“When did you get out?” he asked, the silver back in his eyes. There was a small tic high in his jaw as he worked to keep his shit together.
“Just now,” I told him. “I came straight here.”
To you.
He was the only thing I could think of.
His breaths were ragged as he dropped his head into my neck, breathing me in. I thanked everyone I could think of for magical baths, because I hadn’t actually had a shower for almost a month.
“I lost my fucking mind every single day,” he whispered, his breath hot against my skin. “I bargained and bribed and destroyed, but they would not let me see you.”
“I lost my mind too,” I admitted.
Asher strode across to one of the loungers, sinking down, pulling me on top of him. “Tell me everything that happened from when you were taken,” he said, holding me closer. Neither one of us wanted to let go.
Trying to think around the hard, delicious, naked body pressed to me was not easy, but I managed to tell him about the healing, and how my energy was insanely strong. When I got to Louis’s temporary solution, Asher touched the pendant on my chest, letting the cold stone slide across his fingers.
“I need to know what happened to you as well,” I said softly. “When Shera took you.”
Asher stiffened, but he didn’t hold back. He told me about the weeks of endless searching and how he started to hone his skills under the water. He told me about finally finding the entrance and the connection he felt to Atlantis—or the walls at least—when they first found it.
“It calls to me,” he said.
I nodded. “Yes. It was the same for me. Something inside those walls was calling me, and I’m scared to find out what it is.”
He cupped my face, kissing me softly again. “You won’t be alone. No matter what happens, we’ll face it together.”
I lay against him for a few moments, listening to the thrum of his heartbeat under my ear.
“The chick I saw in my dreams, the one pawing all over you … she’s another Atlantean?”
Shera had said something like that, but it still bothered me to remember her touching him.
Asher’s chest rumbled. “She’s Shera’s daughter. Born from my mother’s body.”
I jerked my head up. “What? And she was trying to get you two to hook up?”
They were basically related, and she had to be pretty young. Funny, she hadn’t looked that young in the dream. There was something predatory about her.
Asher let out a dark laugh. “Shera was desperate; she would have tried anything. When I finally figured out the fire spell, I was glad to be rid of her. Only I left it too late to try the spell. She’d drained so much of my energy that I couldn’t power it.”
“Don’t ever do that again,” I whispered to him, my lips close to his. “I don’t care how high the stakes are, don’t run off to play the hero. I can’t go through that again.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think things over while I was gone,” he said, eyes silver, “and I’m sorry it took me so long to get my shit together. To figure out that fighting my feelings was stupid and redundant. I won’t waste any more time.”
His mouth landed on mine, soft and gentle, caressing as our tongues danced together. At least it started that way, but the moment his hands gripped my hips, pulling me closer, I lost control.
The kiss was so hot that I couldn’t breathe or think or do anything other than react. I just kissed him like my life depended on it, and he was doing the same. He sucked in my bottom lip and I groaned—I’d never been this turned on in my life.
I rocked against him again, my panties soaked and my body more than ready. I brushed my hands down his chest, feeling the perfect ridges of his body before I caressed his abs. My fingers wrapped around the tip of his dick, which was huge and thick.
“Please,” I moaned.
Asher lifted his head from where he was kissing me. “What, baby girl? Tell me what you want?”
I moaned again, almost beyond words. “I need—Asher, fuck.”
His fingers had slipped under my sweats, caressing along my swollen, throbbing flesh.
