Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance (94 page)

“If I ever hear anyone calling you stupid or even hinting that you’re anything less than amazing, they’ll be sorry. And that goes for you too,” she said, giving another little squeeze to emphasize her point. “And I’m not kidding, either.”

It looked as though he were trying not to smile, and the tension in his shoulders disappeared.

She told him about her friend, who was now a successful interior designer with her own business. But when Helena was younger, she struggled with some of the same issues. Olivia told him how she’d punched a kid on the playground for calling her friend a retard. “I got sent to the principal’s office for that one, but he never did it again.”

Without warning, Ash pulled her close, slamming her against his chest. His mouth crashed down against hers, stealing the breath from her lungs. His lips were everywhere, kissing her neck, her cheeks, the sensitive patch of skin behind her ear.

“How do you do this to me, Olivia? You’ve worked your way past all my defenses—defenses that I thought were iron strong. You’ve bared my soul and taken over my heart. How can you possibly think you know me better than I know myself?”

“Because I’m falling in love with you,” she said, the confession flying from her mouth.

A little sound came from his throat. Gripping her tighter, he held on as though he thought she might slip through his hands.

“What do you mean
think I know?
” She pulled away slightly. “You’re wrong if you don’t see yourself as I do, it’s as simple as that. You’re a passionate, fierce man who fights for what’s right, no matter the personal cost or consequence. You’re a champion of those without a voice.” He tried to protest, but she shut him down with a finger to his lips. “What goes on in a man’s head does not define his character, Ash. It’s your actions that make you who you are. Someone can think all they want about doing this or that, but until they do something—take action—their intentions mean nothing.” She poked his chest, right over his heart. Maybe a little too hard, because he winced. “It’s what’s in here that counts. I could give a rat’s ass if a
p
looks like a
d
to you. And anyone with half a brain would agree with me.”

“Olivia,” he rasped, as though he’d completely lost his voice. Dark passion flared in his eyes, making the tiny thong she wore suddenly wet. He hadn’t said he felt the same way she did, but then words weren’t his strong point—actions were. And that was all she needed for now. His gaze dropped to her mouth and his full lips parted. He was going to kiss the hell out of her and she was going to let him. She’d never had office sex before, but there was a first time for everything.

“Agree with what?” a deep voice said from behind.

She froze. They turned around to see Rand and one of the mechanics standing in the open doorway. Somehow neither of them had noticed that the noise from the garage had gotten louder.

Asher gave her a kiss that was entirely too quick, then let her go. “Olivia thinks she knows everything.”

“Thinks?” She sauntered back to her desk. “I know.”

The next few weeks flew by quickly. Olivia organized the opening weekend festivities at Reckless Motocross Park, and Asher went to Cascadia again. Not only did he need to appear before the
taghta
magistrates at Red Mountain, but he wanted to make sure his trail had gone cold for the Fixer. Then, when he least expected it, Asher and his team would track
him
down and kill him.  

Since he didn’t want to be gone any longer than absolutely necessary, he came back through the portal as soon as the ceremony was over. He missed Olivia more than he thought possible, so having portal sickness was a small price to pay.

For hours, he lay on the cold stone floor of the antechamber, stomach churning, head throbbing. He vomited a few times. The next Iron Guild warrior to come through and see that would not be happy, but there was nothing he could do about it. Somehow, he made it back to Reckless, stopping the bike a few times along the way to be sick. Conry was excited to see him, turning around in circles as if he were a puppy. Olivia took one look at him and marched him straight to bed. When she laid her hands on him, healing energy swept through him and he fell asleep.

He awoke the next morning to see Olivia standing over him, a tray of food in her hands.

“Feeling better?” she asked, setting it down beside him on the bed.

He sat up on one elbow and did an inventory. Stomach ache gone. Headache gone. Muscle aches gone. “You…can heal iron sickness?”

She shrugged. “You tell me.”

