Chapter Three
Asher
It's seven on the dot when I knock on Brielle's front door, fully prepared for violence or threats, or both. I haven't heard from her at all since she left my office, which is concerning. I expected an eruption as soon as she saw what I sent her to wear tonight.
That's usually how it works. I piss her off, and she erupts like a gorgeous little volcano, spewing her hatred across my skin. I shouldn't fucking love it as much as I do.
The door swings open to her standing there, one hand propped on her hip.
Jesus. She's the kind of beautiful men would sell their souls to even touch. The red dress I sent clings to every curve like it was poured on. It's short—obscenely so—and so fucking perfect against her porcelain skin, my dick throbs.
Her hair is up, all except for two black waves curling around her face. She looks right through me, not bothering to hide her disgust. The smile she pastes on is a living, breathing warning sign.
"Didn't realize selling myself to you was going to be a humiliating public affair," she says, her arms crossed beneath her breasts, squeezing them higher. "Could you be any more disgusting, Asher?"
I step past her into her living room, breathing in her perfume. "I take that to mean you got my little gift. Did you do as instructed?"
"You mean did I pour myself into this fucking dress and shove your little toy up my ass?" She stares at me like she wants to bite my head off. "I know the rules."
"Good. People expect my date to look fuckable," I say, pretending my cock isn't throbbing over the fact that she's wearing the plug I sent her.
"As if that required the toy." She tilts her head. "And I'm not your date. I'm your escort. Your kept woman, your mistress—pick your poison." She pauses. "By the way, isn't it humiliating to pay women to be seen with you?"
"It's efficient." I shrug. "You'd be surprised how much honesty there is in a transaction."
She drags her gaze over me, disdainful. "I'm sure you do. Remind me—what exactly are you hoping to get tonight? Drunk enough to pretend you're not a miserable bastard? Or are you hoping this thing falls out in front of everyone so the story splashed across the news tomorrow is my humiliation?"
Her voice is low, throaty. My balls ache just from the way she says humiliation. She's always known how to get under my skin. She learned the blueprints of my ruin years ago, when she was still in a fucking school uniform and knee-high socks.
But if she thinks she knows anything about me, she's sorely mistaken. I may be photographed with women, but I haven't touched any of them, not since I met her. I'll take that truth to my fucking grave before I give her more ammunition, though.
"Jealousy isn't really your color, princess."
"Jealous?" She rolls her eyes at me. "Please, Asher. I don't care who you fuck. You're the only one delusional enough to think anything you do matters to me at all. You're nothing to me except a paycheck."
I walk up to her, crowding her against the wall. Her chin comes up, her green eyes flashing.
"Careful, princess," I growl. "I remember a time when you would have gladly given it to me for free."
She raises her hand fast, but I'm faster. I catch her wrist, pin it above her head, and press her flat against the wall. She gasps, furious—but her thighs part instinctively.
I step between them. Goddamn. The heat rolling off her is electric.
"You're an asshole," she spits, but she can't hide how breathless she sounds, not from me.
I cover her mouth with mine before she can say more, biting her lower lip until she squeals.
She fights me—God, she fights me, nails raking down my jaw, pointy shoes kicking at my shins—until I slip my hand up the inside of her thigh and find the heat at her cunt, slick and bare, no panties to be found.
Her hips buck into my palm when I drift lower, my fingers finding the base of the butt plug lodged between her cheeks. I tug it out an inch and then thrust it back in, my other hand against her clit.
Her arms go slack, so I do it again, fucking her ass with it.
For a second, she kisses me back, hard enough that I think she wants to cut me open and climb inside. Sometimes I wonder if she knows it's the fight that makes me so goddamn hard or if it's just instinct for her, something she reaches for because she loves it as much as I do.
I break the kiss, grinding my thumb in tight circles against her clit. Her head thumps against the wall.
"Your pretty little body betrays you, Brielle," I murmur, my voice thick with something I can't name. "You pretend to fight me, but your cunt says you'd still give it to me for free."
She sinks her teeth into my throat, drawing blood. The pain is sweet, but I let go of her wrist and step back, watching her straighten the front of her dress with shaking hands.
