Storm Shades Page 9

  “Finn’s had a lot to drink. He’s not going to be worrying too much about what you’re doing.” Ashton’s voice is flat, and the ease with which he seems to be able to manipulate this situation to his advantage sets off alarm bells inside of Sofie’s head.

  “Manipulation, another string to your bow, Ashton.” Sofie doesn’t even bother to try to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  The flash of anger that passes over his eyes is so quick that Sofie wonders if she has imagined it, much like everything else that’s happened tonight.

  “This isn’t how I wanted to get a moment alone with you.” Ashton sighs heavily, raking his fingers through his blonde hair and looking for all the world as lost as Sofie is feeling.

  “Getting knocked unconscious isn’t exactly my idea of a good time either.” Sofie rubs her temples absently.

  “I’m sorry that you got hurt. That’s the last thing that I would have wanted.” Ashton steeples his fingers together, and Sofie sees how white the knuckles are, like he’s trying to hold something in. “I shouldn’t have let it happen to you.”

  Sofie is about to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, but she’s still not so sure that’s the case. She has to physically stop herself from reaching out and taking hold of his hand. Whatever the mojo is that surrounds Ashton, it’s seriously hard to resist, even after what she’s seen.

  “So are you going to tell me what you were doing in those woods?” Sofie throws the question out, expecting a reaction. But Ashton looks over at her, his expression blank again.

  “You first.” The determination in his voice is palpable.

  “I was following you.” Sofie tries not to focus on how creepy that sounds. “You seemed to leave the bar in kind of a hurry.” She shrugs, as if to signal that was reason enough.

  “You make a habit of following all the guys that buy you drinks? You must spend a long time on the road.” Ashton shakes his head in disbelief.

  “I’m a scientist. I’m allowed to be curious,” Sofie smirks, asking herself how they’ve lapsed into the back and forth banter so easily. “So anyway, I followed one of the members of whatever weird cult you’ve got going on here—”

  “Sorry, what? Weird cult? What are you talking about?” Ashton looks at her in complete confusion, far too genuine to be faked. “Maybe that bang on the head was harder than I thought.”

  “Well, if you’re not a cult, then what the hell do you want to call it? You all stood around in a circle and then sacrificed some guy to...to...” Sofie can’t bring herself to say the rest, it sounds too much like she’s made it all up.

  “Sacrificed some guy to what?” Ashton’s voice is tight, like he’s trying to hold onto something.

  “I don’t know it was dark.” Sofie squirms in her seat wishing that what she saw didn’t sound crazier every time she thought about it. “It looked like a big black animal...like a wolf. But a big one, a really big one.” Her voice peters out, as she registers the expression of shock on Ashton’s face. “I know what you’re going to say, that I’m crazy.”

  “No, I didn’t say crazy. I may have thought crazy, but I definitely didn’t say it. But let me just check we’re on the same page. You saw me and the rest of my ‘cult’ sacrificing some guy to a giant black wolf. Does that about sum it up?” Ashton’s expression tells Sofie that what she’d said really does sound as ridiculous out loud as it did in her head.

  Sofie nods wordlessly, as she starts to question her own sanity, but she knows that something happened out there tonight. “Don’t treat me like I’m an idiot. I saw you threatening that guy, and then there was a lot of blood. I think it’s your turn now to tell me exactly what you were doing in the woods.” Sofie takes another sip of her tea. The ache in her head has disappeared, like magic, if she believed in that sort of thing.

  “You wanna know who that guy was that you saw me talking to in the woods? Do you want to know why he ended up there?” Ashton leans back on the couch, eyes turned up to the ceiling. He looks about as exhausted as Sofie feels.

  Sofie nods slowly, before she has time to ask herself if she really wants to know the answer to the questions spinning around her mind. She watches Ashton’s shoulders sag a little in defeat, and she hopes that he’s not about to tell her what it is that she’s most afraid of. She waits, in silence, giving him time to come up with the words that he needs to tell the story.

