Chapter 21 Asher
ASHER
Ella’s silky brown and gold hair falls into a curtain on either side of her head as she bends down to take me in her mouth.
The sight of her sitting naked, straddled over me with her legs spread enough that I get a glorious view of her perfect, bare pussy and her fucking flawless tits hovering above my cock almost does me in.
I’m so fucking hard from eating her pussy and hearing her whimpers and moans that I almost came several times while pleasuring her.
Her hands slide up my thighs and fasten on my hips as her lips hover an inch over the head of my cock.
Her breath caresses the tip, and I hiss, overly sensitive already, and she hasn’t even begun.
She moves one hand from my hips, and with a feather light touch, runs her fingernail up the shaft of my cock and over the head.
Fuck. She swirls her finger through my pre-cum, spreading it along the tip.
She moves her finger to her mouth and delicately licks it. I almost come right then and fucking there. Then she puts her finger in her mouth and sucks it before slowly dragging it out, licking her lips as she finishes.
“You’re pretty delicious yourself, Mr. Langford,” she says, in a low voice.
Mother fucking hell.
Her eyes give me one last look full of wicked, teasing desire before her full, pouty lips spread over the tip of my cock.
I lift my fist to my mouth and bite down to keep my groan of pleasure to an acceptable volume.
Her mouth slides down my shaft and then back up it, slowly, leisurely, as if she’s exploring.
It’s all I can do to hold still and not start fucking her mouth with a vengeance.
She stays slow with that beautiful, talented mouth, caressing my cock as she drags her tongue up the entire back of the shaft, then she lightly runs her teeth over the head before dipping her tongue into the small slit.
Her hand cups my balls, kneading them gently, and I groan too loud.
She’s not just sucking my cock, she’s worshiping it. Holy Mother of God.
When she’s done with her perfect, delicious exploration, she changes tactics.
She moves one hand to the base of my cock and wraps her mouth along the rest of me, working them both in tandem.
Her pace picks up, as does her pressure, and then I can’t take it anymore.
I move my hips in time with her, trying to hold back how hard I thrust, not wanting to choke her.
After a moment of sheer fucking ecstasy, her mouth leaves my cock, and my head snaps up. The loss of her feels like a punch to the face, and I splutter incoherently. Is she okay? I want to ask her, but my voice is lost somewhere in my throat.
She reaches down, grabbing both of my hands, and pulls me up to a sitting position. “I think your body wants you to stand up,” she says, that wicked smirk back. “I can tell you’re fighting what you really want.”
Still holding my hands, she scoots off the bed then pulls me after her, until we’re both standing next to the bed.
“And what is it that I want?” I say hoarsely, finally finding my voice.
“To fuck my mouth.”
I’m speechless again. God damn.
She lowers herself to her knees, and fuck me, the sight of her naked, on her knees before me is almost too much. She looks up at me as she runs her hands up my thighs. “Don’t hold back. If we only get this night, take what you want.”
She doesn’t have to tell me twice.
Now it’s my fists threaded through her hair as she works me with her hand and mouth, almost covering all of my length, and taking me deep.
Her other hand holds onto my hip, with her nails digging in.
I’ll probably have marks after this. I can’t fucking wait to see them.
I thrust my hips, fucking her mouth just like she said, just like I wanted to do while I was lying on the bed.
Our speed increases, and the intensity of it has me practically seeing stars.
“I’m about to come,” I say, frantic after a moment. “If you don’t want . . . ah . . . let go now if you don’t—”
Her grip on my hip only tightens, and she keeps my cock in her mouth as I come harder than I think I’ve ever come before.
“Fuck! Ella!” I shout holding onto her head and trying not to lose my balance as my mind and body are wracked with euphoric pleasure that is almost an out-of-body experience.
