Fixing her bra into place, I remove my hand from under Ash’s shirt and whip my head around as I help her to her feet, an instant irritated scowl firmly planted on my face. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I bark, glaring at Ares Haynes as Ash extracts her hands from my boxers and secures my jeans into place. My hands automatically clench into fists, like every time I’m around that son of a bitch.
I hated him on sight because of who his mother is, but now I hate him for so much more.
“Give me that,” Ash snarls, reaching for her stepbrother’s cell. He’s holding it up like he was taking pics, and I swear I will knock him the fuck out if he caught anything on camera.
Dude has lightning-fast reflexes, and he steps back before she can grab it.
“You better not have taken any photos or videos,” I warn, tucking Ash into my side.
“Or what?” the degenerate snarls. “What isbad Chadgoing to do to me?” he mocks over a chuckle. I hate that the asshole has a couple of inches in height on me, but I outmatch him in sheer physical size. He might work out religiously, but I train more, and I’m a god on the football field.
Ash grinds her teeth and flexes her jaw. “Get the fuck out!” she hisses, dipping out from under my arm. She storms toward him, jabbing her finger in his chest. “This is my place and you’re not welcome. Like ever. At any time.”
Folding his arms across his chest, he props himself up against the doorjamb and smirks at us. “Seems like someone didn’t get the memo.” He flashes a perfect set of straight white teeth and I really want to smash them down his throat. “So, I’ll clear it up for you,roomie.”
Ash almost chokes on her breath. “Hell to the no,” she pants, glaring at him.
“Hell to the yes.” He winks, raking his gaze up and down her body in a way that makes me want to remove his eyeballs from their sockets.
I would say something, do something, only I have learned this is how he pushes my buttons. I won’t give him the satisfaction even though I want to murder the motherfucker for daring to look at my woman like he wants to devour her from her head to her toes.
“This is not happening.” Ash extracts her cell from the pocket of her jeans. She punches a couple of buttons, glaring at Ares as she puts the call on speaker, and we listen as the line rings out. “Call me now, Dad. It’s urgent!” She barks a message into the phone before hanging up and repocketing her cell.
I don’t want to believe this is the development that bitch Hera spoke about, but her assface son showing up here can’t be a coincidence.
“You don’t even go to college. You’re too old.” I narrow my eyes at him as I wrap my arm around Ash’s waist.
“Twenty-two is hardly old.”
“It is when you’re pretending to be a senior in high school,” Ash says, reminding him of his shady ways.
We still don’t know why he was enrolled at Fenton High public school last year. Or why Hera originally kept up the charade he was a teenager. Hera gave Doug and Ash some bullshit excuse I don’t buy for a second. I know Ash thinks Hera is sweet and loving, but I’m not believing it. It’s all an act. Those two have an agenda. I’d bet my scholarship on it. They are both as shady as one another, and I will do everything in my power to protect Ashley from whatever they are up to.
Ares has done his best to make her life miserable these past ten months. It got way worse when he and Hera moved in with Doug and Ash after her dad married his mom last April. Jase has a theory. He thinks Ares is using Ash to get back at me. But it makes no sense. I haven’t done anything that would warrant revenge. I’m the only one with the right to vengeance. His mom shit all over my family. He has no reason to come after me, so I think his hatred of Ash stems from something different—like lust.
He wouldn’t be the first bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks to lust after the popular, pretty, rich girl who seems to have everything and to hate himself for it.
“Your predictability knows no bounds, dollface. Get over it already.” Reaching forward, he twirls a lock of her long, wavy silver-purple hair around his finger. “You do this for me, baby?”
Anger is like a charging bull pummeling through my veins and coating my retinas in a layer of red. How fucking dare he put his hands anywhere near my woman! I shove his chest hard, forcing him to step back and release her hair. “Touch her again, and I’ll remove your fingers, one at a time, with a hacksaw.”
His amused chuckle cranks my anger to another level. “I’d like to see you try, pup. I eat pussies like you for breakfast.”
He’s so full of shit, and he knows it.
“Don’t.” Ash steps in front of me, preempting my move as she peers deep in my eyes. “He’s not worth it.” Her face pleads with me to drop it as she whispers in my ear. “Think of football and your family.”
Ares and I have had a few bust ups with neither of us gaining the upper hand and both giving as good as it gets. He has the height. I have the physical edge. Our raging anger is evenly matched, so there is never a clear winner.
My high school coach benched me for an important game when I turned up with a black eye, a split lip, and obvious bruising on my neck after a particularly vicious fight with Ares. At college level, I cannot afford to show up like that. My entire future is at stake, and I’m risking enough as it is.
Those are the only words my girl could say to get me to back down.
“Why are you really here?” I grit out, done with this bull crap.
“I live here.” He waggles his brows before sauntering through the door into the next room.
Ash races past me to chase after him, and I follow suit.
