Chapter Five. Ember #2
If he really believed I was as smart as he claimed, then Asad had to know I’d never fully depend on Marcus, him, or anyone to take care of me.
Yes, I pull a hefty salary down from HoC, but I’ve also invested in stocks, real estate, saved.
I’ve known about Mom’s trust ever since I was thirteen and Sam sat me down and explained how she’d set a fund aside for me apart from the Cross fortune because she wanted me to have my own.
Never wanted me to be out here fighting for financial independence because a man shackled the purse strings with tradition, misogyny, and “love.” That fucking four-letter word that had tripped up many a woman onto her back and out of her power.
Kimberly Jacobs Cross hadn’t wanted that for me.
She should’ve wanted that for herself when she married Marcus.
I did learn the lesson she desired, just not in the manner she intended.
As the creator of the drugs that funded his empire, I’ve been paid millions and, except for my home, lived a nine-to-fiver on a budget.
I knew this day would arrive. Knew the time would come when I could taste the precursor to my freedom like a refreshing remise en bouche—the palate cleanser erasing the bitterness of the past before I gorged on the liberation of my future.
In other words, not Marcus, Michelle, or fucking Asad gon’ catch me slipping.
I got my own.
I don’t need his fucking money.
And though my mother’s trust rightfully belongs to me, I think she would agree with me from wherever she is saying, fuck that money and her baby daddy.
“You good on breathing?”
Said breath catches in my throat. Not out of fear—okay, I can lie to others, and do so on a regular basis, but I don’t make a habit of doing it to myself.
So yes, a frisson of fear does skitter down my spine at his explicit threat.
Those gray eyes don’t blink, don’t waver from mine, and he’s not shittin’ me.
He will squeeze the breath from my throat, staring down at me as my soul flails, clawing and biting to hold on.
Then he would drop my cooling carcass to the floor and step over it without a shred of remorse or guilt. That’s how that muthafucka’s built.
Which makes the quicksilver strand of, of … reckless excitement trembling underneath my skin, racing along the highway of my veins, an indictment. A gotdamn aberration.
And yet my pussy flutters like a fucking swooning Victorian virgin.
Shit.
Ignoring the caving and knotting of my stomach, the uncomfortable dotting of perspiration under my arms, I scrape tooth and nail for normalcy.
“I see we’ve reached the threatening portion of our program,” I say.
“No threat necessary, ma.”
He stands, and I lock down my muscles to prevent myself from jackknifing to my feet along with him.
That big body towering over me? Nah. We don’t do shows of intimidation over this way.
But to follow through with that plan would also betray to what extent his display of dominance affects me.
Either way, I’m fucked. And either way, I’m gotdamn affected.
“That’s not—what the fuck are you doing?”
Shock damn near catapults me from the armchair.
But it’s the same shock that chains me to the seat easier than lengths of hundred-pound iron chains.
I can’t move. Can’t speak. Am afraid to even think past this moment that has no precedent to guide me so I don’t stumble into territory so full of land mines and disasters that there is no walking back.
In one moment, Asad stood in front of his chair, and in the next, he kneels before mine.
Asad.
Kneeling.
Before me.
My heart repeatedly slams against my chest in an attempt at a jailbreak. But I’ve lost all control over simple motor skills, so I can’t lift my hand to rub my knuckles over the spot to calm the panicked pounding.
Even in that position, his tall, wide frame seems to block out the study like the moon eclipsing the sun.
I can’t see around him, above him. No, all I glimpse is him.
The range of his chest and shoulders, the corded neck with incongruously delicate pulse at the base.
The thick, dark beard surrounding that wide, ridiculously lewd mouth that has no business on a man as hard as him.
The startling silver eyes under black, dense eyebrows.
The long, curly hair still pulled up in its bun, exposing every beautiful, brutal line of his face.
It’s too much.
It’s too much.
Fucking overload.
My breath slams back into me after being unable to draw a thin draft of air into my lungs, and it slices into me like a razor-edged scalpel. I’m halfway surprised I’m not drowning in my own blood.
“Back up. Get away from me.”
My low rasp of a voice trembles, and I don’t care.
Survival has wrenched control of the wheel and pride has climbed in the backseat of this ride.
Horror at his nearness, at the memories of the past, at the tightening and pinch of my nipples and the sharp, tugging ache high in my pussy …
I’m angry, afraid, confused. And a deafening tick, tick fills my head like the ominous countdown on a detonator.
