"I hate my eyes. They're my fathers," I spat in disgust. I hated everything the reminded me of my father and he knew that. We never talked about our past much, but we both acknowledged it was there.
"Just because they were his doesn't mean they're bad. You aren't your father, Athena," Ashton reminded me. If there was one thing I could trust to come from Ashton, it was his honesty. But still, I didn't like to be reminded of my father much at all and my eyes were a constant memoir.
"Yeah. I'm way fucking worse."
"We don't hurt defenseless people. Especially those we're supposed to protect," Ashton reminded me, his large hand still holding my face up.
"No, we just kill them instead." My hands rested on his biceps to balance myself in our close proximity.
The earnestness seemed to radiate of Ashton's muscular body as he responded with all seriousness in the world. "People can say a lot of things about us, Athena. We're loyal, immoral, selfish, ruthless. But we never purposely torment those we care about. I risked everything to get my mother out of Palestine. You tried everything you could to save Cameron. But we make the tough choices. Everyone can pretend they would die for the people they love but that's the easy part, and some people can't even do that. We would kill for the people we love, and that says a lot about our character."
"About what you said in the woods," I brought up. I never would have considered myself a vulnerable person but right now, I couldn't have felt smaller standing in front of the six-foot-two soldier. I was nothing compared to him. "I didn't mean to say I don't trust you. The truth is I trust you more than I've trusted anyone in a long time...The truth is it scared me not to have my guard up all the time. That's how we get killed."
I thought Ashton was going to reject me. Actually, I thought he was going to laugh in my face and tell me he told me so. Instead, my lungs filled with air as my butt hit the counter behind me when Ashton's large frame nudged me slightly. My pupils left his eyes momentarily due to the movement, but as soon as I looked up again, I was staring straight at his plump lips.
They were so soft looking with their mauve toned pink, standing out against his caramel skin. I had always thought of Ashton as extremely attractive, but never could I have imagined I would go from sleeping next to him to voluntarily wanting to kiss the living shit out of him.
Luckily, I didn't have the time to overanalyze my impulsive and carnal desires because Ashton cut me off my pressing his warm lips against my own. I'd kissed the Palestinian many times but never like this. Never had I ever experienced the same passion through Ashton's touch as I did at this moment. Every teasing word or hungry glance was poured into my nerves culminating in an eruption of fiery lust.
"I've wanted to do that since you slapped me," Ashton whispered when our lips separated from our slow and intense gesture. His eyes were watching my face for a reaction, but instead of giving him a facial response, I just closed my eyes and captured his plump lips again with much more desperation, it was like I needed him to survive.
This time was so different than the other times Ashton had touched me intimately, pretending for someone else. Now he was touching me because he wanted me. I'd always known I was attracted to the six-foot-two pile of model material, but I didn't think it would ever turn into anything. Until recently I'd been drilling it into my head that it couldn't, but now I wasn't so sure.
The boxes clattered to the floor when Ashton pushed me back, sitting me on the counter fully with his body between my legs. I wrapped my legs around his waist, keeping his figure close to mine while his lips left my own to suck on my neck, his pearly white teeth playing with my delicate and sensitive skin. A low moan left the back of my throat when he found the sweet spot at the edge of my jaw, just below my earlobe. My hands tangled themselves in his silky black hair as a reactionary response.