“I feel great.” He grabbed a banana off the tray, peeled it, and stuffed it in his mouth. By all accounts, he should be as sick as Rickert had been in the hunting cabin. No one crossed back through the portal as soon as he had, because when you did, that was what happened. “And I’m starving.”

“Good thing I brought food then.” She brushed the hair out of his eyes. “So what plans do you have today?”

He yawned. “Nothing. I wasn’t expecting to feel well enough to do anything for the next few days.”

“Good. Because it’s Saturday, I don’t have to work, and my mom invited us to dinner tonight.”

***

The driver’s window on the Charger was stuck in the open position, sucking out any warm air inside. They hadn’t realized it wasn’t working until Olivia lowered it to adjust her mirror and it wouldn’t roll all the way back up. Asher was irritated with himself that he hadn’t thought to check it.

James had done a great job with the car in the body shop, and it was now sporting a new coat of metallic purple paint. Not a stock color by any stretch of the imagination, but Olivia said it was her favorite color, so that was good enough for Asher. Everything under the hood ran great, but damn it, he’d forgotten to check some of the little things.

Asher blew on his hands. Even though the heat was cranked, it was still damn cold inside. He’d take a look at it when they got to Granite Falls. See if he could get the damn thing up before they left to go back.

“My mom is going to be shocked when we show up early,” Olivia said, brushing the hair from her face.

“Why?”

“Because I’m usually late.”

“Then I must be a good influence.”

She gave a little smile. “Let’s just hope she sees it that way.”

Neither of them spoke for a few moments, both lost in their thoughts.

They’d made love in the shower this morning, then again on the bed. When he jokingly told her their sex slave arrangement had long ago expired, she replied that it was too late. She was hopelessly addicted to him and would require sex on a daily basis, if not more. She’d said this as she was straddling him, her expression serious and focused. He wasn’t about to argue because (1) he felt the same about her, and (2) she was a pain in the ass if she didn’t get her way. Gripping his cock like she owned it, she’d guided him to her center and slid gloriously down his length.

Asher shifted in the passenger seat and took a deep breath. It was time to tell her about Jenny.

“Olivia, there’s something you need to know.”

She glanced over at him. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“I…met this girl,” he began slowly, “on my first trip through the portal. She was dancing at a small club up north where I’d stopped for something to eat and drink after the mission was complete. I’d never seen anyone dance like that. Or heard that kind of music before. As I watched her, the sound seemed to be coming straight through the walls and into my skin. I kept looking for the musicians, thinking they were in another room, but of course, I never found them.”

Olivia laughed. “That must’ve been strange.”

“We got together that night and every time I came back through the portal. She wanted me to move to Las Vegas with her. She’d had a dance audition and got a callback. If that didn’t work out, she said there would be other opportunities. I had no choice but to tell her who I was and why I couldn’t go.”

“And how did she react to that news?”

“She knew all along that I wasn’t from the area, but she had no idea I was from Cascadia. It was shortly afterward that she found out she was pregnant.”

Olivia inhaled sharply. “Oh, Ash,” she said softly.

“The thought of being a father both terrified and thrilled me, as I’m sure it does all men when they learn that their seed has helped to create a new life.” A dull throbbing began to hammer at the back of his eyeballs, but he continued. “She wasn’t sure how she was going to be able to keep working. I told her I’d take care of her. One of my suggestions was for us to move to the other side of the portal. At least temporarily.”

“And what did she say?”

“Though she was scared, she was willing to consider it, but we never got that chance. The wind had been blowing in from Elliott Bay that night, cold and wet. The Montlake Bridge was up and everyone was waiting in their vehicles for it to close. What we’d thought was a routine bridge closure to allow a sailboat to pass turned out to be an army roadblock. Using spotlights and a megaphone, we were ordered out of our cars and told that a Cascadian assassin was among us. People panicked and started running. Jenny screamed at me and gave me a hard shove, saying either “go turn yourself in” or “don’t turn yourself in.” But before I could do anything or ask what she said, another shot rang out and…she was dead.”

