Chapter 15 #2
“How’s this for snooty britches?” I laughed as I panted, then hit Send without giving myself a second to rethink it, captioning it with: Barely made it home. You’ve been on my mind all damn day.
He didn’t respond for hours, long enough I’d run straight for the worst conclusion and impatiently waited for him to call all of this off. Of course, that was stupid.
Just after ten, Asher texted a smirking emoji and a picture that nearly stopped my heart. He stood in front of a mirror—hair a mess with a flush spread over his tanned chest—licking come from his fingers.
Ash
Next time you better share, Flirt, or I won’t.
Not since that night we met at the club had I come more than once in a single day. That had been out of my norm, but this was a special occasion.
You deserve a fat load down your throat for making me come a second time.
Ash
When? Fuck, I want it. You’ve got an amazing dick.
All yours, Playboy.
Ash
Playboy, huh? Not sure that fits either of us. Lol.
My Playboy then.
Ash
Is this your way of asking me to be exclusive?
If it is, I’m so here for it.
I honestly hadn’t even thought about us not being exclusive, but now that he’d brought it up, I sure as shit wanted to tie that down.
Yes. I want you, Asher. You alone.
Ash
Same. I don’t want to share.
I slept so well that night and the next night. This between us was an odd relationship that didn’t want to follow any sort of preset notions I’d had. But then, I didn’t care. I liked the uniqueness of it. I liked knowing what we did I wouldn’t have with anyone else.
Then Friday came.
The drive to my parents’ house was the same. The house was the same. The scents, the lighting, the heavy atmosphere was the same, but the man who walked through their door wasn’t.
Perhaps it was a confidence born of knowing someone out there wanted me.
Not my money, because I hadn’t confessed my net worth.
He might have had a ballpark idea, but not the stadium it resided in.
He wasn’t in it because of who my parents were.
Not my social standing, or the charities I was involved in, not for any reason someone else might think they wanted a piece of Luke Dorset.
Asher wanted me. The man. The man who hopefully made him feel as good as he did me.
“Darling,” Mother called from the piano room. She was twisting a heavy vase stuffed full of fresh flowers. It had no doubt been placed by someone else, but she had to adjust it to claim she’d worked hard for the display.
“Mother.” I leaned in and kissed her cheek.
She glanced down to my shoes and back up. Normally, I came dressed in a suit as she liked, but tonight, I had on a fitted sweater over a button-down and dark gray slacks.
“So casual. What’s the occasion? Surely not dinner with your family.”
I ignored the question. “Are Paul and Mary here?” Paul was in graduate school and didn’t often have time for these dinners. However, Mary was out of school, wasting her degree while catering to her fiancé’s life.
“Yes, darling. Everyone’s already in the salon.”
I paused from turning away. “Everyone?”
Mother stopped fiddling with the vase and faced me. “Did you call Georgina as I asked?”
“No.” I thought about lying, but I had a feeling Georgina was a few doors down, waiting to be forced on me yet again.
Mother circled her slim arm around my elbow. “Your father and I would very much like for you to make an effort with her. She comes from a strong family that could do wonders.”
“Wonders for what?”
I wasn’t blind or na?ve. This world ran on who you knew as much as money.
The more of both one had, the more one controlled their outcomes.
But where did it end? The Dorsets were insanely wealthy.
A wealth we could probably never spend in a lifetime.
I didn’t need to add any more zeros to my worth.
In fact, wealth was shaping my worth less and less.
Mother waved a hand with a heavy ring of diamonds and emeralds sparkling under the chandeliers.
“You know how your father is. He always has one idea brewing. Having the ear of the mayor is no trivial thing.” Mother shrugged.
“And the mayor wants his only daughter taken care of. Surely, you understand.”
In that moment, I didn’t know who I was angrier at. My mother for basically studding me out for my father’s gain without any thought to my own wishes, or myself for not saying one word against it.
The salon, as Mother liked to call it—basically a snooty britches way of differentiating one of the multitudes of sitting rooms in the house—was filled with my siblings and the entire Barnett-Thompson family.
The mayor and his sallow wife, along with Georgina and three sons, all younger than their sister.
Georgina was dressed in a long brown skirt and a cream blouse, the same as her mother, actually, and they favored severely.
Not that I was even entertaining the idea of marrying this woman, but I couldn’t help but picture myself twenty years from now with her beside me.
She would never break out of her shell. She’d be as subdued as her mother.
Georgina wouldn’t be the type to send sexy pictures or flirt with me about swallowing come.
Christ, if she ever called a lover Daddy, I’d pass the fuck out from surprise.
“Hey.” Paul bumped my elbow and handed me a drink. “I’m three in. Catch up. It’s the only way to get through it.”
I snickered and accepted the drink. Mother and Father had waited far too long, in my opinion, to have their second and third child. Eight years separated me from Mary, and ten with Paul. It wasn’t until he was in college that we became closer as siblings.
Mary came to a stop on my other side and took a long pull from her own cocktail in a finely cut crystal lowball. “You’re not keeping her busy enough, big brother.”
Paul and I turned to lift questioning brows at our sister.
“I’m not even married yet, and she’s asking about grandchildren.”
Paul snorted into his glass, and it was Mary’s and my turn to gawk at him. “Just you wait,” I said to him. “Twenty-six is the magic year. Whatever she latches onto about how to fix your life, she won’t stop until it’s done.”
Paul paled, licked his lips, then said, “Did I tell you both I’ll be moving to Australia soon?”
“Another continent won’t save you.”
“Fuck me.”
Mary snorted, then waved at her fiancé across the room, who was talking to our father and the mayor. Smile plastered in place, she said, “I think I’m making a bad decision.”
“Prenup,” Paul and I said together.
“Pfft. He’s got his own money.”
“Prenup,” we said again, and I added, “Protect yourself, and if you already don’t feel right about it, have an exit plan.”
“Are we all such cynics?”
“No, I’m a realist.”
“Take his advice, Mary. The man has been dodging our parents for far longer. He had to have learned a few lessons along the way.”
The three of us stood shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the room and took a drink from our glasses at the same time. We glanced at each other, then snickered.
“I’m glad you’re both here tonight,” I said, then nodded at Georgina. “Mother has set her sights on that one.”
“She’s done that before,” Mary said.
“It’s different this time.”
“Will you be throwing in the towel and accepting your fate?”
“Like hell he will,” Paul said. “Our dear brother will be a bachelor forever.”
I took a sip from my glass. “Maybe not forever, but it won’t be her.”
“What do you need from us?” Mary asked.
“I think I need to figure this one out on my own.”
Mary and Paul nodded, but unfortunately, I had no idea how to do that exactly.
When we were ushered into the dining room later, Mother sat me next to Georgina, and everyone gushed over what a lovely couple we made.
They had to be blind. Georgina seemed as miserable as me, but to my utter horror, I didn’t contradict a single person.
Not even my mother when the conversation turned to marriage.