  “That guy’s name is Bobby. Bobby used to live in Beaumont, seemed like a pretty upstanding citizen, liked to keep himself to himself. Some people thought that he was a little odd, but that’s what happens in a small town; it’s easy to get a reputation.” Ashton takes a deep breath, preparing himself for what he’s about to say. “Bobby used to work over at the school. He was a handy-man, so he’d do all kinds of odd jobs, whatever needed fixing. But it turns out that wasn’t the only reason that Bobby liked to hang around the school.”

  Sofie fills in the gaps, and she covers her mouth with her hands. “Oh no,” she says, fear filling her voice. Ashton looks at her, his eyes soft. He reaches his hand out, and, automatically, she responds, letting him hold her small hand in his large one, letting herself be comforted by him. She takes a deep breath and nods for him to continue.

  “He liked kids, especially little girls.” Ashton shakes his head in disgust, and Sofie squeezes his hand, like she’s giving him the strength he needs to tell the rest of it. “No one knew anything about it. He was sneaky. He knew exactly how to hide what he was doing, and he would threaten the girls, telling them that if they said anything then he would find them. They were all too terrified to go to their parents or the cops.” Ashton falls silent again.

  “But then something happened,” Sofie prompts, pushing him on.

  Ashton nods, his mouth set in a grim line, reminding her of the expression that came over his face in the woods. “One night, one of the girls—Daphne—didn’t make it home. This is a small town, not a lot happens except for the occasional bar fight. No one thought the worst; our brains weren’t programmed to go down that road. That was until they found her body.” His voice cracks with emotion over the story he’s telling. His eyes are glazed over, and it’s like he is seeing it all play out in front of him.

  “He killed her.” Sofie says the words so that Ashton doesn’t have to.

  “The cops couldn’t prove it. There wasn’t enough evidence that pointed towards him. So he walked. He was back at the school, working there as if nothing had happened. Can you imagine being that little girl’s parents and knowing that her killer was just out there? Free to do it again? To destroy some other family?” Ashton shakes his head like it’s too much to think about.

  “No, I can’t imagine that,” says Sofie in a quiet voice, but the thoughts raging through her mind are loud. Ashton’s story has put a different spin on the events that she witnessed. Now, she doesn’t know how to feel about what she saw.

  “The cops couldn’t get involved so me and some friends took Bobby to one side and told him that if he wanted to keep all of his limbs in one place that he should get out of Beaumont and never come back. We warned him, told him that if he set foot in this town again that he wouldn’t be walking out again. He stayed away for a couple of years, but I guess it was just too tempting to come back here.” Ashton levels a look at Sofie that is both vulnerable and strong, like he’s asking for her understanding but also telling her he can live without it.

  “Did he confess? How could you be so sure that he did it?” Sofie tries to pick holes in Ashton’s story, needing to be sure that whatever he did, he did it for the only reason that she could ever understand.

  “The first time we ran him out of town, he came clean. He cried about it and apologized, but I think that was just the fear talking. The man that came back to Beaumont and has been hanging around the school where it all happened, he’s not sorry. He was hooked, desperate to do it again. We couldn’t allow that.” Ashton’s face is set in grim determination.

  “You killed him?” Sofie t
ries to keep the judgment out of her tone, but she doesn’t know how. She hasn’t had any practice at this kind of thing. Her world is scientific, facts and figures. There’s no grey area in science, nothing open to interpretation. It either is something or it isn’t. But this is different, this is a whole new world.

  Ashton takes a moment before he replies, and when he does, it’s clear that he’s choosing his words very carefully. “He won’t be able to hurt anyone again.” He doesn’t offer any more information, and Sofie is secretly a little relieved at that; she doesn’t think that she could take any more details.

  “What was it that I saw? Whatever attacked him wasn’t a person, it was a thing.” Sofie’s scientific brain keeps trying to piece the night back together, and this is the part that she keeps getting stuck on. It’s as if her eyes and her brain can’t come to an agreement over what had happened.