"Go to hell," she says, her lips quivering.
"Already there, princess." I wipe the blood from my neck with the pad of my thumb and lick it away, tasting her beneath it. The way my cock jerks in my pants is proof she can still make me feel something. Sometimes, I think she's the only one who can.
The world lost meaning a long time ago. When you can have anything, eventually, nothing satisfies you. It's all gray and lifeless, uninspiring.
She's a line of poetry right through the heart of it.
And I've been in hell since the day I met her when she was sixteen. I wanted her before I even knew how old she was, and I wanted to burn the fucking world when I found out that she was untouchable.
She decided I was the devil right away. She did everything she could to rattle me, to piss me off, and to test me. I never let her see how well it worked, but goddamn, did it ever.
The night she kissed me, I would have ruined kingdoms for her. Instead, I ruined her. I taught her to hate me. I've been teaching her to hate me every day since.
That's the thing about devils. We take. We consume. We destroy. It's all we know how to do.
She's more like me than she wants to admit.
She turns away, trembling, trying to collect herself in the mirror over her credenza. I almost want to apologize, but that's not what this is. We tear each other apart and torment each other. We don't apologize. I'm not sure I even know how.
I watch her for a moment, then turn for the door. "Don't take the plug out until I say you can."
I don't bother to check if she's following.
She always does, even when I'm leading her straight to hell.
Brielle
By the time I reach the lobby, my expression is blank, but my legs are shaking. Walking downstairs with the plug in my ass is a new kind of interesting. Actually, wearing it at all is a new kind of interesting. I wanted to murder him when I saw it in the box.
I'll die before I admit to the sick curiosity that came alongside the fury. But I'm honest enough with myself to admit it. I wanted to know what it felt like to walk around with it in.
The plug doesn't hurt, not really. I just feel…full. And turned on.
God, I hate him for knowing it.
I cross the marble expanse of the lobby, my heels striking the floor like I'm heading to war, ignoring the doorman gawking at my legs.
Asher is already sprawled across the back seat of the limo, cradling a glass of something amber and ruinously expensive. I slide in beside him, the hem of my micro dress climbing higher. Half of Manhattan may end up seeing the plug in my ass tonight if I'm not careful.
Asher would probably love that. It's probably why his instructions included the no panties clause, the bastard.
He doesn't look at me on the drive, just tips his head, drinks, and stares out the window while the city crawls past. If I didn't know better, I'd think I hurt his feelings when I said he means nothing to me.
But that would mean he's human, and I'm pretty sure those rumors have been greatly exaggerated.
He stopped being human years ago, if he ever was at all.
I ignore him, just to prove I can, and spend the whole ride scrolling through my phone, pretending to be too absorbed in reels to notice the heat radiating off his body. Pretending I'm not so fucking turned on, my whole body aches.
It's a losing battle.
The memory of his mouth on mine and his hand between my legs has already replayed in my mind a thousand times since he walked out of my apartment. The feel of the plug stretching me and the way he slammed it into me has me dripping. I hate him for it. I hate myself for not hating it enough.
If I didn't need his money to open my own agency, I'd shove that glass in his hand down his throat and watch him choke on the shards.
But somewhere over the last few days, I realized that I'll never be free of him unless I hold the power.
If I work for someone else, I'll always worry that he's pulling the strings, that my job will disappear as soon as he decides it should. I'm not willing to take that risk.
Instead, I'll take his money and make myself untouchable.
Thirty days in his bed is a small price to pay for freedom. Or so I keep telling myself.
I have a feeling he'll make sure I live long enough to regret my decision.
We pull up to the hotel, and he helps me out, his fingers gripping my waist with just enough pressure to bruise. The press is already waiting with cameras, microphones, and the kind of hawkish glances that can spot a scandal from a mile away.
Asher leans in, so close his breath fogs my ear. "Smile, princess. You're the luckiest woman here tonight."
"Liar. I'm the only woman both here and in hell tonight." I paste on the same smile I used for years on red carpets, the one that says I'm too pretty to care what you think. We glide through the lobby, past a flock of socialites in borrowed couture, and into the ballroom.