Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Savannah
Asher follows me through the house, down one hallway to the front door.
I close it and lock it, a process that shifts the towel I’m wearing—the only thing I’m wearing other than my necklace and bra.
If Brayden was to walk in right now, who knows what he’d think.
The truth. That I called Asher over here in the middle of the night.
That we’re both more naked than we are clothed.
I walk up the staircase, glancing back a few times, even though I can tell from his footsteps that Asher is following.
His hair falls casually across his forehead.
His shoulders fill my entire field of vision, an abstract black tattoo winding at his collarbone.
He’s taller than Brayden, wider than Brayden at the shoulders and narrower at the waist with cuts to his muscles like he’s worked hard to create them.
Half of Brayden’s protein powders promise to increase mass and stabilize weight.
Does Asher worry about that too? He came over to take care of me… but who takes care of him?
I walk upstairs, conscious of the length of this towel. Conscious of the friction of my thighs rubbing together. We’re not doing anything. Maybe after all of this Asher is just here to hang out at…I check the time on my phone. One a.m.
This is a mistake. I am making a mistake.
Then I look back at him again and he smiles, that faint smile that barely shifts his expression, but I know it’s there. The one that looks like we’re both in on the same joke.
We stop in the hallway outside Brayden’s and my bedrooms, both our doors shut. Bedrooms. As in more than one. I fumble for an excuse.
“Bray and I keep different hours. And I have a lot of clothes. Lots! So two closets made sense.”
“My aunt gets migraines,” Asher says simply. “She has her own room for that.”
Which would have been a better excuse than the one I came up with. Heat creeps up the back of my neck. It’s definitely a mistake to invite him inside my bedroom. I pause at my shut door.
Asher hovers behind me. He’s just that much taller than Brayden, and somehow that inch makes all the difference.
Heat pours off him, hotter than the muggy Atlanta night outside.
I wait, just for a second—to see if he’ll curve his palm at my waist. Keep your hands to yourself, I rehearse saying.
What a good, well-behaved wife would say. Even if…I don’t want him to.
The house is completely silent. No one else is around outside. No traffic passing through. No neighbor taking their yappy little dog on a witching hour walk. I wait for someone else to provide an excuse.
None comes.
The knob turns. I open the door slowly. The icy blast of my bedroom A/C is a momentary relief as I wave Asher into my room and leave the door open, as if that will ensure this whole thing stays appropriate.
“Wow,” Asher says, peering around at the bare walls, “love what you’ve done with the place.”
“It’s a work in progress.” Though that would require me to actually progress at it, rather than just letting the bare walls stare at me.
“When I really make real baseball money, I’m gonna fill my house with beautiful things.” He reaches a hand up as if he’s going to brush a strand of hair back from my face, then drops it at my slightly raised eyebrows.
My phone buzzes like the universe heard me. Brayden. My heart leaps to my throat.
Brayden: hmltersrry
A jumble of letters. Probably just a mistake.
I study them again. Is he texting that he’ll be home late?
He’s usually in before two, but he also usually doesn’t text.
What would happen if he came home and found Asher—what?
Here. Shirtless. I imagine the headlines: another player found in his wife’s bed.
Even if Asher seats himself on the bed with one gentlemanly foot on the floor.
Baby is curled up on the comforter. He offers her his hand; she gives it a tiny sniff before accepting his finger under her chin. “So this is the infamous cat,” he says. “She’s even uglier in person.” Asher switches to scratching her between her ears while Baby rumbles a purr.
“She likes you.” I seat myself on the bed on the other side of Baby, with her between us as a shield.
“You sound surprised.”
“Baby doesn’t like—” I cut myself off before I can say Brayden. “Well, she doesn’t like most people. Bray wanted me to adopt a different cat.”
“I’m sure Bray did.” He switches to rubbing Baby under her chin. Her purring goes full-bodied as she stretches up to meet his hand. I shouldn’t think anything of it: how the judgment of cats is swift but accurate.
“He won’t be back for a while,” I say.
“I thought you were supposed to go out tonight with him.”
I did. I went out and flirted with my fake husband and when it got to be too much, I left.
He’s still somewhere, probably drinking, probably not alone.
I swallow that down. It’s late. Asher is sitting on my bed, petting the cat, looking at me as if he can see what no one else can.
I owe him—if not the truth, but maybe some part of it.
