by Lexi Whitlow
With the evidence I see here, it seems he had a lot more of those dark times in the years since I saw him last. My throat grows tight, and the unwelcome tears fill my eyes again.
There’s history here, Summer, even if you won’t admit it. Even if you don’t want to see it.
Priya’s words from before echo in my head.
This man is a distraction, yes. But if I came to the program, happily married, a clean cut husband in tow, would Priya have made the same pronouncement today?
Ash is scarred, and ink covers a solid quarter of his body now.
That’s not all of him. Maybe it’s not. Maybe the sex clouds my judgment, like it always does. I let it cloud me then. Or I thought I did. I might be doing the same thing now. I gulp when I think about it—his fingers moving inside of me, his tongue dancing over my clit, tasting me with unabashed need.
And the words he said. I’d never imagined him telling me that, never even wanted it. I just wanted someone to protect me, wanted his body to stay next to mine for the journey home. I didn’t think of love, not then, not even in my darkest moments away. I thought of the warmth of his lips, the feeling of his arms encircling me, holding me, making me feel safe against the storm rising around me.
I didn’t consider love, not because it wasn’t possible. But because it would hurt so much worse if it were a possibility. It didn’t seem real then because we’d never spoken those words.
I remember a thought I had then. Let us be married for real.
We weren’t then. Are we now?
Ash stirs and opens his eyes, blond-tipped eyelashes fluttering sleepily. Like it’s instinct, he turns and pulls me into his arms, pressing his lips to mine and kissing me, tongue glancing against mine. He groans with need, and I feel his cock growing hard against my thigh. In the darkness, this feels like a different story, a time and place completely separated from the life I so desperately wanted to create. His hand finds my breast, cupping it like it’s delicate.
He brings his mouth close to my ear. “Next time you wake me up, Sunshine, make sure you do something about this right away.” He catches my hand and brings it down to his length, groaning as I start to stroke it.
Now is not the time for thoughts or considerations. A jolt of electricity starts in my core, giving life to the flame of desire, the one that this man, and this man alone, was ever able to create. I’m sore, but I’m wet again, my sex pulsing as I feel him beneath my hand. I lick my lips and move down, pushing the white sheets away, bending over him to do what I’ve wanted since the moment I saw him again. My mouth waters for him, for the feeling of his hot skin, the taste unique to the man before me. I lower my mouth to his tip, licking away a salty bead of precum and then encasing him, taking him as slowly as he entered me with his fingers, a centimeter at a time until he’s groaning and tangling his fingers in my hair. My tongue moves down over his shaft, and then I take him into my mouth again.
“Stop, baby,” he moans. “I need—fuck—I need to come inside of you.”
A force takes over my body at the sound of his words. I feel an undeniable pull to Ash, to the fierce outline of his muscles, the strength of his hands. I moan against him and side up his body, positioning myself over him and lowering myself to his cock. I’m so wet I know he’ll slide right in. I know I should reach to his bedside table, rifle through his drawers and find a condom. I blush bright red thinking about it, still stroking him as I angle myself over him. I need this, I need to feel him bare even though I never have before.
Like he’s reading my mind, he brings his hands to my hips and squeezes me there, his gaze catching mine. “I waited for you,” he says. “I’m clean. I know you were always on—”
“I am.” On the pill. But it’s not here with me tonight, and I shouldn’t be doing this. But the doctor told me it would take intervention for me to get pregnant—especially after what I went through in Syria.
“I’ve always wanted this, Sunshine. I can’t imagine how good you’ll feel,” he says, eyes hooded with lust. The need inside me drives me forward.
We’re married. We have been for more than three years.
My mind feels clouded with lust, like I’m swimming through deep water and can’t quite find my way to reason. The center of my body tightens, arousal coursing through me, the tension and need growing tighter than it ever has. Slowly, tenderly, I lower myself onto his cock, taking the head inside and feeling the stretch of muscles and the heightening sensation of being filled. It’s better than I thought it would be. His skin is hot against mine, closer than I’ve ever been with anyone before. My sex starts to pulse as I move lower, powerful sparks moving through my core and undoing everything I came here for.
“Holy fuck,” I mutter. “It feels so good. God...” I feel light as air as I bring my fingers to my clit. Ash holds my body in his hands and grins, moving his hips, abs tensing, bringing his body up into mine, fucking me from below. Each time, he comes closer to filling me to the brim. I try to push myself further down onto his cock. The pulses coursing through my center become stronger, more tenacious, begging for release.
“You feel so good, my love,” he sighs. There it is, that word again. My face must change because Ash reacts, bringing me to meet the base of his cock and pulling my body into his. I moan, long and loud, my body moving against his in some kind of primal rhythm. He leans in and kisses my neck as his hands roam over my body. Every motion seems to drive him deeper inside me, pulling me closer to him. Frenzied, needy, I ride him with my arms around his neck, pushing my clit against the base of his cock and whimpering with need. All at once, the fire raging through me flares, and I’m lost in the sensation pouring through me, every cell in my body filled.
