20. Holly
20
HOLLY
I grabbed my mother and pulled her into the kitchen. “Mom, you can’t grab my boyfriend’s arm and tell him how sexy he is!” I hissed.
“I didn’t say he was sexy,” she said calmly. “But he does remind me of this man I met in my younger years,” she said, pulling at the bow at the neck of her shirt. “Oh, he was nothing like your young man, though he was quite large in all the right areas.”
I cringed at my mother’s words, hoping the story was over.
“I remember this one time, I had dropped something on the ground and when I bent over, I ended up with my face right in front of him. It was right there! And then he?—”
“Ew! Gross, Mom! I don’t want to know what happened!”
“I was just going to say that he helped me up.”
Oh, well, that wasn’t so bad. “Oh.”
“And then I sat on his lap, and did I get a surprise.”
I rolled my eyes, walking away from her. I couldn’t handle hearing these things from her.
“I’m telling you these things because I want you to understand that I was young once, too. I understand that you might have urges and…you might do things before the appropriate time.”
“Mother!” I spun around, horrified that she was actually going to give me a sex talk.
“Now, just hear me out. You have a nice young man out there and he’s everything we would want for you, but honey, be sure about him because he isn’t going to buy the cow if the milk is free.”
“I am not a cow!”
“And that’s not milk you’re selling.”
“I’m not selling anything!”
“It’s a metaphor, dear. I thought you understood that,” she said, cocking her head to the side.
“Of course, I understood that,” I hissed. “It’s a little hard to miss the less-than-subtle hints you’re throwing at me.”
“Well, you never can be too sure. All I’m saying is be careful. I would like to see a ring on that finger,” she said, grabbing my left hand and tapping my ring finger. “It would be a shame for you to get pregnant and be left all alone.”
“Is that really what you think would happen?”
“Well, it’s a sad state our world is in.”
God, she could be so dramatic sometimes. “Thanks, Mom, but I think I can handle this.”
“Just be sure, darling.”
I shot her a sarcastic smile and left her in the kitchen to see what other mayhem was happening while I was being lectured to by my mother. I had really hoped to be there when my father appeared, but it seemed I missed the introductions.
“I would recognize that tattoo anywhere!” my father shouted. “You were in the military!”
Oh, crap. This wasn’t good.
“Yes, sir, I was.”
My father narrowed his eyes and advanced on Asher. “Government propaganda. That’s all this is. Do you know why we have a military?”
Asher opened his mouth, but never got the chance to answer.
“It’s all about mind control!” my father shouted. “And you’re part of the system. They’re using you to control us. It starts with you fighting foreign wars, but then we come to rely on you. We see how much that show of force is used for good and realize we feel protected and secure by you. Suddenly, you’re on our streets, protecting us, keeping us safe.”
He spun and looked at the rest of us, already lost in his tangent.
“That’s what they want us to believe! And that’s when they swoop in and take over. No more guns for any of us. They take our land and our freedom! They take our rights, and before you know it, we bow down to the government and do only as they say. Mark my words, you heard it this day!” he said, pointing at the ground.
“Okay,” I smiled, walking over to my dad. “That’s enough of the conspiracy theory talk for one night.
“Conspiracy theory,” he huffed. “It’s only a theory if you bury the truth!”
Noelle sighed, flopping down in a chair. “I need a drink.”
“Dad, why don’t you get that, um…thing you were working on. You can show Asher.”
I had no idea what he was working on, but there was always something. As soon as he left the room, I turned and glared at Asher. “What did I tell you?”
“How exactly was I supposed to stop him from recognizing a tattoo?”
“Cover it up!”
“With what?”
“Makeup!”
He snorted out a laugh. “Right.” When I didn’t laugh along with him, he stopped. “Baby, don’t you think you’re getting a little too worked up over this?”
“No, I think I’m perfectly worked up over what’s going to send my father on the next tirade.”
“So, let him have his say,” he shrugged. “Why not?”
“Because he’s going to drive you nuts!”
Now it was his turn to look at me like I was crazy. “Just what exactly do you think is going to happen here? I’m going to hear something nuts your dad says and run for the hills?”
“Possibly. Or call the police. Or break up with me and tell me you never want to see me again.”
“Isn’t that the same thing as running for the hills?” he asked, cocking his head at me.
“Are you really teasing me right now?”
“Aren’t I always teasing you?”
“Seriously, Asher. Just don’t do it. Steer clear of all those things that I told you might set him off.”
“Baby, I’m not gonna run. Let him tell me all about his conspiracy theories. I can take it. In fact, I find it interesting.”
“Interesting? You want to hear him ramble for forty-five minutes about why pavement is bad?”
“Actually, I was wondering why that one was on the list,” he said, his lips twitching with humor.
Noelle raised her hand. “Not that anything I say matters right now, but I’d really like to go home before all this happens. I have so many better things to do than listen to a long boring argument about pavement.”
I thrust my hand out toward Noelle. “See?”
“Look, let’s just have a good time. You have to stop worrying about your parents,” he said calmly. “Just know that nothing can happen that will make me run for the hills.”
“Nothing? What if they say that I dated my first cousin?”
“Did you know he was your first cousin?”
“Yes.”
He shrugged. “Love is love.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“You didn’t marry him.”
“And you’d be okay if I slept with him? If I wanted to make babies with him?”
He sighed heavily. “Did you actually date your first cousin?”
I pursed my lips, knowing exactly what he was doing. “No.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
“Because she’s making a mountain out of a molehill,” Noelle said in a bored tone.
I shot her a scathing look.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Were we not supposed to tell the truth about what’s really happening here?”
“Dinner!” Mom called.
I jabbed a finger in Asher’s face. “No more talk of restricted topics.”
But as soon as that devilish grin came out, I knew I was in for one hell of a night.