“Things with Brayden can be complicated.”
Asher nods. “What is it you see in him, exactly?”
Money, I don’t say, because it’s not just money. It’s knowing that my migraine meds will be refilled at the pharmacy, that my tuition checks will go through. Security. Something you don’t know how much you value until you don’t have it. “Brayden was there for me when no one else was.”
“And he gives you what you need?”
I scan the room around us meaningfully. “Sure.”
“I didn’t ask if he paid your mortgage. I asked if he gave you what you need.”
I should tell Asher to go to hell. A real wife would. That this is none of his business and to get the fuck out of my house. Our house. I haven’t said No, Brayden doesn’t give me what I need, but I haven’t said Yes, he does either. Maybe that silence is in itself an answer.
As if sensing the tension in the room, Baby picks herself up, hops off the bed, and flounces out the open door, leaving Asher and I looking at each other: his dark eyes are even darker in the half-light.
“Why don’t you like Brayden?” I ask.
Asher snorts. “Because I’ve met him.”
“Why’d you come over?”
“Because you asked me to.”
As if it’s all that simple. “What else would you do if I asked?”
Asher’s smile plays at the edge of his mouth. “Try me.”
No. I should say that, once, clearly, directly. No, you’ve got this all wrong. No, I’m Brayden’s wife.
Asher is studying me now, gaze at my neckline.
The chain of the lock necklace seems to tighten at my throat.
A reminder that Brayden hasn’t touched me.
Brayden is the one in this marriage who respects the other person’s boundaries.
My skin flushes all over. In my life before, I could ask for anything I wanted and have that handed to me.
Now, I need something I can’t quite shape into words.
I jump up. “I should get you a shirt.” But I don’t move any farther than that.
Asher rises from the bed and loops an arm around me, drawing me toward him so we fit against one another.
“What would be the point,” he says, “when I’d just take it right off again?
” His hand is at my waist. He runs a finger up and down the terrycloth of my towel.
“If I had a beautiful woman in my house, I wouldn’t be out drinking.
If I had a wife like you”—he leans forward, the air between us buzzing—“I wouldn’t get up off my knees. ”
“Is that what I should ask for?” My pulse quickens. My body leans in. Despite the air conditioning, the room is too hot.
Asher shakes his head. “If I do this right, that’s what you’ll beg me for.”
Fuck. Fuck. This wasn’t how tonight was supposed to go. Wasn’t it? Isn’t this what you wanted when you sent him that text? “Sorry, about—” I gesture to my wet hair, my dull, practical beige bra. Because of course I put it on not expecting anyone to see it.
Asher smiles at me, more with his eyes than his mouth. “I cannot imagine why you’d be apologizing.”
That’s enough for me to send the straps of my bra down my shoulders. No barer than I was a second ago, except for the warm puff of breath Asher exhales over my skin.
His thumb finds the corner of my jaw, tilting my gaze up to meet his. Somehow, that feels more like cheating than if he actually kissed me. I can almost feel the grit of his stubble as he examines the low dip of my cleavage. “Did Brayden give you that necklace?” he asks.
I nod. The pendant knocks against my sternum. “For our wedding.”
Asher mutters something that sounds like a fucking lock, before he dips low, presses his mouth to my clavicle, to the pendant in the dip of my collarbone.
“When you wear that, I want you to think of me. When you wear that necklace, I want you to think about how he left you here alone instead of taking care of you.” He reaches for my wrist, thumb at the thin skin over my veins.
Right where Brayden had touched me just a few hours ago.
That’s enough to sober me. The air in the room is suddenly chilly again.
I pull back slightly. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” I manage.
Asher hums. “Probably not.” He turns, juts his chin toward the locked door adjoining Brayden’s and my bedrooms. “Maybe we should do this in there.”
“You want to fuck me in my husband’s bed?” I ask.
“I want to fuck you until he isn’t your husband.”
That makes me yank my wrist away. Asher’s fingers momentarily tighten around it, but he lets me go. His chest is heaving, as if holding still is taking all of his control.
“We shouldn’t,” I say more firmly. Even if everything in me wants to. Even if it’d be so easy to close the distance between us. Shut up in this big empty house, no one would know, except for Asher and me, but that’s two people too many. “I’m not a cheater.”
Asher blinks. “Is Brayden?”