“I’d prefer you worshipedinit, but around it, or at it, will work too.”
“Fuck me, you’re funny.” He stroked my wet cheek. “I think I missed that part the most.”
“Does this mean you’re going to start sharing?”
“Sharing?”
“Your feelings, in the moment, not a day later, F.Y. information, and your life. I want to know everything about you. I get snippets from you, but I feel like you hold stuff back, and if you really love me, you’ll share it all.”
“I hear you, baby. I’ll be better.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that, Detective Parker.”
“Good,” he said. “I’mgonna hold you to somethin’ else.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep. I’m gonna hold that magical vagina to my dick.”
I licked my lips. “Yes, please.”
* * *
Asher
By the time Dylan andI left the nursing home, she seemed to be in some sort of emotional fog. She held my hand and let me lead her to the passenger’s side of the car, but I could tell she wasn’t really paying any attention to her surroundings.I opened her door and helped her inside, buckling her seatbelt for her before I got behind the wheel.
“You okay?” I asked, starting up the car. She hadn’t said a word since we’d left her grandmother’s room, and I was starting to worry.
She closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. “My world feels like it’s been turned on its axis and the gravity is all wonky.”
“Break it down forme. Use me as your sounding board, Dylan.”
“My dad is stealing jewelry from old people and I’m going to have to bust him for it. Dakota has had my phone number this entire time and has never called me, yet he was still pretending to be interested. But he just gave you his blessing to be with me, so I have no idea what the hell that means. Why has he wanted people to believe we were dating allthese years? And what suddenly changed? And don’t even get me started on my grandma. I don’t know who that old woman we just talked to is, but she isnotthe mean old bat I know and fear. Grandma’s never complimented me before. I can handle her low-key insults and rumors about my sexual orientation, but that... How the hell do I handle her being nice? It’s like we’ve entered some sort of BizarroWorld. I don’t know what to think or feel or how to react.”
I reached over the console and grabbed her hand, intertwining our fingers and letting my presence comfort her.
She opened her eyes and squeezed my hand. “Why did you come, Asher?” She shook her head and sighed. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t want you here, but I know you have a crazy workload of your own and this place isn’t exactlya vacation destination.”
I let my gaze drift out the front window toward the skyline of mountains bordering the sleepy little town. “No, it isn’t. But you’re here and you need me, so there isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be.”
She let out another deep breath. “Thank you. If you weren’t here, tethering me to reality, I’d probably float away into the crazy right now.”
I grinned, loving thatI had the power to keep her grounded. “I do what I can.”
“How did I get so lucky?”
The way Dylan looked at me made me feel like the lucky one. I’d had a shitty week, preparing for an upcoming trial I had little hope of winning. I should still be in Portland, working on the case, but it had been impossible to concentrate knowing she was here battling her past without me. But now she was staringat me with such love and adoration, I felt like I could win any case. Like I could take down any bad guy. I might have kept her grounded, but she made me feel like Superman.
I brushed my lips across her knuckles, holding her gaze.
“I’m sorry my dad swung on you.”
I chuckled. “It’s not the first fight I’ve been in, baby.”
Her eyes widened. “I had no idea you were such a scrapper.”
I shruggedand released her hand to start the car. “Guess I’m full of surprises.”
