Dunn showed Ashleigh where the bathroom was and instructed her on how to use his shower. He could have sent her to his guest bathroom, but he wanted her in his shower. In his room. Hot water sliding down her naked body in the same room where he would strip naked later.
He was a fucking idiot. Fantasizing about Ashleigh was as dumb as falling for Ashaki. Two women who nearly ruined him. But like everything else in his life, he picked the wrong one to trust.
A part of him always wondered if he and Ashleigh could have been happy if he’d been honest with her from the start. If he’d told her he planned to become a SEAL. Would she have been okay with it, or would she have run the other way? He’d never know the answer to that question.
He had a lifetime of regrets, and Ashleigh was simply one in a string of many.
Dunn wanted to strip off his sweaty clothes and join Ashleigh in the shower, but she was a married woman and not his, so he told his dick to shut the fuck up and went to the kitchen to find something to eat.
He tossed a frozen pizza in the oven, just in case Ashleigh was hungry, and twisted open a beer. He tipped it up to his lips and gulped down the cold liquid, hoping it would help to clear his muddled mind.
He tried running through reasons of why she was at his home instead of her own. She said she was married, and that her husband wasn’t who she thought he was. Dunn wanted to grab his phone and order English, his computer whiz and all around tech genius, to find out who her husband was and what he’d done. And the guy could do it, too. It wouldn’t take long for English, also known as Liam Johnson, to find her and learn everything there was to know about her and her husband. But if Dunn was going to get her to trust him, he had to let her tell him what happened and what was going on.
He checked on the pizza and decided it needed another couple of minutes when the door to his room opened. His entire body tightened as he waited for her to walk into the kitchen. He tried to act casual, like he wasn’t painfully aware of her presence, but his gaze locked on hers the second she stepped into view and gave him away.
Ashleigh was still as stunning as ever. With her dirty blonde hair wet, it looked brown. She brushed it back from her face which made her green eyes look huge. She looked around warily, but her gaze settled on him. She chewed on her cheek like she always did when she wasn’t sure of herself.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice a little more than gruff.
He was grateful for the peninsula between them so she couldn’t see the effect her curves had on him. She was always a woman who could fill out a dress with her hourglass figure, but the years had added a few more pounds in all the right places. She was softer, more feminine, with her full breasts and rounded hips. Her belly was full, but narrower than her hips, giving her a shape he wanted to run his hands over. She was the sexiest woman he’d ever seen, and by far the most beautiful one he’d ever had in his bed.
But he’d never have that chance again.
“Thank you for the shower. And for letting me in,” she said softly.
Dunn nodded. “Of course. Are you hungry? I have pizza in the oven.”
She smiled, that tentative smile that lit him up inside. “You’re always hungry. I don’t know how you haven’t gained any weight. It’s not fair that I’ve blown up and you still look like a statue.”
“You’re fucking gorgeous,” he blurted without thinking. They were the same words he’d said to her over and over again when they were together. She never believed him, but he would tell her that when he was buried deep inside her, when he watched her get dressed, when she was having a tough day. He wanted her to always know that no matter how she thought about herself and no matter what anyone else ever said, he thought she was the most beautiful woman around. Now he knew that was only part of it. She was the most beautiful woman in the world.
Her cheeks turned scarlet. He had to close his eyes, but that just allowed him to picture exactly how far down her body that blush went. He could see all of her vividly, like it was yesterday that he’d last been with her.
“I don’t remember the last time I had something to eat,” she finally said.
He nodded and grunted, then bent to get the pizza out of the oven. He set it on the stove and busied himself getting the pizza cutter out of the dishwasher and washing it, then grabbing plates and napkins before he cut the pizza and handed her three slices.
“It’s hot,” he reminded her before she took a bite.
She smiled and nodded, pursing her lips to blow on the pizza.
Jesus, he needed to get laid. Just watching Ashleigh had him ready to fucking blow.
He stared at his own pizza and took the chance that it wouldn’t burn his mouth. He took a huge bite and regretted it as soon as the hot cheese melted to the roof of his mouth. He hissed and sucked in a breath, but the damage was done.
Ashleigh stared at him for a second, then burst out laughing.
Dunn tried to choke down the scalding hot pizza, but it still burned. He sucked in cold air and chewed until it was small enough to go down his throat and stop burning.
