by Melissa Blue
She passed behind him without a word and went to Porter's chair. She stole a Buffalo wing before settling on the chair's arm.
“Done bonding?” Porter asked her.
“Her sister called.” She winced. “From the sounds of it, I thought she could use some privacy. And I just want to say, thank you for only being a little unreasonable.”
Her gaze slid to Victor. He forced himself to look away first and not get sucked in. Grady groaned and rose from his seat. He'd often played mediator between Eva and her sister Lauren. Victor didn't know why. Lauren wasn't worth the trouble. But Eva found mending the relationship important and that meant so did Grady.
“And they've gotten better,” Grady said. “Still...Someone else take over?”
Victor caught movement in the corner of his eye. Ash had put out her hand. Surprise flickered over Grady's face. Ash never played with them. Finally he shrugged and he tossed the controller to her.
Victor paused the game, his brows rising. “I thought you didn't play crap like Warfare or Saint's Row.”
She shook her side bangs back from her face. “Doesn't mean I don't know how to play it and I'm pretty sure I can beat you.”
Victor scoffed at the shit-talk. Porter put his plate down, looking between the two of them with a frown furrowing his brows. “When did you guys talk about games?”
“Work today,” Ash rushed to answer. “He disapproved of the WoW on my work computer.”
“Huh,” was all Porter said before he went back to eating.
Victor tensed again, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Ash didn't even blink.
He could make a big deal of the situation or beat her. “All right. It's your funeral, princess.”
Ash tutted at the subtle insult. “Now, Porter, watch and learn.”
Within five minutes, Victor knew he was in trouble. She'd killed half his team all while stealing food off her brother's plate. Soon, Victor was perched, tense, at the edge of the couch, because she'd found him.
Even Porter had stopped eating. Wade had come out the kitchen to watch.
Another five minutes and the game was over. Ash had beaten the shit out of him while paying only half attention to the game. No one in the house had ever beaten him. No one.
They all stared at her slack-jawed.
She handed her brother the controller. “You guys ate all the food and I'm hungry again. Plus, since you guys ate, that likely means a farting contest will be happening soon. So, catch you later?”
Porter murmured, “Bet you'd win that one, too.”
As Ash gave her brother a harsh glare, Victor shook his head. “Best two out of three?”
She tsked, but he could see her cocky smirk fighting its way through. “We could do the best out of ten rounds and I will beat you every time.”
Wade walked up to her, opened his wallet, and held up a hundred dollar bill. “This is yours if you kick his ass ten games straight.”
She plucked the money from his hand, and—no surprise—stuffed the cash into her bra. Porter frowned at the action, his disapproval clear at her actions. She shrugged as though to say, “They’re just boobs.”
Ash said, “This is going to be fun.”
She'd just beaten him without batting an eye. She was smart, sexy, and a fucking gamer. Yeah, she apparently lived a whole life they hadn't known anything about. Ash was tantalizingly whole without the Goon Squad.
The revelation was not going to help him want her less. Fuck. And of all days, why did she feel the need to game with them? So many times, she’d breezed into Grady's and just watched.
Have we ever invited her to play?
He didn't realized he'd been staring intently at her until Porter cleared his throat.
Victor settled back on the couch, facing the screen once again. “You can't win ten straight. That's impossible.”
Porter picked up his plate. “He was looking at you like you broke his brain,” he said to Ash. “This is going to be good.”
Wade said, “I'm calling Oliver. He can't miss this. This is going to be legendary.”
No. It wasn't. Victor hadn’t known just how fucked he was until that moment. He tried to relax into the cushions, an impossible feat. Ash was his dream girl. Of course, he could never have her and remain friends with the Goon Squad. Another impossible feat. Yeah, they’d had their fights over the years. It wasn't Utopia but they didn't lie to each other. They never broke the brotherhood code, unspoken but known.
“Are we playing or what?” Ash asked, her smile bright. She obviously didn’t care that the evening could end in disaster.
“Sure,” his mouth said. His brain couldn't catch up.
“You don't sound excited,” she teased. “That's okay. I'll be nice and let you get close to winning.”
Despite the tension, he laughed. “You talk so much shit.”
Porter muttered, “Short people always do.”
A knot formed in Victor’s gut. He and Ash could have that rapport. If only...But Victor had stopped being a dreamer a long time ago.
Wade plopped onto the couch, bringing his phone closer to his mouth. “Oliver, you there?”
“Yup,” Oliver answered, his voice booming through Wade's speakerphone function. “What's the opening wager?”
“A hundred.”
Wade threw back, “Two Benjamin Franklins says he takes the next game.”
Ash caught Victor's gaze, her grin widening. “Oh, poor baby,” she said. “Oliver's going to lose his hard-earned money.”
Fitting, because Victor already was. He couldn't have both her and his friends. He had to make a choice, but tonight—he was going to have tonight.
*****
The next morning, Ash strolled into her office and every single nerve ending tingled before her gaze could settle on her guest.
Vic sat in the visitor's chair, his stare hard. His green shirt could have been military-issue from the shade, and his jeans were dark. From the looks of them, both were new, but she knew him, though. He probably wore tough, scuffed boots along with them.
