by Doyle, S.
I didn’t want that again. I didn’t want to feel that pain again. Because, somehow, I knew when I watched Ash walk away from me tomorrow, that was exactly how I would feel.
I had to find a way to cut this out of me now or it would fester.
Or you could hold on to it. Hold on to her. This time no one could take her away.
16
Newark Airport
Marc
“This is as far as I can go.”
She knew that, but I felt the need to say it. Her bags had been checked, but she had a carry-on over her shoulder. Her hair was loose, and her eyes were red. She’d cried the entire drive here, and I didn’t try to stop her.
She was supposed to be getting ready for her first semester of college. Instead, she was being exiled to Switzerland for some purpose only her father truly understood.
I’d taken her virginity hard last night. Probably too hard, but I’d warned her I wouldn’t be gentle. She’d been too sore to fuck again this morning and she wasn’t ready for oral, so we’d taken a shower together and I showed her how to give me a hand job.
She’d loved that. Loved turning me on, making me come. Watching it happen.
She thought she’d begun to understand her power in that moment, but she didn’t know a quarter of it.
“I don’t want to go,” she sniffed. “I know I have to, and I’m going to. I just don’t want to.”
“You’ll text me when you arrive.”
She nodded.
“We can do this, Ash.”
“What? I’m going to be in Switzerland. You’re going to be at school fucking all the women. I feel like nothing is the way it’s supposed to be and I don’t understand why. I don’t understand why my father is doing any of this. It’s not like he cares about us being together. He knows we’ve been on the estate together the entire time he’s been gone.”
“Yeah, well, maybe he thinks I’m following the rules.”
Her brow furrowed at that.
“No friends at the house, no drugs and stay away from my daughter. Those have been my house rules since I first got to the estate.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “I know. He never wanted me to associate with you. Why didn’t he want me to have any friends?”
“I wasn’t your friend last night,” I reminded her.
She blushed, and I tucked her against me. It was strange not fighting my normal instincts around her. But something had shifted last night. Like, suddenly, I was tired of fighting both her and myself. She’d slept in my arms, and, when I finally stopped thinking, I’d slept better than I had since I’d left my mom.
Like I was safe, or some stupid shit like that.
“You need to go,” I told her. I was done being sentimental. I needed to start focusing on one thing: getting through school as quickly as possible. And she needed to do whatever the fuck someone did at a finishing school so she could find her way back as soon as possible.
Because only when she did would I be able to breathe again.
She nodded and pulled away. “You’ll be okay. I promise.”
“So will you,” I told her. “I promise.”
“I love you, Marc.”
So fucking vulnerable she was. Every single time with me.
I smirked. “I don’t entirely hate you.”
Which made her beam and do a fist pump. “Progress,” she hissed.
“I want a text every day,” I demanded.
She pulled out her phone and I watched as she typed something. A second later I felt my phone buzz in my back pocket.
Goofball. I watched as she made her way through security, then stood there as she continued to wave at me until the throng of people basically obscured her from my vision.
I turned and walked away, out to the parking lot.
I pulled my phone out just to see what she’d sent.
Ash: Miss me.
I was slowly coming to understand how much I would.
I had no idea what came next for me and Ash. I was only certain there was something that came next.
* * *
Ready to find out what comes next? Read Don’t Hate Me the next chapter in epic saga of Marc and Ash.
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Don’t Hate Me
It was all my fault. What my father did to him. All Marc wanted was to save me. Selfishly, I let him. In the end, I had to beg. Please don’t hate me.
Excerpt Don’t Hate Me
Princeton
November
Marc
Ash: What are you doing right now?
Me: Trying to sleep, but this annoying chick keeps texting me.
Ash: Is she prettier than I am?
I smiled. She knew exactly who I was talking about. Then I did the math in my head.
Me: It’s like four in the morning there. What are you doing up? Some early morning studying for Curtsy Class?
One of the saddest things I’d ever heard was that someone with Ash’s brain was spending time learning how to curtsy properly. Like she was ever going to meet the fucking Queen of England.
Ash: I get up early because I know this is when you’re getting to bed. Also stop bringing up curtsy class. I’m failing it! These fucking European royals are everywhere and they’re killing it. Right now me and some princess from Dubai are the only ones struggling.
Me: Is she hot?
Ash: Who?
Me: The princess from Dubai. If this whole finance degree doesn’t work out for me, maybe I can marry up.
Ash: …
Ash: …
I laughed. That had clearly pissed her off.
Ash: She’s exceptionally beautiful and you’re an asshole.
Me: Yeah, well, I’m tired. You know how grumpy I get when I’m tired.
Ash: Wait? You mean there are times of the day when you’re NOT grumpy? Please take video and send for confirmation.
Me: I might be an asshole, but you’re a smartass. Are you making friends?
Ash: Trying. But we’re just so different. Other than our mutual love of Jimmy Choo, of course.
I huffed.
Me: And you’re doing everything the doctor says?
She’d had a minor attack last month and the last couple times I’d talked to her, she sounded a little wheezy. The school understood her condition and had a doctor visit to confirm it was a minor event, but I still didn’t like it. She was too far away, too much out of my control. Daily texts and occasional calls mitigated my concern, but they didn’t remove it.
Ash: I shouldn’t have told you. I knew you were only going to worry. I’m fine. The cold air here just hurts my lungs a little more. But I’m fine. The asthma is totally under control.
Me: You tell me everything, Ash. No secrets.
Ash: No secrets.
Me: Okay, let me go. I need to sleep.
Ash: Because your schedule is too full. You can pull back next semester. I can handle Curtsy Class Level II. I’m fine.
She said it constantly. I’m fine. I’m okay. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m making friends.
I didn’t believe any of it. She was lonely as hell. She’d been so isolated by her father her whole life, her world revolved around George and me. Now he’d isolated her again. Only this time, no George, who was basically her surrogate father.
And no me.
Whatever I was to her.
Me: You worry about you. I’ll take care of my schedule. Now I really have to go. Some hot brunette is coming over to hook up with me. I don’t even know her name… how sick is that?
Ash: Wow, not even her name? Then you’ll probably have a tough time not calling out my name when you come. You might want to think about a ball gag for yourself.
I smiled. In the months since she’d been gone, it was not lost on me I wasn’t a person who smiled a lot. I didn’t have a really big laugh.
I chuckled. I smirked. And not very often.
But Ash…she made me smile. She made me laugh. I could acknowledge that now, when be
fore, I would have tried to deny it.
I was also starting to appreciate how important that was. It helped to keep me focused. She’d sent plenty of selfies. Of her in her private room. Walking to class. Even a few from Glion, where the school was located. In all of them she was smiling, but it was nothing like seeing her. Actually having her in front of me so I could bust her chops. So she could come back with some smartass reply.
Which meant the extreme class schedule remained, and I brought her home sooner.
Me: Goodnight.
Ash: Goodnight back.
I tossed the phone onto the table next to my bed and settled in. There was no brunette. Hell, with my schedule this semester, I barely had time for food and air, which meant sex was relegated to jacking off.
Which I did, thinking about Ash.
Even though there was always a sense of guilt afterwards. Like I shouldn’t remember taking her virginity, knowing there’d been pain for her, as such an arousing memory.
I could feel the exhaustion roll over me and knew sleep would come easy. It always did on nights we texted.
I didn’t think about that too much, but, like the smiling and the laughing, it was something only now was I willing to acknowledge.
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Also by S. DOYLE
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