Down to Ash (#Dirtysexygeeks Book 2) (3 page)

Porter would assume Victor had dropped Ash off and had gone home.

No one would ever know what I could do with her tonight.

That thought left him a little breathless.

He picked up the whiskey bottle in the cabinet, because the Post-it note covering the label told him to.
“Break seal in case it's the end of the world.”

The situation wasn't the end of the world, but sure as shit felt like it.
Welcome to the Apocalypse
.

He took a long pull straight from the bottle, and then put it back.

She laughed. “So dour, always, is that why you need a drink?” Ash mused. “Toss me a water while you're digging around in my refrigerator.”

He did, still buzzing at her laugh. It was so damn pure.

Get it together
.

He focused on what he should be doing and reached into another cabinet for seasoning. She chugged half the bottle, and then just sat back, sipping the water as he heated the oven and prepped the meat.

“Why?” she asked after a while.

“Why, what?” he asked.

She spread her hands in a wide arch. “Why do all this if you don't even like me?”

It was easier to let her think he didn't. So much easier to make her think her light—the flame of her—was distasteful to him. He could have, should have, answered in his usual dickish way, but her expression had turned thoughtful and soft.

He shrugged and turned the fire down on the stove. “You wrote me when I was deployed. That meant something to me. The least I can do is feed you or take care of you when Porter can't.”

“That was eons ago.” Her voice pierced through him.

When he’d been in Iraq, he hadn’t marked time in hours, but in friends he lost and bombs he disassembled that could have ended...him. Most people could count on their hands the number of times they’d faced death. He had a file that detailed the number of times his life should have ended. If he’d fucked up, given the nature of his job, it was a foregone conclusion that he'd have had a closed casket-funeral…if there was enough of him left to put in a box.

Porter knew. Grady knew.
Ash
had no clue. Not a one. She didn't need to know, he'd told himself. The stark reality of war and how it had changed him didn't need to touch her even though her letters had been the light that brought him back home.

“Vic?” Worry threaded through her voice.

Victor blinked then shook off the memories that threatened to drag him into the undertow. He needed sleep—badly—if that had triggered him.

Ash shifted to the edge of the kitchen chair like she planned to go to him.

He pushed out a breath. What had he been doing? Right. He loosened his grip on the frying pan.

“Yeah, you wrote me a long time ago, but it still matters,” he said.

Her shoulders lowered and she relaxed into the chair again. “Porter wrote you. Hell, he's the one who encouraged me to reach out, and you know how he is about his sister and his friends mingling.”

They had all written him but Ash's letters were different. It could have simply been the fact she was a woman. She could and did chatter about inane shit.

No, that accusation was unfair.

His mother had written. She’d asked him about what he did, why he did it, why did he feel the need to do it, and when was the first available moment he could leave the Army. He'd felt the weight of his choices when he opened his mother's letters. But with Ash’s, Victor would smile before he’d even read them.

He couldn't tell her what her letters meant to him. That, too, meant something. Too much.

“If Porter was drunk enough to run into cabinets while standing still, I'd feed him too.” Victor cut his gaze in her direction to see if she bought the half-lie.

For a very long second she only pursed her lips. He shifted, uncomfortable under the stare. Ash seemed to be reading the truth through his hardened facade—that she mattered to him, and that sometimes he wanted her more than he needed to breathe.

Ash held his stare, her own truth reflecting back in an unguarded moment. The alcohol couldn't dim the hungry gleam.

Shit, and now he couldn't draw in air. He didn't need her to speak the words, because he could see the certainty. Ash wanted the man she glimpsed beneath the lie. He should have known she was too smart to believe the half-truth anyway. It dared her to defy him. It was a taunt she couldn’t ignore.

Maybe that's why I said the words.

She flicked her gaze downward, breaking the moment. “You guys have that brotherhood code. Of course you would take care of Porter.” She’d woven a note of melancholy into the simple statement. “You have taken care of him over the years.”

Victor opened his mouth to reply, but she dug into her cleavage again, this time pulling out a cell phone and effectively nixing the conversation and any other thoughts he had.

