“I didn’t mean to cry.”
“Fuck, Red, the first time we saw it, none of us slept. I think we all cried at some point,” Ash said as he stood. He and Gray both had notepads, and I knew they had written down everything I had commented on.
“I upset him.”
Ash looked over to the door, and I saw his conflict.
“Ash, I can stay here. No one will come into this house. You need to check on him.”
He hesitated, and then he closed the door behind him, leaving me alone on the couch. The trauma of what I had watched ran on replay through my mind. I was a woman; I had seen live births on TV before — in films, on dramas, in high school sex ed. Never once had I seen human beings have such disregard for the mother. The girls were in pain, true pain. They had complications, and the girl who died . . . My breath caught as I fought back the tears.
Had Quinn watched this? No, Gray would never allow it. If she had seen any of this, Ash would have edited the footage so nothing was shown.
Standing, I crossed the room to the bathroom. Locking the door behind me, I took a deep breath. I’d matched three of the men out of the four, but the fourth one never spoke at all. When they wore masks, he kept himself crouched or sitting. When they didn’t wear masks, he was never in the shot, but it was clear the three others were talking to someone else.
As I flushed the toilet and washed my hands, I tried to fix my face. My eyes were puffy, and my nose was red. The joys of being a redhead: as soon as a tear spilled, I looked a fright.
Leaving the bathroom, I saw Ash standing in the middle of the room, the door closed. He’d taken off his hoodie, his jeans hung low, the black tank top sculpted to his physique, his head was slightly bent, and his hand was poised just below his head as if he had just been raking his hand through his hair. Hairthat half fell down over his forehead. He looked at me, and my tummy somersaulted.
Holy moly, he was beautiful. My teeth caught the corner of my bottom lip as I considered him, and I swallowed hard as my mouth turned dry. I had never been so physically affected in my life, and all he had done waslookat me.
“Is he okay?” I forced myself to talk, wincing at how dry and croaky I sounded.
“Yeah, he’s getting ready for practice.” Ash walked toward me, his intention clear.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for practice?”
Large hands tangled themselves in my hair as he brought his head down to mine. “I will.”
“You can’t be late,” I tried to joke, but Ash wasn’t interested in my attempts at humor. The room had reached boiling point.Wehad reached boiling point, and as his lips caught mine in a slow, sensual kiss, I responded with enthusiasm.
My toes curled in my boots as he deepened the kiss while my fingers laced themselves around his neck. His hand slid down from my hair to cup my butt, pressing me closer to him.
A hard rap of knuckles on the door caused me to jump. Ash moved more slowly as he drew back.
“Five minutes,” he called as his heated gaze swept over me.
Stepping back, I took a shaky breath as I tried to stop my insides from trembling with anticipation. “Practice calls,” I said. “Unless you’re trying to win me back twenty bucks?”
Seriously, he needed to stop looking at me like that. I was ready to strip off and lie naked on his bed. My mouth dropped open, and I groaned when he pulled his tank top off and reached for a long-sleeved T-shirt. All those abs, all that tight flesh, I wanted to explore every inch of him . . . with my tongue. When he turned his back, I knew I was drooling at those shoulders.
When his shirt was on and a practice jersey pulled over it, he turned back to me. “You stay here. You do not leave the house. I’ll be back after practice. We sleep here tonight,” he instructed.
“Okay.”
“Ava and Quinn are getting your things from the suite.” He pulled me into his embrace. “I promise you can go back to your own apartment soon, and all this will be over.”
“I’ll never darken your bedroom door again,” I said lightly.
He let me go and laughed. “It’ll be back to the way it was before, trust me.”
The sting at his honesty was sharp. I nodded, hoping he didn’t see the change in me.
He checked the room to make sure he had everything. “Okay, see you in a few hours, Red.”
He left the room, closing the door firmly behind him, and I walked over to his bed on shaky legs. Ash was eager for this to be over so I could return home and not be his responsibility anymore. Which made sense — who would want this hanging over them? Quinn and Gray deserved for this to come to an end.
Brushing away a tear, I looked at the closed door. What if I wasn’t ready for it to be over? What if I really enjoyed his charm? What if I had already fallen for the Devil?
