Ashes & Embers Series Collection (Books 1 to 4)

by Carian Cole

  I grab Sterling and shut him in the bedroom with a bunch of his catnip toys, and then put my mp3 player into the speaker dock so we can listen to some tunes while I work on her.

  Pulling on my black latex gloves, I study the ink from yesterday. There are a few areas I’ll go back to later to add in some additional shading for depth. I like my art to have a lot of dimension and realism.

  “Damn! I forgot how much it hurts!” she yells when I start on her. “I feel like you should put a leather belt in my mouth for me to bite on.”

  My cock strains against my jeans from that visual. “I think I might do that, darlin’. Only, not for this.”

  “I’m not going to think about that right now,” she replies. “So your brother is a tattoo artist?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he plays the violin?”

  “Yup.”

  “Wow. That’s a lot of talent for one family.”

  I let out a little chuckle. “If you only knew.” I wipe her back with a white cloth. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “I have an older sister.”

  “What’s she like? Are you close?”

  “She’s the opposite of me. She’s tall and gorgeous—she always looks absolutely perfect. She married this mega-rich guy and lives in a mansion and drives a Porsche. They have twins, a boy and a girl, who are equally perfect. I don’t see them often; she’s way too busy being a socialite to be bothered with her awkward little sister.”

  “Do you want to live in a mansion, too?” I ask her, although I think I already know the answer. That’s just not her style.

  She shakes her head. “Gawd no. I swear I get lost in her house. I stayed there once, and I couldn’t even find my way from the guest room to the kitchen. My dream house is like this place here.”

  “Here? My house?”

  “Yes. I love it here; it’s so peaceful and cozy. I bet it’s gorgeous in the fall and winter, too. I’d love to take photos up here; I could totally go crazy with ideas.”

  “If you like it that much, you can stay here. You could live here if you wanted to.” Yeah, I’m jumping the gun, but I don’t give a shit. I want her to live in a place she loves, that inspires her. I owe her that much.

  “What? Are you crazy? You can’t just let someone live in your house.”

  “Not someone . . . just you.”

  “Why? You barely know me. I mean a few weeks is okay but not like . . . indefinitely.”

  I apply some slight pressure on her back. “Lean forward a little, babe, and don’t wiggle around,” I say, starting the lower feathers at the small of her back. “I’m not sure we ever really know anyone, Tabi.” I wipe the blood away and resume working. “I know a shitload of people who have known each other for years, and one turns out to be a douche or a bitch, and then they’re like, ‘What the fuck just happened?’ So, I don’t put a lot of value on time known; I put value in my gut feeling about people, living in the moment, and dealing with the shit later.”

  “That’s really kinda romantic, Vandal, in a very you way.”

  “Ya think? I’m serious though. You can stay here as long as you want; I don’t mind. Even after I go back home in a few weeks. If you want to stay here and chill, take some photos, and just figure life out, I’m fine with that.”

  She’s quiet for a moment, and I’m glad she can’t move away. “I don’t think I’d like it as much without you here,” she finally says, her voice lilting with sadness.

  I wipe ink and blood off her back again before answering her. “I could come back on the weekends. It’s not too far. Maybe not every weekend, depending on what I’ve got going on. Think about it for a while.”

  What I really want is to take her home with me, but I have no idea how I’d keep her from finding out about the accident and the band and every-fucking-thing else in my life that I’m not ready for her to know. If she stayed here, and I just came on weekends, I could keep her isolated from the rest of my life and not drag her into all that shit.

  That is, if she even wants to see me after our time here. I can’t stop myself from just assuming that this is going to continue. I’ve never thought of a woman as a long-term fixture before. They all had an expiration date. But with Tabitha, the more I’m with her, the more I don’t want it to end.

  “Do you have a job?” I ask her casually, even though I already know the answer.

