Chapter 40 Ella
ELLA
Back in our hotel room, I hand a bag of stuffed clothes to a bellman to take down to Maya, who’s waiting in the car with Sterling.
“I’ll make sure she gets them, Ms. Hale.”
“Thank you.”
“What was that?” Asher asks, shrugging out of his suit coat as I shut the door.
“I sent him down with some clothes for Maya. I’m not letting her look like she’s on some sordid walk of shame tomorrow when she goes back to her dorm.”
“You’re good to those you love, Ella.”
The sweet compliment takes me by surprise. “Thank you. So are you.”
He looks uncomfortable. “Yes, but it’s easy for me. It’s easy to help people when you have almost anything and everything at your fingertips. With you, you sacrifice over and over to give to those you love. It’s humbling to watch, knowing I’ve never had to sacrifice like that.”
His words wash over me, and though I’m still a little buzzed, they make me sad. He doesn’t see himself clearly at all.
“Just because you haven’t had to doesn’t mean you wouldn’t if it came down to it.
I see the way you love your brothers, and I’ve seen the things you’ve done for me.
I fully believe that if you had been in my same situation that you would have done the same thing.
Don’t sell yourself short because your circumstances differ. ”
“Maybe,” he shrugs.
“Not maybe. I’m sure about that. One thing I’ve learned about you, Asher, is that you may have access to everything, and you may have lavish, snobbish, exotic tastes,” I wink at him, “but you’re also not ruled by your money.
You command power because you have to, and you do it for your company and those you love.
But you don’t necessarily revel in it. You don’t get off on abusing your power or using it to hurt others. Maybe with the exception of Kyle.”
He smirks. “And I’d do it again, that fucker deserved everything he got.”
Now I laugh. I sidle closer to him and wrap my arms around his waist. He looks down at me, his face open, but unsure.
“You are good to those you love, Asher. And you’re good to many people you don’t even know. You understand and respect the responsibility you have in wielding the money and power you have. And that, to me, is just as powerful of a characteristic as sacrificing for those you love.”
His eyes are wide, his face vulnerable. Almost stunned. “Thank you,” he croaks.
I brush my hand up along his cheek and through his perfectly stubbled jawline.
God, this man. Sometimes the insanity of the situation hits me out of nowhere, and I have no clue how I ended up here.
How is it that weeks ago I was living in Zahra’s apartment with almost no clothes, my money tied up in theft, and worrying myself to death over sending money to Maya?
Now I’m in London with one of the most wealthy and powerful men in the world, and as far as the world knows, I’m his girlfriend.
The two of us have rules and boundaries that sharpen and blur at a moment’s notice, and my life and anonymity has been flipped on its head.
It’s crazy to think about it.
But what hits me most of all, is that while all of those things sometimes take me by surprise and make me want to pinch myself, that’s not why I’m reeling.
I’m reeling because of the man in front of me.
Not his money, not his name, not his position.
Just him. It’s too easy to get lost in him.
It’s too easy to care for him. And I know it would be wise to pull back and clear those boundaries back up.
But I don’t want to.
And that’s what scares me the most.
He leans his forehead down onto mine. His hands press into my back. My heart pounds in my chest. All the flirting and teasing aside tonight, now that I’m here in his arms, there’s a weight to us. The chemistry that has always burned between us feels like more, somehow.
“What are we doing?” I whisper.
“I don’t fucking know anymore.”
“We were supposed to have boundaries. Be professional. Only act like a couple in public.”
“I don’t know if that was ever realistic,” he admits.
“At first, I thought it was necessary, especially when the plan was to date a high society heiress. I’ve been around enough of them to know that they aren’t something I would ever want, so keeping boundaries with an heiress was non-negotiable for me. ”
“And now?”
He pulls his head back and looks down into my eyes. My hands are on his shoulders, holding on like he’s a lifeline.
“Now, everything is different. I didn’t mean for it to be, but it is. With you . . . I don’t know. I can’t fight the draw I feel toward you. The pull, the energy—I don’t even know what to call it. But I know I’m a slave to it. And I don’t know if I have a choice anymore.”
“What are you saying?” I ask. My heart is frantic in my chest, and I want to be one-hundred-percent sure he’s saying what I think he is. I don’t think I could live with it if I was misinterpreting things and made a fool of myself.
