11. Asher
Chapter Eleven
ASHER
Though my heart had lurched and my unquenched lust had soared at his invitation, the day’s slow passage of time chipped away my longing for him and left me furious. How did he even dare put me in this spot? Why had he made it my choice?
Life would have been simple if he had never offered to wrestle me. Or if he simply took the thing he wanted. I didn’t want it to be up to me. I didn’t want to choose between him and our parents. And he was cruel for making me.
Jordan was missing from that night’s dinner table.
He hadn’t returned from the lake, but he had texted George to tell him he would stay and enjoy the sunset.
Our parents didn’t worry. They picked a bottle of red and took it to the front porch rather than the backyard, played music for themselves, and left me in my sullen silence.
I stalked back to my room. I paced. I showered. I paced some more. I was restless. My heart moved from one end of the spectrum to the other, never even bothering to linger around some reasonable middle. It either burned with desire or ached with disappointment.
There had been a moment in the forest when I almost gave in. I had stood so close to the edge of that cliff. One wrong breath would have sent me over. There would have been nothing left for me other than a free fall.
My heart clenched as I gazed out of the balcony door. The tired summer dusk gave way to the night before his footsteps in the hallway alerted me that Jordan had returned.
A long time later, I sat in my chair and stared at the empty desk.
It crossed my mind that this summer break wouldn’t be the end of it.
We were returning to the same team house, to the same locker room, to the same showers.
We had another year before Jordan graduated.
Then the realization squeezed all my insides: he was leaving me in less than a year.
Just like when he’d graduated from high school, Jordan was going to move on, and I would stay behind. Would he look into my eyes next year and tell me, once again, that I was nothing to him? I doubted it. We’d crossed that bridge with no way to return.
I saw him from the corner of my eye when he stepped out onto the balcony. He lingered at the balustrade for a few moments, then returned to his room. I looked at my wristwatch. Twenty minutes to go.
I wasn’t sure which I dreaded more; ending this for good or letting us push and pull and grapple for another year.
Isn’t this what you’ve been dreaming about for years?
It was exactly as I had prayed it would be.
A hot summer night, silence disrupted only by the breeze rustling the leaves in the nearby forest and Jordan unashamedly wanting all I had to offer.
A few years ago, when I had spent my night wide-eyed in this room, fantasizing about him and trying not to make a sound in my ecstasy, would I have balked at him doing the very thing I had wanted him to do?
What if he had, in fact, walked into my room in the middle of the night, found me naked and heated, and joined me like I’d dreamed?
Would I have sent him away? I doubted it.
It was hard to imagine that anything would have deterred me on those nights.
So when had I become a coward?
When he made you decide, I whispered internally.
And again, anger washed over me. I shot to my feet but made sure I was quiet as I feathered across the room and tiptoed onto the balcony.
The backyard was empty and no light came from downstairs.
Our parents had retired to their bedroom or stayed on the front porch.
Even before I entered his room, I could see him bathed in the dim yellow lamplight, sprawled out on his bed, his left foot dangling from the edge, shaking endlessly. He was looking at his phone. The visage was filtered by a thin white curtain, but I saw his bare torso and his red shorts.
I slipped inside as something lurched inside of my chest. He’d promised to keep the door unlocked for me.
And he hadn’t changed his mind. I wasn’t sure if I was sorry or overjoyed at that.
Perhaps all would have been easier had he decided for both of us and left it locked.
But there had never been anything easy in our relationship. Why would I expect him to change now?
“You came,” he whispered, pulling earbuds from his ears and dropping them on his nightstand. He sat up and leaned forward as if to stand.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” I said and bit back a nastier thing I might have said.
Jordan cocked his head, a slight frown creasing his forehead. “Oh?”
“You’re cruel,” I said indignantly, my chin lifted.
I stared him down and followed the line of his eyes as he got up and stepped closer, towering over me.
I wasn’t afraid of his size even if I wished I could keep looking down instead of all the way up.
I moved past the subtle power play. “You’re putting me in an impossible position. ”
He kept looking at me with his full attention and no interruption.
