Page 45 of Driven By Impulse

She gave a short nod. “No secrets.”

Except there were secrets between them, secrets they both seemed to know without the other ever saying them aloud. Nicco saw Ash pulling away before his very eyes, pulling back to his past, to his family, to the girl he had no doubt once loved. And Ash, well, Ash had been checking in on Nicco’s unspoken secret for a year, making sure he didn’t let the leash of it pull too far, pull past the point of no return.

And then there was the other secret, the one that had Nicco pressing his hard cock too close to Ash’s muscled thighs in the darkness, the one that made them both reach for forbidden pleasures, too afraid to give up what they had, and far too desperate not to step out on the bridge.

Ash glanced to Nicco, as if he could read every one of the dangerous thoughts Nicco was trying so very hard to keep to himself.

But that was the thing about having people who cared about you. They made it terribly difficult to just fade away.

“Hanna, believe me or don’t. I left for you, for your dad, for the memory of your sister. But I also left for me, because if anything had happened to you when I was playing outlaw, I would never have forgiven myself.” He took one more step toward her. “And if anything happens to you tonight, I won’t forgive myself for that, either.”

Ash reached out, and Nicco wasn’t sure if he wanted Hanna to accept the touch or if he wanted her to push it away. Not that it mattered. Their fates had been sealed from the moment Ash had gotten her call and gone running in the middle of the night.

“I need…” She shook her head. “I need a minute here.”

She slipped out of the back door and into the yard.

Ash watched her go and Nicco watched Ash. They stood just feet away, but it felt like worlds, lives lived, secrets held.

“Was I wrong?” Ash asked after a long moment. He didn’t turn to look at Nicco, but Nicco had been listening closely for the pin-drop moment that broke the silence. “I was eighteen and she had her whole life ahead of her and…” He did look at Nicco then. “You knew me a few years later, Nic. That dumb kid… He could never have deserved Hanna.”

Nicco could recall the Ash who had knocked on the clubhouse door that fateful night. When he’d started The Princes, the clubhouse had been a ranch house with broken shutters and a front door that never closed right. The concrete steps had been eroded by years of snow and neglect, and there were several unidentified machines on the front lawn that were slowly being consumed by the earth.

But it had been his. He’d gotten away from the shit club he’d been part of, and had started something different. Ash had been one of the very first people to join him. Their paths had crossed, as they often did in the biking world, and Nicco had recognized the pretty boy standing on his front half-step from the bar, the only one that still allowed bikers within a hundred miles from home. That night, Ash had been bruised around the eye and bloodied around the lip, and he’d asked if Nicco had needed a solider.

Nicco had told him he’d needed an advisor.

A voice of guidance. Someone to call him back from the edge.

Because their worlds had narrowed down to pinpricks of violence and anger. And he was done.

“Who’s to say she would have been ready for you either?” Nicco replied. “Her family was still in mourning. She was young, likely as angry as you were. Hanna could have gotten you in as much trouble as you could have gotten her in, Ash.”

Ash managed a smile, and even though it was small and pinched, the sight made Nicco’s shoulders relax. When he’d cleaned the blood and bruises, Ash had quickly put down the weight of the world, lightening Nicco’s load as he did. From the very start, he’d been the one with an easy joke, a quick smile, the only one who always put people at ease, even on the very worst days of their lives—except for maybe Hanna—and it felt wrong to see him with that dullness in his eyes.

“We were the blind leading the blind back then…” Ash muttered, as if his own thoughts had dipped back into memories. “And thank fuck for it.” His gaze was strong and intense when he caught and held Nicco’s eyes. “You know I’m not going anywhere, right. We just need to suck the poison from the wound.”

Nicco knew Ash believed that. But he had seen so many glances in the last days, so many hidden exchanges, brushed fingers, familiar moments. Ash had carried Hanna up to bed like a bride, and they fought as if they had been doing it all their lives.

And he knew, just as Ash had known at eighteen and a day, that he would walk away to give the people he cared about a chance.

“And did you get it all?” Nicco asked. “The poison?”

Ash grinned, and fuck, even after all this time, all this hurt and ache and brokenness that seemed to pervade everything like some fucked-up tale of Midas, the sight still warmed Nicco’s belly.

“Are you asking how well I suck, captain?”

Another time and another place, and it would have been nothing more or less than shit talk, the negging and teasing of two old friends. But with the image of Ash’s hand on his cock firmly imprinted in Nicco’s mind, the question took on an entirely different meaning, one that made his mouth dry and his pants tighter than was comfortable.

“And if I was…?” He was used to taking highway turns on the back of a bike at one hundred and thirty miles an hour, but this was still the most dangerous thing Nicco had ever done.

Even if he had been the one to drop his tuxedo pants on the bathroom floor and tell Ash to look for himself if his cock was pierced…

“I’d say don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to,” Ash replied, stepping close. He was in Nicco’s space…

“Ash,” Nicco’s voice came out on a whisper. He wasn’t sure if he was begging his best friend to take the last step, or not to take the last step.

Ash held his gaze. “You weren’t a coward last night, Nic. Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft.”