Chapter 17
Seventeen
Christian
Icheck my emails as Asher sleeps soundly next to me.
We’d taken a leisurely shower, kissing slowly and languorously as we’d washed off the drive and what we’d done the moment the hotel room door had closed behind us.
He’d been a vision on his knees, mouth full and eyes glittering with tears as he’d taken me into his tight throat.
As he’d stepped out of the shower and wrapped himself in one of the hotel’s oversized towels, I’d been a little stupefied at the sight.
His cheeks were pink from the hot steam, his hair inky black.
Those piercing blue eyes like jewels against the raven feather of his lashes.
He was gorgeous. Though I’d decided that word was too broad, too inadequate to describe him.
There was a delicacy to Asher, a gentle fragility, superficially at least, which on a beat could transform into something sexy and seductive.
A thing of such classical beauty that it was like he had stepped out of some other epoch.
He would not look out of place in ancient Rome or Greece, where he’d be the much-coveted favourite of an emperor or king.
An entrancing mix of preternatural beauty and startling wisdom.
Helen’s face had launched a thousand ships, but I was sure, had he been born in another time, Asher’s could have brought entire empires to their knees.
He caught me staring and dropped the towel, making a show of drying his body as he turned it this way and that.
“See something you like?” he asked, with a tempting smile over his shoulder.
“I like everything about you,” I told him. “You’re mesmerizing.”
He looked more amused than flattered. “I’m gonna have such an ego by the time this is over.”
The word hit a discordant note inside my chest. Over.
I watch him sleeping now as the word echoes again.
Over. I’ll have to give him up at some point, of course I know this.
Just as I knew I’d have to give Felix up.
I can’t make a life with these men. They deserve better than what I can offer them—liaisons in hotel rooms and fake names stored in my phone—and even if something does feel acutely different about Asher, it doesn’t mean anything can come of it.
Seema was correct: this is no different than the illicit affairs of thousands of politicians who have come before me. Then why does it feel different?
Her lecture when I’d told her about this weekend had been brief: she could help me keep this as clandestine as possible, but there was one wild card she could not help me with, and that was Asher himself.
She’d urged me to have him sign a non-disclosure, something that would protect everyone should this thing turn sour.
I told her I’d consider it, though I hadn’t done any such thing.
I refuse to examine why that is, and whether deep down I want to be caught, whether I want my secret life to be out in the open so I don’t have to hide it anymore.
I told Seema I didn’t think Asher was the type to sell stories to the press, and she’d given me a look, pity I’m sure, and told me that it was always better to be safe than sorry about things like this.
She knew about the situation in London, and how I’d come to end up here, and so she’d added: It’s my job to protect you, sir.
That’s all I’m trying to do. She hadn’t told me to end it, which had been refreshing, not even after the porn star revelation.
She hadn’t given me a list of reasons why it was wrong or going to end terribly in a storm of humiliation.
She’d been pragmatic and spoken directly and reasonably, and she’d put forward the idea of an NDA.
Her pragmatism had been why I’d told her to draft the agreement and send it to me to review.
Though I haven’t considered asking him to sign it, I know he would.
Asher is as open and honest and upfront a person as I’ve ever met; there is nothing about him to suggest he’d have an issue with it.
He is also a pragmatist, and he would understand my reasons for asking.
But it’s for all of these reasons that I don’t feel the need to do it.
I don’t want our relationship to be something I felt compelled to hide behind a contract and never speak of.
It makes me feel odd in a way I can’t quite explain.
I glance over it for the third time. It’s fairly inoffensive, standard, and designed to prevent the sort of thing Felix’s so-called friend had attempted back in London.
There’s also some protection in there for Asher that I would never deny him.
I’d protect him with everything I had if it came down to it, and I wouldn’t need a piece of paper to do it.
I look down at him again. He fell asleep with his mobile on his chest and a sort of frown of concentration on his face.
He’s wearing very short shorts, which have risen up to show the smooth curve of his behind, and his bare feet are pushed up against my thigh.
He has one hand between his legs in a childlike pose.
Closing the laptop, I set it down on the side table and move to settle his feet on my thighs.
