Her body shuddered against mine, and I tightened my grip on her hips, pulling her back until there was not an ounce of space between us. My cock swelled as she continued to grind her ass into me with every movement she made, as the seductive music flooded the bar. The effect she had on me had always been so immediate, it was like turning a switch, and I would be hers in entirety. The truth was, she wasn’t mine, but I was hers. I had been hers from the very start, way back when she gave me her greatest gift.

I turned her in my arms until we were chest to chest. My hands were now resting on her lower back, and her arms surrounded my shoulders. I pulled her tight against me.

“I’m happy. I don’t think there is anything that could wreck this moment,” she whispered.

“I never thought I’d be good enough for you. I always knew that you deserved the world. But I’m going to give you the world every day I am with you. You’ll get my last breath, the last beat of my heart, and my last ounce of strength to make sure you are okay.”

“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked softly and leaned in. “You’ve always been good enough for me. No question about it, and we will take our last breaths together. I don’t want to imagine a time without you, especially now that I’ve only just gotten you. But when we go, we go together.”

“Josh, we need to go,” Ky said behind me, completely interrupting mine and Ashlyn’s moment, seconds before I was about to tell her then and there that I was in love with her.

“What’s going on?” I swung around and was greeted by my brother’s stern face, flickering with warning and anger.

“Lachlan’s turned up. We need to take the girls home.”

I didn’t hesitate. I stepped straight into protective mode as soon as I heard his name. This was getting beyond a fucking joke. He needed to piss off back to Australia immediately. My hand wrapped around Ashlyn’s, and I pulled her through the crowd toward the exit, with one goal in mind: to get her the fuck away from here. To say I was shocked when she suddenly stopped would be an understatement.

“Why are you stopping?” I asked quickly, pulling on our hands briefly to try and get her to walk.

“I need to know why he is doing this,” she said.

“Ash, I’m not letting him near you. Not again.”

“Josh, I need to know. I need to tell him one last time that I’m done. That I‘m with you.” Her face flashed with determination and a need to finally close this part of her life. I didn’t have a good feeling about this. This wasn’t going to end well, but how could I refuse her when she was looking at me like this was the key to finally saying goodbye that fucked up part of her life.

“Ky, where is he?” I asked before I decided against it.

“Just got word from Tate that he is out front. Apparently, Tanzi checked us all in on Facebook and he saw.”

“Come on,” I said, and she offered me a thankful smile.

In silence, we headed for the exit and the unknown. When we stepped onto the path, Tate and Jack turned to look at us, and Lachlan’s gaze found Ashlyn. She immediately dropped my hand and headed toward him.

“Why are you doing this? Just tell me why,” Ashlyn said sternly, and I watched as my girl straightened her shoulders and approached him.

“You want to know why?” he asked with a scoff. “Because even when we were in a relationship, I knew Josh was all you thought about. You thought you hid it, but I saw through it. The looks, the innocent touches, the way you spoke about him . . . like he was everything you wanted. What do you think that does to a man? You might have been sharing my bed, but I didn’t have all of you. That fucks with a guy’s head, Ashlyn,” he sneered.

“I was with you, Lachlan. You. Two years I spent with you, and you cheated on me repeatedly. I never cheated on you. I was getting ready to spend my life with you.”

He shot a look of pure fury my way. “Yeah, until Josh decided to grow a set of balls and make a move. You would have run to him without question.”

“You don’t know that, Lachlan. It was you that ended our relationship. It was you who fucked around behind my back, and it was you who left. I refuse to listen to this bullshit when you have no reason to spit it. Leave, Lachlan. Go back to Australia and forget about me.”

His mouth twisted into an evil smirk as his gaze locked onto Ashlyn. My blood boiled. His eyes on her made me possessive, like I was an uncaged animal wanting to rip the throat of whoever stood between me and my prize. I took toward her, and grabbed her hand in protection.

Anger was a fire I knew I could contain, but fury was a wildfire, so uncontrollable that it had the potential to destroy everything in its path. Fury was now sweeping through me at a rapid rate.

“You’ll never forget me, Ashlyn. I’ll make sure you remember me for the rest of your life. A constant reminder.”

Without another word, he turned around and walked down the street and away from us. There was no snarky remark, no threatening glare, and no intimidating stance as he walked off. Nothing. Ashlyn’s grip on my hand lessened, and she took a deep breath as I tried to understand exactly what had just happened. It was way too easy. Way too fucking easy. My protective instincts kicked in, and my only concern was Ashlyn and getting her the fuck out of here.

“Come here, Ashy.” I pulled her against my chest, and wrapped her with my warmth and protection. My eyes didn’t leave his retreating figure until his was out of sight. Though out of sight, his unpredictability still lingered in the air.

“Is it over?” she whispered against my chest, and her arms around my waist grew tighter. “It can’t be that easy.”

“He isn’t getting near you again Ashy. I promise you that. Tomorrow we are going to the police station and putting a stop to this.” She nodded against my chest before lifting her head and finding my eyes. “Let me take you home. We can have a bath and I can take care of you.”

“I’d like that.” She whispered, and gave me a weak smile.

“Ky, can you stay with Ash? I’m just going to grab us a cab across the street. They never stop out front of here for some reason.”

Ky nodded, and I reluctantly untangled my arms from around Ashlyn. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her to his side. Her eyes found mine and, in that split second, it felt like a million words were said between us, but I couldn’t understand one of them. It was the craziest of feelings, like the universe was trying to tell us something that neither of us could hear.

I needed to take my girl home and as far away from this scene as possible.

Unease was sitting in my chest, and I fucking hated it.

I warned you, Ashlyn. Here’s a constant reminder.

My stomach shot to my throat, and my grip tightened on my phone as I looked down at Lachlan’s words.

“Ash, what’s wrong?” Ky asked beside me as I froze against his body.

I frantically dialed Josh’s number. “We need to go. I have to get to Josh.”

“What’s happened? Talk to me. What’s wrong with Josh?” His eyes pleaded with me.

I pushed his arm away and started frantically looking for any sign of Josh. I didn’t have time to talk, I needed to find him, and then we needed to get as far away from here as possible.

The breath I didn’t know I was holding escaped when I found him about to cross the road. He was in sight. The tension in my body relaxed, and he spun around, as if he knew I was there, and his eyes connected with mine. The overwhelming need to yell out to him, to tell him exactly how I felt about him, shot through me. All I wanted was for him to know that I was in love with him, that I was his as much as he was mine. I didn’t want to wait a second longer, because a second may never be enough time.