Ashley's Bend (20 page)

“I want that fucker banned from this club for life. He was lucky that I did not beat the living shit out of him for trying to do what he did,” I said to Knox as we sat on the couch in my apartment the next morning. Knox had come over to go through some new security procedures that he felt needed to be implemented after the incident with Asher.

My apartment was expensive and nice, yet clean and uncluttered. I liked things to be tidy. After growing up in shit with my mother who busted her ass to help give me all she had, I always told myself that when I got older I would have a nice place. No more worn out, stale, disgusting couches for me to sleep on. I had soft black leather and a nice California king to come home to. The walls were simply, yet tastefully decorated thanks to my designer. I have a state of the art kitchen with all stainless steel appliances to help satisfy my love to cook. There were often times I was left alone at an early age and if I wanted to eat, I had to learn to fix it for myself. At first I sustained off a diet of macaroni and cheese, but progressed to hearty, savory meals after my mother’s death and when I got older.

“You seem awful protective of Ashley,” Knox said to me teasingly. I knew he was trying to get a rise out of me and I was not going to fall for his tactics.

“I just don’t want the same thing to happen to another girl at the club. Sometimes the background checks don’t clue you in as to the character of the person. It was a good thing we found out about Asher when we did,” I replied as I seethed from the memory of the bruises he left on Ashley. Damn straight I felt protective of her, not only as an owner of the club, but as, well, I’m not sure what as.

“Do you think Ashley will come back?” Knox asked me cautiously.

Knox’s question hit me in the chest. I hadn't thought about the possibility that Ashley wouldn’t want to come back to the club. The feelings that I had been harboring for her were exotic, foreign, and I didn’t know how to handle them, but I do know that I do not like the idea of not seeing her again. After seeing the fucked up relationship that my parents had, I told myself I never wanted to experience it, or any relationship for that matter.

“Dude, just fucking admit that you want her. I’ve seen you act differently with her than you ever have any other female. I know you went through some shit as a child, but you cannot keep your feelings closed off forever. You have to feel sometime.”

Knox knew what it was like to experience love and lose it. He fell in love with a typical girl next door type. She was sweet and innocent and did not like Knox’s preference of the dominant lifestyle. She crushed him when she ran off with her so called “just a friend” male friend leaving Knox behind.

“You have a lot of room to talk Knox. When Veronica took off, you were more closed off than anyone I know. In fact, have you had a relationship since?” I sarcastically questioned him. If he was going to throw out advice, he had better be able to accept criticism back.

“I’m working on it.”

“Ahh, you mean Ashley’s friend, Kelly? I’ve seen you two hanging around the club. You fucking her yet?”

Knox glared at me through narrowed eyes. It seemed I had hit a nerve with my tall, bald best friend.

“Not that it is any of your business, but no, I have not
fucked
her. I think she is a girl I want to get to know better, I’m just fucking terrified.”

I know how my friend felt. To make yourself vulnerable and put something like your heart in the palms of another person’s hands was fucking terrifying. But just as Knox felt about Kelly, I also felt about Ashley. She was someone I wouldn’t mind getting to know better. She was definitely someone I wanted to fuck the hell out of again. Being with her was fucking unbelievable, and it had only ignited a craving in me to claim her again.

“Enough of this pansy ass feelings shit, Knox. Grow some fucking balls man,” I said as I rose up from the couch, “I need to get to the club so that Madame V and I can have a meeting with the staff.”

“Whatever man. One of these days you are going to meet a girl and she is going to knock you on your ass. Hell, I think you may have already met her.”

The fucked up part, without admitting it to him, was that I feared he was right.

Why the fuck I was sitting there, I had no idea. How had I become so obsessed with a woman, that I was now parked outside of her apartment like some fucking stalker just hoping to get a glimpse of her? I kept going over the images in my mind of Asher’s hands on her. How he had her tied to the bedpost and the terrified look in her eyes. As a dominant, I get turned on by a woman’s fear, but it was her fear of the unknown, or the unexpected, not the scared for her life fear that I saw in Ashley’s eyes.

I watched as Kelly left the apartment and it made me wonder if Ashley was home. My head was screaming at me to start the fucking engine and get out and away from there as fast as I could, but another part of me, the foreign part that had me feeling things I knew I should not allow myself to feel, that was telling me to go knock on her door to check on her. She had to be confused, scared and overwhelmed by what happened to her.

I acted on autopilot as my arms reached for the handle of the car door to push it open. My feet hit the pavement and before I knew it, I was standing at her door. My arm felt heavy and lead filled as I struggled to bring it up to rap my knuckles against the hard wooden barrier standing between Ashley and me. It felt like an eternity before she opened the door and what I saw when she did, sucker punched me in the gut.

Ashley’s eyes were red and puffy and I could tell she had been crying from the tear stains on her face. Her green eyes looked dim, and her shoulders were slumped forward in a defeated look. She was taken aback in surprise at the sight of me at her front door. She gasped.

