Dump and Chase (Nashville Assassins Next Generation 1)

“I don’t have to have it every day.”

He shrugs. “We’d lost in the play-offs. I was pissed and wanted to blow a load or seven.” I snort, and he grins. “It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have let her come back.”

I slowly move my fingers into his hair. “So, what happened?”

He inhales deeply, letting it out through his mouth. “When she got there, I think I knew something was up. She was asking questions about my friends and my family, and I remember thinking, this is weird. Especially when she knew my mom’s and dad’s names. I know it’s a simple Google search, but why would she have done it? We were just fucking. I don’t know, it was weird. We started going at it, and she wanted it harder. Harder. I swear she said it over and over again, and not in a hot way but in a demanding way. At first, I was hesitant, but then she bit me, and I didn’t think it was so bad. I sort of liked it.”

“You did?” I ask, my brows coming in.

“Yes, at first. But then she really started biting me, and then she choked me out. When I came to, I was in a panic. It was all so weird and off. I was drunk, of course, but then she asked me to do the same. So, I did. I hadn’t done it before, and she promised it would get me off, but it didn’t. It freaked me out even more.” He shakes his head as his eyes fall shut. “I couldn’t even do it long enough for her to pass out. I panicked and then asked her to leave. She got really mad and started throwing things at me. I had to call security to get her out of there. I thought I would never see her again, but then the cops came the next morning because she claimed I raped her and beat her up.”

“Man, that’s insane.”

“It was absolute hell.”

“And wasn’t she stalking you?”

“Yeah.” He rolls his eyes. “One of the guys on the team told me he had seen her around me a lot while I was at the rink and hanging around my place when I had parties. He thought something was fishy. I hired a PI, and he found evidence of her stalking me. He hired one of her friends to spy on her, and she brought in pictures of the girl’s apartment. There were hundreds of pictures of me and notebooks of things about me. Super-crazy shit.”

“So crazy,” I marvel, shaking my head. I saw the pictures online; the chick was seven shades of nuts. “Are you worried she’ll come back?”

He shakes his head. “No, not really. I dropped the charges as long as she would. I haven’t seen or heard from her in over ten months. I’m not worried the least bit about her.”

“Why did you drop the charges? Didn’t you want her to go to jail for what she did?”

He looks away, biting his lip. “I didn’t want to ruin her life for a mistake, even though she was ready to ruin mine. I don’t know. I felt bad for her. I just wanted the whole mess to go away.”

I smile. “And you say you’re self-absorbed.”

He looks away, a small shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“Either way, I’m glad it’s in the past.”

“Yeah, it was a load of shit that I didn’t need,” he says, moving his hands along my hips. He stops to press his lips to mine, and my eyes drift shut. I feel awful for him, how the whole thing went down. I know he isn’t that person. Does he like sex? Sure. What man doesn’t? But Aiden isn’t the kind of man to hurt someone intentionally. He’s gentle and cares what I want. Sometimes, he doesn’t even ask what I want; he just knows and does it. I, for one, am a fan.

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“I know,” I say, and then I look down. “I’m not a stalker.”

He laughs. “I know, Shelli.”

“I feel like maybe that’s why you freaked out on me.”

He shakes his head. “I actually didn’t put the two together until now.”

“Wonderful. I’ll show myself out,” I say, starting to get up, but he doesn’t let me. He traps me in his arms, pulling me on top of him as a giggle falls off my lips. “I think I freaked about the unpacking because it did feel like something a girlfriend would do, and I didn’t want to accept that this was going that way.”

“Have you accepted it yet?”

He grins. “Working on it.”

I roll my eyes. “For someone who doesn’t want me with anyone—”

“I will legit fight anyone who tries to touch you.”

I grin. “I didn’t know you were so jealous.”

His grip tightens around me. “Not jealous, just protecting what I want.”