Ash leans in while I’m at my height and looks me in the eyes. “I love you, Summer,” he whispers, his breath ragged.
I come hard, harder than I ever have, my heart beating so hard it might fly from my chest. He rolls over on top of me, pinning my hands and slamming his cock into me, and the tension starts to build as he pummels me, taking his pleasure and riding my orgasm like it’s his own. I whimper. My body aches, but the pain beats in time with pleasure, and I come again, shaking. “I love you too.” I sigh the words, barely saying them.
The muscles in his stomach tighten, and he moans, angling his hips, thrusting hard into me one last time. His cock pulses inside of me, and he fills me with his warmth. A rush runs through my body as the aftershocks roll through me. My throat grows slick and tight, and I sob as he releases my arms. I throw them around his neck. He speaks to me then, his words blending together and relaxing me until I’m no longer racked with sobs.
“I don’t know why I’m crying,” I say, wrapping my legs around him and drawing him in tighter. He nods and runs his fingers through my hair.
But I do know why. Because this is what I want—far more than my job, far more than my home and the simple, quiet life I focused on for years.
I want Ash, with his black eye and the angry red scar on his cheek. Despite my past. Despite his present. Despite anything and everything standing in our way.
This is everything.
The walls of my life feel like they’re crashing down around me. Before this, I’d only been kidding myself. And it’s only now, here with him, that the world seems right again. It feels like the pieces of my existence are being restored, like everything is finally coming together.
Like the life that crumbled down and broke could now be mine for the taking.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Three Years, Three and a Half Months Ago
Cullen’s club is dark when I walk in, but I see him sitting at one of the tables, a glass of whiskey in front of him. There’s another waiting for me. My whole body clenches like a fist as I sit down across from him.
“You said you’d keep your hands off of her. Will you?” My voice is hard with rage, even though he hasn’t tried anything. But I know what he’s capable of. Just because he let me get away with what I did doesn’t mean
he’ll leave either of us alone for good. Her life—her body—he might spare that. But she needs to get out of town.
“Can’t see beyond the girl waiting back at your apartment, can you?” Cullen sits across from me, sipping one of the fucking vintage whiskies he’s collected. He smiles at me, much more collected than I thought he would be.
“She’s my wife.” I clutch my glass, just waiting for him to spew some evil bullshit.
“Ah, is she? All this time I couldn’t get in touch with you, I was trying to tell you to call off the hit. Bianca’s an old friend, after all. And she’s shared some information with me that enlightens this little situation.”
“You talked to Bianca? She was supposed to—”
“Supposed to get out of town. We know.” He snaps his fingers and looks to the back room. The gray door opens, and I expect one of his men to appear. Instead, I see a familiar face—almost like Summer’s. Green eyes, broad cheekbones, but with blond hair streaked gray. Her hands aren’t tied and her body is intact.
Cullen gives Bianca a nod, then gestures to me. “Ash here has gone and married your girl to protect her.”
“You told me.” She smirks at me, and something in her expression reminds me very much of Summer. The cut on her right cheek is fading into a scar. It’s jarring to know that Cullen did it—and here they are, talking to each other like they’re cozy. “She’s still going back to finish her residency, isn’t she? Tell me she is. She can’t be here. Not anymore. I asked too much of her...” Bianca walks up to the bar and pours herself a vodka with lime.
“Don’t look so shocked, Ash,” Cullen says. “Bianca is an old friend. She came by here after you told her to leave.” He finishes the last of his whiskey as he looks at me with his one eye, his face unreadable.
“I made a deal with Cullen,” Bianca says, her eyes flicking over to him. “Summer leaves, and she’s free of all this bullshit. That means Cullen’s merry gang of assholes—”
“They’re assholes, all right. But they aren’t very merry.” He laughs and then nods to her, and she pours him another whiskey, as automatically as if she were tending bar back at her pub. She brings it over to him and sits it down, wiping some condensation away from the glass with a napkin. She takes a seat in the chair next to Cullen’s and looks between the two of us, her face blank.
“You see, Jonny? Everyone’s safe as can be. The girl can go back home or wherever she wants, and my complaint with her aunt is completely done. No leverage needed.”
I look between them. Bianca gives Cullen a meaningful look, and the man shrugs like he never held a knife to her face or threatened her niece’s life if she didn’t pay fucking immediately.
“Is there money I don’t know about?” I ask.
“No,” Bianca says softly, her voice barely a whisper. Cullen puts his hand on top of hers and she nearly jumps to the ceiling. The look on her face changes rapidly, moving from fear to anger to something else entirely.
“It has to do with the fact that Bianca is an old friend of mine.”
“She was always an old friend of yours, Cullen. You’re telling me that she’s a better friend now—and that you’re somehow invested in her safety when you were talking about burning down her pub last week? Fucking shit, man.” I throw one arm up and slap my hand down on the table.
“Clever that you married the girl.” He raises the eyebrow that sits over his working eye. The other one hasn’t moved in the better part of twenty years. “It’s a rule I take seriously. You, on the other hand, well, Damian wanted to take a finger off. You know how he likes to do that.”
