Ashes to Ashes Read online

  “Yes, please,” I whispered when I could find my voice again. “All of it. Everything. It’s yours. I’m yours.”

  “Oh baby,” he sighed, his voice reverential as he scooped me against him and held me tight. Kissing my temple, he declared, “I promise I won’t ever hurt you.”

  “You can’t promise that,” I said, my euphoria ebbing.

  Hefting my body into his arms and standing as if I weighed nothing, Ash stepped around the scattered papers and marched down the hall. “I can,” he answered. “And I do. I promise you here and now, the only pain you’ll ever experience because of me is the pain you ask for.”

  Weakly, exhaustion pushing against the corners of my consciousness, I said, “I’m willing to let you be in charge, but I’m not sure I’ll ever want the type of things you need, Ash.”

  I was nearly asleep when he whispered, “You will. And you’ll love it. Trust me.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Rae

  I woke up a few hours later to the feel of Ash laying behind me, hard and naked, his lips roving over my exposed neck and his fingers plucking at my raised, tender nipples.

  “Mmm,” I murmured as I arched into him, the bare skin of my backside rolling against his thick, rigid cock. “What time is it?”

  “Just after ten. You’ve been asleep for a couple of hours.” When he rocked his velvety length against my ass, I sighed and pushed back. He sank his teeth into my shoulder and then sucked away the sting. “I haven’t even fucked your pussy yet, and now you’ve got me thinking about what I want to do to this lush, perfect ass.” Skating his fingers from my breasts to my core, he found me wet and ready. He chuckled. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Hesitantly, I nodded my assent. For as much sex as I’d had, I actually wasn’t that adventurous, and I’d never given that part of me to someone. Not even Ford, though he’d tried many times to convince me otherwise. But something about Ash made me want to give myself over to him … every single piece of me. I’d entrusted my life to him; I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he would protect me in this as well.

  “We’ll work up to that,” he promised with another slow rocking of his hips. Banding his steel arms around my middle, he rolled me onto my back. “I want your cunt first though.” Looming over me, he captured my gaze and held it until I blinked away my slumber and smiled dazedly up at him. “But right now, I’m going to fuck you with my mouth and you’re going to come all over my face.” It wasn’t a question—he was telling me what he was going to do and promising that I’d enjoy it.

  Taking my hands and raising them above my head, he instructed, “I need you hold onto this headboard and don’t let go. Can you do that for me?”

  “I can’t touch you?” My voice, still laced with sleep, came out sounding scratchy.

  “Not this time,” he answered, his eyes glinting with resolve. Something about the steadfastness with which he stared me down bade me to comply. Without conscious thought, I wrapped my fingers around the wooded slats. He licked his lips and flicked his eyes over my face. “Do you trust me?”

  Thinking back on my earlier epiphany, I nodded.

  “Give me your words Rae.”

  “Yes,” I whispered, and nodded again for emphasis.

  “Remember,” he reminded me, sliding down my body, trailing kisses over my skin, “don’t let go.”

  When he nipped my breast and sucked my nipple into his mouth, a small laugh bubbled out of me. “I thought you wanted me to let go. Isn’t that what this whole control thing is about?”

  “Such a fucking smart ass,” he murmured against my skin just before he bit my hip.

  I yelped and had another smart-ass response at the ready, but words failed me and all rational thought fled when Ash licked the broad side of his tongue over my seam. When he reached my clit, he spread my folds with his fingers, holding me open, and sucked the sensitive nub into his warm, wet mouth. My back arched off the bed, and I felt my grip loosening on the slats over my head, but just before I let go, his command echoed through my mind. I tightened my hold, realization hitting me hard that I wanted to obey him. I wanted to please him. And I knew without a doubt nothing in the world would make me let go of that headboard as Ash fucked my pussy with his glorious, talented tongue.