  “Like I said, you took a pretty bad knock on the head—” Ashton starts to say, but Sofie cuts him off.

  “Are you honestly saying that it was my imagination? That whatever I saw wasn’t really there?” Sofie challenges him, her chin up, but she’s not sure what answer she’s hoping he’s going to give her.

  “I think that you were shocked by what you saw. You’d had a couple of drinks, and you mistook a man in the darkness for something else. What you saw was Gus, that’s all.” Ashton’s voice is calm and collected, but he doesn’t meet her eyes.

  “Promise me.” Sofie knows that she probably sounds like a crazy woman, clinging to some improbable and impossible idea of what she saw in a dark wood.

  “I promise that what you saw dealing with that piece of crap was Gus.” Ashton locks his blue eyes onto her dark ones, and this time he doesn’t look away.

  “Okay.” Sofie takes a deep breath, trying to figure out what everything Ashton’s told her means, what it says about the kind of man he is.

  “So, now comes the part where I fulfill my side of the bargain.” Ashton gets up from the couch in one smooth movement and disappears from the room, leaving Sofie alone with her thoughts. “I said that once we’d talked, you could decide what you wanted to do.” He hands over her cell phone. As she takes it from him, their hands touch, and they both feel the connection.

  Sofie cradles her phone in her hands. One side of her brain is telling her that this guy is dangerous, but not just because of the part he played in what happened in the woods tonight. She feels like he could really hurt her, worse than anyone ever has before. But the other side knows that the bond she feels with him isn’t like anything she’s ever experienced before. It’s as if they’ve known each other for years. She feels like she could say anything to him. Both parts of her brain are at war with each other, and she still has one question left.

  “I need to ask you something.” She stands up to face him.

  “Anything.” Ashton’s reply is a whisper, and the intensity in his stare makes her feel like he’s being sincere.

  “What gives you the right to hand out justice like that? If he was guilty, then that’s for the cops and the law to decide, not you. How come you get to be judge, jury, and executioner? Or at least judge and jury. You get your friends to do your dirty work for you.” Sofie knows that she’s walking a thin line. If Ashton is capable of living outside of the law, then what might he do to her? But she can’t manage to shake the, possibly naive, belief that he won’t hurt her, that he would never hurt her. She lifts her chin, forcing him to meet her eyes.

  “Do you really believe that? That the cops and the lawyers always do the right thing? That they always get the bad guys? Come on, Sofie, you’re smarter than that. Sometimes bad people walk, free to do bad things all over again. I’m not about to let that happen.” Ashton’s breathing heavily again, like the anger is rising within him. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. “What would you rather have done? Let Bobby go so that he could hurt some other girl? Some other family?” His eyes flash with a fire that makes Sofie want to take a step back, but she holds her ground.

  “No. Not that. But you can’t just walk around playing God like that. You don’t get to decide who lives and who dies. It’s not your decision to make.” Sofie knows that she’s yelling at him now, but she doesn’t seem to be able to stop herself.

  “That’s where you’re wrong. It is my decision. This is what I was born for—to keep the bad people away from the good. That’s how it’s been in my family for generations upon generation. We do what others can’t. We see what others can’t.” Ashton closes the space between them, his chest heaving, his blue eyes shining, almost luminous. “I wish that I could explain it all to you. I wish that I could tell you everything that you want to know.” He reaches down to her and touches her lips with the pad of his thumb, just like he had in the bar, and Sofie feels herself lean into him like her body is no longer under her control.

  “Then why don’t you? Tell me. I want to know...I want to know everything about you.” Her hand moves up to Ashton’s face, as she feels the prickles of his blonde beard underneath her fingertips.

  Ashton looks at her in surprise, her words catching him off guard; but, he recovers quickly. It’s as if he’s put a wall up, like there’s a part of himself that he’s cut off from her. “Do you still want me to take you back?” Ashton lifts her chin with his fingertip but doesn’t move any closer to her, almost as if he’s trying to contain himself, contain what he wants in case she decides to leave.

