Chapter Three #2
We fall into a rhythm after that, the conversation coming easier as he cooks. He doesn’t offer more about his past, and I don’t push. But he asks about mine, and somehow the words come easier than I expected, like something about him makes it okay to say them out loud.
I tell him about my parents—how they died in a car accident when I was seven, too young to hold on to much more than the shape of them. How my aunt took me in after, more out of obligation than anything else.
“She kept me fed and clothed,” I say, turning my water glass slowly on the table.
“Made sure I did my homework, got to school. But it always felt like a checklist. Like I was something she’d agreed to manage, not someone she wanted.
” I shrug, a little embarrassed at how much came out.
“I don’t think she ever forgave me for existing.
I was the reason her sister was driving that night. ”
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly when I finish.
I shrug slightly, though my chest feels a little tight. “It was a long time ago.”
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.”
I look at him then, really look at him, and something in my chest shifts again. “No,” I admit softly. “It doesn’t.”
Dinner is ready not long after, and we eat at the small table. The conversation is lighter now, easier. He tells me a story that makes me laugh—something about being the smallest kid in his first unit until a growth spurt and two years of training turned that around.
Suddenly, it feels like I’ve known him forever. Like everything is going too fast. Especially for someone like me. But I don’t try to slow it down. I don’t want to.
Because sitting here with him and watching the way he looks at me, it feels like I’m the only thing that matters in this moment. I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time. Safe. Wanted. No one has ever made me feel that way since my parents’ death. Not even my aunt…especially my aunt.
She takes care of me, sure. But it’s almost performative. Robotic. As if going through the motions.
By the time we’re done eating, the air between us feels different.
I help him clear the table, carrying the plates to the sink while he rinses them off.
The quiet between us is comfortable, but it hums. It feels like a shift, like whatever this was supposed to be has changed into something else entirely.
I dry my hands slowly, turning to face him. “This was really nice,” I say, meaning it.
“It was,” he agrees, but there’s something in his voice that makes my chest tighten slightly.
I notice it then. The seriousness in his tone.
“Asher?” I say softly.
His gaze holds mine, like he’s contemplating. For a second, he just looks at me, then he exhales slowly. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
My stomach drops a little at that, the shift in his tone impossible to ignore. “Okay…”
He runs a hand over the back of his neck, then looks at me again. “And you’re probably not going to like it.”
That doesn’t help. A small knot forms in my chest, but I nod anyway. “Just…tell me.”
There’s a brief pause, like he’s choosing his words carefully, then he says, “You’re in danger.”
For a second, I just stare at him, confused. Then, I wait. For him to smile. To say he’s joking. To take it back.
He doesn’t.
“What?” I breathe out, my voice barely above a whisper.
“There’s a contract out,” he continues, his voice calm but firm. “On you.”
My heart starts racing instantly, my mind struggling to catch up. “That’s not…that doesn’t make any sense.” I shake my head, taking a step back from the table. “A contract. You mean like—” I stop because the word feels absurd in my mouth. “You mean someone paid to have me hurt?”
“Killed,” he says. Flat. No softening it.
The word knocks the air out of me. “No.” I shake my head harder, backing toward the door now without deciding to. “No, that’s insane. I’m a barista. I’m nobody. I don’t have enemies, I don’t have money, I don’t—why would anyone—” My voice cracks. “This is a mistake. It has to be a mistake.”
“It’s not.” He doesn’t move toward me. He stays exactly where he is, hands loose at his sides, like he knows crowding me right now is the worst thing he could do.
“A contract means someone put your name on a list and offered money to have it carried out. Six figures. That’s not a grudge, Nora.
That’s not someone you cut off in traffic.
That’s deliberate, and it’s expensive, and it means whoever wants this has resources. ”
My back hits the door. “How do you know all this?” My hand fumbles behind me for the handle. “How do you know what a—who talks like that? Who knows things like that?”
He’s quiet for a beat. And when he answers, his voice is even. “Because it used to be my job.”
Everything in me goes cold and still.
“Your job,” I repeat.
“It was contracted work. For a long time.” He holds my gaze, doesn’t look away from it, doesn’t flinch.
“I’m telling you the truth because you deserve it, and because you need to understand who you’re dealing with when I say I can keep you safe.
But I need you to hear the other part too.