  She blows out an exasperated breath. “I quit my job after Nick passed away. I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. I couldn’t get out of bed most days, and when I did actually go in, I couldn’t interact with the people there at all. I was a mess. I spent most of the day in the bathroom crying. They would have fired me eventually.” She sighs. “I had a long talk with my boss, and she agreed to say the company laid me off so I could collect unemployment for a few months while I tried to get out of the depression I was in.”

  “That sucks. I’m sorry about all that. What did you do for work?”

  “I was just a receptionist. Nothing exciting.”

  I frown at the back of her head. “Don’t say it like that. At least you had a job, and I’m sure you were great at it. You have a really sweet voice and a fuckin’ gorgeous smile. That’s what people want to hear and see.”

  “Well, thanks. It’s not really what I wanted to do with my life.”

  I pull off my gloves and put my hands on her bare shoulders. “Let’s take a break. Turn around.”

  Turning towards me, she stretches her arms out and above her head, her naked breasts lifting up perfectly. Impulsively, I lean forward and plant a kiss between them.

  “You look so fuckin’ sexy sitting like that; I forgot what I was going to say.”

  She smiles sheepishly. “Was ramming involved?”

  “Surprisingly, no. I wanted to ask you what you want to do for work.”

  “Hmm. My passion is photography.” Just saying the words makes her smile, and her eyes light up. “So, I guess in a perfect world, I would love to be able to take photos, do theme shoots, sell my photos, and maybe have a photo book published. I really love artistic shoots.”

  “Then that’s what you should do.”

  “I wish, but it takes a while to get to a point to actually make any money. If ever! Nick and I talked about it, but I guess I have to agree with what he said; it’s a nice hobby but not something I could really ever make money doing.”

  I really want to say that Nick is a douche dream-killer, but I hold back so I don’t upset her. Maybe he was just trying to be realistic.

  I line up more ink cups on the table. “I think we all need to chase our dreams if we can. I was a struggling artist for a long time, playing my bass for shit money and tattooing, living in the friggin’ ghetto. Then one day, my life changed.”

  She tilts her head, her blond hair falling down over her breasts. “What happened?”

  “I got a letter from someone claiming to be my grandmother. I had no idea who this woman was. My father bailed when I was about four years old, and my mother was a junkie. I was adopted by another couple when I was five, but they weren’t good parents. I had no one. Then I get this letter from someone claiming to be my father’s mother, and she wants to meet me. She insisted she had no idea I even existed until a few weeks before she wrote the letter.”

  “Wow . . . what did you do? When was this?”

  I shake my hair out of my face and start to fill the tiny cups with ink. “I ignored it. This was six years ago. I basically said fuck it. Like, where the hell was she when I was getting the shit beat out of me by my adoptive father? So, about two months later, this tiny old lady shows up at my door. I was hungover, and I had some nameless chick in my bed, so I told this old lady to get the fuck off my doorstep.” The memory is still so vivid in my mind that it makes me laugh remembering the face Gram made and what she did next. “I tried to shut the door and she stopped it with her foot and barged right into my shitty apartment. She yanked the girl out of my bed and pretty much threw her out, o
rdered me to take a shower, and trashed all my weed and booze while I was in there.”

  “Holy shit!”

  “No kidding. I was mad as hell. But like, she’s maybe five feet tall and pushing ninety. What could I do?”

  She giggles, covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh my God. What did you do?”

  “I sat there and was like, what the hell do you want? And she told me that she was my grandmother, and the whole fucking deal. Apparently, my father was a pretty famous musician when he was younger, which I obviously had no clue about, and he was an asshole. I guess he was screwing women left and right and then disappearing if they got pregnant. Same shit happened to my brother, Lukas. No one knew about him either. Gram found out about us at the same time and hired a private detective to find both of us. I guess she hadn’t talked to my father in years due to some shit that had gone down.”

  “Yikes!”

  “So, she tells me that my filthy rich grandfather passed away and she wanted to make sure all her grandchildren got their inheritance. Including the ones that her son threw away.”

  Her eyes go big, and she hangs her mouth open. “What? Seriously?”