“Dominic, I−what are you doing here?” she stammered.

“I stopped by to check on you,”
and because I wanted to see you.

“Oh,” she said with surprise in her voice, “come on in.” She opened the door wider in invitation and our bodies slightly brushed against each other as I walked past her. The familiar electric charge that I experienced every time we were near made its presence. I registered her sharp intake of breath from feeling the same reaction that I did and I had to struggle not to take her right there against the door.

“Have a seat,” she instructed with uncertainty in her voice. Walking over to the couch, I sat down as Ashley soon followed.

“How are you?” I asked her not looking at her.

“I’m fine,” she said deadpan. My head snapped over to meet her eyes and I knew from the look in them that she was lying.

“Do not lie to me, Ashley. Were you crying before I got here? Your face is puffy and your eyes are red.”

She shied away from me and brought a shaky hand up to cover her eyes in embarrassment. I reached toward her hand but pulled back at the last minute. It felt too intimate, too close to showing emotion.

“What do you want me to say, Dominic? That I’m a huge mess? That every time I close my eyes all I can see is Asher’s hands on me? That I can still taste the blood in my mouth from where he hit me? That every time I breathe in my ribs hurt? Huh? Is that what you want to hear?” she vented as her chest rose and fell in exasperation.

Fuck no that was not what I wanted to hear. My vision went red and I became angry. Pissed off. Asher better hope I never cross paths with him again, because if I did, I was liable to kill the fucker. Instinctively without thinking, I pulled Ashley into me and wrapped my arms around her. I couldn’t stand to see her go through what she was going through. At first she stilled, hesitant to be in my arms, but then soon relaxed into me. My heart thumped against my chest in worry that, for a moment, she was afraid of men now—afraid of
me
. I hesitated for a second before I asked her the one question I was dying to know the answer to.

“Are you planning on coming back to the club?”

She stilled again. Her hands swiped at her eyes and she let out a long, slow exhale.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. And there it was. The answer I feared. It wasn’t a
no,
but it wasn’t a
yes
either. She still had the ability to change her mind and I did not like that unknown feeling. I knew I was an asshole. I was a man, and one with wants. I wanted
her.
Maybe I would have to remind her of just why she needed to come back.

I leaned in closer to her and brought my lips to her neck. I could feel the erratic beat of her pulse pounding through her flesh and it had my dick coming to attention.

“I wish you would consider it, Ashley,” I whispered against her neck. She shivered and I could feel the goose bumps form on her soft, smooth skin. I decided to go for the truth, thinking it would help convince her to come back.

“Whatever this is, you feel it too. You cannot deny that there is something between us. I cannot explain it, Ashley. All I know is that I cannot keep fighting it anymore.”

I lifted her chin and sealed my mouth over hers. I rarely kiss a woman because I always saw it as too intimate of an action, but I craved the taste of Ashley. As I swirled my tongue inside of her hot, moist mouth, I relished in the sensations of her warmth. I could taste hints of coffee and vanilla as our mouths tangled together and it urged me on as I kissed her so deeply, that I wanted to crawl inside of her.

She broke our kiss and pulled back from me. “I want you, Dominic, I−I just don’t think I am cut out for your lifestyle. I don’t think I can handle having my control taken away from me like Asher did last night.”

Her revelation hit me hard. Being dominant was all I had ever known. It had always kept my heart safe from any pain that a relationship would cause. I shifted so that I was leaning over her and she laid back on the couch.

“The thing about a dominant/submissive relationship, Ashley, is that
you
are the one who holds all the power. You consent to what I can and cannot do to you. My only goal is to bring you pleasure. What Asher tried to do was force. I would never force you to do anything you do not want to do.”

She looked up at me trying to contemplate what I told her. A look of confusion crossed her face.

“But you want to punish me when I do something wrong. Why?”

“It teaches you to obey me, to please me. That is your job just as much as it is for me to please you.” I told her as I stared down at her. “See, Ashley,” I said as I trailed my finger from her throat to the valley of her breasts, “your body responds to me, to my touch. It was as if you were made to please me. Do you want to please me, Ashley? Because your body tells me that you do.”

“Yes−yes,” she said breathlessly as she nodded her head vigorously. Leaning in, I placed a kiss on the swell of her breast. I bit on the tender flesh and then licked it to soothe the sting. Her hips bucked up to meet me and I knew she wanted me just as badly as I wanted her.

“I can show you so much pleasure Ashley, teach you all the ways to explore your body, I−I just cannot give you more than that. “

She stilled beneath me and brought her hand up to cup my face. The gesture was intimate and I felt my heart rate speed up as I swallowed hard trying to suppress the panic that threatened to invade me.

“What happened to you that has you so closed off to the idea of a relationship with someone? Why are you afraid?” she asked as her eyes darted back and forth between mine.
Fuck
. That was not how I intended things to go. I thought I would be buried balls deep into her by now, the last thing I wanted to do was talk about my fucked up childhood and reasons for not participating in traditional relationships.