AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A cold shiver went to my toes.
“Ashton.”
He lowered his head, his eyes still on me, and his voice came out low and soft. “Do you have any idea what you just did? That I brought you somewhere no one knew about for your safety? That you didn’t think the person who tried to kill you might also be watching your ‘besties’ on the off chance you might contact one of them? That you might tell them where you were? If their phones were tapped, if you were on long enough for a location trace?”
Right. Crap. I did all of that. I was aware that I had a problem. I hadn’t thought about that stuff. “I’m new to this Mafia stuff. I’m sorry, but next time give me some lessons.”
His nostrils flared. “Lessons?”
His tone was sending a whole new set of chills down my spine.
I wrung my hands together. “I said what I said. I’m sor—”
“Do not.” He leaned in, his head moving so he was a breath away, and he placed a hand behind me against the wall. “It’s not my life that’s going to be snuffed out if they find you. It’s yours.” He looked down, seeing my cell in one hand and my purse in the other. “You said you were going to take a nap. Were you planning to sneak out instead?”
That sounded really foolish when he said it.
“I was snoo—”
His hand moved in a flash to the side of my throat.
I gasped, straightening up, but he didn’t tighten it.
His hand spread out, smoothing over my skin until he had a firm grip on me. It was just there, resting against my skin. One of his fingers could feel my pulse racing, which was pounding like a stampede right now, but his thumb began stroking up and down, just slightly. A soft graze. I wondered if he knew he was doing that.
“Ashton,” I murmured.
He looked down at my throat and moved in closer so his chest was almost touching mine. “Do you know how many times I’ve considered being done with you over the years? Knowing what you stood for, what your mother stood for. Do you know how much that haunted me growing up?”
I frowned. “What?”
He moved all the way now, his hips touching mine, and I whimpered, flattening against the wall. His back was arched over me as his head was bent, his forehead almost resting against mine. His thumb kept caressing, growing bolder and firmer with each stroke.
My pulse was almost skyrocketing out of my chest. I had no idea what was happening here, but a part of me liked this, and that part of me was even more confused by it.
“I hated my mother. Loathed her, and I despised that my grandfather accepted your father’s offer. It’s not normal for a son to want everyone to know their mother is a monster, but I did. I fucking yearned for that to happen, and it didn’t. She was a goddamn saint for the rest of her life, and you—so innocent. I watched you, too, hating you. Hating you because you had the mother I wished I had and it was all so unbelievably fucked up and here I am, holding your neck in the palm of my hand, so exasperated with you because you put yourself in danger when I—” He cut himself off, a darkness emanating from his gaze.
I was riveted, holding my breath, needing to know what else he’d been about to say. I had to know. “When you what? What were you going to say?”
Why did he hate his mother so much?
“Why aren’t you angry about your mother? I told you the truth, and you’ve not said a thing about it. You should be enraged, and nothing. You don’t feel anything about what I told you?” His thumb went back to moving over my throat.
Warmth was flooding me. A need for him was starting to grow deep inside of me.
“I grew up not wanting to know my mom, and what you said kinda . . . I’ve just not had time to digest. One crisis at a time right now.”
He frowned at me, his eyebrows dipping down. “What do you need to process? She was your mother.”
“I grew up mostly hating my dad except on the occasions that I realized I might actually love him despite him being the worst ever. The whole mom factor seemed so far away. I was surviving. That’s all I focused on back then. Surviving. Nothing else mattered.”
My heart began beating faster.
The need. The ache. It only grew.
His hand. It was right there. He was stroking me, gazing down at me, but he wasn’t fully seeing me. He was seeing—I reached out, placing my hands on his chest, and he froze at the touch, looking down at them. “Ashton.”