  “No lie, baby. Five mil later and suddenly I’ve got a brother, a grandmother, a bunch of cousins, and an aunt and uncle. And the wild part is, they actually wanted us to be part of the family. I didn’t even want the money. I said no. But Gram kept insisting, and she kept showing up at my place, and finally dragged me to her lawyer’s office, and then to her house. It was some fucking crazy shit. It changed my life. Me and Lukas hung out and got to talking, found out we both were kick-ass tattoo artists. We put some of our money together and opened a shop. Then I got in the band, and I bought these two houses, blah, blah, blah. The rest is history, I guess.”

  Shit. I shouldn’t have mentioned the band. Too late now. Hopefully she won’t question me about it, and if she does, fuck it.

  She’s sitting there with wide eyes, mouth dropped open, just staring at me in awe. “Vandal, wow. That’s all so . . . unbelievable.”

  “Yeah. It is. Still kinda surreal to me. Gram is awesome though. She makes the best fucking cookies; they’re like crack and can fix any bad mood or drama.”

  “She sounds amazing. Maybe I can meet her someday?” she asks cautiously, and I know what she’s asking is more than just wanting to meet my grandmother. She’s trying to see if I’m going to keep her around and if I like her enough to bring her around my family. I’ve never done that though. I’ve never brought any chick around my friends or family. Yeah, sometimes if I had something going with a girl they would come to concerts to hear me play, or be hanging around my place sometimes, but I never actually wanted any of them to meet my family. I had no interest in any of that. What scares me is that I can see Tabitha talking to Gram— drinking tea and eating cookies in the kitchen with her like I’ve seen Evie do.

  Do I want to be like Storm? Having a girl with me all the time? Being part of my family? Holding my hand and being all smiley and cutesy and disappearing in dark corners together?

  No.

  I want the evil twin version of that. I want what I’ve been fantasizing about for years. I want a live-in sub who gives herself to me whenever I want or need her. I want her to only want me, only need me, and be bound to me forever. I want her to trust me without question or hesitation, and accept me no matter what. I want her to be open to all the dark and deviant things I want to do with her and want them as much as I do. I want her to be on her knees, bent over, begging, gagging, and ravished by me and still want more. And after all that, yeah . . . I want her to adore me, be by my side, and maybe even love me. I want to never feel alone and abandoned again. And if she can give me all that? I’d love the fucking hell out of her and let her sit and eat cookies with Gram as much as she wants.

  “Can we keep going?” she asks, her voice subdued. “I can’t wait to see it.” She turns her back to me so I can continue her tattoo.

  She never got an answer to her question, but I let it stay that way, hanging between us. Fuck. I hate this black cloud that’s looming over us, waiting to explode into a tornado of lies, deceit, and grief.

  We are a ticking time bomb. Not even Gram and her cookies can fix this shit.

  CHAPTER 18

  TABITHA

  TWO WEEKS. Fourteen days. No matter how I think of it, I can’t grasp that in such a short amount of time, my life has changed in ways I never could have imagined. I’m so immersed in Vandal that I can barely remember him not being part of me. He’s a drug that I cannot get enough of. A little is never enough; I always need and want more.

  When he’s not touching me, all I can think about is when he will touch me again. Making him smile has become a daily goal for me. While once all I wanted was to sleep, now I don’t want to sleep unless I’m in his arms.

  Like now. I’ve just woken up, my back against his chest, his arm tight around me, our hands linked and curled at my breast, our naked bodies spooned tightly against each other perfectly. I move slightly and he moves with me, his cock already hard and pressing against my ass. He slips his hand out of mine and slides across my stomach and up over my hip, then down to my thigh, lifting my leg up and back over his. He raises his head off the pillow and sinks into my neck, his lips warm and moist, as he slides his cock into me slowly from behind. My body instinctively arches back to curve to his, opening up to him. He lifts my leg further, and I roll forward just a little, angling my ass up to meet his thrusts. We are one perfect fluid movement, completely in sync with each other’s bodies. I have never felt such an intense physical and emotional closeness to someone as this.