He stirs slightly as I smooth my hand over the tops of his feet, but it’s when I touch his toes that he bolts almost upright, eyes wide with shock.
His hair is sitting up, rhombus-like, on one side of his head as he glares at me. He looks extremely cute.
I bite back my amused laughter. “Ticklish?”
A blush creeps across his cheeks. “Uh, yeah, very.”
“Sorry. Now I know.”
“What a way to wake up,” he grumbles adorably.
“You didn’t want to sleep too late anyway, you said.”
“Right. How long was I out?”
I glance at my watch. “About an hour, maybe a little longer.”
“Damn, I hate naps,” he says through a yawn. “Now I have a headache.” He bends to retrieve his phone, which had bounced off the sofa at his springboard action.
“I have something in my bag for it.” I move to stand.
“I’m good, I just need some fresh air. And I’m hungry, have you eaten?”
“No, I said I’d wait for you.”
He blinks at me, smiling. “Right. Um, okay. I’m just gonna go for a quick walk outside, then we can order when I’m back?”
“Sounds good.”
I watch him stumble a little dazedly around the suite for a moment as he pulls on a pair of cargo trousers and a ballcap, then his trainers, before he disappears out the door. I pull up my laptop to review the NDA again.
??
He orders what he calls a ‘bottom-friendly’ salad bowl and drinks water, a lot of it, while I have a red snapper rice dish, which is spicier than I anticipated.
He talks over what to expect tomorrow—we’d decided that his co-star would come here—and what I should do if I need to leave at any point.
Which he says he absolutely won’t be offended by.
“I shouldn’t think I’ll need to leave,” I tell him as I set down my fork and pick up my napkin. “I’m looking forward to it.” And I am. I don’t expect my feelings about watching him get fucked to change between now and then. Asher studies me as though he suspects I might be lying.
“Have you ever done anything like this before?” he asks. “I mean, not with cameras and for this purpose, but like, have you watched before. Is that something you did with your wife?”
It hits like an insult, and my voice is sharp when I say: “No, never.”
The idea of Stella and me doing something like I’m planning on doing tomorrow… of her knowing… of her...
“Sorry,” he says quickly. “It’s none of my business what you do, or did with your wife. I shouldn’t have asked.”
I stare at him, his pretty, open face. There’s nothing mean or cruel or accusatory in it. Just the apology, and the barest hint of curiosity.
“No, I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I just don’t tend to talk about her… very much.”
“Yeah. I’ve noticed.”
I blink. “You want me to talk about my wife?”
He sets down his fork. “I mean, sure, if you want to. It’s just… on the ride here, you told me about everyone else: your parents, your son, your friends back in England, the people you work with. You mentioned your schoolteacher once, too. But not a word about your wife.”
I stare at him.
“You had your whole life with her mapped out,” he says gently.
I nod. Unable to speak past the growing ball of emotion in my throat. Asher waits, patient and quiet.
“I still expect her to call to ask about dinner, to tell me to get Leo from practice. I still hope that when a door opens, she’s going to walk into the room. It’s… pathetic.”
He frowns at this, looking almost angry with me. “It’s not pathetic that you miss her, Christian.”
“It’s been almost six years, Asher. She’s not going to walk into any room, she’s not coming bloody back.”
“No,” Asher says soberly. “She isn’t. But not talking about her, about what you had with her? That’s how you really lose her.”
I scrutinise him. This gorgeous, otherworldly boy who speaks with a wisdom far beyond my own. It makes me lash out, defensive.
“What are you doing here?”
His eyes flicker with surprise. “What do you mean?”
“With me. A man twice your age who can’t love you, can’t even fuck you, who can barely say his dead wife’s name because he misses her so much. It makes no bloody sense. What are you getting out of this, exactly?”
He’s hurt, I can see that, and he doesn’t try to hide it, either. Many would. But not Asher.
“Well, you’re here with me, actually,” he says in a measured tone. “You didn’t need to come, you could have stayed home in your fucking… palace, but you got in my car and let me drive you through two fucking states, so maybe I should be asking you that question?”
Chastened, and very much seen, I look down. “Maybe you should.”