Chapter 17 Asha
ASHA
Iwoke with sore muscles, a foggy brain, and a delicious ache between my thighs.
I sighed at the memory of last night and tugged the covers up to my chin. But the high-thread-count duvet wasn’t mine. It smelled like fancy detergent and the faintest trace of a masculine woodsy scent that made me press my nose to the fabric and inhale deeply.
I was still at Rook’s apartment. I remembered now. He’d said I could stay when I’d almost fallen asleep at his kitchen counter.
“Wake up, Asha.”
His deep voice with its appealing Irish lilt rid me of the last signs of sleepiness.
My lids fluttered open, and there he was in the corner, sitting like a king in his leather chair, ankle resting on his knee.
Hair combed back, thick stubble, and the top few buttons of his dark shirt undone to reveal a glimpse of the rock-hard chest beneath. All put together, all controlled.
But his hands betrayed him. One thumb rubbed a groove into the armrest as if he were bracing for something.
I sat up against the headboard. “What time is it?”
“Just after four.” His tone was flat, but his eyes flicked over me once, as though making sure I was whole. Then the mask slid back into place.
“I’m sorry. I swear I never sleep this long.” I brushed hair back from my face and felt something strange on my finger. Something cold and solid.
I held my hand up, turning it slowly. A gold band with a massive emerald winked at me in the afternoon light.
Weird. Beyond weird, if I was honest, but there had to be some logical explanation for it.
“What’s this?”
His jaw flexed hard before he forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Glad you asked. That’s a wedding ring.”
“Thanks for the clarification.” I laced every word with sarcasm. “Let me rephrase my question. What’s it doing on my finger?”
“That’s where it goes when you get married. See”—he held up his hand—“I have a ring, too.”
“You’re married?”
“Aye. To you.”
I blinked, then rubbed sleep from my eyes. Any second now, he’d grin and say Gotcha!
But he didn’t. He just stared at me, his lips pressed thin as if he were waiting for my brain to catch up and explode.
This wasn’t a dream.
I tugged the sheets higher. “That’s not funny.”
“I know.”
“Did Beth and Daisy put you up to this?”
He shook his head.
My pulse kicked into overdrive. “Then is this some role-playing thing you’re into?”
Please let it be that, because the only alternative was that I’d spent the night having amazing sex with a legit crazy person.
“Let me make this simple. You and I were married in a brief ceremony this morning.”
His words dropped like stones in my gut. “Pretty sure I’d remember doing something as stupid as that.”
I yanked at the ring, twisting and tugging, but it wouldn’t move. My skin burned from the effort.
No, no, no.
The harder I tried to remove it, the more my sweaty hands shook. Why wouldn’t the damn thing budge?
Rook smiled, seeming pleased with himself.
What in the actual fuck?
“You won’t get that off,” he said.
“Yes, I will. It went on, so it can come off.” But no matter what I did, I couldn’t wriggle it over my knuckle. This ring was starting to feel less like a lavish piece of jewelry and more like a shackle.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
“This will all go a lot smoother if you skip the panic attack and accept that our marriage is real.”
“Sorry. No can do.”
All right. I was calling it. This one-night stand was officially not fun anymore.
Forget the ring. It was time to leave.
I shoved off the blankets and jumped out of the bed, clutching the waistband of the man-size sweats I wore when they nearly slipped down my hips.
Hang on. I’d never put those on. And I definitely should’ve woken when someone shoved this ridiculous ring on my finger.
A slow dread crept up my spine.
There were gaps in my memory.
Rook stood quickly. “Where do you think you’re going, Wife?”
“Don’t call me that.” I stumbled back a step, mind racing and struggling to connect the dots.
“I will until you acknowledge that you’re mine.”
Mine? Who said shit like that? “Not in a million years.”
With effort, I racked my brain until several small details returned. Rook carrying me. Strange voices. Being roused from a deep sleep and asked to…to do something.
That was it. That was all I had.
My narrowed gaze shot to Rook. “You drugged me.”
He shrugged. “It was just a Xanax.”
“Just a Xanax?” My voice cracked. I blinked at him like he might suddenly morph into someone else. Someone sane.
“You never would’ve married me otherwise.”
“No shit. And for the record, we’re not married. You can’t drug a person, shove a ring on their finger, and declare them your wife.”
He exhaled hard, as if I were the irrational one. “I know that.” He pulled out his phone and held it up.
I took one look at the screen and froze.
Security-camera footage. Rook’s living room. Me, unconscious on the sofa while Rook, a guy with piercings and neck tats, and an old man wearing a robe stood nearby.
Well, that was creepy as fuck. If they all got their dicks out and started jerking off, I’d grab the nearest blunt object and crack this son of a bitch’s skull open.
“What’s this?” I asked.
