He catches my waist and pulls me to him. “You are not alone. You were never alone.”
I think of losing my parents. I think of all the times in my life, before he walked into it, that I was alone. I think of my efforts to keep it that way, to protect myself, and yet, I let my guard down with him. I let him in. I think of my broken down car and the moment of weakness that had driven home my loneliness. And so, I’d walked to that bar, and now, here we are. I stare up at this gorgeous man who has taken over my life, and I’m reminded of not just my history, but his. “I seem to remember you telling me that the fact I was alone like you were alone was part of what brought us together. In fact, in our time together, you said that to me over and over. I was alone for most of my damn life, Aaron.”
His expression softens, and he cups my face, stepping into me. “I know, baby. So was I. That’s my point. We aren’t alone anymore. We have each other.”
I lean back to look at him, shadows stroking his handsome face. “I think a part of me always knew I didn’t really have all of you.”
“You have everything I have to give, woman. Everything. You just don’t trust me right now. Even if you say you do, the pain of my lies is still there. We both know it.”
“But I do trust you,” I confess, because no matter how right or wrong that statement is, it’s honest, and I need honesty right now. “Beyond logic, beyond what might be called sanity, which is why the shadows in your eyes, the fears, and doubts I see there, scare me. You hurt me last time. If you leave again, you’ll destroy me if I let you. I can’t let you.”
His hand flattens on my lower back, and he molds me closer. “I can’t lose you, woman. Don’t do this.” His face is close to mine, his breath warm on my face. “I want to be what you need me to be.”
I wrap his T-shirt in my hand and look up at him. “Then trust me to be able to handle this. Trust your instincts that told you I could, or you would have walked away a long time ago. Or, you wouldn’t have put that ring on my finger. I can’t love you and lose you again.” A realization comes over me. “If you’re afraid I’ll leave, I won’t.”
“I’m afraid you’ll fucking die.”
“If I do, it will be living a life I chose, living a decision I made.”
“But you didn’t choose any of this. I did that for you, and one day, Ashley, you may wake up and hate me for that.”
“You won’t know if you leave. So I guess it’s your turn. We’ve come full circle. Are you going to give me the time to prove to you that won’t ever happen?”
CHAPTER SIX
Ashley…
“Well?” I challenge.
“I didn’t know I had that option, considering you just told me you were done,” he says. “It seems I’m not the only one yo-yoing about.”
“There’s no yo-yo to what I think or feel,” I argue. “It’s you who’s yo-yoing and that’s exactly what I can’t deal with in my life right now.”
“I’m worried about ruining your life. I’m worried about your safety. That doesn’t make me a bastard.”
“And yet, you are one. You make you a bastard. You believe that about yourself, and therefore, we can’t get to the other side of this. We won’t.”
“Do either of us even know if you’ll love the real me, Ashley? We can’t get out of this fuck show to find out.”
“I knew,” I say. “I told you. On some level, I knew what you were; I felt it. I freaking liked it. Now you’re here, the real you, and I have two choices: learn to fight harder and embrace this life or curl up and die. I choose to fight. I choose you, but I’m just not sure you choose me. Maybe you want an out.”
His hand slides under my hair, folding around my neck. “I choose you.” With that, his mouth slants over mine, his tongue sliding deep, stroking against mine, sending a wave of heat through my body. I’m hot. I’m burning alive. My sex clenches, my breasts are heavy. My nipples ache for his touch, his lips, his tongue. I slide my arms around him, sink into him, give myself to him, the way I have ever since I met him.
And just that easily, we snap.
A desperation rises fast and hard between us.
We’re kissing, crazy, wild kissing, our hands all over each other, the taste of desperation on our tongues. Two people who have lived for control and lived alone to help maintain that control, now have no control and desperately need each other.
We’re touching each other like we’ll never touch again, like we each fear the other will leave, or worse, the other will be taken from us. We’re two people on the verge of an explosion, hungry in ways that only living on the edge can create. My hands slide under his T-shirt, and he tears his mouth from mine, unhooking his shoulder strap and then placing his guns on the nightstand. It’s stone like the island downstairs. It’s the first thing about the room I’ve noticed besides the man in it with me. He tears his shirt over his head, and already, I’m pressing my palms back to his warm, taut skin, reveling in this escape we’re sharing that will never last.
“Noah,” I whisper, and I don’t apologize for that name, nor the plea in it, a plea that I barely understand, beyond the need expanding inside me now.
He doesn’t chide me for the name. He kisses me again, and I burn with the deep, seductive stroke of his tongue that I feel from head to toe. A soft sound escapes my throat, and I arch into him, and that one small act seems to set him off, no, it sets us off. A frenzied rush of touching each other’s bodies ensues, ending with my shirt and bra on the hardwood floor. I’m panting when Noah’s gaze rakes over my breasts, lingering on my puckered nipples, my sex clenching, my breasts heavy.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he murmurs, molding me closer, my bare breasts to his impressively hard chest. “This is what I want, you, me, naked and alone for the rest of our lives.”
I laugh, a choked, aroused laugh and whisper, “We can’t live in bed.”