He could only gape at her. “What all do you have down there?”

She smirked, but didn't break her attention from her phone. “ID. Credit card... Holy water. Rock salt. A girl's gotta be prepared when going out on a first date.”

He snorted, more than happy with the change in subject. “Didn't know you were a fan of
Supernatural
.”

“I drank the bar? Remember me saying that? It was totally a reference. Come on. Catch up, Vic.” Her tone was playful but she still hadn't looked at up him again.

His heart started to beat normally. That was for the best, so he went with it. “When did you start watching?”

“Porter was geeking about it a few months ago. I finally watched the first two seasons. I don't find it surprising you guys love it. It's a bromance and you guys have a bromance.” She muttered, “Drunk text sent. Ha.”

He stilled. Dammit. Victor had been so focused on taking care of her, keeping himself in check, he hadn't thought to protect her from herself. “Put your phone down.”

“It's nothing. I just texted Richard. That's his name. I should have known better than to try and date a guy called Richard. As irony would have it, he was a Dick.” She snorted at her own joke.

He could only imagine how her text read. “What did you just say to him?”

“Well, I called
Dick
a piece of shit for standing me up.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. “Give me your phone.”

“I've deleted any ex out of my contacts, so I'm safe.” Her phone vibrated.

He cursed, moving swiftly across the kitchen with the express purpose of taking her phone, but she was faster.

Ash gasped. “He just called me a crazy bitch. I have to say something.”

Victor pried the phone away and stuffed it into his pocket. “I'm keeping that until after you eat.”

Her gaze flashed hot. “How can you be worse than Porter? We're not even related.”

His friend had only asked him to pick her up and drop her off. Being in her house, feeding her and making sure she didn't have real regrets in the morning hadn’t been part of the favor. So why did he feel the need to do all that? Victor knew why, but he refused to stroll through that mental minefield.

“Because Porter's not here.”

She narrowed her eyes and pointed at him. “Exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

Ash's gaze roved down and then up in a slow crawl. Heat prickled down his spine. His cock stirred. There was the hunger again darkening her eyes, just waiting to eat him up. And fuck, he wanted to be swallowed whole. That thought only made his attention drop to her mouth.

She was biting her lip, looking like she wanted what he did.

“My brother's not here.” Her voice had lowered, gone husky. “Neither is Grady or Wade or Oliver. No one from the Goon Squad. Makes me wonder how differently you would treat me since we're alone.”

An echo of Vic's exact train of thoughts earlier. It proved he wasn't he only one aware of their precarious circumstance.

His skin pulled tight at the intensity of her stare.

“Unruly drunk.” He knew his words would piss her off. Her light brown eyes flashed with irritation.

So, he added, “Why am I not surprised?”

She stood and pushed past him. This time when she opened the cabinet, she didn't knock herself in the head. She pulled down the whiskey, slammed the bottle into his chest, and then sat again at the kitchen table.

Swiping angrily in his direction, she said, “Apparently you need some help being nice even if your friends aren't here. Drink.”

“Listen,” he said, “I'm just trying to look out for you. Come morning, texting this guy wouldn't have done shit for your ego.”

“You know what's not good for my ego ever? You. So drink, dammit.”

Her words pinched, but that was good. He'd annoyed her. He was someone she looked at as a pain in her ass, and not like someone she wanted to bite in the best way. “I'm not leaving until you eat. Sit down and pout about it.”

She pointed to the liquor. “I'll pout less if you could drink away the stick up your ass.”

He opened the bottle and took a long sip. The liquid burned its way down. He exhaled before muttering, “Fine now?”

She frowned at him. “You're probably going to need a second bottle.”

Her tone was so matter-of-fact, Victor laughed. They were back on safer ground. He was starting to feel like a yo-yo, though—annoyed with her, aroused by her, amused and then relaxed around her. Rinse and fucking repeat. His head was swimming, and not from the booze.

Shit. He wished it was the liquor.

“Something else to pout about.” The second swig left him warm and less tense. So he took another.

“Better?” he asked her.