  I thrashed and dug my heels into the mattress to find purchase, to center myself, as I felt the beginning of my orgasm creep up. “Oh shit, that feels so good,” I whispered, screwing my eyes shut as I fought to harness and prolong the feeling a moment longer.

  My words of encouragement incited Ash to push me further, harder, hell bent on getting me to come as he rolled his tongue over my clit and slipped two fingers into my pussy, pumping intently.

  “Oh god, oh shit … I’m coming!” I wailed, the tension cresting and crashing over me. My hips bucked and thrashed while I rode it out, but even as I reached completion, Ash wouldn’t stop working me over.

  “Please,” I begged, trying to wiggle away. “No more.”

  Ash glanced up the length of my body and his steely, determined gray eyes met mine. “I want you to come again.”

  I shook my head frantically. “No, I can’t.”

  He licked the length of my cunt and circled my clit with the pointed end of his tongue as he slowed his questing fingers. “You can. And you will.”

  “It’s too much,” I cried as his fingers twisted inside of me. “No more, please. No more.” And then he nipped at my clit with his teeth. When he sucked it into his mouth, I swear I saw stars. No. I saw a goddamned supernova. “Holy shit. Holy Christ. Oh fuuuuuck!” I keened as the most intense orgasm ever rushed through me, beginning at the tips of my toes and going straight to the top of my head and beyond.

  And through it all my hands stayed clenched on the headboard.

  And then Ash was over and above me, his strong body caging me in, his lips claiming mine with furious intent. I opened for him and he licked his way into my mouth, sharing my salty, musky essence. Our kiss was over almost as soon as it began.

  “I’m going to fuck you now. Can you take me?”

  I was exhausted, my body sated, but the sight of him sitting back on his haunches, his magnificent cock fisted in his hand as he gripped himself tightly was too good an offer to pass up. He stroked up his length and squeezed, his pre-cum glistening in the moonlight, and my sex clenched in yearning.

  Too tired to speak, I simply nodded.

  “Not good enough,” he growled. “What did I tell you before?” he asked, reaching into the bedside table to grab a condom. Ripping the foil packet with his teeth, he slid the latex down his length, never taking his eyes off me. “I need to hear you say it.”

  “Yes,” I answered, my voice cracking. “Please.”

  And then he was at my wet, swollen entrance. Rubbing the crown over my slit, he teased me until I was bucking against him, eager and begging without words for him to enter me. He’d made me come so many times already with his mouth and his fingers that I couldn’t wait a second longer to have his cock finally inside of me.

  “I’ve wanted to do this since the second I walked in and saw you sitting there, your eyes wide with shock,” he rumbled and then thrust into me, sheathing himself to the hilt. “I’ve fucked you so many times in my mind, but this right here—” he pulled out and then impaled me again “—is better than anything I ever imagined.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. The feel of his cock stretching me wide, sliding in and out with forceful tenacity, was better than I’d dreamed it would be. And trust me, I’d been dreaming about it in technicolor detail. But nothing in those dreams could compare to this, to the way he filled me and how my body welcomed him. It was almost like I’d been holding out for him, waiting, and now he’d finally come home.

  As that thought took root in my heart, Ash snaked his palm up my body, stopping for a moment to rest over my sternum, before detouring up the length of my arm, where his hand wrapped around my stiff fingers. He unfurled them from the slats and plac
ed my hand on his shoulder.

  “Touch me, Rae,” he implored. “I want to feel your hands on me.”

  I sank my fingers into his strong, muscled back as my other hand loosened its grip and then tangled in his hair. When I massaged his scalp, he closed his eyes and sighed, leaning into my touch. “God that feels terrific,” he rasped, his voice tinged with wonder as he twisted and kissed my wrist. “Do it again.”

  I flexed my fingers and slid them around his skull to the back of his head. Pulling him close, I rose to kiss him. To give him the tenderness I sensed he needed, that I suspected he didn’t often get. I kissed him deeply, putting everything I felt into it, and as I continued kissing him, he slowed our pace.

