Chapter Ten #2
I splinter apart at the sound of it, shattering around him with a moan I can't fight.
For a long minute, neither of us moves. He just holds me there, shuddering, his weight crushing me, his hand still tangled in my hair. The only sound is our breathing, chaotic and out of sync.
Eventually, he lets go of my arms, but his hand lingers on my face, his thumb stroking my jaw. He doesn't say anything, but the way he touches me is almost tender.
I stay perfectly still, my eyes squeezed shut, waiting for the moment to pass. But instead of rolling away, he stays, his cock softening inside me, his breath ruffling the hair at my nape.
He presses a kiss to my temple, so soft it's almost not there.
"I won't ever stop wanting you," he says, so low I'm not sure I was supposed to hear it at all.
He falls asleep like that, wrapped around me, his weight a comfort and a curse.
I stay awake for hours, staring into the darkness, trying to decide which Asher is real—the monster who uses me like a toy, or the man who can't let me go.
At this point, I don't think it even matters.
God help me, I want them both.
I fall asleep again at some point, and when I wake, he's gone again, as if he were never there at all.
But I know better now.
I think about his confession all the way to the office—about how he's been slipping into my bed, fucking me while I was asleep, about why he disappears before I'm awake most of the time.
I'm not mad about it. I've almost accepted the fact that I'm his to use however and whenever he wants.
Most of the time, I love it, even if I'll never admit it.
But…I hate that he thinks I hate him for the accident. I hate that we've spent so damn long at war because we've been unable to forgive ourselves. I kissed him to prove a point, and it nearly destroyed us both. That one moment had consequences I never expected or planned for.
All I wanted was for him to admit that he felt something for me, too. Instead, I distracted him, causing him to crash the car. I nearly died, and he went to jail. He nearly went to prison.
And all these years later, he's still suffering in ways that I'm only just beginning to realize. He doesn't stay and wait for me to wake up because he doesn't think he deserves to stay. He thinks he's only allowed softness from me when he steals it in the dead of night.
Eventually, we have to deal with the past, right? We have to allow ourselves to heal from it before it destroys us both. We have to forgive.
I stalk into the office at five minutes after seven, determined to do precisely that.
Asher is already at his desk, glowering at something on his screen.
"I want to change the terms of our agreement," I announce, dropping my bag on my desk.
"Too bad," he grunts without even looking at me. "You already sold yourself to me."
I plant my hands on my hips, refusing to let him piss me off enough to forget what I'm after here. "If you're going to fuck me in the middle of the night, at least have the balls to stay until morning."
That gets his attention. His head shoots up, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. "You want me to sleep over?" He says it like I've just suggested we get matching tattoos.
I don't flinch. "Yeah. I want you to stop sneaking in and out."
He stares at me for a long moment, his gaze raking over my face, searching for the joke, the trap, or the hidden razor. I'm not sure which he expects to find, but there isn't one. Not this time. "Why?"
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. The truth bounces around my skull, too loud to ignore.
Because I want you.
Because I hate that I broke you.
Because it feels less like dying when you're there.
Because I like the way you curl around me like I'm the last good thing you'll ever have.
I'm not nearly ready to admit any of that to him, though. Just like he isn't ready to hear any of it. Instead, I shrug. "Because if you're going to fuck me while I'm asleep, you should at least stick around for breakfast. Or coffee. Or something."
He doesn't speak. The silence is absolute.
Then, slowly, he pushes away from the desk, stands, and walks toward me. Every step is deliberate, as if he's stalking prey, but the look in his eyes is anything but cruel. It's worse. It's wounded.
He stops with his body crowding mine, his hands braced on either side of my head against the wall. "You think this is a relationship?" His voice is pure venom, but he's shaking a little. "You want to pretend this is real, princess? That you didn't sell yourself to me for five million?"
I laugh, but nothing about this is funny, not even a little.
"No. I want you to stop treating me like something you're ashamed of after you fuck me at three a.m. I signed up to be your whore, not to be some dirty little secret who wakes up not knowing if you were there or if some other psycho broke in while I was asleep. That's all."
His jaw tics, his body radiating tension. For a second, I think he's going to yell at me or break something. Instead, he bends me over my desk, dragging my skirt up past my ass before I can even spit out a protest.
"Here's how this works, princess," he hisses, his breath hot against my neck. "I'll do whatever the fuck I want, whenever I want. And you'll stop pretending you hate it. We both know you stay this fucking wet because you love the way I use you."
He yanks my panties down and plunges his fingers inside me, working them with ruthless efficiency. I gasp, caught between outrage and pure, overwhelming need. He kneels behind me, pinning my hips in place, and swipes his tongue over the tight ring of my asshole.
I nearly bite through my lip to keep from screaming. The angle, the invasion, the tenderness he almost—almost—shows just before forcing his tongue inside, is enough to send me over instantly.
I come so hard my vision goes black, my forehead pressed to the desk, my body on fire.
He doesn't stop. He licks my ass until I'm sobbing and begging for mercy, too wrung out to withstand another orgasm. Only then does he stand, tugging my panties off completely before tucking them into his jacket pocket with a slow, deliberate smile.
"No more panties," he tells me. "I want you open and ready for me at all times." The order is so matter-of-fact it barely registers as filth.
I scowl at him, but that only makes him grin wider. He tucks a hair behind my ear, so gently I whimper.
"If you want me in your bed, fine. I'll stay with you. But don't think it changes anything. You're still my toy to use however the fuck I want."
I glare, refusing to let him see how deep his words cut or how much the promise in them matters. "No, I'm not," I whisper, my voice shaking. "You're just too afraid to admit what I really am to you."
He watches me, and for one impossible second, I think he might actually crack. That he might say something kind. Something human.
His mouth softens. He leans in and presses a kiss to my cheek—not my mouth, not my body, but my cheek, the way you'd kiss a bruise or a scar.
"Maybe so," he whispers, then lets me go, striding out of the office like the walls are closing in on him.
I sit there, shaking, waiting for the echo of his touch to fade.
It doesn't.
He keeps his word. Every night for the next week, he comes to my apartment at an almost normal hour.
Sometimes I hear him at the door. Sometimes I wake to his heat pressed to my back. Sometimes I find him standing at my window, staring out like he wants to raze the city.
He doesn't always fuck me. Sometimes he just sits on the bed and watches me sleep, as if he can't believe I'm real.
Sometimes, when he thinks I'm not awake, he strokes my hair, traces the curve of my hip, or kisses the old scars on my side.
Sometimes, when the nightmares are too brutal, and he can't help himself, he comes apart beside me, trembling and silent, burying his face in my neck like a man who's just barely holding it together.
And sometimes, I wake up with his hands tangled in my hair, his mouth on my throat, and his cock already hard and desperate between my thighs.
Sometimes, I don't wake up at all when he's inside me.
I think we both love those times just as much as we do any other.
Some sick, twisted part of me loves being used while I'm asleep.
I love being the one thing he wants softness from badly enough to steal it.
He always acts like showing up is a favor, a punishment, or a game. But I know better because every morning, no matter how brutal the nightmares or how hard he fucks me, he's still there, lying beside me like hell itself couldn't drag him away.
He needs me the same way I need him. He just hates himself too much to say it out loud.
So I don't make him say it. I simply stop fighting him.
I let him fuck me, ruin me, love me—if that's what this is—and I let him pretend this isn't real. I pretend I don't wait up just to see if he'll come.
But I do.
God help me, I do.