Rook had the gall to look offended. “Our wedding. See, that’s Father Sheehan.” He pointed to the older guy first, then at Neck Tats. “And that’s my cousin Aidan. Our witness.”
“Oh, sure. Seems totally legitimate. One looks like a pervert and the other like he escaped the supermax.”
The video played on. Words were said, Rook slipped his ring on his finger, then spent a while messing with mine. I’d been woken at one point—vaguely remembered that—but there was no way, even in a drugged state, I’d agree to marry some guy I’d just met. No matter how fantastic the sex had been.
I pushed the phone away. “I don’t care what this shows. That bullshit ceremony isn’t legal.”
Rook returned it to his coat pocket. “Except the priest will say it is. So will Aidan.”
I ground my teeth until my jaw ached. “It’ll never hold up in court.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. How much money do you have to fight me on it? Because I have billions at my disposal, and you have no idea how far I’ll go to get what I want.”
And what he wanted was to be married to me?
That didn’t make sense. Rook was a hot billionaire. He could literally snap his fingers and there’d be a mile-long line of women ready to enthusiastically squeal I do.
The more likely scenario was that he’d gone off his meds.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“Because I need your help.”
“Strange way to go about it when you could just ask.”
“But if I explained what I needed help with, you’d figure out I’m a bad man and say no.”
I swallowed hard. “What kind of bad man?”
“The worst kind.”
Nausea churned in my gut when my mind jumped to every horror-filled conclusion it could. In my line of work, I saw the worst humanity had to offer. If Rook was someone like that, I was in more trouble than I’d thought.
“Do you hurt people?”
“Aye.”
“Kill them?”
He didn’t even blink. “Do you really want an answer to that?”
I didn’t. Looking at Rook’s wide shoulders, broad chest, and bulging biceps with a different perspective, I knew exactly what he was.
My stomach twisted. Bile rose up my throat. Jesus Christ. I’d spent the night wrapped around a murderer.
Touched him. Moaned his name.
Begged for him.
Those tattooed hands that had ravished me could just as easily have strangled me.
He stepped closer, and I flinched. It caused something to falter in his hard expression. A brief flicker of the man who’d treated me like his queen last night.
What a fool I’d been not to see through his lies and manipulation.
I shifted back. “I’m going home now.”
“Leaving would be a mistake.”
“I strongly disagree.”
“Don’t you at least want to hear me out?”
“Or what? You’ll kill me?”
A flash of some emotion crossed his features and disappeared just as fast.
Voice low and deadly calm, he said, “I’m a bossy bastard with a short fuse and few morals.
I can be ruthless, merciless, and I will do whatever it takes to have things my way.
I’m all the things you surely hate in a man and then some.
But I promise, Asha, I’ll never lay a hand on you in anger. I’ll never hurt you like that.”
My skin prickled. Every instinct screamed Run. But…there was something in the way he said my name and vowed not to hurt me that took the edge off my anxiety.
I believed him. I had absolutely no reason to, but I did.
Don’t be stupid. He’s a lunatic. A well-dressed, muscled lunatic.
“I liked you better when I didn’t know you were a sociopath.” I snatched my dress from the floor, one hand on the waistband of the sweats. “Where are my panties?”
A wicked grin formed on his lips as he tapped his breast pocket. “Sorry, pet. You’re never getting them back.”
Heat crawled up my neck. I clenched my dress in a death grip and growled. “Fine. Keep them as your sick little souvenir, because that’s all you’ll get from me.”
That was it. I was done and ready to be out of here ASAP.
“Turn around,” I snapped.
“Why?”
I glared at Rook. “So I can get changed.”
“Asha,” he drawled. “I’ve had you naked and moaning my name while I was buried inside you. Modesty’s a bit late, don’t you think?”
My molars ground together. A traitorous pulse sparked low in my belly.
The reminder that this man was more familiar with my vagina than my gynecologist wasn’t helping.
“Shut. Up.”
But he was right. There wasn’t any part of me that Rook hadn’t seen. Or run his lips over. Don’t even get me started on the mind-blowing things he’d done with his tongue.
Shame he was a murderous nutjob.
I dropped the sweats, pulled the dress over my head, and ignored the way his gaze lingered on all the places it shouldn’t.
“Adios, douchebag.” I collected my heels and made for the hallway at a fast clip. “I knew you were too good to be true. Why are there no normal men in this fucking city?”
“Not so fast.” Rook caught me by the arm and spun me to face him. I swung a heel at his head, but he caught it and tossed it aside. Then he hauled me against his chest, holding me pinned. “You’re going to listen to what I have to say, then you’re going to do exactly as you’re told.”
I shoved at him, breath fast and sharp. “Clearly, you don’t know me.”
“But I do, Asha. I know every little detail about you.”
I stared him down, lungs heaving. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I?” His smile was slow and lethal. “I know about your podcast.” He leaned in until his face was an inch from mine. “Who’s the one with the captive audience now?”