” He takes one slow step, then stops himself.
“I would never touch you. Not like that. Not ever. The rules I lived by—there were lines I didn’t cross.
Women. Children. Innocents. You’re every one of those things, and you’re—”
He stops. His jaw works. For a second, something moves behind his eyes, something that looks like a man reaching for a word he doesn’t have, doesn’t know how to hold. His hand lifts halfway, like he wants to close the space between us, and then drops.
“You’re mine to protect now,” he says finally, low and rough, like it’s the only thing he’s sure of. “Whether you understand that yet or not.”
I stare at him, my hand still frozen on the door handle. Some rational part of me is screaming to turn it, to run, to get as far from this apartment and this man and his impossible words as I can. He just told me he killed people for money. I should be terrified of him.
But I’m not. That’s the part that doesn’t make sense. Because when he looks at me like that—like I’m something he’d break the world to keep—I don’t feel like prey. I feel like the safest thing in the room.
“You found out today,” I say slowly, the pieces landing one after another. “This morning. That’s why you left. Why you were so distracted.”
“Yeah.”
“You knew before you asked me out.” My voice wavers. “You knew, and you still—the dinner, all of it—”
“None of it was fake.” He says it fast, firm, the first crack of urgency in his control. “I need you to believe that. I’ve been coming to that café for weeks, Nora. Before any of this. The dinner was real. This is real. The contract just means I can’t wait anymore.”
I search his face for the lie. For anything that says he’s only telling me what I want to hear.
I don’t find it.
“So, what happens now?” I ask, barely above a whisper.
“You stay here. With me. Until I find out who’s behind it and I end it.”
“And if I don’t?”
His gaze holds mine, steady and unflinching. “Then you’re out there. Alone. And whoever put that contract out is still looking. I can’t protect you if you’re not where I can see you.”
The choice doesn’t feel like a choice at all. My thoughts race—fear and trust and confusion all tangled together. This is insane. Completely insane. I barely know him. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be considering this.
And yet…
I look at him, really look at him, and all I see is certainty. Protection. Something solid in the middle of all this chaos.
“Okay,” I say quietly.
His shoulders relax just slightly, like he wasn’t sure what I’d say. “Okay?” he repeats.
I nod. “Okay.”
Something shifts in the air again, but this time it’s different. He steps closer, close enough that I can feel the heat from his body. My breath catches without warning. Asher reaches for my hand and tugs me away from the door, pulling me back into the kitchen.
“You’re trusting me,” he says, his voice lower now.
“I am,” I admit, even though it terrifies me.
His hand lifts slowly, like he’s giving me time to stop him, but I don’t. His fingers brush lightly against my cheek, tilting my face up just enough to meet his gaze fully.
“You shouldn’t,” he murmurs.
“Maybe not,” I whisper back. “But I do.”
For a second, neither of us moves. For the first time, he hesitates, and it pushes me to draw closer, until we’re a breath apart. Seeing him lose a little control feels like a drug. I lean in completely. Letting all inhibitions go.
The kiss is soft at first. Hesitant. It’s my first time, and I’m figuring it out. I almost lose my nerve, my shyness trickling in. But it doesn’t stay that way for long. His hand tightens slightly against my jaw, deepening the kiss, pulling me closer until there’s no space left between us.
It feels like everything at once. New and overwhelming and consuming in a way I wasn’t prepared for. My hands find his shirt, gripping lightly as I try to steady myself. But it only makes everything feel more intense. More real.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his breathing slightly uneven, his eyes darker than I’ve ever seen them.
“Tell me to stop,” he says quietly.
I shake my head almost immediately. “Don’t.”
That’s all it takes. He lifts me and sets me on the counter as he takes my lips in a deep, searing kiss.
Goosebumps dot my skin as he slowly slides his tongue over mine, sparking new sensations everywhere.
His hands caress my skin, leaving warmth in their wake until it’s all I can feel and think about.
His fingers glide around my neck and slowly draw down the zipper of my dress. He tugs it down, and it falls off my shoulders just as he breaks the kiss. “Beautiful,” he murmurs.
His voice does things to my insides. He unfastens my bra, exposing my breasts. I should feel shy or self-conscious, but the possessive look in his gaze gives me a high. One I can’t come back from. Then he leans down and draws one nipple in his mouth.