7. Asher
I’d seensome crazy shit in my lifetime. Hell, I’d watched a man shove another right off a cliff and smile as he fell, screaming to his death. It wasn’t easy to surprise me.
Winter DeLaurie asking me to pretend to be her boyfriend took me by surprise. She was damn unpredictable, and while she still pissed me off with her bratty attitude, at least she was also entertaining,
Silence fell between us as she waited for my response. Her front brushed mine. It was a tight fit in the walk-in, and I had my hands on her hips. Her perfume filled the air. I couldn’t see her, but I knew exactly where she was, and I could just picture the challenge in her blue eyes.
“I would pay you, like I said—” she started.
“If you want to be properly fucked, you don’t have to pay for a boy toy. I’m sure some suckers would offer to do it for free.”
“I’m not asking to pay you for sex!” She sounded appalled and offended all at once. Her breath was coming faster and faster.
“Well, what the hell are you asking for?”
“A boyfriend, on paper, someone to come to family dinner and kiss me on the cheek. One dinner. That’s all.”
“And you don’t have anyone that Daddy would approve of more than someone like me? Or you’re trying to irritate him…is that it?” I moved closer and brushed my lips up her cheek. “You want to date the guy from across the tracks…worry your parents so much they might decide to come home more often?”
She shivered under my touch. Her skin was like fucking satin. Dangerously addictive. I moved to her ear. “I’m not some rebel for rent, Your Majesty.” I closed my lips over her earlobe and nipped it with my teeth. I couldn’t help myself. I wanted a taste. Just one little taste of her sweet venom. She trembled under my touch. Her skin was hot. She was overheating. Panicking for some reason.
“I never said you were, and that’s not why I’m asking you,” she breathed, her body swaying into mine. She hesitated and then said, “I don’t know anyone else who needs the money like you do. Everyone knows how tight money is for your family.”
I was going to kill her. One of us was leaving this twisted relationship in a body bag.
I rested my forehead on hers, fury pounding at my temples. This woman had a talent for pissing me off like no one else. I cupped her face and then lowered my hands to her neck, circling it firmly. That’s when I felt it. The rasp of breathing that was growing out of control and a pulse that was thundering under my fingers. Winter was on the cusp of a panic attack. I shouldn’t help her. It wasn’t my problem.
“Take a deep breath and stop talking,” I instructed her harshly. I pulled her forward and put a hand on her back to monitor how deeply she was taking in air.
She protested softly, and I shushed her. “Don’t say another word, Ice Queen, or you’ll really start to annoy me.” The brat and the bully. We were born to crash into each other.
She struggled against me before melting into my touch. It wasn’t working, though. She was still panicking. She needed a distraction, and I just needed a fucking excuse. I’d come here to take Winter’s New Year’s kiss, and nothing was stopping me.
Still holding her by the neck, keeping her in place, I leaned in and captured her bottom lip between my teeth, biting down just hard enough that she gasped.
“Do you have any idea what your toxic words make me want to do to you?” I asked against her lips.
Punish her. Take her. Ruin her. Break her…just enough to keep her.
She shook her head, a soft gasp leaving her as I gripped harder for a second, my lips tracing hers.
“Relax…I’ve got you,” I murmured, the words leaving me without thought or attention. All my focus was on the fact that Winter was holding onto me like she’d die if she let go. I didn’t hate it. I probably should, but I didn’t.
“Is that supposed to be comforting?” she breathed, and I smirked. No, I guess it wasn’t.
Then I captured her poisonous lips before she could say anything else to piss me off. My kiss shocked her into stillness.
She was frozen for a long, long moment. Long enough for me to slip my tongue into the hot cavern of her mouth and along hers. Her lips parted further, letting me in. Her breath was still faltering, ragged, but I didn’t stop. I pulled her lower lip between my teeth and bit down. She gasped, fisting my T-shirt and swaying into me. I wound a hand into her hair and tangled my fingers in the long locks, keeping her in place.
Dragging my tongue over hers, I explored her mouth in long, languid thrusts, until her breath was soft and even and her grip on me was clinging and desperate. What kind of woman lived under her spoiled brat act? I’d never worried much about it, but my curiosity was a powerful thing. Why did she hide? What did she hide? Why was I so fucking interested in her? I had no answers to any of those questions. All I knew right at that moment, as she pushed her tits into my chest and met the thrusts of my tongue with her own, was that this girl had my attention.
Maybe she always had.
