Down to Ash (#Dirtysexygeeks Book 2) (13 page)

He'd pulled out.

She whimpered, her pussy still clenching. He pushed her harder into the desk. His breath coming low and rough. His weight pressed against her back, one hand easily keeping her prisoner.

Victor traced his tongue over the shell of her ear before whispering, “If this was just sex, I’d leave you wanting, aching. 'Cause that's the kind of man I am. Is that what you want, Ash? Is that the monster you crave?”

His dick rested in the crease of her ass. She wiggled against him but his hold turned into a vise to keep her still. She gasped, both turned on and dizzy from the abrupt end of their sex.

“I can stroke my dick against your pussy and then come on your ass and leave you right there on the edge. I fucking want to, just to prove my point.”

The haze of lust refused to clear at his harsh words. They were still skin-to-skin, so close she could feel the pounding of his heart.

“Vic,” was all she could say—a plea, really.

His grip tightened then loosened. “Fuck.”

The burn in her shoulders eased. His hands were gentle on her skin as he lifted her from the desk. He wrapped his arms around her tightly before burying his face in her neck, his breath harsh and heavy against her skin.

He panted, shook as though fighting some inner demon. No words could soothe him. Hell, she could barely understand his—their—need for rough sex. He apparently required repentance for his dark urges.

Ash turned her head, lifted her chin, and offered her mouth. He closed a hand around her throat, still gentle, and kissed her. In her next breath, he was buried inside her again, thrusting slowly and softly as though to make up for before. Seconds later, he broke the kiss to bury his face into her shoulder, shuddered, and then groaned as his come spilled inside her.

A stillness filled her office. Her heart, God, how it ached. He hadn't hurt her, so why the hell did she feel so broken? He'd shown her his monster and she just wanted to hold him.

“Jesus, Ash.” Horror filled the simple words.

The cold kissing her ass cheeks disappeared after he straightened her panties and then her skirt. When he'd fully pulled his weight away from her, she still didn't know what to say to him. So she rose from the desk and fixed her clothes. In no known universe would what she felt count as sated. Her everything throbbed, but that wasn't important.

The silence was filling up with his anxiety. Ash could almost taste it. Scrounging up some courage, she faced him. His clothes and his hair were disheveled. There was no hard mask to hide the pain etching lines deeper around his mouth.

She leaned against her desk because her knees refused to stop wobbling. “Come here.”

He'd steadily put space between them, tugging his hands through his hair. It said so much that he stepped forward into her. She rested her hands on his waist and met his gaze.

Worry and concern fought for room in his eyes. “I shouldn't have—”

“You're getting overzealous, and I just might take you out for being that way with me.”

A twitch in the corner of her mouth stole her breath. “Ash...”

“Don't do that.” Her skin still buzzed, and with him so close, everything in her threatened to explode. “Don't tell me how I should feel, Vic.”

He broke away from her stare. “And how do you feel?”

She could pick a bubbly, impulsive reply, or she could be as real as the moment they'd just shared. A lump rose in her throat. She felt raw. “Just sex” had never left her so adrift.

“Kiss me for now, and when I know how to answer, I'll tell you.”

He shook his head, his Adam's apple bobbing. “Did I—”

“No.” She already knew his question. “You didn't hurt me. I—uh...” She let out a small embarrassed laugh. “It really turned me on, Vic.”

He kissed her then, hard and long, and gravity stopped existing. A minute later, he murmured against her mouth, “I should probably get back to my office before we get fired for...”

Ash balled her hands in his shirt and kissed him again—until she was somewhat satisfied. She needed so much more, but it would have to wait until she could think again. That would be a good start.

Finally they broke apart. “We'll talk later,” he said.

“Okay,” she replied.

He had her office door open when she finally remembered his vow about talking to Porter. Ash opened her mouth to tell him to hold off on that confession to her brother, but the words got stuck in her throat. Iris stood on the other side of the door.

A wide-eyed Iris.

Her friend's expression lived somewhere between shock and respect.

Dammitdammitdammit.

Iris had probably heard enough from the other side of the office door to know Vic hadn't been fixing Ash's computer.

