Page 37 of Beyond Rosy Irish Twilight

My hand shook in anger as I called Chase. I fucking hated having to deal with Ambrose. The stupid part of me thought that just for one week I’d be able to leave that part of my life behind and forget I ever got myself into this mess. It was too much to ask for, though.

After relaying the details to Chase, I stepped back inside the bungalow just as Jade moaned and rolled to her side. I rushed over and grabbed the bucket, shoving it under her face as I helped her sit up. She threw up until all that was left was dry-heaving.

Flopping back on the bed, she stared up at me like she thought I was a ghost. “Asher?”

I quirked my lips up at her. “That’s me.”

“What are you doing here?”

“How much do you remember from earlier?”

She groaned and shook her head. I’d only ever seen a woman get drunk that fast once before, and I had stupidly hoped it would never happen again.

“My mouth is gross,” she said, making a disgusted face.

I grabbed her hand and pulled her up from the bed. She was like a baby fawn, trying to walk to the bathroom. I almost picked her up, but we were almost there. She leaned heavily against the sink, still swaying from the alcohol in her system. I watched as she fumbled with the toothbrush, then got to work brushing her teeth. When I was sure she wasn’t going to fall over, I walked over to the shower and turned it on. It would do wonders for her, even if she wasn’t in the mood for it.

She spit and turned to me. “What are you doing?”

“You need a shower.”

“Do I smell?”

“Not at all,” I lied. I was pretty sure she got vomit on her shirt. “The shower will help.”

“Ugh,” she groaned. “I need to go to bed.”

“After the shower.”

She made a whining sound, but didn’t argue any further. However, when she walked over to me, she nearly stumbled and fell. If that happened in the shower, she was likely to go through the glass door and kill herself. Stripping off her shirt, I tried to be as respectful as possible. Thankfully, she was still drunk as hell, so she didn’t really care that I was stripping her naked.

At least, I didn’t think she cared until I started pulling off my own clothes.

A small squeak left her mouth as she stared at my bare chest with wide eyes. “What—what are you doing?”

“Making sure you don’t kill yourself in the shower,” I answered.

Her eyes roamed over my chest, lingering on my multiple tattoos. And then her eyes widened as I slid my fingers around the button of my shorts and started undoing it. Her throat worked hard as she stared at me in fascination, which really didn’t help me control anything about this situation.

She leaned hard on the sink as I pulled down my pants and my growing erection popped free. I tried to think of anything that might help me keep the big guy down, but with her staring at my cock, all I wanted to do was take her in the other room and pound the fuck out of her.

Holding out my hand, she finally took it and I stepped into the shower, guiding her inside. Her knees practically gave out and she collapsed against me. I quickly wrapped my arms around her to hold her up, but froze the moment my hands felt the rough skin of her back. She was so out of it that she didn’t notice my reaction.

“Hmmm,” she moaned as my fingers slid over her back. In her drunken state, she probably thought I was giving her a massage. In reality, I was tracing every fucking line across her back, memorizing the criss-cross patterns that I didn’t need to see to know what the fuck they were. My heart rate sky-rocketed as I counted them out. I lost count when I felt the thicker scars, the ones that were made with something harder to gouge her skin like that.

Anger blinded me until I thought I’d lose it, so instead, I slid my hand up into her hair and started massaging the base of her scalp. I needed to calm the fuck down. Whatever happened to her, she was in no frame of mind to discuss it, and if she were lucid right now, she’d be livid that I made this discovery.

It explained so much—why she had the nightmares, why she looked in disgust at the bikinis, even her reaction to the warehouse. I didn’t know the details, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out it was all connected. And her father was behind it. He had to be.

He mentioned something about her dishonoring the family. Was this his punishment for her? He had his own daughter whipped? Though I had stopped tracing the lines across her back, the anger hadn’t dimmed at all. I wanted to pay Ambrose a visit and string him up, make him feel the same pain she felt. But I had my fucking job to do, and if I failed, everything would get worse.

“Ash,” she mumbled against my chest. “You’re so warm.”

“That’s the water,” I said, trying not to lose my shit.

She shook her head in a roundabout way against my chest. “Uh-uh. It’s you.” Her arms slipped around my back, only to fall again when she couldn’t hold them up. She wanted to hug me. I bent down and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. Never in all my life had I wanted to protect someone the way I did with her. It overrode my need to take down Ambrose and The Syndicate. It burned inside me like a fireball, with no way to put it out until those fuckers were in the ground.

“Tired,” she murmured.

---