His silence was louder than any question he could ask me. It prompted me to continue and I realized he had remained silent on purpose.
I couldn’t hold my words back. I couldn’t let this silence go on. “You’re forcing me to choose between you and our family. You’re throwing all the responsibility on me. And when it blows up in our faces like it is going to, it’ll be my fault. Because I made the choice.”
He swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed and a low growl rose from his throat as he exhaled. Then, he nodded. “You’d rather not have a choice,” he stated bluntly.
That, too, was something I had to decide and confirm and direct.
I almost looked down, but I knew that his bulging muscles made me weak for him. I half suspected that he knew it, too, and remained topless for that reason.
“Making this decision is your only issue?” he was almost amused now.
He shook his head, the corners of his lips as close to a smile as they could get without actually betraying his feelings.
“Asher, you pulled these problems out of thin air,” he said.
“And now you refuse to tell me you don’t want this. ”
I tried to run a mental check on that. I wanted to see if he was right. It rang oddly true, but he didn’t let me have that moment of introspection.
“But these things you put between us—” he shrugged. “I can’t magic them away like nothing was ever there.”
My breath hitched in my throat. I blinked. We were standing closer than I had realized.
Jordan leaned down and looked into my eyes. “Let me take those decisions away,” he said. It wasn’t a request. It was a polite demand. And he didn’t mean to wait for me to nod. Oh no. He was a whirlwind of adventure and I was waiting so desperately to be swept away.
I hadn’t realized how close his hand was to my chest. I hadn’t even noticed him lifting it. But his fist closed around the middle of my half-buttoned shirt and he pulled me into his embrace. If I protested, it was so feeble that he didn’t notice.
His other arm wrapped around my waist and he pressed our bodies together.
As I leaned back from him, my stomach pressed against him, and my crotch rubbed against his.
I held my breath as every buried desire surged to life within me.
Yes. Yes to everything he asked. And to all the things he claimed without asking.
Jordan released a shuddering breath of air and looked deep into my eyes.
“This is how it’s going to be, Asher,” he said, adjusting his tune for me exactly as I had asked.
“You are mine. All of you is mine.” His hand reached up and cupped my face, his thumb feathering along my lips.
“These are mine.” He moved his hand down my neck and pressed his open palm against the middle of my chest. “This is mine.” I didn’t move anywhere as he pulled half a step back from me and lowered his hand to my crotch.
He wasn’t rough, but he cupped my crotch firmly, and his eyes sparked with lust. “This is mine. And…” His hands moved around my body until both rested on my ass.
He squeezed and rubbed my cheeks hard enough to make me bite my lip against a welling moan.
He didn’t have to say it. I knew it was his.
“Tonight. And tomorrow. And every day for as long as you’ll let me have you.
We’ll figure out the rest along the way.
” His voice was so low with precaution, but his words rang like fire alarms in my head.
“Okay,” I whispered almost breathlessly.
Kindness and desire mixed in the look he gave me, but something else was rising in him.
He knew. He knew I needed a firm hand to guide me and he was willing to lend it.
“Be mine, and I’ll make every sinful dream of yours come true, Ash.
Be mine, and I’ll give you every pleasure you ever imagined.
” Our bodies pressed together again and my hands finally dared to touch his bare torso.
“I’ll make you my prince. I’ll make you my slut.
I’ll make you all the things you can be, all for me. ”
I wheezed and held my breath. Blood drained from my head and left me dizzy, but my dick swelled painfully, and a shudder passed through my body. “Yes.”
His right hand climbed along my spine, then his fingers ran through the hair on the back of my head.
When he closed his fist, he pulled my head back.
My mouth opened as I lifted my head to look at him and I saw him for who he was.
Not just the perfect son, not just the future NHL star, and not just my big stepbrother.
He was a god of his own kind. A god of desire and lust. A god I knew how to pray to and please.
Jordan didn’t ask for it. He took the kiss that he was owed. His lips pressed against mine as his fist tightened around my hair. His tongue ventured out to explore my mouth and we moaned so very quietly into each other as he pushed every button in my being.