The doorbell rang twenty minutes after I got home. I was already in my pajamas and in no mood for company. Not after the night I had. I stomped to the door and looked through the peephole, irritated that my boyfriend was standing outside my door.
Typical Asher, showing up and being such a great boyfriend after the horrible dinner I just sat through with him and my parents. And Noelle. She was worse than any of them with her little jabs thrown in.
I threw the door open, but blocked the entry with my body. “Can I help you?”
“Are you really going to be like that?”
I raised an eyebrow at him, trying my damndest not to give in to his devastating good looks and witty charm. “Be like what?”
“You know like what,” he growled, stalking forward and crowding my space. I wanted to take a step back, but I held my ground, refusing to give in. Which was a mistake because he slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me flush against his body. His head tilted down and he buried his nose in my hair. God, I loved it when he did that. “Fuck, I love the way you smell.”
“Asher…you’re not gonna get to me.”
His hand slid under my pajama top and coasted along my spine. Not even his cold hands turned me off. I was like putty in his hands. He had me backed up against the wall before I knew it and the door was slammed shut.
“Fuck, I can’t stay away from you,” he grumbled, tearing my shirt over my head. His lips instantly went to my breast and his mouth latched onto my nipple.
I gasped, unable to think of anything to argue with him about. Everything I was mad about suddenly seemed pointless. I tugged at his coat, pushing it off his arms as he kicked off his boots. And the whole time, his mouth never left my body.
“Asher,” I moaned, yanking his pants down. “Why can’t you be bad at this?”
He gripped my pajama bottoms and tore them down my legs, underwear and all. Then he gripped my ass cheeks and hauled me up against his body. “You make it hard with such a perfect fucking body to make love to.”
Crap, he knew just what to say to get me to give in. My fingers gripped his hair as he carried me down the hall, his mouth never leaving my breast. But we never made it to the bedroom. His cock brushed against my core, and that was all it took for him to throw me up against the wall.
I cried out as he buried his thick length deep inside me, stopping only long enough for me to adjust to his size. I could feel him throbbing inside me, aching to release the beast and fuck me hard. I wanted it, needed to feel that animalistic urge that was just below the surface. He had been holding back at the shop. I knew that, but now…Now I knew I was going to get the real Asher, the one who wanted to throw me down on the bed and fuck me hard from every angle.
“Baby…”
“Yeah?”
“Hang on.”
I was about to ask to what? when he pulled out of me and thrust back in hard. My whole body trembled from the force and my toes curled as pleasure rushed through me. He didn’t give me time to adjust or a second to think about anything as he pulled out and did it again and again. My fingers dug into his shoulders and my mouth hung open on a wordless cry. It was so good, so blindingly amazing.
“Fuck, baby,” he panted. “Tell me you love me.”
“I love you,” I cried out.
“Not good enough,” he muttered, swiveling his hips and grinding his cock even harder into me. “I want to hear it like you mean it. Tell me. Fucking prove it to me.”
I had no idea how to do that. “Asher…”
“Tell me. I need to hear it.”
“I love you,” I said again, putting more feeling into it.
“Still not enough.”
I didn’t know what he wanted, what he needed to hear. But all that fled from my mind as his thumb pressed against my clit and a rush of electricity shot through my system. I cried out as my body clenched around his in an earth-shattering orgasm. My legs tightened painfully around his back and my head dropped to his shoulder as I held on for dear life. Not even the devil himself could pry me from Asher’s grip at the moment.
Minutes passed as I laid limp in his arms, still pinned against the wall. But now Asher was leaning against me, his hand pressed against the wall above my head as he held both of us up. His breathing was ragged in my ear as his heart thumped against mine. That was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before, and yet, I still couldn’t get past his words.
Prove it to me.
How was I supposed to prove to him that I loved him? Were the words not enough? What more could I say? And if they weren’t enough, how would I be sure that he would ever believe me? My mind was a jumbled mess with these thoughts, and I wasn’t sure I would ever truly understand what he meant by what he said.
For as open and honest as Asher was about a lot of things, there were still times I could feel him holding back. He’d gotten a phone call at dinner that he brushed off, saying it wasn’t important. Normally, I would have believed him, but Noelle said the same thing happened in the truck. And maybe it was nothing. But he rarely got phone calls, which was why it struck me as odd.
And then there was the subject of his wife. He never talked about her. Maybe he just wanted to move on, but…Maybe I was making too much of this. If he chose to grieve in private, that was his business. I just didn’t want to feel like I was being left in the dark.
But maybe I wasn’t the one who needed to prove it.
“Hey,” Asher said, lifting me away from the wall. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, unable to do much else.
“Do you want to get cleaned up?”
I shook my head no.
“Do you want to go to bed?”
I nodded yes.
“Do you want me to stay?”
I nodded yes.
“Are you going to speak to me at all?”
I chuckled, wishing I had the energy to open my mouth. “Maybe once I get the feeling back in my body.”
A deep rumble worked its way up through his chest as he carried me into my room. His cock was still settled deep inside me, and it hadn’t escaped my notice that instead of getting soft, he was getting hard again. Couldn’t the man take a break like most guys? A woman needed a break or two.
He sat down on the bed, keeping me straddled across his legs, then pulled me away from him so he could look at me. “Hey, let me see those beautiful eyes.”
I brushed my hair from my face and smiled sleepily. “You’re still hard.”
“That’s because I’m inside you.”
“You say the sweetest things,” I grinned.
“It wasn’t meant to be sweet. Just true.”
“Were you planning to remove yourself from me anytime soon?”
“Nope,” he said without the slightest hesitation.
“You know, this could be uncomfortable to sleep attached.”
And that’s when that wicked grin came out. “Who said anything about sleep?”