by L. L. Ash
Release date: April 12th, 2024
Genres: Adult, Contemporary,
Ashton
One single moment changed everything. After receiving life-altering injuries on my last operation, I was forced to retire early. What was I if not a Raider and a Marine? When my brother in arms Tommy (Gun) Blair offered his home up to me to finish my recovery, I snatched up the opportunity with both hands because I had nowhere else to go. Amidst all my calculations, however, I realized that I’d missed one significant detail. Freya, Tommy’s daughter. She’d been a kid last time I’d seen her. She was definitely NOT a kid anymore. Living up to her namesake, the daughter of my best friend was beautiful, sweet, and deadly. If Tommy knew the kinds of things running through my head, he’d kill me in my sleep with a rusty spoon. Didn’t matter though. The woman was temptation embodied, and despite all my training, discipline and control, she was the one weakness that I just couldn’t give up.
Freya
I’d never met a man like him. Ashton was solid, confident, rigid, and bold. He also had the body of a god. No joke. But I was just the kid of his best friend. Seeing a man as powerful as him bow to the agony of injuries and PTSD…it broke my heart. It also proved that he wasn’t just a fighting machine. When he started working at Dad’s dealership with us, I started to get to know the man instead of the legend, and I loved what I found. Good with his hands, and loyal to a fault, I fell so deep in love with him it’s almost disgusting. Too bad he was my father’s best friend and would never love me back.
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“Sorry,” Freya said from…yep, the kitchen. “Mom’s been into that stuff ever since I can remember. She thinks that good thoughts and crystals can heal just about everything.”
“You don’t buy it?” I asked her.
She just blinked at me.
“She once tried healing my broken arm with obsidian and selenite. It took me two hours to convince my mom that a couple of pretty rocks weren’t going to reset my bones.”
I whistled.
“How old were you?”
“Eight. Eight and a half, I think.”
Holy shit.
“Where was Tommy? Your dad, I mean.”
“Working. In Afghanistan, I think. He’d been gone for months before it happened. Mom always got super sucked into that stuff when he was away for a while.”
“I’m sorry, kid,” I told her, which made her bristle.
“I’m not a kid, you know that, don’t you, Ashton?”
Oh, I fucking knew it. I remembered the feel of her very grown-up breasts pressing against my chest while I was having a full on mental breakdown in the employee bathroom at work.
She’d never brought it up though. After Tommy had led me away, Freya never mentioned the incident again. Maybe she just wanted to forget the traumatizing moment, and I could respect that. I’d taken full advantage of her sympathetic and loving heart, and I knew it.
But I digress.
I didn't remember things being so bad. Tommy had mentioned that he’d needed to leave the Marines to be with his wife and daughter, but he’d never mentioned how bad it had evidently gotten. Had Freya been dealing with being the grown-up in the house ever since she was a kid? Maybe our pasts were more similar than I ever realized.
“You look like you’re thinking too hard,” Freya said as she dipped to look into the fridge for something.
Damn, that ass…
“I’m afraid that maybe your head will explode or something,” she mused.
I barked a rusty laugh, just as she stood and graced me with a grin over her shoulder.
“You’re insane,” was the only comeback I had, because maybe she was right.
I was thinking way too hard about her and that peachy ass when I should’ve been focused on other things. “Is Tommy still at the dealership?”
She nodded, then slid over a beer to me.
“You know him. Workaholic.”
Yes, I did, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. He had such an amazing life to come home to, why would he choose work over this?
I grunted instead of answering, but took the beer happily.
“So?” she asked after a minute. “You took the day to go to the base. How’d it go?”
I didn’t fucking answer. I didn’t want to.
Funny though, as it turned out, I didn’t need to.
“Oh…Ash…” she moaned, sadness and sympathy coloring her cheeks.
“Guess my nickname Citizen really matches now,” I grunted out, thinking it would be funny, but my voice cracked like a prepubescent boy, showing my emotions.
Freya came right around the counter and took me into her arms, beer and all where she squeezed me harder than anybody had ever hugged me before.
“You’ll be ok,” she muffled a whisper with her face in the crook of my neck and shoulder. “You’ve got us, and we’ll be your team.”
An unwelcome tear started slipping out of my eye, and I quickly tried sucking it back up before she could notice. But funny that, tears don’t suck back up like snot.
When she let me go, Freya looked into my face and lifted her hand, sweeping the trail of that singular tear away.
“You’ve got us,” she said, looking me right in the eyes. “If you need a wingman, I’m your girl. I’ll help get you laid and help you find a place when you’re ready. I’ll even watch sports with you, even though I hate everything other than hockey and MMA.”
I snorted a laugh, which made her sad lips turn into a small smile.
“I appreciate that,” I told her, pressing my palm to her cheek now. “But I’m ok. I don’t need a wingman. I can get laid all by myself. As for sports, what other real sports are there other than hockey and MMA?”
She snorted a laugh, legit making snot burst out of her nose, which made her cheeks flame with embarrassment.
I laughed too while she hurried away to the bathroom to get away from me.
That girl was too much.
And fucking everything.
- $25 Amazon gift card & more
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Oftentimes you can find Ash reading an indie romance or enjoying a historical fiction. Dabbling in culinary arts and music, Ash has been an artist for decades but found her true love and passion in romances.
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