Page 80 of Wicked Heat

“Oh.” I take a step back, suddenly unnerved. I’m not sure what I expected, but his easy agreement definitely wasn’t on the menu. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure why I’m here at all, except that I when I woke up without him, I realized how much I wanted him, and finally found a valet with whom Ash had chatted, revealing that he was taking the McLaren to a nearby track.

And once I found him—once I saw what he was doing here—that desire to see him and touch him not only multiplied, it morphed into a horrific, visceral terror that I was going to lose him tonight in a fiery crash.

Before I can gather my wits and ask why he has a death wish, he brushes the pad of his thumb over my lips, the soft touch as soothing as his words are harsh. “I’m not supposed to be here,” he says simply.

“The track, you mean?” I haven’t a clue what he’s talking about, but the fact that he is talking calms me. A little bit, anyway.

He shakes his head. “On this earth. I’m not supposed to be here.”

My mind is spinning. “What are you talking about?”

“You know the story. My grandfather forced his own daughter and my father together. I mean, hell, my mom’s closer in age to a sister than a parent. And she was institutionalized so much I never really knew her anyway.”

“I know,” I whisper, but he keeps talking, and I’m not even sure he hears me.

“Before my grandfather died, he abused Damien and my mother both. Fucked them up big time. And now here I stand, a child that shouldn’t ever have been born. I mean, hell, my mother was so young and damaged she didn’t even realize she was pregnant. There was force. Abuse. Then there was me, and I got stuck living with my grandfather’s sister—after all, who wouldn’t want to grow up with a creepy great-aunt who made no secret that she thought I was Satan’s spawn?”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “And my grandfather? The man who arranged it all? Dead. And damned if I don’t wish I could have pushed him off that building myself.

“Ash.” My voice is so soft I’m not even sure he heard me.

He runs his hand up and down to indicate his body. “Persona non grata. That’s me. Just the accidental aftermath of my grandfather’s twisted mind, and since I couldn’t be tossed in the garbage, I got tossed to Abigail.”

“Ash, no⁠—”

“And that’s why my shrink—one of them—says I have a death wish. That I live my life tempting the universe to self-correct.”

I hug myself, my heart breaking for him.

“That’s why I chase the monster. I give the universe every opportunity to wipe me out of existence, just the way it should be. Because I wasn’t wanted here in the first place.”

“I want you.” I can barely get the words out past the pain that I feel on his behalf.

I see the change on his face. The spark in his eyes, and the tiny smile that touches his mouth as he reaches out to run a strand of my hair through his fingers.

“My shrink’s wrong, you know.” His voice is so soft it’s almost swallowed up by the spectator stands that loom over and around us. “I don’t have a death wish at all.”

The words take me aback. Considering Ash’s reputation and what he’d just confessed to me, I was expecting him to own the whole “death wish” thing. Especially considering it’s so obviously true.

“Then why are you out here by yourself driving like a drunken teenager?”

He chuckles. “I’m pretty sure my skills are sharper than your average seventeen-year-old.”

I blink back tears. “Dammit, Ash. You scared me to death.”

“Oh, baby.” He brushes the pad of his thumb gently under my eyes, erasing the tears I hadn’t realized I’d shed. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to. And as for death, that’s not it at all. The doctor and all those idiot reporters have it all wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“It’s not a death wish, Bree. I have a life wish.”

I have no idea what to say. So I go with the only thing that makes sense. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s easy to die,” Ash says, still stroking a lock of my hair. “But one hell of a lot harder to live. That’s probably true for everybody, but some of us have the lesson forced on us pretty damn early.”

I consider what else I know of his past. About how Abigail had told him over and over and over that as a boy, Damien had forced sex on Sofia while she was traveling with her father and the tennis team. About Ash finally learning the truth. A truth that proved just how strong a man he truly is, because he’d survived the blow of discovering that Damien wasn’t at fault at all. Instead, he was as much a victim as Sofia. As Ash himself.

“A life wish,” I repeat, reaching for his hand. “You’re saying that when you drive like that, you’re turning it around? Not craving death, but celebrating life?”