Her skin prickled with goose bumps as though she were standing too close to live wires. Would she ever get over the shock of seeing him? Probably not. He was all male and filled with mystery that gave him an air of irresistible danger.
Not all of his air of mystery had anything to do with him keeping secrets. She knew more than he thought she did. It was just that damn wall around him. No matter how much grit or rope she had, she'd never scale or break through it. Good thing he wasn't the only one good at hiding emotions.
With a cheeriness meant to make him clench his teeth, she said, “Morning, Vic!”
He didn't offer a greeting. He kept his belligerent pose in the chair across from her desk, his eyes opaque and fathomless.
Again, not surprising. He was a sore loser. She'd whooped his ass ten games straight and had even earned three hundred dollars.
Wade had baited Oliver into making a thousand-dollar wager on whether or not Vic could break her winning streak. Vic hadn't. Wade had given her a winner's fee. She'd been a sore winner and detailed aloud all the things she'd buy.
If only that were the sole reason Vic was disgruntled.
Since it wasn't, she broadened her smile. “When someone says 'morning,' you should at least grumble back.”
He narrowed his eyes for just a moment. “As long as I've known you, you've never played with us. Why yesterday?”
She threw her purse into the bottom drawer of her desk, starting her morning ritual even though her hands had begun to tremble at his question. Why did they need to rehash the evening, of all things? They still hadn't skipped down memory lane after they had had sex. In her honest opinion, they needed to.
Okay.
Okay.
She didn't want to answer the question. Whenever she thought of the answer, fear trickled along her pulse. Ash and reckless went way back. She hadn't been impulsive at Grady’s. She'd been herself, without apology, with her brother's fri
ends. A real first because she'd never bothered to stake her claim in their group before.
She kept her bright tone. “My morning's going good so far even though I'd kill for some coffee.”
He reached down. Two seconds later he placed a cup on her desk. Well, she could only assume it was coffee. The liquid resembled tar in a cup.
She gestured to it. “I beat you yesterday and today you want to kill me with that?”
Not even a ghost of a smile graced his face. “Coffee, black, large. Drink it.”
Not for the first time, she realized why they were evenly matched. Her brother and the rest of the Goon Squad fell for her bubbly personality—not that it was false, but it was just the surface of her. Vic saw through her bullshit. He cut through it and could piss her off with a single word that could force her to drop her guard and fight back just as dirty.
“I drink this high-octane sludge and then answer your question about why I decided to play Warfare?”
“Yup.” Judging from the stubborn jut of his jawline, he wasn't going to leave until she told him why.
She didn't bother to pick up the drink. It would likely burn a hole through her stomach. But where to start? She had wanted to play with him—to have an excuse to look at him when his friends were around. She’d wanted what she couldn't have, so she'd stolen it.
She sighed. No point in lying. He'd sniff out the truth if she tried. “You, Grady, and Wade had the best games, and I was left at home alone with Porter's Nintendo NES, Sega, GameCube...shall I go on?”
“That only explains your skills up until you turned eighteen.”
Her heart skittered at his rough tone. Hell, at what he could reveal with the simple questions. “Why is this important?”
“Answer me.” No give in his voice, just hard eyes. When she didn't speak, he added, “You're acting differently.”
He was right. She knew that, but God she didn't regret it. They had all laughed and joked and had fun at Grady's. How could she want to take those moments back? Their shared game day, hell, their relationship was all muddled in her head. She wanted Vic back in her bed. He was already in her life. What more did she need?
She averted her gaze, not able to hold his stare. “You brought me coffee. That's the very definition of acting differently.”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug, that too a belligerent movement. His annoyance didn't have to be stated. “I'm squatting in your office. I'm not shaking up the status quo. You did. In that simple act of playing a game, you did.”
She stiffened in her chair at the accusation. “I...” Wasn't it the truth?
His jaw clenched and unclenched like he had to chew on his words to keep from spitting them out. “Might as well have, the way you looked at me.”
“How was I looking you? No. Forget that. I wasn't trying to goad you. Bottom line.” She meant the words.
“Then what were you doing? What did you hope would happen?”
“Vic, you're being paranoid. I was just thinking about you in my bed, despite the consequences. I doubt anyone thought I wanted to hump you in the living room after we played. I preened. You scowled. It's what we do. All was right in our world.”
“Maybe.” His gaze pinned on her. “Doesn't change the fact I don't think you've ever played with us. Why change now?”
“Why do you keep pushing? What does it matter?”
Victor didn't answer. Right. He wasn’t in her office to have sex, which meant Victor still had no plans to look her brother in the eye and confess. Period. As always, their feelings only trapped them between opposite longing—don't hurt Porter or succumb to lust and need. They wanted each other past the point of rationale. What had happened when they'd been alone and had too much liquor needed to be kept a secret. Why she’d challenged him seemed trivial in comparison.
“I haven't changed,” she said. He didn't flinch at her harsh tone, so she went on. “But maybe after what happened with us I realized that my role of being everyone's little sister doesn't sit so well with me. Maybe I think the way you guys act like I'm not one of you annoys me.”
