Shattered (Extreme Risk 2)

And definitely not now, when I have Ash exactly where I want him. Where I’ve wanted him since the moment I first met him.

But still, I’m nervous, the images from those videos seared into my brain while all my insecurities, all my fears, all my deficiencies run crazy through my brain.

I’m not what Ash is used to, at all. He’s used to sophisticated snowbunnies, to women who know the score. To beautiful bombshells with beautiful, flawless bodies and I’m—I’m just not like that.

Years of cancer treatments have had their effect on my body. I’m too small, too skinny, too scarred for anyone to call me beautiful. And though I want Ash—so much—there’s a part of me that’s terrified of what he’ll say when he sees the real me. The Tansy beyond the clothes and the wild hair and the easy smiles.

“Hey, you okay?” Ash murmurs against my lips, and I realize I’ve stiffened in his arms.

Afraid he’ll think I want him to stop, I wrap my arms tightly around his neck and pull his mouth down to mine. “I’m good,” I tell him in between kisses. “Great, actually.”

I want this. I really, really want this and I need him to know that. Partly because I want to lose my virginity, because I want to see if all those books I’ve read got it right in a way the porn movies I just saw didn’t. And partly, mostly, because I want to do this with Ash. With smart, sweet, sexy Ash.

Oh, he talks a good game, hides his true colors behind a lot of bullshit. But I see how he is with his brother, how he is with Timmy. I know how he’s been with me. Even when he’s annoying me, or bossing me around or making decisions for me, he’s still protective, still kind. When I think of all the guys out there I could pick to be my first, I can’t imagine any of them taking better care of me than Ash Lewis.

Which isn’t to say I’m not nervous, because I am. I really, really am.

Ash maneuvers us closer to the edge of the bed and I reach my hand out, turn off the lamp next to the bed.

“Hey!” he says, pulling back. “What’d you do that for? I want to see you.”

I want to see him, too. I really, really do. I want to study every inch of his beautiful, beautiful body. But I know if I leave the light on, I’ll be too worried, too self-conscious, to do anything but wonder what he’s thinking about my body.

“I just—I wanted—” Jesus. I can barely talk.

“It’s okay,” he tells me, even as he pulls out of my arms.

“Where are you going?” I stand up and try to follow him with my eyes, but it’s too dark. I can barely see my own hand in front of my face.

“I’ll be right back.” The bathroom light turns on, giving the room some illumination, and I watch as Ash crosses to the front door. He flips the light there on, too, then makes his way back to where I’m standing in the shadows.

“A compromise,” he says with a grin.

I smile a little shyly, even as I nod my agreement. Then I hold my breath as Ash lowers me slowly, gently, onto the bed.

I reach for him, try to pull him down with me, but he just grins at me before pulling his shirt over his head.

I gasp, literally gasp, at my first sight of him. Which is ridiculous and juvenile and I honestly can’t give a fuck right now because, ohmyGod, he is so, so beautiful. Even in the semidark, I can see his long, lean torso. His flat stomach. The impossibly sexy ridges of his six-pack.

Licking the sudden dryness from my lips, I reach out to touch—because I finally can—and nearly whimper at the feel of his hot, silky skin beneath my touch. “Can I—” My voice breaks a little as need, sharp and sweet and a little desperate, careens through me.

“Yes,” he answers instantly.

My eyes shoot to his heavy-lidded ones. “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”

He laughs. “Doesn’t matter. You can do whatever you want to me.”

It’s too much, and not enough, and suddenly I shudder, my whole body responding to the careless, crazy beauty that is this man.

I grab on to him then, my fingers digging absently into his hips as I bring my mouth to his stomach. I kiss my way across the flat plane of his abs, pausing to lick around his belly button, before trailing my tongue down the line of muscles that runs directly from his sternum to the light happy trail that disappears into the waist of his jeans.

Ash groans, his head falling back even as his fingers tangle in my hair. I smile against his skin, relishing his response—and the knowledge that I’m the one pulling it from him. High on the power, and the joy of it, I skim my mouth from his belly to the sharp jut of his hip as my tongue licks each and every inch of skin.

“Tansy, baby,” Ash says, his voice low and gravelly and urgent. “You should probably—”

“What?” I ask, my response muffled against his skin because I absolutely refuse to raise my lips from my prize. Because now that I’m paying attention to his hip and ribs, I see them. A string of beautifully wrought kanji tattoos skimming up his side from his hip to right below his armpit.

There are five of the stark, black symbols and I want to explore them all. My fingers tighten on his hips, turning him just enough that I can reach. And then I’m pressing hot kisses over his ink, my tongue licking over each and every delicate line, until Ash’s hands tighten in my hair. Until sweat runs down his body. Until he groans and tries to pull my mouth up to his.