Her lips battled with mine, and then her teeth nibbled along my lower lip. She didn’t just have claws, she had bite. Just like me.
I grinned against her cheek, moving my lips along her jaw, dragging stubble and gooseflesh in my wake. She shivered. Her nipples were hard points, prodding me through my T-shirt. She was grinding into me. It was hot. Hotter than I’d expected the prissy little brat to be.
I reached her ear and traced my tongue around the shell, and she moaned, melting into me. “You really think you can ask me for a favor, Your Majesty?” I breathed into her ear.
She was leaning on me now, my support the only thing keeping her up. I rocked my cock against her middle. I was hard as hell and wanted nothing more than to shove my jeans down and get Winter to demonstrate how desperately she wanted my help, on her knees. But I didn’t trust the viper with her sharp teeth around my cock.
Instead, I waited for her breathy moan of agreement.
“You have no one else who will help you in your time of need?”
“Yes, I have no one—,” she stumblingly admitted. Something in my chest softened at that confession.
It might be the first true vulnerability I’d seen from this girl.
Then she ruined it. “No one who needs the money like you do, that is,” she tacked on. Motherfucker. She just couldn’t help being the most infuriating person I’d ever met. It came so naturally to her.
I bit her ear again, harder this time, and she gasped. Just for that little barb, and treating me like a charity case, I’d refuse on principle.
“Too. Fucking. Bad,” I growled and stepped back, releasing Winter.
She stumbled back against the wall just as Marcus opened the door.
“Time’s up!”
“I propose a toast, to a new year, finally back where we all belong. Hell will be raised. Resolutions — Cayden, you go first.” Marcus raised his beer to Cade. We were sitting out back, around the firepit, taking a break from the festivities inside.
“To break my goals and assists record by October,” he said after some thought. “Maybe August.”
Marcus rolled his eyes. “Predictable, but sure. Beckett?”
“To pass Econ with the help of my hot tutor.” He shot me a barely apologetic look. “Sorry, bro.”
Marcus just laughed. “And Asher — a New Year’s resolution for you.”
“I’m dull. Mine is always the same.” I took a sip of beer, but after the encounter with Winter upstairs, there was little to get excited about. I should have been satisfied that I’d crushed her little plan, whatever it had been, before she’d even gotten started, but instead, I was already hungry for another run-in.
Would she try again to persuade me to pretend to be her boyfriend? Why me? How far would she go to convince me? The thought had me hard in seconds. I had plenty of ideas for the debasing and humiliating ways Winter could try to get me to agree to her bizarre proposal. The very thought was sending the blood from my head draining downward to a hard-on that could punch through a wall.
Was there anything hotter than taming a brat? When the brat was Winter? No, there wasn’t.
Marcus nodded. “Find some info on the mystery member of the family. I still don’t know why you don’t let moneybags pay for it.” He jerked his thumb toward Beckett.
I just shook my head. “Because it’s my business and I’ll do it on my terms.”
“Such pride.” Marcus tutted.
“What’s yours?” Cayden asked Marcus.
“Nah, I don’t bother with them. Resolutions suck,” he announced and dodged a flying pillow from Cayden.
I listened to the brotherly banter for a while, my mind distracted, before getting up to leave. It was well after two in the morning. It was time to go.
Heading out took a while, saying goodbye to folks, getting drawn into the odd conversation here and there. All the while, as I was working my way through the house, I didn’t see Winter. Selena held court with a couple of cheerleaders, but no sign of her aloof, ice-queen friend. Had she left already?
I was driving down the winding coastal road that led to town from the beach when I saw her. A distinctive figure on foot by the side of the road.
I slowed immediately. It was unsafe to be on this road. There was no sidewalk, no streetlights, every fucking corner was blind. My headlights flickered over her figure, and she flinched.
I drove ahead of her and then pulled in and stopped. She paused mid-step when she saw me and then continued toward me.
I shoved my visor up. “What are you doing here?” I asked her. Her blue eyes looked dark in the moonlight, her hair like liquid gold.
“Walking. What does it look like?” She had the cheek to roll her eyes at me.
“Why are you strolling like a fucking idiot down this road? It’s dangerous.”
She let out a jagged laugh. “And I’m supposed to think you care if something happens to me? You don’t need to pretend. I’d rather you didn’t.” She took a step to the side.
“Get on the back. I’ll drop you off,” I ordered her.
She shook her head. “Pass.” She stepped out into the road and moved past me.
