CHAPTER 36
Olivia
“ M mmm … that’s it, kitten.” I look down into those dark mercury eyes to the beast of a man nestled between my thighs, gripping them tight to hold me close.
He uses his free hand to spread me apart before running his tongue firmly through my soaking core.
The ache is too strong. I want him too badly.
I need him. He doesn’t hide the way he wants me either as he groans against my clit, his eyes closing as he tastes me.
My legs begin to shake as I cry out his name. “Asher!”
I’m panting so hard I feel dizzy as my body quakes for him and desire rolls through me at the sight of him on his knees for me. I moan as he sucks my clit firmly into his mouth and those eyes spark open, now vibrant and light as he burrows his face deeper, watching me.
“Show me how well you ride my tongue, Liv ….” Asher feasts on me in a way no one before him has.
I do what he says and rock my hips. I can’t breathe.
I can’t think. I exist only for the pleasure his tongue and his perfect mouth offer me.
I can’t keep up as he trades between licking, sucking, and nipping at me.
My legs shake and, in mere seconds, I feel the orgasm taking its firm hold, centering every cell in my body.
My eyes meet his, and he lets out a rumbling growl as his tongue laps against my clit.
“Your cunt is always so needy, always fucking dripping for me, isn’t it?” He smirks against me. “Only for me. Because you’re mine, Olivia.”
I bolt up in bed, sweating, my heart beating erratically fast. The ache between my thighs is real, even though I was dreaming.
My attention is brought back to the present when I feel something move at my feet. Duke gruffs and lays his furry, warm head on top of my blanket-covered feet. I slump back down into the pillows.
“You stayed with me all night, boy?” I say. He isn’t interested in waking up yet and, instead, slumps against my feet as his pillow.
I glance out to the woods behind Asher’s house.
The lightening gray sky is a stark contrast to the mountain, and the patio door is still open.
The morning breeze enters the space, bringing the sound of birds with it.
Asher’s bed was so comfortable to sleep in, and as I look around the room now, rested but still very turned on, I breathe in the delicious scent of him that lingers in the plush pillows.
I flip my phone over on the bedside table to see that it’s just after six a.m.
I listen for movement anywhere else in the house but find nothing. I do, however smell coffee … which tells me Asher is already awake? Mortification washes over me as I wonder if he just heard me, if I was actually moaning his name in my sleep.
All I have to do is sit up for the nausea to creep in.
I reach for my bag beside the bed and grab two salted crackers from the stash I brought last night when we stopped at my place on the way home from the hospital.
Popping them into my mouth, I close my eyes as I chew, willing my stomach to settle and reminding myself it’s good that I feel this.
The ER doc said morning sickness is a sign of a healthy pregnancy.
After a few minutes my stomach feels calmer, so I slide my feet out from the blankets and stand, stretching as I grab my hoodie and toss it on over my tank, my pajama shorts still on from when I crawled in last night.
I toss my mass of tangled hair back into a bun, then pad out to the kitchen.
I’m surprised when I don’t see Asher anywhere, though there is a pot of coffee brewed and an empty mug in the sink. What time does this man get up?
I spy a Post-it note on the counter. Went for a run. This is half decaf, there’s cream in the fridge.
I putter around the kitchen, pulling out a mug from the mug cabinet—all black, all in a neat row.
I pour myself a cup of coffee, breathing in the delicious smell and taking a big sip.
Then I look for the ingredients I might need and, surprisingly, Asher has everything.
I wonder if it’s overstepping but then decide it’s the least I can do to thank him for being so supportive.
It takes me no time at all to whip up a quick batch of pumpkin spice muffins from the puréed pumpkin in his refrigerator.
As I wait for them to bake, I scroll through my pregnancy app to understand the changes I can expect this week.
This week, the baby has officially leveled up to fetus, and it says he or she is already an inch and a half long.
I’m watching a 3D rendering of a little alien when the oven beeps.
The smell of pumpkin and spice fills the air when I pull the muffins out to cool.
I yawn and top up my mug as my phone buzzes on the counter,
MOM
Make sure you let us know if you need anything today.
DAD
We can bring you over some lunch if you want, but just get some rest.
ME
I will. I promise.
I tell them both I love them. I know they’re probably worried after waking up to me telling them about my scare.