Damian, one of the Dougherty brothers—a little too deeply tied to the family. Yes, I know what he likes to do in his spare time.
“But I came back to speak with you,” Bianca starts nervously, “And now everything is fine. You just need to convince her to leave.”
“Yes, she leaves,” Cullen echoes.
“Then I go with her.” I think of Summer’s words the other night and crack my knuckles, then bring my hand up to my beard, feeling the stubble. I’ve let it grow since the wedding, red and wiry. I can almost feel the dark circles under my eyes. This girl, she worries me. But there’s no way I’m letting her out of my sight, not when she’s been thinking about going to fucking Syria. “I’m her husband.”
“She’ll send divorce papers, and you’ll sign them,” Bianca says. “She needs to go. She’s had enough of this mess—and I’m sorry to say you’re part of it, sweetheart.”
What the fuck is going on here? A week ago, Cullen was telling me to take Summer and tie her to a furnace in the safe house. Now he’s palling around with the girl’s aunt and telling me to send her on her way without another word.
I decide I don’t need to know what’s going on in Cullen’s twisted brain, and I push my glass back to the center of the table. “I’ll send her on her way, but I’m fucking going with her.” Cullen cuts his eyes at Bianca and she shakes her head slightly.
“That’s not the deal. She goes alone,” Cullen says. “Bianca gave me some important information in exchange for the girl’s safety.”
“I’m not a danger to her safety. I’m her husband.”
“You’re not a danger to her safety,” Bianca says. She sighs heavily. “It’s more that you’re a danger to her in general. Anyone from up here is. Summer and my sister have a whole life down south that doesn’t involve me, and I never should have gotten her mixed up in my mess. She’ll be better off without me, and without you too.”
“She won’t be—” I think of her, sprawled out in my bed this morning, naked, beautiful. I think of the way my body craves hers. The way she craves me. In this moment, it seems more important than anything—that I stay with her just like she wants. That I become someone different.
“You’re not relieved from my service, Jonny,” Cullen says. “You have debts to pay before you can go. One of them is that you leave this girl alone for her tenure in that program or her internship or whatever she chooses. Or I’ll make sure you never see her again.”
“Cullen—”
“This is on me, Jonathan,” Bianca says. She takes my hand in hers, squeezing it a bit. Her fingers are delicate and covered with blond freckles. She catches my gaze and holds it. “You see, there’s a reason Cullen and I have history. It just happened that Summer made her way into this because she needed a place to live her last year of medical school. Otherwise, I’d still be borrowing money from Cullen, and he’d still be trying to scare me into paying him back with more interest than I have.” She cuts her eyes at him again, and he smiles. Like he’s not dangerous. Like this whole thing is a big misunderstanding. Just like Summer, Bianca rolls her eyes at him. Like he’s a cad, not a criminal.
“I don’t—” Before I can get the rest out, Bianca stops me.
“It’s a long story. And you can’t tell Summer. Not a word.”
I lean in, and she tells me.
Present Day
Summer told me we’re the worst at getting divorced, and I agree.
Wholeheartedly, and pretty much without any fucking regret. I never intended to divorce her, even though I told her I’d sign the papers.
It’s a betrayal, but it’s one I can live with.
Before her, I wasn’t a man who lived for anything, a man who thought about the future. I lived moment to moment, dirty paycheck to dirty paycheck, and the only things that mattered to me were women, gambling, and loyalty to the Flood family.
Summer doesn’t know it, but she changed that from day one. When that woman appeared, everything around me started to make sense. Even if we weren’t the same, even if we had come from different places and were going different places, everything in my life started to fall into place once Summer was mine.
We’re pretty much the most ill-matched couple I’ve ever known of. The only thing we have in common is that we grew up poor and got made fun of for it at school. I might have gone to college, once. And I might have studied sports medicine. But my
family was all tied up with Cullen’s business, and I fell in with him after fighting didn’t work out.
I lied to her when I said I wasn’t waiting for her. That’s another betrayal I can live with.
I waited for her, and I pursued her once she was back, until she was too annoyed with me to ignore me, until she had to give in.
That’s the way you do it with a woman like Summer. Left to her own devices, she’d bury herself in her job and convince herself she never needed a man.
And now she’s here, in my condo, waking up and making fun of me for the standard level of cleanliness I keep around here. Just because I keep a certain order to things doesn’t mean I’m “OCD.”
When she bolts out of the shower this particular morning, her strawberry blond hair is still wet and plastered against her scrubs, creating snakelike patterns against the green fabric. She has on her ugly white sneakers and pulls on an oversized gray UNC hoodie, even though it’s already eighty degrees outside. I look up from my coffee and just watch her.
If I were younger, I’d be pretty bored at the idea of watching my wife at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning, running around the apartment in her baggy doctor’s uniform, looking for her purse like a madwoman, and then grabbing coffee and spilling most of it on her white shoes when she’s trying to balance her purse in one hand and her doctor’s bag in another.