At some point, Olivia had pulled the car to the side of the road and grasped his hand. Her touch now was cool and comforting.

He told her how the rest of the night passed in a blur—running through back alleys, hiding out in the University district, falling down a steep embankment—until he woke up deep in a forest far away from the city, covered in dirt, dried sweat, and tears.

“If the army hadn’t been following me, Jenny and the baby would still be alive.” Guilt rushed over him again. He was stupid to have stayed with Jenny and not go back to Cascadia alone. It would’ve been more honorable to make sure they had lived, than to have stayed just to let the baby know him as the father.  

Olivia reached over the console and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Ash. So very sorry.”

Immense sadness engulfed him. He hadn’t allowed himself to dig this deep emotionally in a long time, because when he did, the horror of what he’d caused was almost unbearable.

Olivia rubbed his back and stroked his head. “
Shhhh
, baby, it’s not your fault.” She kept saying the words over and over, the sound vibrating comfortingly against the side of his face. And when he tried to protest, she simply hushed him again,never letting go of him.

He wiped at his eyes a few minutes later. “So you see why I worry about being with you? Who I am and what I do is dangerous not only for me, but for those around me that I care about. I couldn’t bear it if the same thing happened to you.”

“What about the guys here at Reckless? You care about them, don’t you?”

“That’s different.” He sat back in his seat and noticed that the headache was gone. “You healed me, didn’t you?”

She shrugged. “I can’t stand to see you hurting, so I did what I could. Now, back to the guys at Reckless.”

“Aren’t you the least bit tired?” He remembered how she’d healed his portal sickness, then followed it up with a marathon roll in the sack. “You healed me this morning and again just now.”

“Normally it does take a lot out of me when I use my Talent, but I’ve noticed that doesn’t seem to be the case when I use it on you.”

He thought back to the night they’d first met. She’d been exhausted after healing Monique and he’d assumed the same was true when she healed him, too.

A devilish glint flashed in her eyes. She reached over and cupped his crotch, giving a little squeeze. “Not only are we
extremely
sexually compatible, but it looks like my Talent is compatible with you as well.”

Rickert had mentioned how the Fates may have brought them together. Maybe there was something to it after all.

His cock swelled against his fly, eager to have her touch him. “What you do to me, lass, shouldn’t be legal.”

She flashed him a grin. “Oh really?”

A few minutes later, they were back on the highway with Asher driving and Olivia touching up her makeup in the visor mirror.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” she said.

“What question?”

“Why the guys at Reckless are any different from me. I’m sure you care about them, too.”

“I’m not at liberty to tell you their various stories, but they’re all hiding out from the army for one reason or another. It’s practically an employment requirement to work at Reckless. Plus, they’re capable of taking care of themselves.”

“What? And you think
I’m
not running from the army? Ash, I’ve been staying under their radar for years. Probably longer than many of those guys at Reckless. And if you haven’t noticed by now, I’m pretty good at it.”

“That night at your apartment was too close for comfort. You call that nothing?”

“We got away from them, didn’t we?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, but you’re…you. And they’re…them.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He could tell he was losing this argument, but he wasn’t willing to give in completely. “Many of them have combat training. Former military. They’re bad-ass dudes.”

“So you’re saying if I can prove to you I’m capable of protecting myself, you’ll consider dating me?”

He laughed. “Aren’t we a little past the courting phase?”

“You tell me.”

“Considering that I’m crazy, madly in love with you, I would think so.” The words slipped from his mouth as if he’d been saying them to her for years. He did love her. With every essence of who he was and what he wanted to become.

She gasped, her eyes sparkling with emotion. Then she twirled her strawberry lip gloss in her fingers. He could tell she was cooking up something. “If I show you how capable I am, will you change your mind?”

A possible solution had been brewing in his head for a while now. If she truly loved him as much as he hoped she did, maybe she’d consider moving to the other side of the portal. It hadn’t been his home in years, but with her, it could be. Plus, she’d be further removed from the army than she’d be anywhere else.