She really was the most annoying person I’d ever met.
“I’m serious, Your Majesty. I don’t want to go home and find out tomorrow that the cops had to scrape you off this road. Get on the bike, and we’ll be in town in five minutes.”
Winter sighed. “Stop pretending to give a shit, Asher.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered, losing patience. I got off my bike, kicking the stand up, and strode toward her departing back. My arms went around her middle, and I lifted her in the air, carrying her backward toward my bike.
She struggled fruitlessly in my arms. “Get the hell off me!”
“I will, once you’re on my bike.”
“No — get off me now.”
She wriggled violently, and I nearly lost my grip. Finally, I managed to get her to my bike. She fought me as I lowered her to the ground and then caged her in against the seat with an arm on either side. She immediately brought her knee up to hit me in the balls, but I anticipated her move and grabbed her leg.
“If you want to touch my balls so bad, you just need to ask.”
“You’re a lunatic,” she shot out.
“The lunatic you were just begging for a favor,” I reminded her. “Listen. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Easy way, you get on, I take you home in one piece.”
“And the hard way?”
“Hard way, I tie your hands around my waist and make you sit there. You cry and beg and complain the whole way home, and then I leave you hog-tied in your front yard for your daddy to find. Better hope he’s planning on coming home soon.”
“Very funny,” she said.
I shrugged. “I’m not known for my humor. I’m stone-cold serious. You’re not walking this road. End of discussion. So, decide how you want to get home and do it now, before I decide for you.”
She huffed and glanced away at the crashing waves hitting the rocks below.
The moment gave me a chance to study her, up close and personal. She was as stunning as always, more so, since I was so close I could see the points of her caramel lashes and the faintest dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her eyelashes spiky and wet. The Ice Queen was upset. Was it the remains of that panic attack in the closet? It had been too dark in there to see what her face had been doing while she’d nearly hyperventilated, and she’d taken off afterwards like her ass was on fire.
“Why do you care if I die, Martino? You’d get your revenge on the girl who wronged you, right?” she muttered with a twist to her lips that could have either been a grin or a grimace.
It was like she was daring me to leave her there, in harm’s way, pushing me, testing me. Driving me fucking crazy.
At that moment, when anger could have overwhelmed me, I noticed the way a pulse was pounding in her delicate neck and how her smart chin was tilted up like royalty. The anger transformed into malevolent amusement. I chBuckled darkly. She was trying to salvage her pride after I’d turned her offer down.
“You really are begging for a repeat of last night, aren’t you? I knew you enjoyed being spanked and tossed around, but I guess I underestimated how much. Do you want me to do it again? Just beg me, baby, and you’ve got it.” I brushed her hair back, and she slapped my hand away, scowling.
“If you’re asking if I want you to break into my house and threaten me with a knife again, the answer is no, obviously.”
“The only thing I threatened with the knife is your hair…besides, maybe I just think you’d look good with a shaved head.” Honestly, she’d look good in sackcloth and ashes.
Her eyes widened for a moment, and then she laughed bitterly. “You’re insane, has anyone ever told you that?” she challenged.
“The real question is…has no one ever told you that? Considering you just offered me full access to you and your parents tells me not. Aren’t you scared I might offend the royal family of Hade Harbor? Do you think I’m someone you can play games with and emerge unharmed? Because I can assure you, I’m not.”
“I was going to pay you, like a service. You need money. I have money.” Her words made dark annoyance flicker across my face. She read that emotion easily and smirked. “Don’t be so sensitive. It’s not a weakness to need money. Everybody needs money.”
“Is that what your daddy tells you when he refuses to leave work and spend any time with you? Things never got better for you after Parents’ Day, did they? You’re still the inconvenient daughter.”
“What would that make you? The unwanted son?” she challenged right back. No one could rip a chunk of me like she could. No one would dare. I glared at her, anger scorching down my spine.
“What?” she asked, a hint of nerves appearing in her eyes. Even Winter could tell when she’d gone too fucking far.
“I’m considering hauling your bratty ass into the bushes at the side of the road and whipping it with my belt,” I told her frankly. I could just see it now. “I think your ass would really suit being blistered.”
“You have a screw loose…there’s something wrong with your brain,” she snapped.
I shrugged. “Maybe you should consider that fact more carefully before you piss me off. Don’t forget, you just offered me the position of fake boyfriend…and the complete access to you that implies.”
“I never offered you full access to me — I’d rather die than endure your touch,” she said primly.