If he doesn’t move, if he doesn’t grant me space that isn’t permeated with Creed cologne, cedarwood, and skin-warmed musk, I’ll blow up, leaving him splattered in my rage, my deceit, my hatred … my shameful, dirty need.
My fingers ball into fists, my nails digging into my palms. Fire licks at my skin. Sweat dots the valley between my breasts, my upper lip, and under my arms. A thin, pink-tinged film colors my blurred vision.
“Breathe, Ember.” Asad’s deep rumble sounds as if it’s traveled a long, hard night through a crowded tunnel.
Yet, I clearly hear him. And feel the warm, mint-scented brush of his breath over my chin as he leans forward, his big palms clapping the sides of my face.
He shoves his directly in mine, and my entire world becomes those beautiful and deadly gray eyes glaring down into mine.
“You better breathe, because if you black out and swing on me, we gon’ be like Ike and Tina in that mu’fuckin’ limo up in here.
In and out, ma. In and out. That’s it. With me,” he coaches.
And as if my body is a sycophant to that terrible, irresistible voice, it follows his instructions.
“Focus, ma. Five things. Tell me five things you see.”
I frown. But when he gives my head a little but firm shake, I do as he says and focus.
“The desk. My grinder. Record player. Fireplace. Sticks and Stones.” I list the painting by Ernie Barnes that hangs above the mantel last.
“Good. Next. Four things you hear.”
I close my eyes, inhale a deep breath, and close everything out except for my sense of hearing.
“The central air clicking on. Your even breathing. The Pandora station I left on in my room. The chirping of birds…”
We continue the exercise with him guiding me, and by the time I get to one, the howling in my head quiets to a whispering wind. My heartbeat slows from a furious stampede to a gentle cadence. And the air in my lungs … It calms and follows his measured rhythm.
The rage grudgingly loosens its greedy grip on me, and I’m not peering at Asad through a watered-down crimson tint any longer. As impossible as it should be, that unblinking, uncompromising stare grounds me in my own body, in the here and now. He’s both my trigger and my coping mechanism.
“I thought you had that IED shit under control. Are you still taking your medication?” he asks, hands still clamped around my cheeks. Muscled, solid stomach still pressed to my knees. Big body still knelt in front of me.
“I did. I do,” I say, not bothering to answer the question about my meds. Shit, he doesn’t see me asking how he knows about the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique. And believe me, I really want to know. But curiosity and Asad are a bad mix. Like cyanide and living.
Instead, I lift my hands and circle his thick, tattooed wrists. I tug at them, trying to remove his palms away from my face, trying to insert much-needed space between us. But I might as well be pulling at a two-ton concrete block—immovable and pointless.
I suck my teeth. “It’s not like I take a pill and I’m cured. It’s not a disease. I live with it; I treat it. I manage it. Now, can you get your hands off of me and back up? Please?”
Maybe it’s the “please” that finally makes him decide to concede.
He removes his touch, and relief rolls through me on a seismic tidal wave.
My skin tingles, and I silently threaten my fingers with amputation if they dare caress the area that feels branded by his palms. My plea was enough of a sign of weakness; I’ll be damned if I give him another one.
And Asad Prince has always been one of those give-an-inch-take-a-whole-fucking-country-mile muthafuckas.
No boundaries, that one.
Like right now. My relief shuts off like a celestial hand twisted a faucet as he drags an ottoman over and sits on it directly in front of me.
With massive thighs spread wide, he pulls my chair even closer, and once more, I’m battling against the claustrophobic sense of panic scrabbling at my throat.
A loud, ominous silence pulls taut between us.
His gaze runs over me from the top of my messy bun, over my bare shoulders, lingering on the thrust of my breasts and pierced nipples, and down to my dress-covered knees curled beneath me.
Everything in between sizzles and hums under that all-seeing, all-knowing inspection.
I will not fidget. I will not fidget.
I will not admit that in one glance the seat of my panties is destroyed.
It’s wrong. It’s all so fucking wrong and a betrayal to the girl who was his victim for years. Disgust and lust twist and wrestle, and there’s no clear winner. That only makes me hate myself more.
“I had you hemmed up in the kitchen and you didn’t almost crash out on me. Why now?” he probes.
“You weren’t talking about binding me to you in matrimonial hell then,” I lie. “Which brings me back to the subject. Still a hard pass.”