  He might have been a bossy lover, intent on controlling my orgasms, but as our bodies came together, I learned he could be gentle as well. He might have demanded I keep going when I didn’t think I could—pushed my body and my boundaries to their limit—but when I needed it slow, when I needed to feel that unexplainable connection we seemed to have, he obliged.

  I skated my hand down his back to the tight globe of his ass and dug my fingers into the toned flesh. His muscles flexed, and I held him to me as my hips canted upward. “You feel so good,” I whispered in his ear.

  “You feel like heaven,” he groaned as he pushed forward, and then, going as far as he could, held still. As my pussy pulsed around his cock, his head dropped down and he kissed me again, an urgent, heated meeting of our lips, tongue, and teeth. Pulling back, his eyes sought mine and he asked, “Can you take more of me? Will you let me give you more?”

  “Yes,” I sighed as I felt his cock twitch inside my walls.

  And then Ash surged forward in a hard, demanding thrust, his cock driving into me with strength and determination over and over again, his hips pushing me down into the mattress. “Yes, yes, yes!” I cried out as he pumped into me without mercy.

  “Come. Now!” he demanded, his voice gruff and hard. “Milk my cock with that tight fucking pussy.”

  At his command, my orgasm hit and I exploded, my body ablaze with incandescent light, my vision going blurry.

  “Fuck!” he hollered as he drove into me one final time. He threw his head back and the tendons of his neck stretched taut as his own orgasm ripped through him.

  I watched it all unfold as if outside of myself, like a voyeur, and when he collapsed on top of me, all I could think was he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. And then I knew with no doubt whatsoever that I wanted everything he could give me. I’d let him dominate me, control me, anything he wanted … as long as I could see the pleasure and the peace my body gave him again and again.

  He might control my orgasms, but now I knew I controlled a part of him as well.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ash

  I’d been right. You couldn’t fuck a woman like Rae Griffin out of your system. One taste of her had me craving more. More of her lips, more of her sighs, more of her sweet little cunt coming all over my tongue.

  More of everything.

  And that was dangerous because I didn’t know if we could sustain anything beyond this mad, all-consuming passion we seemed to have for one another. I admired her, and was proud of everything she’d accomplished, but the truth was, we didn’t know each other well. And what I did know about her proved we were as different as two people could be. Aside from music, we basically had nothing in common.

  Not that I was looking for forever—not with her, and not with anybody—but the night before had me thinking about more than just the here and now, something I’d ever only done once before. And that had been a lesson I wouldn’t soon forget. Not that Gage would ever let me. Which was why I was hesitant to confide in him now. But if anyone could set me to rights, it’d be my cousin.

  “Dude, you’re playing with fire,” Gage said on the other end of the line. I heard passing cars in the background. “You know the rules.”

  From the incessant honking and other ambient noise, I figured he was in the middle of a big city. Personally, not where I would have taken Charlotte to keep her out of danger, but Gage and I had operated on opposite spectrums. It was one of the reasons McClintock liked having both of us on his team. No matter the situation, chances were one of us would be able to handle it. It was only when we worked on the same detail that things got dicey. You could only have two alphas vying for control before all hell broke loose. Thankfully it had been awhile since Dermott had needed both of us in the same place at the same time.

  “What’s with you and the rules all of a sudden?” I asked. Gage had never met a rule he didn’t immediately try to break.

  “I’m just saying, you shouldn’t get involved with her.”

  I could sense there was something he wasn’t telling me, and that pissed me off. First, him keeping something important from me was pure bullshit. And second, the fact that he even knew something important to keep to himself meant he and Charlotte were getting close.

  “Hypocrite much?”

  “For fuck’s sake, man. She’s got serious problems. I’m just looking out for you. Isn’t that what we do?”

  “What do you know about her problems?” I asked, suddenly desperate to hear any extra nugget Charlotte may have shared with him despite my misgivings about how he may have gotten it.