“Wanna bet?” he demands softly. “If I get the chance to prove that—”
“If?” I challenge. “Why if? Are we still yo-yoing? Because if we are—”
“If you let me. That’s all I meant, baby. If you let me.”
Only that’s not the only thing he meant, I realize. “If we live.”
He strokes hair from my face, tilting my head back, tilting my mouth to his. “We will live.” And then he’s kissing me again, and this kiss is all about possession, a claiming, a demand, before he declares, “You need to be naked right now.”
“Only if you’re naked right now,” I counter, and we both step back and finish undressing.
The minute we’re naked, he picks me up and carries me to a chair in the corner, and to my surprise, he presses my hands to the back of the cushion over my head. “Don’t move.” His gaze rakes over my breasts again, then lifts, before he adds, “Don’t even think about touching me until I tell you to touch me.”
Heat radiates low in my belly with this command, but I shouldn’t be surprised at all. This is a side of this man I know well. The side that needs control. The side that needs to dominate but somehow spends that energy with me in bed, not in the rest of our life together. And this works for me. It works so damn well; because for the first time in my life, I have a safe place where I’m not in control. Where letting go is pleasure.
“Understand?” he asks, his hands on my thighs.
“Yes,” I say. “I understand.”
His lips curve, and there’s a devious, sexy look in his eyes. No, not devious. Dangerous. He’s dangerous, and damn it, I love it. I love it a whole hell of a lot. His head lowers, his teeth scraping my knee erotically, my sex clenching all over again, my thighs slick with the seductive heat burning through my core. His touch is fire. I’m on fire. His tongue is also fire. It licks over the offended skin on my knee and then he’s spreading my legs, opening me wide to him. It’s a moment of vulnerability that most women know as arousing yet intimidating. And yet, with Noah, it’s so damn erotic.
His eyes meet mine, a
nd I know what he wants. He wants trust. He wants to know that I’m still as all in as I demand he be. He wants to know that we haven’t changed because I now know what I always knew: that he’s a killer. What I know is that he’s not like any man I’ve ever known or any man I will ever know again.
“I’m going to make you mine again,” he declares. “I’m going to make sure you know you will always be mine.”
My thighs want to shut against the clenching of my sex because I know how this man can own me. I know just how good he’s about to make me feel.
His lips lower to my inner thigh while his fingers press into my opposite thigh. His tongue teases my skin, and his mouth and hand begin to move upward. But he doesn’t give me his mouth where I want it. His presses his mouth to my belly and then looks up at me.
“I can’t lose you,” he says, and then he’s cupping my breast, and his eyes meet mine. “I can’t fucking lose you.” He cuts his stare, and I want to touch him, to tell him I’m here, but I know him. I know that’s not what he needs. He needs me to let him work through whatever he’s feeling, let him come to me in every way. And so, I don’t touch him.
I wait for him.
The way I think I have waited for this man my entire life.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ashley…
He kisses me again, a kiss that devours, that claims, that turns me inside out. And then he’s gone, or not gone, he’s not gone. He’s simply lowering himself to press his lips to my belly, his tongue teasing the delicate skin there, his eyes dark, his energy darker, as several heavy beats pass. I struggle again with a need to touch him. I want to touch him. I want to stop the torment I sense in him, that I’ve often sensed in him.
“Noah,” I whisper softly, his eyes darkening, narrowing.
He moves again, rising up and catching my hair in his hands, a rough tug that is both punishing and erotic. “Stop calling me that. One slip and we could end up dead.”
“Noah,” I repeat, because I need him to understand that I’m not denying the danger nor am I denying who and what he is.
“Damn it, Ashley,” he growls, his mouth coming down on mine, his teeth nipping my lip, biting me, pain slicing through me, but I don’t care. I know that he’s punishing me. I know that he wants me to hate him, the way he’s decided to hate himself. “You will not defy me on this. Do you understand?”
“Or what?” I challenge. “You’ll punish me?”
He draws back and looks at me. “Is no part of you afraid of me?”
“Why would I be afraid of you?” I counter, catching his hair in my hand and not gently. “Because you’re an assassin?”
“Yes. Because I’m a fucking assassin.”
“Did you kill bad people?” I ask.
“Yes,” he replies. “I killed bad people.”
“Did you kill good people?”
He cuts his stare, and I catch his face. “I’m not talking about Mick’s family. Did you kill good people by choice?”
His jaw clenches, but his answer is immediate. “Never.”
“Why are you an assassin?”
“Because not everyone deserves to live, Ashley.”
“Is this where I’m supposed to be scared again?” I challenge, but I don’t wait for an answer. “Because I’m not. Who was your first kill?”
“The kingpin who wanted me dead.”
It’s an unexpected answer—one that tells me so much about him. “You took control. You took the control he tried to take.”
“I took fucking control.”
“Then take it now,” I say, and I’ve barely spoken the words before his mouth is devouring my mouth, all but breathing me in. His hand scoots underneath me, cupping my backside and squeezing before he rises off the chair and takes me with him. He picks me up, and before I can even catch my breath, I’m deposited on the mattress while he comes down on top of me. And just that quickly, we’re side by side, kissing, touching, him pressing inside me.