Ashleigh laughed the whole time.
“What’s so funny?” he finally asked her.
She grinned and rolled her eyes. “You used to do that all the time in college. You would burn your mouth because you were too hungry to wait for your food to cool down. I really thought you would have gotten smarter by now.”
He shook his head. “Nope. I’m still the same dumbass who let you go.”
She glared at him. That was definitely the wrong thing to say.
She shook her head and wanted to walk out the door. If she had anywhere else to go, she would, but she knew her husband would never look for her with her ex. He didn’t even know who Daniel was. She mentioned a guy she dated in college, but she underplayed it when she realized how jealous Frederick got when she talked about other men, or talked to other men. She didn’t think Frederick would do anything to Daniel, but she also never imagined her husband could be involved in something like kidnapping or human trafficking.
The pizza lost its appeal when she thought about what she saw in her house the night before. She set the plate down and stepped back, breathing through her mouth so she didn’t vomit.
“Why don’t we sit,” Daniel suggested.
He walked around the peninsula and over to her like he was going to guide her to the couch, but he backed away at the last second so he didn’t touch her. She missed his touch like a physical thing, wishing she hadn’t pushed him off the first time. She could really use a hug, someone to hold her and tell her everything would be okay. Her dad always gave her the best hugs, warm and comforting. With his arms around her, she felt like nothing bad could ever happen.
But her dad had been gone for eight years. He died shortly after she and Frederick started dating. Ever since then, she felt like she was missing a piece of herself.
Ashleigh walked over to Daniel’s couch and sank down into the cool leather. The couch threatened to swallow her, which was almost as good as a hug. He passed her a blanket, and Ashleigh curled up in the corner and spread the blanket over her lap.
“What are you doing here, Ash?” he asked.
Ash. Daniel was the only one who ever called her that. Frederick called her Ash once, and she told him she didn’t like the nickname. In truth, it felt like something that belonged to Daniel. She didn’t want to share that part of herself with anyone else.
She finally looked at him and admitted the truth. “I needed to get away from my husband.”
“Did he hurt you?” Daniel growled.
Ashleigh shook her head. “Not physically, no. I saw him having sex with someone else.”
“Ah, fuck, Ash. I’m sorry.”
She nodded. Daniel was a good man. The best. He was looking at her like she was a wounded woman, but when she told him the rest, he’d look at her like she was a victim.
They were walking through campus one night when a woman came running toward them. She was looking back and barely cared what was in front of her as long as she got away from whoever was chasing her. She plowed into Daniel and Ashleigh, nearly knocking them over, but Daniel caught the woman.
She fell into his arms and told him a man just attacked her and was chasing her. Daniel had murder in his eyes when he went after the guy. It was the first and only time Ashleigh saw him look like that. He was in charge and determined to make it right.
As a twenty-two-year-old in love, she was jealous of the way Daniel protected that other woman. He checked in with her regularly until she transferred to another college. Ashleigh couldn’t tell him she didn’t want him to reach out to the other woman, but she hated whenever he did.
She was about to be that woman.
“When I was leaving, I saw a picture of a boy. He was a few months old and had been taken from his parents. Kidnapped. I went to set the page down and I saw another paper that looked like something you would have for an adoption, a docket with details about the child and the birth parents.” Her cheeks heated when he narrowed his gaze, silently asking how she knew what that looked like. “Frederick and I have been talking about adoption. We’ve had trouble getting pregnant for years, and we thought adoption would be a good idea. Take the stress off me, and thirty-nine is pretty old to have a baby.”
Daniel nodded with his jaw clenched tight.
“Anyway, the boy wasn’t adopted. It was a current picture, and it looked like he was going to be adopted.”
Daniel narrowed his gaze. “What are you saying, Ash?”
She took a deep breath. “I think my husband is involved in kidnapping and human trafficking of an infant boy in Detroit.”
“Well, fuck me,” Daniel said.
Ashleigh nodded. Her thoughts exactly.
Dunn was paralyzed for the first time since he saw his boss and mentor with a gun to another man’s head. For all the shit he’d seen in his life and his career as a SEAL, he was rarely surprised. People were vicious, horrible pieces of shit. But as a SEAL, the people he encountered were fighting for their lives. Right and wrong didn’t matter as much as survival, so people did horrible things all in the name of saving their own ass.