Setting my phone down, I notice the sun is fully up now and beating through Asher’s French doors, so I decide to take my coffee out to the house’s wide covered deck.
From the kitchen window, I spy a rather comfortable-looking sectional sofa that faces Sugarland Mountain.
Duke trots alongside me as I head for the door.
I know Asher lets him have free rein of the property so I pull the door back and let him out first, expecting him to take off into the yard.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he just turns to look at me with a cocked head that seems to say, Let’s go, lady, I don’t have all day.
I make it outside, balancing my coffee, a warm muffin, and my phone as Duke heads out into the flat of the yard to do his thing.
I’m so intent on not spilling my coffee that I don’t notice the massive aluminum tub on the other side of the deck, or the almost naked beast of a man sitting inside it.
My stomach drops and my mouth almost waters after the dream I just had as my gaze lands on the sculpted, inked arms—dripping and glistening—outstretched over the sides.
My eyes trail up to Asher’s dark, wet hair that is brushed back off his forehead.
His own are closed, as if my arrival into what I assume is an early morning ritual does not faze him in the slightest.
“Is that ice ?” I ask, shivering just looking at him as I take a seat on the sturdy outdoor sofa.
He smirks, eyes still shut. “Good morning to you too. And yes.”
“ Why? ” I ask, my voice sounding appropriately horrified, which makes Asher chuckle.
“Because, after I work out, I bathe in ice. It’s good for circulation and blood flow.”
“You enjoy self-torture?” I query, taking a sip of my coffee.
This makes him open his steely eyes, and a shiver runs through me as he turns to face me. Fuck me. The sheer beauty of this man stuns me as I watch him raise a muscled arm and run a hand through his wet hair.
“A little pain is never a bad thing, Livi,” he says in that deep timbre, and I’m damned if that sentence doesn’t turn me right back on. “Helps remind us we’re alive.”
I decide to steer our conversation toward something that doesn’t remind me how close to naked he is ten feet away from me.
“Would you be able to give me a ride back to Silver Pines to get my car this morning, please? I have to be at the shop at eight.”
“Your car is here. I had Haden pick me up this morning and take me to the ranch. I drove it back. Keys are in the basket on the island.”
“This morning? As in what? Four a.m.?”
“Four-thirty.” He says it like it’s nothing, and I have to force myself to pull my eyes from him as I will my brain out of the deepest depths of the gutter that is his glorious fucking self.
“Pumpkin … muffins,” I blurt out of nowhere.
“Pardon?” he asks, genuine concern lining his face. I take a breath and hold my muffin up.
“I baked. Pumpkin spice, you had everything.”
He leans back and closes his eyes again. “You used the pumpkin in the fridge?”
“I hope that’s okay. I just wanted to bake you something for being … so great.”
His lips tug up. “Dick’s gonna be pissed you used his pump kin.”
He fed his “not my cat” pumpkin? Before I have a chance to tell him how sweet that is, Asher’s phone starts to beep with a timer and he rises like Poseidon from the sea, and my brain descends right back into that gutter as water slinks slowly down the crevices of his chest and abs like tiny rivers running downhill to meet the band of his black swim trunks.
Swim trunks that are stuck to him and outline his cock perfectly.
My mouth turns as dry as the desert as I watch him.
“You’re staring,” Asher says with a grin, his accent thick as he wraps a towel around his narrow hips. Slowly, my brain cells start to rebuild, and I’m able to look away.
“Sorry, I … just … Damn dream. ” I whisper the last part under my breath so he doesn’t hear.
“What dream now?” he asks, not missing a beat. Fucking hell.
“Do you have supersonic hearing?” Fuck it. I decide to just be real with him. “You must know how you look right now.”
Asher moves closer and leans down over me as icy drops of water fall from his skin onto mine. I shiver as he kisses me on the forehead, just as he did last night.
“I’m gonna grab a coffee, one of those incredible muffins, and put on a shirt to help you control yourself. But if you think I’m letting you off the hook about that dream, you’re wrong.”
Another shiver runs through me.
“It wasn’t about you,” I lie as he straightens and begins to head in.
“You’re a shite liar, Liv,” he says with a chuckle.
I close my eyes when he’s gone, take a deep breath, and secretly commit the image of him dripping wet and half naked to the official Asher Reed dream bank.