“I’m saying that I don’t know if I want to put a label on things, but I also don’t want to fight them anymore, either.
Not touching you, not having you in my bed each night, is torture.
Keeping my distance from you is torture.
Pretending that we don’t feel this explosive chemistry between us is torture.
And I’m certainly not one to torture myself.
I’m a spoiled, entitled asshole, after all. ”
“And what does this spoiled, entitled asshole want?”
“You.”
“How do we set these new terms? There is no contract in front of us, no lawyers, no board.”
“Thank god for that, or they’d get more than an eyeful in a minute.”
“That’s presumptuous of you,” I tease.
“I know when I’m about to close a deal. A lion always knows when their prey is within their grasp.”
“So now I’m prey?”
“The best kind.”
“And what happens after I’m caught?”
He runs his hands down my back and over my ass, giving me a little jerk toward him. My breasts crash into his ribs, and his hands tighten, squeezing my ass. He smirks down at me and smiles wickedly.
His mouth crashes against mine.
And the leash I’ve tethered myself with since the day I laid eyes on Asher snaps.
And I let go.
I let myself fall.
I kiss him back like I’ve been starving, and soon we’re a mess of tangled limbs and frantic lips, and I’m lost in the utter euphoria of him.
His hands are in my hair. Then they’re on my dress, ripping the zipper down.
He tears my dress from my shoulders and steps back.
I stand in front of him in my lacy bra and panties and heels, with my dress pooled at my feet.
His eyes rake down my form, blazing with fire.
“Don’t you dare take off those heels,” he growls. “And don’t take off my ring.”
“I was under the impression you’d be doing the taking off of the things,” I say.
“Fucking right.”
He unbuttons his shirt, and I didn’t know it until right now, but that is my new favorite thing I didn’t know I was missing. Watching Asher unbutton his shirt while his sculpted abs peek through is my new favorite porn.
We stand in front of each other, but neither of us moves.
That same thrum of energy settles into place, though neither of us speaks about it.
There are no words at this point. What words could even articulate this, anyway?
This thing between us somehow lies outside of all the words.
It’s not something that’s merely extraordinary or surprising or consuming.
Even those words don’t do it justice. And it’s not simply charged or electric or even an unstoppable gravity. It’s all of those and more.
It’s . . . everything.
Everything.
Asher steps back toward me, and my skin prickles in anticipation. He brushes his thumb across my lips. Goosebumps rise over my entire body, and I shiver under his simple touch.
“I know, Ella,” he says, his eyes boring into mine with understanding. “I know.”
Our lips meet again, but this time they move slowly. Exploring, worshiping. Then his lips are on my throat, and my fingers are threaded through his hair as his hands slide up my back, stopping at my bra. He unclasps it and slowly, gently, slides the straps down my shoulders, baring me to him.
He leans me back, arching my back slightly, as his mouth traces down my neck, kissing his way down to my collarbones, to the swell of my breast. He takes my breast in his mouth, biting and sucking on my nipple, and I let out a breathy moan.
With the lightest touch, this man can light me on fire and burn me to the ground.
“I need you,” he says, his words whispering across my breast. “I’ve needed you since you stumbled into my meeting and disrupted my life.”
He pulls us back up, standing straight, and his hands are on my hips, beneath the elastic of my panties. He tugs them down, and they fall into a soft heap at my feet. His hand runs along my front to my core. He slips his middle finger along my clit and my hips buck of their own accord.
“Get on the bed,” he orders, nipping at my earlobe.
I brush past him and let my hips sway as I make my way across the room to the bed. I climb up and crawl across it with my ass toward him, my heels still on.
“Fuck,” he hisses.
I turn and sit demurely on my hip, my legs pulled in as I watch him follow me across the room. God, he’s a specimen of a man. His sculpted body is thick and corded with muscle, and his massive erection bulges in his black briefs.
He stands at the end of the bed.
“Lie on your back and open your legs.”
I raise my brows.
“Did you not hear me, Ella?” he says, his voice firm with authority. His CEO voice. Shivers race across me. “Don’t be shy now. I just watched your perfect ass and pussy from behind as you crawled like a naughty girl across my bed. Now let me see you. Open that pretty cunt for me.”
This man’s filthy mouth. A proper woman would slap it. I want to bite it. And suck on it. And then put it on my cunt. I can’t get enough of it.