But the real world was different. He didn’t expect to see the same inhumanity in the real world. Having Williams turn on them was the shock of Dunn’s life. Ashaki betraying him and the rest of the Team hurt, but that was more of a prideful thing. He didn’t see it coming and felt like an idiot. But Williams had been stringing them all along for years. He made them believe he was on their side, but he wasn’t.
He got that Ashleigh was feeling the same way. Her husband was not the man she thought he was. He should have been keeping her safe, and instead he was involved with people who were stealing children. Dunn’s mind spun with the possibility of her husband taking that child for himself and Ashleigh, of adopting him as their own, but his gut told him that wasn’t the case.
Too bad he didn’t trust his gut anymore. But his team? He trusted them.
Dunn stood and pulled out his phone.
Ashleigh shouted, “No. You can’t call anyone.”
Dunn looked down at her. She was shaking again, her eyes wild with fear. “Why can’t I call anyone?”
“He could find me,” she said.
Dunn sat back down. “Why would he expect you to come here? He would probably think you’d go to your dad’s or to see a friend.”
Ashleigh shook her head again. “Dad died a few years ago. And I’m still not speaking to my mom. All my friends are his friends.”
“Okay, so if he doesn’t know you’re here, how will he find you?”
She drew in a shaky breath. “I… I don’t know. Don’t people have ways to find people? He’s a very powerful man.”
Dunn nodded. “I understand, Ash, but I’m not going to let him get to you. I need to call my team, though. So they can start to figure out what’s going on.”
“Are you sure none of them are working for him?”
She asked the one question he couldn’t answer. The one question that rubbed a raw nerve with sandpaper. A couple of years ago, he never would have thought twice about the men he considered his brothers, but after Williams, Dunn wasn’t sure of anything.
“They’re good men, Ash. You’ll see,” was all he said.
Dunn sent out a group text asking everyone available to meet at his house immediately. All of them responded that they were on their way.
“They’ll be here soon,” he told Ashleigh. “I need to take a quick shower.”
“I—” She stopped herself.
“What?”
She looked around the room and stared out through the sliding glass door. It was one of the reasons Dunn bought the house, for the big doors so he could open up his house and move between the two spaces. And she was afraid of it.
“Do you want me to close the curtains?” he asked.
She hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. I guess I’ll be okay like that.”
Dunn tugged the curtains closed and checked that the doors were locked, then handed Ash the remote and went to his room. He left the bedroom door open in case she needed something, but closed the bathroom door. He tossed his sweaty running clothes into the hamper and jumped in the shower, washing himself quickly so he was out before any of the guys showed up and scared the shit out of Ashleigh.
He dried off and cracked the bathroom door to let the steam out. Once he was mostly dry, he wrapped his towel around his waist and went into his room.
Where Ashleigh was sitting on his bed.
Her gaze dropped like a stone, falling to where his dick hid beneath his towel. So much for keeping him under wraps. He responded instantly to her gaze, even though there was a towel there, and pulsed against the cotton. Her eyes widened, and she trailed them up his chest slowly.
Dunn knew he should get dressed and tell her to wait for him in the other room, but Ash had seen him naked more times than he could count. It had been almost two decades, but he hadn’t changed that much.
“Why are you in here, Ash?” he finally managed to ask.
She looked up and met his gaze. “I didn’t want to be in the other room alone. I’m sorry. I’ll close my eyes or something so you can get dressed.”
She clamped her eyes shut. Dunn sighed. She was terrified, and he couldn’t just toss her out.
Checking again to make sure her eyes were closed, Dunn went to his dresser and grabbed a green tee and a pair of black shorts. He pulled the tee on, then dropped his towel and pulled on boxer briefs and shorts. When he turned back to Ashleigh, she was watching him.
“Sorry,” she said, her cheeks turning pink again.
“Of all the places you could have gone, why did you come here?” he asked her.
She looked up at him, likely surprised he didn’t say anything about her checking him out naked. Then she smiled sadly and said, “I knew you’d do anything to keep me safe. Even though you don’t love me anymore, I knew you’d protect me with your life. It’s who you are, Daniel.”