She drinks me down as I slightly sway, hunched over her, and it takes me a second to get my feet back under me. I stand up straight and step back.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’ve had my share of blow jobs, probably too many to admit—it’s easy when you’re a man like me, but I’ve never had one like that. Never have I almost lost myself in the moment like that, with so much pleasure it almost overwhelmed my mind and body.
She sits back on her heels and looks up at me as she wipes cum and saliva from the corner of her mouth.
I stare down at her, mesmerized. And I want to berate myself for it, but the sight of her on her knees before me, her skin shining dully in the New York City lights filtering in behind the sheer curtains, hits me again, making me purr with satisfaction.
I don’t know if I’ve seen anything more beautiful.
I hold out my hands for her, and as she takes them, I pull her up so that she’s standing in front of me.
“That was . . .” I take a breath, not sure what to say. “I’ve never. . . . You are amazing, Ella.”
I pull her into me, wrapping my arms around her.
She burrows into my chest, sliding her hands around to my back.
We hold onto one another for a moment, chests rising and falling, hearts pounding, and I realize I don’t want to let her go.
I don’t want to send her on her way like I have with so many other women so many other times.
And I’m suddenly glad for Matthew’s directives.
I’ll have a good excuse to keep Ella here with me, at least for tonight.
“Should we get cleaned up?” I say after a moment, breaking the spell.
Ella answers with a nod and hum.
I reach down for her hand and pull her after me toward the bathroom. I flip on the lights, and we both flinch and cover our eyes at the sudden brightness.
“Hang on,” I say, flipping the switches back down, plunging us back into darkness.
I reach for the last switch on the plate and flip that one.
Low lights below the vanity and up at the corner where the wall and ceiling meet turn on.
Now the bathroom is lit enough to see in, but it’s a soft, more ambient light instead of the bright overhead one.
“Much better,” she says.
I grab two towels off a shelf next to my shower and toss one to Ella. She wraps it around herself while I head into the shower and turn on the faucet. While the shower heats up, I open a couple of drawers in the vanity, searching.
“Matthew has already taken the opportunity to buy all of your toiletries in two sets,” I say, rummaging through the drawers until I find the baskets for Ella.
“I’m not sure if you made it up to your bathroom before I got home, but there should be all new things up there for you, and he insisted another set be delivered to my bathroom.
I think he’s sometimes much more calculating than I give him credit for. ”
Ella chuckles and walks toward me, eyeing the products in the baskets. “I’ve never even heard of these brands.”
“Oh, yes. About that. Matthew also told me he threw out all of your old products.”
“He what?”
“Yeah, sorry. He told me over lunch today when he was making the arrangements.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He said they were cheap trash.” I hold up my hands in defense. “His words, not mine.”
“Matthew,” she says with a snarl, rolling her eyes.
“Yes, well. He replaced everything and more, is what he told me. I don’t know what any of it is, but these three baskets are all yours.”
“There’s also all new makeup, makeup brushes, and hair tools,” she says, taking in the inventory. “Did he throw out all of that as well?”
“Not sure, but I think so? I’m sorry. I had no idea he was going to do that. I would have told him not to, which is why I’m sure he did it behind both of our backs. Better to ask for forgiveness and all that.”
“If I didn’t adore Matthew, I’d strangle that control freak.”
“I’d hold him down for you,” I say with a wink.
She gives an exaggerated sigh. “But then you’d be a rudderless ship lost at sea. And we can’t have that.”
“No, we can’t. Which is why he gets away with murder. Come on, let’s get cleaned up.”
She grabs some sort of loofah braided thing and some different types of bottled soaps and washes from her baskets and follows me into the shower.
I pull her under the stream with me, wanting her close again.
After we’re both soaked and settled, we stand there for a few minutes, holding onto one another in silence.
There’s a strange sense bubbling inside me, making me wonder if this moment is real.
Ella and I met just four days ago when she stumbled late into our meeting wearing those ridiculous clothes.
Two days after that, we were splashed all over the media, rumored to be dating.