I’m panting with the feel of him, with the taste of him on my lips, with the low, guttural sounds of hunger sliding from his mouth as he kisses me, as he drives into me, as he touches me.
I’m lost and found with this man in a way I have never experienced with any other person on this earth, and I want him to feel the same way about me. I kiss and touch him with all that I am. When it’s over, when we’ve both shuddered into release, we don’t immediately move. We lay there, holding each other. There’s dampness on my thighs, but I don’t care; I just don’t want to let go of this moment.
He strokes hair from my face and tilts my gaze to his. “I can’t give you kids and stability. I can’t promise you those things. All I have to give you is me.”
“All I want is you. And all I have to give is me, but that makes you hate who you are, and if that makes you question what you are then we’ll crash and burn.”
He rolls me to my back. “And if you wake up one day and regret what you might have had?”
“That only happens if you’re gone,” I assure him. “That only happens if what I regret is losing us. I never wanted a Cinderella fairytale. I want to train. I want to fight. I want to take control right alongside you.”
His eyes narrow, and he studies me as if he’s gauging my reply, as if he’s looking for truth in my words, but before he speaks, before I can speak again, there’s another knock on the door. “Come out, come out, you two playmates,” Savage calls out. “Pizza is here and so much more.”
“Holy fuck,” Aaron bites out. “I’m going to kill him before this is over.” He rolls off of me. “I’ll grab you a towel.” He walks toward the door we both assume to be a bathroom, and I sit up, appreciating his nice, tight backside, while calling out, “No, you won’t. He’s one of the good guys.”
Aaron returns with a towel that he tosses to me. “That man is a killer just like me.” He grabs his pants.
I scoot to the edge of the bed, and he tosses me my clothes. “And you’re one of the good guys, too,” I remind him.
“You sure you believe that?”
“I do,” I say. “Do you?”
“Not many people can separate killing and evil. Not many people want things to be handled the way I handle things. They’d rather see the system work.”
At this point, my bra and shirt are on, and I shove my feet into my pants. “I’ve seen enough in my years in criminal justice to know that real evil, like your Kingpin, exists. You don’t want it to survive.” I zip up my pants.
He finishes pulling on his boots before he crosses to stand in front of me, cupping my face. “I hope you really mean that, I am who I am, and I’ve done what I’ve done. I can’t change those things.”
“Then why did you decide to hate yourself because of those things?”
“I didn’t. I just thought you would.”
“I don’t hate you,” I say. “I love you.”
He studies me again, the way he had before Savage had interrupted, like he really wants to believe me, but somewhere in my eyes, he thinks he’ll find the truth. He thinks he’ll find hate and fear. “Aaron—”
“I’m not going to leave. I’m not going to save you from me, Ashley. I can’t leave you behind. I just hope like hell we don’t both regret my decision.”
My chest knifes with pain. “Why would you regret that decision?”
“Because I can survive every damn assassin that might ever be sent to kill me, baby, without fear. But the day I wake up and see hate in your eyes, I’m a dead man.” He presses his lips to mine hard and fast. “Let’s go deal with Savage and his surprise.” He reaches for his gun.
“Maybe you should leave that behind?” I suggest.
“Then how will I kill him if he pisses me off again?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Aaron…
Ashley and I find Savage at the island stuffing his face with pizza, which would be expected if he was alone. He’s not. Blake and Smith are standing there with him
and that’s a deal changer for me. “We’re leaving,” I say, catching Ashley’s arm. “Now.” I start walking.
“Give us some fucking credit for being able to get inside an apartment without being seen,” Blake calls after us, while Ashley bites out a low, “Aaron, please.”
I turn to face the whole damn clusterfuck of Walker Security good boys, who do really bad things. “My kind make your kind look like amateurs.”
“Then why do your kind call me to help them all the fucking time?” Blake challenges. “I’m the guy who finds all the stupid ways your people overlook the obvious.”
“And those people you deal with,” I say, “that you trust, are not trustworthy. Your connections are why we’re here right now, with everything we traveled with in ashes.”
“I’m not that stupid, man,” Blakes snaps. “And I found Mick.”
I tug Ashley back around to face Blake and his men. “Where is he?”
“A residential location uptown. Him and a gaggle of armed men.”
I release Ashley and step to the island, with her following me, to stand with Blake across from me, Savage to my left, and of course, Smith on her right. He speaks to Ashley, and I tune out that conversation and my urge to shake him. I need to protect my woman from a mass of killers. Not the asshole who wants to fuck her. I’ll deal with that asshole later. “How do you know this?” I ask, focusing on Blake.
“I’m a hacker, man,” Blake replies. “You have no idea how many ways I can find you.”
He’s wrong. I do. “The question is how did they find us?”
“I backed into their activity for the past twenty-four hours, and I can’t even find a reference to you or Ashley. They already knew you were here. They picked you up before you got here.”
I press my hands to the island and consider that. “We were attacked back in Colorado. I thought I killed them all. Obviously, I left someone alive. Not a problem I usually have.”
Part Three: Dirty Rich Secrets, #3 Page 3
