Page 19 of Ashes’ Addiction

“Do you really?” Miranda sniffled as she lifted her head and watched him with wide eyes, as if she wasn’t sure she should believe him.

“I do. The cut frames your face.” He played with the locks over one ear. “And the color makes your eyes pop.”

“Th-thank you.”

“Tell me what’s wrong. What happened?”

“I humiliated myself.”

“By fighting back?”

She didn’t say anything but nodded before burying her face against her legs again.

“No, sweetheart, you made me proud.”

“P-proud?” She lifted her head again and stared at him.

“Yep, proud.” He squeezed her in a quick hug, then eased his grip. “I realize now you didn’t know who grabbed you. I shouldn’t have tried to stop you, at least not like that, but even not knowing who it was, you didn’t freeze up. You fought with everything you had. I’m proud of that. It might not have been the most effective way to fight, but we can work with that. I can teach you how to fight effectively, but I can’t fix an instinct that makes you freeze.”

Miranda frowned.

“But you’ve got her. I’m just in your way.”

“No, Tiny Warrior, you’re not.” He cupped her cheek, letting his fingers wrap around the base of her skull until he cradled her head. “I’m not going to lie to you. Have I screwed Velvet? Yes. Same goes for most of the club ass. But it didn’t mean anything and she wasn’t there today because I wanted her to be. I’d already told her I wasn’t interested.”

“But she was rubbing all against you and in almost nothing.”

Ashes took a deep breath and held it for several seconds as he tried to find the best way to explain this so she wouldn’t freak out again.

“The women who hang around the club, the ones like Velvet, they know they’re here for one thing. They’re here for the sex. They offer it to everyone. Yes, most of them dress in very little. And some of them have a hard time with no. But I want you to know, none of them mean anything to me. I know it’s callous and it sounds uncaring but they were a warm body when I needed one, that’s all.”

“Is that all I am? A warm body?” Her voice was soft, dejected.

“Not at all. There’s something different about you, Tiny Warrior. Something that drew me to you even before I’d laid eyes on you. Something special. Something I can’t explain. But I can tell you one thing.”

“What?”

“None of the girls downstairs have ever been in that bed.” He glanced toward the bed they’d woken up in together this morning. “With or without me. You’re the only woman who’s been allowed there. Does that mean anything to you?”

She stared at him so long he wanted to hug her close, kiss the daylights out of her, something. Anything. He needed some kind of feedback. He was trying but he didn’t know what to say to make her tell him what was wrong.

“Talk to me,” he whispered, hoping she might take pity on him and tell him. He couldn’t fix it if he didn’t know what was going on.

“You didn’t want her hanging on you, rubbing her boobs all over you?”

Ashes shook his head knowing what he was about to admit would make him look like an ass, and the hell of it was that it wasn’t wrong. He was an asshole. He reveled in his assholery. But that didn’t mean he had to be an asshole to Miranda.

“I wasn’t even aware of it. I knew she was there but I was ignoring her, hoping she would take the hint. I kept my eyes and my attention on Hammer. He was telling me some of what he’s found out about Dwyer and the shit he was into.”

“Oh, that reminds me. I was going tell you, if that monster was going to take Winter, then he had to have had a buyer for me. He told her me was going to sell me off once he had me trained.”

“That monster?”

Miranda nodded rapidly. “Winter suggested I not use his name. That I come up with a term to call him to make him less human in my mind so I can more easily come to terms with it.” She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug and let it fall.

“And is it helping?”

“I don’t know. That’s the first time I said it out loud.”