“Is that right? Should we go test if my belt makes you as wet as my hand did, and examine your little lies, see if they hold up to reality?” I leaned in, resting my forehead against hers. There was nowhere to go. She couldn’t escape me. The thought was a turn-on. A captive woman had never been a turn-on before, not until now. Until Winter. I would take my time humbling the spoiled brat and uncovering that woman I’d glimpsed twice so far. I’d enjoy every second.
Her eyes held mine, and she must have read my dark intentions, because she blinked first. In the game of chicken we were playing, I scored another point. Maybe sometime soon, Winter would realize that I’d always win, because I had no boundaries I wouldn’t cross, or personal space I wouldn’t invade, to succeed.
“So, are you taking me home or what?” she asked, her voice subdued.
“Get on the bike and keep quiet before I change my mind.” My tone was solemn. I’d had enough tangling with Winter for tonight to test my restraint. She got under my skin like no one else. One more provocation and I really would end up whipping her behind with my belt, and I wasn’t confident she was ready for that.
“Well, don’t do me any favors,” she muttered as she climbed on behind me, and tugged on the helmet I passed her.
“Hold on,” I told her, kicking off the stand of the bike. Her hands were only just touching my hips, nowhere near enough hold for an inexperienced rider.
I leaned back and grabbed her ass, and she scooted suddenly forward so her front was plastered against my back. I wrapped her arms tight around my waist.
“I said to fucking hold on.”
I took off as soon as her soft tits pressed into my back, and her arms immediately tightened. She held onto me like her life depended on it, and I drove as fast as I dared down the winding coastal road that led to town from Cliff Point.
I turned down her road and pulled to a hard stop outside her stately gates. Her arms remained tight around me for a few beats after we’d stopped moving.
“Get it together, unless you’re trying to hump my back,” I tossed over my shoulder.
Her grip loosened, and she climbed off, elbowing me hard in the back in the process. I enjoyed her embarrassment. The Ice Queen’s fa?ade was melting before me and it was entertaining, and honestly, hot as fuck. I wanted to see what was left after her defenses crumbled.
She held her tongue, yanking the helmet off and shoving it at me. Her hair was in disarray, hanging around her shoulders in a shaggy mess. She looked undone. I’d never seen her that way before. Bedhead really fucking suited her.
“You’re not even going to consider my offer? It’s not charity. I need help,” she challenged.
“I think we already covered how unpleasant I find the idea of pretending to be your boyfriend, for even one dinner.”
“Wow, I didn’t expect such…pride…from the great Asher Martino.”
“What, because I’m poor, I can’t have pride?”
“I just thought you were smarter than that.”
I considered her words, and something clicked. “I get it. It’s not about my pride, it’s about yours…”
She tossed her head and rolled her eyes at me. “My pride? What?”
“Yeah, your pride. The rich and hot Winter DeLaurie lowered herself to ask a favor from a commoner like me…and he didn’t jump at the chance? Doesn’t compute in your Stepford cheerleader brain, right?”
Winter scoffed. “Whatever, Martino, like I couldn’t get you to agree if I really wanted to.”
A thrill of excitement raced down my spine. It had been a while since anyone had challenged me in any form.
“That sounds like a dare. Like a game…but you should know, I always win the games I play. I don’t think you’d take losing well.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Winter tossed back at me. “I’ve never lost before.” That outrageous statement pulled a chuckle from me. She had guts, I’d give her that. It was on.
I shrugged. “Seems like I’m about to be your first time, Your Majesty…hold on, I like it rough.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re so damn cocky…The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Fine, let’s play. I can get everyone to think you’re my boyfriend and use you for my purposes, whether you agree or not.”
“I admire your confidence. I can make your life so fucking tough, you wouldn’t dare.”
“I’m not scared of you, Asher, even after last night,” she said pointedly.
I chuckled. “You really should be.”
She just shrugged. “Like I said last night….Make me.”
I stared at her. Where the hell had this girl been hiding all my life? Be still my wicked heart, because in a year that had been fucked up and shitty all around, there was finally something to look forward to.
I nodded. “Consider yourself warned, Ice Queen.”
“Sure, whatever. Sounds like all bark and no bite to me,” she said, a smile playing around her full lips.
I couldn’t wait to wipe it off.
I took off, leaving her at her gates, dragging my eyes away from her willowy form standing in the darkness.
A game. How fun. I intended to win. Beating the Ice Queen might just be the highlight of my fucking year.