Victor looked at her as though she'd grown another head.
Anger simmered in her blood. “Maybe you're just sour I beat the shit out of you. Take your pick.” And still, her sharp tone didn’t cut the almost palpable tension in the air.
He stood, his expression hard as granite. If she put her hand up to the air around him, it just might nip at her fingertips.
“What do you want, Ash?”
There was that question again. Really look at me. Kiss me. Fuck me. Those answers—Vic was only supposed to be a man she'd slept with. Fuck him and move on once the longing eating at her had been fed.
When would that hunger be fed?
Another question that didn't matter. He refused to tell her simple things as though she were too fragile to know them. Too delicate to be a member of the Goon Squad. Always Porter's little sister.
Ash lifted her chin and said, “Tell me about Iraq.”
He looked away. Still, she caught the shame rippling over his features, the shudder of disgust when guilt really settled in. He walked past her desk to the door, and she whirled in her chair to watch.
She had expected his silent reaction, but still, her anger boiled over into something she couldn't even name. Her vision narrowed to a Vic-sized tunnel so that his broad back was the only thing she could focus on.
“Why won't you just tell me?” she asked, her voice hard. “I know. I just want to hear it from your mouth. You were an EOD tech. During your last tour you lost half your crew in a matter of months.” She hesitated to say more. Pretending she didn't know most, if not all the details, had allowed her to maintain the status quo between them, but she'd already rocked the shit out of it. What harm could she do now?
“Porter was there for you when you got back, and when you came back, you weren't whole.”
He slammed her door. She knew no one would come to see why. Her office sat on the corner of the building, apart from much of the traffic. Still the sound of the lock clicking kicked her heart into overdrive.
She swallowed. “What are you doing, Vic?”
He pressed his hands against the door and leaned, his back to her. “I don't want any interruptions.”
Worry licked at her gut like flames. He was too calm.
“For what?”
He faced her.
Oh.
Victor wore the kind of expression that needed no translation. He was done fighting what he felt for her. There was only need in the tight lines around his eyes and mouth, and that hunger ripped at Ash, too.
“What do you think you know?” His voice was even, but his eyes weren't unyielding steel anymore, only hunger.
She knew that desire. It was dangerous and could swallow her. A keen yearning to know what she would taste like to him clawed at her gut.
He prowled forward. “Answer the question.”
She swallowed again, her mouth dry. “You suffered from PTSD. It's not as bad now, but you still don't like big crowds.”
Vic took another step forward, and there was no room for her to push her chair back. “And?”
“That's the reason why Porter lived with you for six months after you came home.”
“What else?” Vic pushed for that answer as he leaned down, bracing his hands on the arms of her chair. His attention tracked downward. She wore another low-cut blouse—so low that he could probably see her belly button. A look, a single look from him, had her ready to claw her clothes off.
“What is this?” she asked, forcing her voice to remain steady. “Random facts about Victor Yang?”
“No.” His tone had no give. “Shit you think you know about me.”
She may not have known all the details, but Ash knew the man in front of her. “So you didn't suffer from PTSD?”
He grabbed her wrists. She jolted, not just at the shock of him touching her, but at how hard he gripped her. He used that hold to yank her out of the seat. It
didn't hurt. And maybe she was as broken as him—sans the war trauma—because her panties dampened at the rough handling.
“Knowing that, what do you think of me?” Victor asked. He continued to crowd her space as they stood face to face in front of her desk. “What do you think I'm capable of?”
“I don't know,” she answered honestly. “You won't tell me.”
“I'm just a fuck.” He flexed his fingers, but didn't release her wrists. “Why do you need to know?”
Her throat felt tight and her tongue was clumsy. “I should know who I am sleeping with.”
“I'm someone you just want to fuck.” His cold tone only sharpened the sting of his words. Definitely didn't change the truth that was her M.O. “Shouldn't matter who I am. But you want what you want, right?”
He nodded, not even waiting for her answer. “You want to get into my space, fuck with my head. I'm starting to think you won't be happy until you've burned my life down to cinders.” His laugh was bitter. “Burn my life down to ash.”
His words were stripping her bare, and he still had his wall of protection. Worse, she couldn't say he was wrong. The clawing ache in her gut had everything to do with lust. Ash had looked inside the baggage she carried around for him, and nothing—not a single memory—stood out and screamed love.
God, how much she wished for that. If her brother found out about their relationship, she could face him and say, “I love Victor. I love him so much I can't see, much less think straight. That's why I broke your heart. I couldn't take mine breaking anymore.”
So Ash had sat in Grady's living room, perched on a chair next to Porter, unable to pull her gaze away from Victor. She'd beaten him, and she’d waited for something other than lust to sink its teeth in. Something other than I've known him forever to settle in and make the guilt go away.
Nothing had, and the lust had continued to throb in her head and make her bones hurt. She tried to jerk her hands away, but he didn't loosen the hold on her wrists.
“Yesterday, all I did was play a game with you,” she said. “I won. Get over it. There's nothing more to say, Victor.”
“Games,” he practically spit out. “Isn't that all you ever play when it comes to me?”
