Sweet Obsession (Nights Series #4)(10)



And when he came in Catherine’s mouth a moment later, Luke hoped and prayed the gaping wound in his heart would one day heal and that he’d be able to look the young man who’d always idolized him in the eye at some point in the future without bitter self-loathing and disgust.



Tremors ran through Ash’s body as he recalled what he’d seen in what had once been his parents’ bedroom the night of his seventeenth birthday.

Ash had been surprised and more than a little suspicious when Catherine had told him she would be sending the car round to pick him up that evening. His misgivings had only grown when he’d entered the silent mansion and couldn’t find her or his uncle.

It was the noise that drew Ash upstairs. An odd noise, one he hadn’t heard before.

Shock tore through Ash when he came in view of the open door of the bedroom. He stood frozen for a moment at the sight of his aunt and uncle having sex and was about to turn and dash down the stairs when he heard Catherine call out to someone. Ash’s feet moved of their own volition then, bringing him to an alcove to his right, the curtains hiding his presence while still giving him a full line of sight.

His heart almost stopped when he saw a figure appear at the end of the bed.

Ash stared dazedly at Luke, blood roaring in his ears and his pulse drumming so fast in his veins he thought he would faint, unable to grasp what it was he was witnessing. He watched as Catherine opened Luke’s zipper and flushed when he saw her palm Luke’s cock before kissing and licking it. Catherine worked Luke’s dick for a minute before looking up and saying something to him.

The shocked expression that flashed across Luke’s face and the rage that followed it as he grabbed Catherine’s hair and yanked her head back branded itself in Ash’s mind.

He had never seen Luke so angry before, as if he wanted to kill someone.

Catherine murmured something again. This time, Ash truly thought Luke would strike his aunt. Then, he dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling for a moment before closing his eyes and letting Catherine blow him, the tortured expression on his face so intense and vivid that it stayed there even as he climaxed in her mouth.

Ash didn’t stay to watch what happened afterward. He stumbled out of the alcove, ran down the stairs, and managed to make it to the car before breaking down. The chauffeur panicked and asked if he should get Catherine when Ash started sobbing brokenly in the back of the limo.

“No!” Ash shouted vehemently in between hiccuping and catching his breath. “Just—just take me back!”

Ash spent the entire drive crying—so much so that by the time he reached the boarding school, his eyes looked like he’d been stung by bees. He crept into the bedroom he shared with a friend and spent the entire night staring at the ceiling above his bed, his mind racing with a thousand thoughts.

Though Ash was still a virgin, he’d heard of threesomes. He wondered then how long Luke and his aunt and uncle had been having sex. The thought of Luke being pleasured by the woman Ash loathed most in this world had sent bile rising in his throat. He’d rushed out of his bed, dashed into the bathroom, and thrown up in the toilet, his dry heaves echoing against the tiled walls for a long time.

He got the phone call from his lawyer the next morning.

Catherine and Peter Bernardino had renounced custody of Ash and left the Colby estate. His new legal guardian until he turned eighteen would now be Luke Rutherford.

Ash waited then, for Luke to ask him to return home. When days passed and the call never came, he phoned Luke’s private number and his office, only to get Luke’s voice mail and the repeated message from Luke’s secretary that he was traveling abroad for work and didn’t want to be disturbed.

The chasm that grew between them over the weeks and months that followed, and Luke’s cold behavior on the odd occasion when they met in person in the subsequent year slowly turned Ash’s heart to ice, so much so that there were days when his hatred for the Rutherford heir almost matched his love for him.

Once Ash turned eighteen, Luke supported his application to Stanford, bought him a condo in Los Altos, and basically washed his hands of him. The next four years passed in a blur as Ash knuckled down and concentrated on his studies, his broken heart gnawing at him most days. A torment he knew time would not alleviate. A wound on his soul that would never heal.





Chapter 9





Luke watched Ash draw a ragged breath at the news that his aunt and uncle were back in their lives.

“So?” Ash said.

Luke blinked. More than surprise at Ash’s reaction, he was shocked at the fury in the young man’s voice. Luke frowned.

“So, I don’t want them anywhere near you.”

Ash straightened, the expression on his face one Luke had never seen before.

“Why? I’m not a child and I’m no longer your ward,” Ash said coolly. “What I do and whom I choose to do it with isn’t any of your concern.”

Although what Ash had just said was the truth and made perfect sense, Luke couldn’t stop the disgruntled, possessive feeling that surged through him.

“They are not good for you, Ash,” he said, scowling. “And I’m worried about what they might try and do to you this time around.”

Ash inhaled sharply. His eyes narrowed in the next instant, suspicion shining brightly in the blue depths.

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