“Good morning.” He kept striding as though nothing had happened. Only the Army could teach a man to beat a retreat like that.

Iris continued to gape. Ash's knees continued to wobble. Her heart refused to slow. If her friend hadn’t been standing there wearing a shell-shocked expression, Ash might have shoved her hand into her panties to finish the job Vic hadn't completed. Or, hell, she just might continue to stand there with her brain dribbling out.

Focus.

Iris didn't enter the office, though her gaze swept over Ash and the room. Papers were askew. Some were on the floor along with the stapler and three-hole puncher. By some miracle, they hadn't knocked over the cup of tar-like coffee he'd brought her.

Her friend swallowed. “Muffin?”

Still too stunned by the entire ordeal, Ash could only ask, “Really?”

Iris's snort quickly transformed into a belly-laugh. “I've got nothing.”

Ash wanted to slide to the floor into a puddle of sexual frustration and—well, she didn't have a word for how he'd left her. She would have searched for one, would have let the entire situation sink in, but she didn't need a witness to her unraveling.

And worse, Vic was right. She should run away from him—far and fast. His cold facade had been the kinder option compared to what he could do—flatten her fucking world. Yet when it came time to make good on his threats, he'd turned tender.

He hadn't uttered any word to demean her. He hadn't taken her the way he had to make her feel small or helpless. She'd asked for sex, and that's exactly what he'd tried to give her—a hard dick and an experience that would dry her mouth and race her heart. Exactly what she'd wanted and nothing more. None of his heart or kisses or laughter. And still, a tenderness had leaked into their lovemaking.

She gulped some air. She knew he wasn't and would never be 'just a fuck' to her. Ash was too riled up to muddle her way through everything, though. She ran her hands down her hair to straighten some of the outward mess.

Iris gasped. “Ashley, your arms.”

“What?” Ash glanced down.

Bruises had already begun to darken her forearms. She hadn't felt them, not really. A sting of pain, a slight discomfort, but that sensation had paled to the pleasure. But she knew that if they looked as dark and angry minutes after the fact, they would be ugly by the next day.

Ash uttered a curse, already knowing Vic's reaction. He'd want to grovel and drag himself through broken glass even though she'd confessed to liking the rough sex. Hell, she'd begged for it.

Iris asked, “Are you okay?”

Ash’s head was still reeling, her heart pounding and aching, but she was okay. “Yeah.”

Her friend swallowed, her eyes wide with uncertainty. “Did he hurt you?”

From the outside looking in, things probably did seem pretty bad. Even without climaxing, she'd just had one of the most mind-blowing experiences of her life. And her friend needed her to put together sentences.

“No,” Ash said slowly. “He didn't hurt me like that. The first time we had sex, I left marks on him. Apparently, it's our thing.”

Her friend closed the space between them and inspected the damage up close. “You're not just saying that?”

“Did you really think Vic could hurt me?”

And would he use the same rough tactics if she didn't answer his phone call or wore a short skirt to work?

She shook her head, adamant that wasn’t the case. “He may think I fart rainbows and skip through cotton candy fields, but you should know me better. If I were scared, I'd tell you.”

“If you're sure…”

“I'm sure.”

Iris sucked her teeth. “Well, it's official. Your thing with him is kind of kinky.”

Ash snorted. “You just want details, don't you?”

“Hell yes.”

She gave her friend the coffee and then kicked her out of the office.

It wasn't that Ash didn't want to share, but that she was still muddling through it herself. When she had a firm answer, Ash would talk to Vic. Until then she had to survive while her everything still throbbed.

~Gamer Truth: If life gets harder it probably means you just leveled up.~

Vic stared blankly at his computer screen, not really seeing the information being reported from the server.

Porter, I've been having sex with your sister. I'm so sorry.

Saying that would get him killed on sight. It had taken two years, a therapist and a regimen of pills to have a healthy fear of death again, but he had it. Could he take Porter in a fight? Likely, but for fuck’s sake, how did he come to even considering that?

Take the beating. It's well deserved.