  “I love fucking you when you’re barely awake,” he groans in my ear. “You’re so soft and warm.”

  “Mmmm . . .” I murmur, turning my head to meet his lips.

  “You want me to fuck you awake every morning, don’t you?” His hand delves between my thighs, his fingers stroking my clit expertly.

  “Yes,” I pant, rocking my body back against him.

  “Beg me and I might.”

  “Please . . .”

  His teeth graze the flesh behind my ear as he pumps deeper into me, forcing a moan out of me. “Please what?” he demands. “Don’t make me pull words out of you, Tabi. Beg for what you want, or you won’t get it.”

  His raw, commanding voice turns me on like a vibrator on warp speed. I squeeze my thighs together around his hand and reach back to wind my fingers around his neck, grabbing a handful of his hair in the process. “Please fuck me every morning forever,” I breathe, as my body starts to tremor.

  In one swift movement he pushes me down on my stomach and lifts my hips up, driving his cock back into me. “Forever’s a long fucking time, baby. You’re gonna have to beg better than that.”

  “Please . . . fill my pussy with your cock every morning.”

  “For . . .?” He pounds into me so hard I swear he’s slamming into my cervix. My muscles contract wildly around his girth as the ripples of orgasm course through my body. My hands clench his cotton sheets.

  “Forever,” I gasp as my body shudders around him, and his hot cum spurts deep inside me. His hands slide up my hips and gently caress my back.

  “Your wings look so perfect,” he says softly, still breathing heavy. “I love watching your back when I fuck you; you have no idea how gorgeous you look.”

  At the end of my first week with him, he gave me an e-reader after he learned that I love to read. Along with my usual romance novels, I purchased a bunch of books about light BDSM lifestyles. As I learn more and explore with him, submitting to him feels natural to me. And it’s not because I’m a weak woman who gives in to a man, because I’ve never been that person. This is entirely different. I have a deep need and desire to give myself to him and trust him with my body, mind, and soul. Even at his dirtiest, I still feel adored—even cherished—by him.

  Buried deep beneath his hard exterior, there’s a man who wants to be loved but has been hurt badly. I know h
e’s grieving his daughter, even though he refuses to talk about her. If my being here and giving him what he wants and needs helps him, then I’m totally fine with that. He’s lived up to his promise of helping me move on from the depressed rut I was in. I still miss Nick and the life we had, but at least now I have hope that it’s possible for me to find some kind of happiness again. Two weeks ago, I couldn’t even imagine that.

  WHILE HE CHECKS HIS EMAIL, I make us pancakes and eggs and then wait at the table for him. When he comes in and takes his seat, I lean over and kiss him.

  “Thank you for the ramming,” I say, but for the first time, he doesn’t laugh at our little joke. His face is hard and unsmiling. We eat in silence, and when he’s finished he pushes his chair back and stands.

  “I’m going out for a while. I left words in the book for you.”

  Left words? “Okay. Is something wrong?”

  He shakes his head, but his eyes are dark and troubled. “No. I’ll see you later.”

  Confused, I watch him pull his boots on, grab his keys, and walk out the door, slamming it hard. A few minutes later, his motorcycle roars to life and pulls out of the driveway, the sound of the engine fading as he travels farther away. Away from me. With no goodbye.

  After I clean up the kitchen and feed Sterling, I go to the guest room and open up the journal. There’s also a box on the bed, but I’m not going to open it yet.

  Tabitha,

  You’ll know what to do with what’s in the box. I’ll be home at five. I’ll eat while I’m out, so don’t make dinner. Please be showered, dressed, and waiting in the dining room. Put on extra black eyeliner and dark lipstick for me.

  Hmm. His note sounds off to me, and not quite like his usual sexy or mysterious self.

  I open the box and reveal a very short, slinky black dress with a plunging neckline, open back, and black pumps that have about a four-inch heel. If I don’t break my ass in these shoes, it will be a miracle. I leave the items in the guest room and go about keeping myself busy for the day.