And now just two days after that, she’s here, living in my penthouse, naked with me in my shower after the best not-sex I’ve ever had in my life.
Life truly is surprising and strange sometimes.
And a part of me is . . . happy, excited to have Ella here with me.
The change of atmosphere in having her in my penthouse is substantial.
Home suddenly doesn’t feel as cold and empty.
But I try to keep those thoughts at bay because the majority of me is still pissed at the board for forcing me, and therefore by extension Ella, into this.
The idea of her being thrown to the wolves of the public and their scrutiny makes my blood boil.
And the worry over her safety and what some sick fuck might try to do to her to get to me has kept me up more than one night this week.
But for this moment, I give in to that excited part of myself. I let myself be selfish like I was moments ago when I took things way too far—since I have no intention of letting them get that far again. I’m a selfish prick sometimes, and tonight, I just couldn’t seem to stop myself.
A little while later, washed and dried, and Ella in a t-shirt of mine, I pull her into my bed, shifting her until we’re touching. She raises her head from my chest and reaches up to brush her finger along my temple.
“What’s this scar from?” she whispers. I know she noticed the scars on my back earlier, and my reaction to her touch.
But she’s clever enough that the second she noticed my flinching at her touch, she moved her hands away.
She clearly knows not to ask about those scars.
And she’s right about that. I’ve never explained them to any woman I’ve been with.
Even if all of them asked about them. But no one has asked me about this faint scar near my eye, so her question catches me off guard.
And just like the scars on my back, I’m not going to divulge where it came from since they all happened the same night.
“I grew up in a house of boys. We roughhoused a lot,” I lie.
I shift onto my side and pull Ella to me, her back to my front. I wrap one arm around her, locking her in, keeping her close, but keeping her away from my scars and her questions. I press a kiss to her temple.
“Good night, Ella,” I whisper into her hair.
“Good night, Asher,” she says, sleepily.
The gun digs into my forehead.
Tears and snot and saliva run down my face as I gag on the tie in my mouth.
Blood runs into my right eye from the gash at my temple. I try to rub it away, but my hands are bound behind my back.
Grandpa lies in front of me, his leg bent at an unnatural angle.
The crack of his knee shattering under the force of the hammer still rings through my ears.
Blood seeps through his suit pants, pooling on the ground beneath his leg.
But I’m not screaming because of the blood around his knee.
I’m screaming because of the blood running from his ear.
I’m screaming because of his eyes. Grandpa’s eyes, the same ice-blue shade as mine, are open. Blank, staring.
Lifeless.
“He’s just a boy!” I can still hear my grandpa’s last words play through my head. “Please, let him go! I don’t care what you do to me, but don’t hurt him. He’s just a boy!”
The hammer moved from his knee, then pounded into his temple.
He fell to the ground after that.
He’s still on the ground.
“You killed him, you fucking idiot!” one of the men in the ski masks yells at the other. “We weren’t supposed to kill him! We were ordered to break him until he agreed to the terms, not kill him in the process!”
“What do we do now?” another masked man shouts, panicked.
“We have to make it look like an accident! No one can know!”
“What about the kid?” the third masked man shouts.
“He has to go, too! No one can know what happened here!”
I wake with a start, my breaths heaving and gasping. I push Ella aside as gently as I can so I don’t wake her, and I sit on the edge of the bed.
I haven’t dreamed of that night in years.
The memory of it still flashes through my mind—too often—but I’ve managed to keep it as just a flash and nothing more. But tonight, the dream makes it too real. The dream digs up all the details, still seared into my mind, after all these years.
This is what can happen when your life and money and “exceptional existence” is paraded for the world to see. People come after it. They always do. And now it’s not just me and my family at constant risk. It’s now Ella.
And I can’t take it.
This is wrong. I should have never agreed to this. I should have said no. I won’t bring someone into my life like this, and I need to figure out how to undo it.
Before it’s too late.