  It was ridiculous, but like I said, Rae and I hadn’t exactly gotten to know each other. I could tell you everything about her body, every little sound she made, but her mind? Well, that was something I hadn’t tried to breach. We’d talked a bit here and there, but mostly I gave her space to work on her album while I went about my business.

  Unfortunately, that business had me bored as fuck. I’d already made sure my studio was set up for whenever she wanted to start recording, and I performed my regular, three-times-daily perimeter walks with Blanche and Dorothy, but that was more about wanting something to do and needing to give the dogs their daily exercise than necessity.

  Rae didn’t know it, but we weren’t the only ones out here. I had a whole team that reported to me—not Dermott—patrolling the property and monitoring all the roads in and out of this section of the forest. Dermott hated not being in charge of my men, but that was the price he paid for working with me. He could have me on retainer, but my guys were mine. Loyalty was something I didn’t take lightly.

  “I know you think it’s cool to go through life living like a hermit, but that girl has a seriously fucked up past. If you ever picked up a magazine, you’d know it.”

  I had to bite my tongue around the urge to holler “Fake news!” Arguing with Gage was mostly a losing proposition, especially over something he’d read in the aisle of a grocery store or on some online forum. For some strange, inexplicable reason, the man lived for celebrity gossip. The fucker had a subscription to Celeb Weekly and everything, for fuck’s sake. If I hadn’t known better, I’d swear Gage was obsessed with that dude from The Ties That Bind.

  Briefly, I wondered if Gage had shared his celebrity fixation with Charlotte while she was dishing out gossip about her employer. And that was the third thing that didn’t sit well with me. If Charlotte was truly Rae’s best friend, why was she airing the woman’s dirty laundry?

  Gage often used his dick in the line of duty, but Rae wasn’t part of a problem we were trying to solve. She was the person who needed our protection, which didn’t include using sex to get access to her secrets.

  “I know all I need to know about Rae, so don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.”

  “So you know she fucks around? Like, a lot?”

  I scoffed. “Says the man who slept with half of DC on his last detail.”

  Gage laughed into the receiver. “Not half, just a quarter or so.” He paused as if reconsidering that number. “Okay, maybe a third.”

  “Right,” I challenged. “It’s okay for you to fuck your way through the nation’s capital, but it’s not okay for her to enjoy sex?”

  “It’s different and you know it,” he ar
gued.

  “Watch out Gage, your misogyny is showing.”

  “Fuck you!” he barked. “I love women.”

  “No, you love fucking them Gage. There’s a huge difference between using them to get off and respecting their choices.”

  “Look at you, Mr. Feminist,” he ridiculed. “How precious. But can you honestly sit there and tell me you’re okay knowing that Rae tried to kill herself after a night spent snorting coke and fucking two guys at the same time?”

  My stomach clenched with barely suppressed violence. The honest-to-god truth, much as it pained me to admit, was that I wouldn’t have been okay with it—if that’s what had really happened. But I knew differently; Rae had told me so herself. Still, during the course of that conversation, I’d been more focused on absorbing details that pertained to her supposed suicide attempt than the fact that they’d found her in a room with a pair of male escorts. I’d pretty much glossed over that whole part of the story, and hadn’t really thought about it since.

  But Gage’s taunt had me doing so now.

  When I let myself examine how I really felt about Rae’s history, I couldn’t ignore the part of me that hated that she’d slept around. Hell, she hadn’t just slept around—she’d fucked her way across America. Literally. Then again, hadn’t I done the same thing? Twice, in fact, if we were keeping count.

  But like Gage said, that was different. Wasn’t it?

  I hated that the idea of Rae being with any man she wanted made me furious because I didn’t think women had the same right to fuck whoever and whenever, but if the pulsing vein in my neck and my clenched fists were any indication, I had a huge problem with it.

  And yet I couldn’t imagine not being with her either. I wasn’t as comfortable with her past as I’d tried to convince myself, but I also wasn’t so uncomfortable as to put a stop to what was happening between us.