like that. A puddle alone on her bathroom floor while I was away from her.
“I feel like it was my fault. And I know that’s ridiculous and untrue, but the feeling lives there. A whetstone of self-hatred tied around my neck. And if I think about him too much, I drown in guilt and grief. I think about all the things I should’ve done differently.”
Like I could absorb her agony through my skin, I wrap my whole body around her, shielding her from a future she can’t yet face. And a past that haunts us both.
“Give me all your pain,” I grit out through my teeth, trying to explain all the ways I want to take care of her. “We do this together now. No hiding or shields up. I’ll hold you through it.” I kiss her temple. “I’ll consume all the poisonous parts if that’s what it takes.”
Her arms squeeze my chest tighter.
“You didn’t need anyone else,” I tell her, tilting her chin up until she’s forced to meet my eyes. “You needed the other half of yourself. And that’s me. You’re my reflection, Ashlyn, the part of me that finally looks back.”
My voice roughens. “I love you the only way I can. It’s not the kind you read about in epic novels. But it’s everything I am. Everything I have.”
As if those are the words she finally needed to hear, she collapses into my arms. Sniffles wet my neck as she sobs for a long moment, her back shaking with every deep breath.
Finally, she pulls back, and I erase her tears with my lips.
She smiles softly and shrugs. “We should probably wait for the right time.”
I nod like I agree, already scheming how I can get her pregnant before she decides to go on some birth control again. “Mm-hmm. I’ll pull out from now on.”
One of her eyes narrows with suspicion. “Yeah, right.”
My lips curl. “I will. I’ll pull out.”
Then put it right back in…
I rock her until she settles. Sitting down on the edge of her bed, I hold her close to my chest and soothe her with small rubs up and down her back. When she starts shifting her hips in a way that’s less searching for comfort and more searching for my dick, I snort a laugh.
“Listen…baby…your dad just started liking me, and you look like sin right now— Ashlyn!” My voice drops to a harsh whisper when she flings the towel away from her, showcasing her entire naked front.
“We need to head over to our house… Or the manor.” I regret my words even as they come out of my mouth. I’m practically drooling, trying to stop myself from gathering her nipple between my teeth.
“I’m not ready to go yet.” Her fingers crawl over my chest.
I groan. “They’ll hear us.”
“So?”
“I can’t do that here.”
She gasps, a little upset that I turned her down.
With a heavy sigh, I grit out, “Fine.” Setting her down, I smack her ass lightly. “Put on a bikini… We’re going to that hot tub out back.”
The little hellkitten smirks like she’s won a prize.
Somehow, we make it outside without alerting the household. It’s late, and her parents look as if they’re asleep. Her younger brother’s bedroom is aglow with the low lights of a TV, casting shadows out of the tall windows and into the backyard where we hurry.
We sprint toward the steamy tub and hop in, escaping the cold. Without hesitation, I pull her onto my lap, facing me, and caress her head. My lips find hers in a blistering kiss.
“You couldn’t wait another hour until we got to our house?”
“No,” she pants against my skin, trying for another kiss.
My cock agrees with her. I think it’s another reason we’re so well matched. Murder is a huge turn-on.
“You feeling all pent up, baby girl? Powerful? Like a bad girl?” I ask as she grinds against my firming erection.
She whimpers an affirmation, nibbling on my earlobe, which sends tingles down my spine. I grip her golden locks and pull her back so she has to look at me.
“But who controls you? And spanks you when you’re naughty.”
“You…lord.”
“Mm, that’s right, my filthy slut.” I accentuate my point with a thrust of my hips. “And who’s the only person you obey?”
Her eyes get a devilish look. “No one.”
Gently, I hold her neck and pat her face with my palm. It’s a warning. But the spark in her eyes tells me she wants more. To go all the way with it. “Who?”
“No one,” she repeats, biting her lower lip.
So I smack harder… Until she groans and writhes on me forcefully.
“Who?”
“Choke me, and I’ll tell you.”
I squeeze her throat. She strains, but she finally relents. “You, Aiden. My lord.”
“That’s right, my naughty girl. Bend over.” Standing, I grab her waist, flipping her until her knees are on the seat and her elbows on the edge of the hot tub.
With a glance toward the house, I remove her bikini bottoms and stuff them into my shorts pocket. I shove down my waistband and grip the base of my cock, threading it through her wet pussy. She moans and backs her ass into me until I spank her for trying to take the lead.
“Not yet, baby… Not until you beg.”
“Please!” she yells, the only sound in a dead winter’s night.
“Shh! Fuck! They’ll hear you.”
She tosses her hair over her shoulder and glances at me with a look that makes me want to ram my dick down her throat. “You told me to beg.”
One brutal thrust, and I’m inside her, filling her until she tenses through every muscle. The waves of my hips stir the water around us until it splashes over the sides. I keep one eye on the glass windows in front of us, squeezing the other closed. Savoring the intense pleasure of her all over me.
“Yes!” she screams.
I smack her ass again. “For once, I want you to keep quiet.”
Her tiny, villainous giggle vibrates along my firm length until it makes my balls tingle. My spine stiffens with the urge to explode.
Gripping one of her hips, I slip my other hand down to her clit, kissing her shoulder along the way. My finger works it in a rhythmic pattern, matching my thrusts. “You’re such a disobedient girl, you know that? You’re getting punished, and in a big way. You want the dungeon again?”
“Yes, my Viscount. I do.”
The title sends my heart thudding hard against my ribs. That word out of her bratty mouth…it does something to me. “Thought so.”
As I get deeper, I hit that pace she likes, and her pussy flutters around me. I know she’s close. And though I’ve already gotten to know her body in a way that I can anticipate when she’s close, I want to study every inch of her.
For years to come.
“Aiden!”
The back porch lights flicker on, illuminating the entire backyard. And us, in a blaring spotlight.
She’s coming all around me, breaking, panting...and I can’t stop the flood of cum shooting from my tip deep into her as I look up at the door. Her father saunters over toward us.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck…”
I move faster than I ever have, pulling out, jerking up the shorts, setting her beside me, reaching for the jet button to turn them up… Foamy bubbles cover the surface of the water.
“Oh, it’s you all. I was checking.” Ace wanders closer, a beer bottle and a water in his hands. “I was thinking of getting in myself. Want a beer, Aiden?”
He slaps a cold one in my palm, and I act like I’m not thoroughly out of breath from probably impregnating his daughter.
I clear my throat. “Sure. Yeah.”
“Uh, Dad? Some privacy?” Ashlyn begs.
“Yeah, thanks. That would be great. Goodnight, firecracker. Aiden and I will hang out here for a bit.”
“That’s not…”
Awkwardly, I tip up the bottle and down the entire ale, hoping a buzz can kill my mortification. I’m desperate in the hope that Ace won’t look down and see Ashlyn’s nakedness beneath the waves.
The tension rises. Silence stiffens the moment until she gets so frustrated, she holds out her palm. “Okay, well…give me my bikini bottoms, Aiden. I’m going in.”
Ace’s eyes grow wide as he looks over at me. His entire face flames red.
With a guilty smirk, I reach into my pocket, pull them out, and slap them into her waiting hand.