She bit the corner of her lower lip, seeming to weigh her answer. “I don't know. You're still scowling, but that could just be your resting bitch face.”

He shook his head and handed her the bottle. “Don't drink any. Just hold that for me in case I need it.”

“If you're nice, I'll even share my meal.”

“Why, thanks,” he said dryly as he turned back to the stove to drop the pork chops into the pan.

She said in a roundabout way, “I figured I should offer you food since you might hack into my phone and find topless pictures of me.”

He cringed. Not one of his finest moments. A few weeks back, Lauren had threatened Grady. In the woman's mind she'd been protecting her sister Eva from Grady. Victor had seen Lauren as a real and serious threat, and then had gotten drunk and forgotten that he wasn't at war anymore. Mutual destruction wasn't necessary when a simple conversation could solve the problem.

But how the hell did she know?

“Porter talks too much. And I would never do that to you.”

“Exactly.”

What the fuck did that even mean?
He cut a sharp glance her way.

She was looking at him, a curious expression on her face. Not pissed or annoyed, but like she was trying to figure him out. He liked that expression so much better.

Fuck. Maybe he shouldn't have downed that much whiskey on an empty stomach. There was a burn low in his chest, and his limbs felt loose.

She blinked and looked away. “Did I tell you I rec'd you to my boss?”

“Yes, Ash, you did.”

She palmed the neck of the bottle, stroked it slowly, almost in an absent matter, as she looked at him.

He raised a brow and tried not to groan. But his dick had already decided to stay on that bandwagon. He was going to tent his pants soon.

She flushed, dropping her hand to her lap. “What?” She licked her lips in a nervous gesture.

The flash of pink sent his mind down a very dirty, much more naked train of thought.
Stop it, dammit
. She probably hadn't meant to telegraph stroking his cock.

Maybe.

“Nothing,” he muttered.

“You weren't scowling. More?” She held up the bottle.

He forced himself to focus on the food. “When I'm done cooking.”

“So you are staying to eat with me? I don't want to eat alone.”

The touch of vulnerability in the question hit him. He had to roll his shoulders so the plea couldn't dig in and make him stupid. “It's no problem, Ash. Relax. The food should be done in a few minutes.”

When he brought the plates to the table, she pushed the bottle to his side. “You still need to drink.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“You're frowning now. I want a smile.” She used her hands to demonstrate. “A big one.”

He shook his head. “When I'm laughing there's a smile. Kind of can't avoid it.”

“But a laugh-smile is very different from a regular ol' smile.”

He narrowed his gaze. “Then I don't smile.”

She leaned forward and inched the whiskey closer. “Why is that?”

He narrowed his eyes to slits. “Eat your food, Ash.”

“Take your de-assholing medicine, Vic.” She picked up her fork, waited until he swallowed some whiskey to take the first bite of the pork. “You can cook.”

Warm. He was too warm from the liquor. Victor pushed the bottle to the middle of the table. “Thanks.”

She shoved the booze back toward him and grinned. Ash smiled enough for the both of them and was better at it. He was too fucking warm if he noticed that.

Ash asked, “Are you going to answer my question?”

“You've asked about forty-million since I picked you up. Did I answer any of those other questions? I take that back. When do I ever answer you?”

“Never, but it's still worth a try. And how long have we known each other? You should know by now I'm a shot-glass half-full kind of person.” She scooted the whiskey back his way. “The seasoning is perfection. I'm really impressed.” She went in on the rice and moaned. “I'm either drunk or this is the best food ever.”

“Both.” He swallowed back a laugh so he wouldn't smile again.

She broke the gaze to stare at her plate. “I know why you don't smile. I just want to hear it from you.”

The laugh died in his throat. “I'm going to choke Porter.”

“Not him. It's just that Grady...you know. He's the one that takes care of everyone. For a while, he was a hawk around you. And you were...”

Whatever she’d thought Victor was when he’d come home couldn't possibly have been close to the reality. He set his fork down and leaned back in the chair. “As he would say, we all have our own shit.”

“What's yours?”