Ashley had to endure a physical and psych evaluation on her return to Operations, and had been recommended four months of leave to aid in her recovery. On closer inspection of the available information, Intelligence had discovered that Aleksandar Jovanovic had not been among those killed during the fire-fight. Still, they'd managed to take out the leader and a great number of the soldiers, and so the mission was classed as a partial success.
She wasn't sure how four months of sitting around and doing nothing was going to help her feel better, but she wasn't going to complain. She was just glad that they hadn't started questioning her about why Luca hadn't been where he was supposed to be that morning. She had fallen into a carefully constructed routine designed with the intent to numb her brain, and she was walking around in a daze for the most part.
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It had been sixteen weeks, but Luca was still preying on Ashley's mind. She was sure he was going to come after her, and a part of her was dreading that and what he would do.
However, another small part of her ached at the thought that maybe he wouldn't bother coming to find her. She felt utterly confused whenever she thought about him; it made her flinch at the memory of her bruises but she also felt a twinge of longing. She dreamt about him while she slept and spent her days trying to push him out of her mind, with little success. She often found herself daydreaming, her body burning at the memory of his hands and mouth moving over her skin.
The torture didn't last much longer. Ashley returned home tired after a day spent aimlessly wandering through the local shopping centre. She dropped her bags in the hallway and traipsed up the stairs and into her bedroom, not bothering to close the door behind her. She pulled her hair out of its pony tail and began unbuttoning her shirt, then froze as she heard the bedroom door close behind her.
Luca stood leaning against the bedroom door, his arms casually folded and that characteristic look of brutal determination on his face. He looked a little tidier than usual, although he still wasn't clean shaven. The look in his eyes was difficult to fathom completely, but Ashley didn't miss the smouldering anger within them. She felt her nether regions stir treacherously at the sight of him and took an involuntary step backwards, eyes darting about in search of any available weapons but finding nothing.
"Hello Luca," she whispered softly, standing awkwardly still as she tried to figure out what he was going to do. He didn't reply. "What do you want?" she asked, suddenly conscious of the fact that her breasts were poking out of her half unbuttoned shirt.
Luca snorted derisively as he pushed himself away from the door and stalked towards Ashley. She raised her chin in defiance and refused to back away. He stopped in front of her, so close that his chest almost brushed against her breasts.
"You know why I'm here, my little slut," he growled softly in Serbian. He slid his hand to her cheek and gripped painfully. "You lied to me, and you set me up. And you're going to die."
Ashley slapped his hand away from her cheek, then landed a blow to his left eye. He caught her wrist before she could hit the other side of his face and bent it behind her back painfully. She whimpered, then kneed Luca in the balls in an attempt to escape. He grunted, his grip relaxing on her arm as he bent over in pain.
"Let's get a couple of things straight Luca," Ashley said, kicking him again as it looked as if he might straighten up. "Yes, I lied to you. It was my job. As for setting you up? I did that too. But if I hadn't done things the way that I did, you would be dead right now, and you know it."
Luca straightened slowly, then shoved Ashley against the wall, pinning her down. "Am I supposed to be grateful?" he growled, his hand holding her jaw still.
"That I risked my own life to save yours?" Ashley replied. Luca raised an eyebrow at that, unimpressed. "Yes, you should be. You were supposed to turn up to do your job and get slaughtered with the rest of them, but I stopped you from going. My employers are not exactly forgiving, Luca. If they find out what I did, they'll kill me."
Luca was silent for a moment. He hadn't dared let himself think that perhaps Ashley hadn't wanted him to get hurt. The thought niggled at him, but he pushed it aside coldly. "Don't worry," he replied, sliding his hand to her throat and starting to squeeze. "I'll save them the trouble."
"I understand that you're angry Luca," Ashley said. "That you feel as if I used you. But we didn't exactly have a traditional honest and loving relationship going on. I still didn't want them to hurt you, though. I need you to understand that I did what I did because it was the only way I could stop them from killing you. And that was all that was important to me."
He didn't believe her, he couldn't. He'd spent too long being as angry as hell over her making a fool of him, and he wasn't about to let her do it again. So he ignored the look of pain on her face and chose to think only about the fact that everything else she'd ever said to him had been a lie. He gradually tightened his grip on her neck until she started to squirm desperately.
Ashley wasn't going to accept Luca's punishment without a fight. She punched him in the stomach and he grunted in pain, his grip loosening on her throat enough so that she could push him away from her. She hit him again in the jaw, but he grabbed her arm and held her still, a backhander to her cheek causing her to stagger in pain.
Luca was slightly surprised by Ashley's return to her original more aggressive self. He wondered how much of her submissive behaviour had been an act to make him feel secure enough to trust her. It had certainly worked. He pulled her against him and slid his mouth to her ear.
"All that time you spent screaming for me," he whispered. "All the times you writhed around underneath me and moaned my name. Are all those even real? Was doing your job really worth being a whore for me?" Ashley frowned at Luca's hard description of past events.
"That wasn't a part of my job," she whispered, and Luca sneered. He didn't believe her. He wouldn't.
"Was doing your job really worth leaving?" he growled. Ashley's breath caught in her throat. How was she supposed to answer that?
"I..." she started, taking a shaky breath. "I didn't want to leave like that. But I couldn't have stayed, Luca. I mean, you couldn't have expected me to be happy sitting naked in a house all day just waiting for you to come home so that you could screw me?"
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