Page 78 of Wicked Heat

And the only thing that soothes me is the certainty that while we may have a deal, we can’t possibly have a future.

And yet there is still that desire. That craving. It burns inside me, and like a fairy tale princess I wait for my godmother to deliver some magical key, and when I turn it, all the baggage I’ve been carrying since the kidnapping will fall away, and I’ll be free.

Free to touch, to feel, to love.

Because despite this strange deal we’re operating under, I feel safe with Ash. Safer than I’ve felt in a long time.

Maybe ever.

Maybe that’s an illusion, but if it is, I don’t care. Right now, I want the illusion. Right now, I just want to feel safe.

Right now, I want Ash.

But Ash is nowhere to be found.

Twenty-Four

This was what he needed, Ash thought as the McLaren screamed down the back straight at two-hundred miles per hour. The speed. The focus. The concentration necessary to keep from spinning out. To maintain total focus on what mattered, and never lose sight of the ultimate goal. Not to chase the monster, but to ride it. To tame it.

The raw power of the V8 engine radiated through the carbon fiber chassis, and moonlight gleamed on the livery as the car sliced through the night. He rounded yet another curve, accelerating beyond safety, his muscles aching with the strain of controlling the beast as the G-forces pressed him into the seat and the turbochargers emitted a high-pitched whine.

Although he was a fifty-percent owner in the private track located just outside of Vegas, he hadn’t planned to come here tonight. On the contrary, his only intent had been to meet with Clark Maxwell in the Stark Century VIP lounge to finalize the terms of Maxwell’s stake in the INX project—a significant stake that would ensure the industry-changing project could not only move forward with research but also with a planned IPO.

After the stereotypical celebration of whiskey and cigars, Ash would thank Maxwell again, then bid him goodnight before returning to the penthouse.

And to Bree.

He wouldn’t have left her at all if this meeting hadn’t been on his calendar for ages, and if Maxwell’s investment weren’t so damn important.

Even so, if Bree had been awake, he wouldn’t have come. But considering the horrific day she’d had, he expected her to sleep through the night. And, again, the meeting with Maxwell was key.

At least that’s what he’d believed. Never once had he expected Maxwell to not only pull out of the project, but to stab Ash in the back by giving him absolutely no warning.

So, yeah, celebrating was off the table.

And now he was pushing the McLaren’s limits as Ash burned off the frustration of having lost an investor… and the fear of not knowing how the hell he was going to get the financing he needed to move forward with the INX.

Except these laps weren’t solely about the INX.

A columnist once wrote that he wore a death-wish like some men wore a blazer, and maybe that was true. He didn’t like to dive too deep into self-analysis. Chasing the monster was one thing. Sitting down and having tea and conversation with it was something entirely different.

All he knew was that he wasn’t out there because of frustration with the INX, though that was what he’d told himself ever since Maxwell walked away. He was here because of Bree. Because whatever monsters he’d once believed were nipping at his heels were nothing but smoke and mirrors compared to the very real monsters that haunted her.

She hadn’t asked for that. She didn’t deserve it.

Now, he was on his fifth lap, and his blood was still burning. The fear and horror from what he’d seen on that tape with Bree was spilling out, magnifying the demons that had slipped out from hidden crevices when Maxwell had walked out that door. The demons that said Ash couldn’t be trusted. That he truly was the tainted failure his great-aunt had always said he’d be. That any success was a fluke, a mirage. A mistake.

He’d grown up hating her and the stories she’d told. Hating her lack of sympathy for his mother, who as a child had been destroyed by her father—Ash’s grandfather and Damien’s coach.

Most of all, he hated her sneering condescension. She was his family. His great-aunt. His adoptive mother, though she had not one maternal bone. She was supposed to love him. To help him.

But never once had she believed in him.

The thoughts went round and round in his head in time with the McLaren itself as he whipped it around the track again and again, hugging the curves and driving too damn close to the walls.

He knew he was being reckless. Hell, he was riding that tight path on purpose, trying to see who would flinch first—him or the devil.

It would be so easy, he thought. The tiniest flinch, and at this speed, he wouldn’t be able to correct. He’d slam into the wall with the force of a rocket. Just that one little muscle spasm and it would all be over.