His mind flashed back to the image of Ash bent over her desk, her ass bared and her pussy glistening from arousal. He'd taken her so fucking rough. Guilt should have sunk in, but instead, the memory made him hard enough to hammer nails. Shit, he could have built a damn house.

Porter, I think something more is going on between your sister and I.

“Something” and “more” were both such cop-outs. For the past week, she'd driven him to the brink. He'd finally broken and decided to return the favor. Maybe that, too, was a cop-out. She'd pushed like she always did. Gotten up in his face without an ounce of fear or a clue of just how dangerous he could be.

He'd wanted her to see just how fucked up he was and had ended up balls-deep inside her instead. Whatever willpower he used to have had ceased to exist. A twenty-year streak of avoiding complications were thrown down the toilet because the taste of her had turned into a constant craving.

It really turned me on, Vic.

Remembering her confession wasn't fucking helping either. There was no stopping the train wreck. He was choosing Ash, risking his friendships. And now he had to find a way to tell Porter.

The one thing you've ever asked of me, after all you've done for me...Porter, I can't do it anymore. I have to be with her. In whatever way I can.

A soft knock at his office door jolted him upright in his chair. Aw, shit. It was the woman from Ash's office.
Iris
. Her ebony strands were tucked into a bun. Although she looked casual in her skirt and short-sleeved blouse, he remembered her from HR. Her features were soft, though, at the moment, there was a hard glint in the brown-eyed gaze behind her red-rimmed glasses.

Aw, hell.

She said, “You look like you're about to have an aneurysm.”

That would be the better alternative. He still had to talk to Ash, give her fair warning her brother was going to be a big fucking bottle of crazy. The talk with Porter was weeks overdue, though. She'd understand. It's one of the things he'd made clear after their first time in bed.

At the moment though, he needed to deal with HR. “What's up?”

“I was going through your file and found some papers we missed. I need your John Hancock.”

She was full of it. Or at least, signing paperwork wasn't the only reason she'd decided to drop by. So, not just HR, but Ash's friend. Probably the same one who set her up for that disastrous blind date that started this whole mess. The tension bunching his shoulders relaxed. She wasn't here to fire them.

“I'm just running some diagnostics. Come on in.”

She placed the paperwork on his desk then stared him down. “I've highlighted all the places you need to sign.”

He had willpower. He wouldn't open the floor for her to ask questions. He could stew in tense silence just fine, which pretty much proved how screwed-up he was.

Porter, I'd take a bullet for you. No hesitation...

His hand tightened on the pen as he scribbled his signature. There shouldn't have been a “but” at the end of that statement. His friendship was going to crash and burn over a woman. Ash, though, neither he nor Porter could cut her out of their lives.

His back teeth started to hurt from how hard he'd clenched his jaw. A headache would soon follow.

“I'm sorry,” Iris said in an embarrassed rush. “I have to ask.”

Yup. She'd broken before he ever would. “Whether or not I'll answer depends on the question.” He handed over the paperwork and then leaned back in his chair, his pose seemingly relaxed and open.

“At least you’re honest.”

He crossed his arms and waited. And waited. Ash’s friend worried her lip a second longer, and then got the balls to say, “Be careful with her, okay? You're not the kind of guy she usually dates. Actually, I think the way you're giving me a mess-with-me-and-you-will-die-bloody glare would probably make the men she usually dates have a coronary. They’d probably crap themselves first, too.”

“But not you,” he pointed out. Another facet of Ash filling out. She had friends who stood in her corner and would stare down assholes for her. Being on the outside looking in on the Goon Squad hadn't stunted her at all. He loved that.

He added, “For the record, this is my relaxed face.”

“Jesus.”

Yeah. They were friends. Victor suppressed a snort and shook his head. “Is that all?”

“Just,” she winced, “be careful with her.”

The way she said it... “What do you mean?”

“I've already said too much, but Ash tends to bite off more than she can chew.”

With that out in the air, she nodded to him and left the office.

Her words started to eat at him. What was happening between him and Ash needed to run its course. Fighting it didn't make sense. But Ash's safety while with him was top priority. He had to tell Porter if for no other reason.