  However, Sofie has already made up her mind. She has known what she was going to do from the moment she saw Ashton. It is inevitable; this is where she is supposed to be. She pushes the dark story that he has told her out of her head. Now, it’s just about the two of them. Instead of answering him, she goes on to her tip-toes and pulls his head down towards hers. He doesn’t resist, allowing her to lead him to where he wants to go.

  When their lips touch, the electricity that has been passing between them since they first set eyes on each other crackles and fizzes. Sofie had never understood what people meant when they said that they saw fireworks when they kissed someone. Now, she understands it perfectly. It starts as a soft, slow kiss, both of them testing, teasing the other. Their tongues meet, and as they taste each other, Sofie feels she’s floating.

  Ashton moves his hands around her waist, pulling her closer to him. She feels his hard body against hers, and she can barely breathe through her own desire. He kisses her deeply, sucking her tongue and nipping her lips. But all of a sudden he pulls away from her, and Sofie is left hanging, desperately hoping that he hasn’t just had a change of heart. She’s breathing hard, like she can’t get enough oxygen into her lungs.

  Ashton stares at her like she’s a present. “You’re so goddamn beautiful,” he says reverently, tracing the line of her cheekbone down to her jaw. “I want you so badly, more than I’ve ever wanted anyone.” He pulls her face closer to his so that their foreheads are resting against each other.

  “I know the feeling,” she says, panting. All she can think about is having his lips back on hers.

  “I’m trying to control myself, but I just want to take you. I don’t want to hurt you.” Ashton’s eyes take on that luminous quality again, and Sofie feels like he can see right through her.

  “You won’t,” she assures him. “Take me. I’m yours.” The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them, and she holds her breath, hoping that she hasn’t just given everything away.

  But Ashton’s only response is to tighten his hold around her waist and pull her towards him again, plastering her over him. He leans down and kisses her hard, and her body responds immediately. She can feel the wetness developing between her legs, and her nipples stand to attention. She moans against his mouth, unable to stop herself, even if she had wanted to.

  He reaches down and pulls her tank top up, only breaking away from her to take it off. He has a hungry look about him, like he wants to devour her. He nuzzles her neck and smells the scent her, breathing her in. There’s something ani
malistic and primal about it, and it turns her on more than she thought possible.

  She knots her hands in his hair and throws her head back, luxuriating in the feeling of his lips against her neck. There’s a sound like something tearing and, in one swift movement, he lets her bra drop to the floor. He pulls off his shirt, exposing his muscular body. The man looks like a book of anatomy. He’s perfectly defined, like he’d been drawn. Sofie wets her lips with desire, and the heat between her thighs intensifies.

  Ashton sees the expression on her face and gives her that sexy smile that she’s sure has made so many women drop their panties, and that’s exactly what he does to her. He pulls her shorts and panties down roughly, until she’s standing in front of him, naked and desperate for him.

  He pushes her down towards the floor, laying her down on the soft rug and looking at her as if she were something precious. “Sofie,” her name is a whisper on his lips, and the way he says it just makes her want him even more.

  He lies next to her, stroking his fingers down from her lips, down her neck, over her collarbone, and to her nipples. They’re so hard that they hurt, but in the best possible way. He rubs them between his fingers, making them even more sensitive, before he dives down and uses his mouth. He licks and sucks her nipples, biting them to that delicious point where pleasure meets pain.

  Sofie is moaning and writhing underneath him; she is all sensation. She reaches down and feels the hardness straining to get out of his jeans. She palms him through his pants, breathing hard, desperate for him to be inside of her.

  Ashton stills her hand, leading her towards the buttons to unfasten the barrier between them. She gets to work quickly, but she’s all fingers and thumbs, distracted by what he’s doing to her nipples. Ashton takes over, freeing himself from the constraints of his pants. Sofie reaches down into his jeans expecting to feel his boxers underneath but there’s nothing between her hand and his hardness. She wraps her hand around his thick shaft, licking her lips. She moans, as she feels the answering ache in her pussy.