As soon as he’d ensured Naomi was out of Slater’s reach, that son of a bitch would be going down.
CHAPTER 10
He didn’t say two words to her for the duration of the drive out of Vegas.
She told herself she was relieved to have his brooding silence beside her, especially since her lips were still burning from the heat of his kiss. It had been so unexpected, his tenderness coming right on the heels of his obvious frustration with her.
Had he kissed her out of desire? God knew she’d been entertaining some unbidden, purely sexual thoughts and urges where Asher was concerned. As angry as she wanted to be, and was, with the overbearing Breed male, she could hardly deny her awareness of him nor her body’s all-too-eager response. Any woman with eyes in her head and warm red blood in her veins would find it impossible to describe Asher as anything less than panty-meltingly hot.
But that didn’t mean the attraction was mutual. In the instant before he’d covered her mouth with his, he seemed so angry she half-expected him to punch something—possibly even her. That is, until her eyes started leaking and those pathetically broken sobs started falling from her mouth before she could hold them back.
Humiliation flamed her cheeks, adding to the fire already settled there in the wake of his kiss.
How utterly embarrassing to have broken down in front of him like that. Tears, for fuck’s sake. She never cried over her mother, least of all in the presence of someone else. Not even Michael knew how deeply the loss had truly wounded her. Now, she’d gone and blubbered in front of Asher like the heartbroken, abandoned eight-year-old girl she’d been all that time ago.
For all she knew, he might have done it simply to shut her up. Or, even worse, out of pity.
But his burning kiss hadn’t tasted like either of those impulses. Not that she had been fit to judge. By the time his strong hands had closed around her shoulders, then cradled her face, she’d been too far gone to question anything but the intensity of her need to sink against him in surrender.
At the moment, all she wanted was to get as far away from him as possible and try to put the whole unsettling idea out of her mind.
As Asher turned off the starlit desert road and onto the bumpy dirt lane that led to the old ranch, Naomi hung suspended between the thrill of having bilked Leo Slater out of one of his millions and the concern she had for Michael in these next crucial hours following his big “win” at the casino.
By now, all of the casino paperwork would have been signed, the check issued and in his hands, ready to be deposited in his bank account. But what if something had gone wrong?
What if it had all gone to hell after she fled Moda with Asher on her heels?
Naomi reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out her new burner phone to check for messages from Michael. No word at all yet. Dammit. Although they’d agreed he would text once he was in the clear and felt it was safe to make contact, her fingers itched with the need to check in with him.
She’d barely tapped the screen with the first letter when the device suddenly leapt out of her fingers and into Asher’s right hand.
“What the hell?” She gaped at him, reminded of just how little she understood about him or his kind. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“You have your little talents; I have mine.” He dropped the phone between his parted thighs as he maneuvered the truck over the potholes and valleys of the rambling driveway. When they were parked in front of the house, he killed the engine and gave her a grim look. “If you care about your friend, the best thing you can do for him is keep your distance for a while.”
She knew he was right, but it went against her grain to let any man—particularly this one—boss her and tell her what she could or could not do. “Fine, you made your point. I’ll take my phone back now.”
She held out her hand but he ignored it. Taking the keys and the burner in one hand, he got out of the truck and stalked around to open her door before she had the chance. “Let’s get inside. It’s not a good idea to linger out here longer than we need to.”
His tone was grim, and sounded far from enthused at the notion of having her at his place for a second time. She nearly reminded him that the only reason she had been there at all was because of his insistence that she would be dead without him.
Begrudgingly, she climbed out of the truck and walked with him onto the porch where Sam’s panting mouth and eager whining greeted them on the other side of the screen door. In spite of everything else that was upsetting and out of control in her life, the sight of the dancing, wiggling hound made a smile break across her face. At least someone was pleased with this unwanted arrangement.
“Hey, you,” she said, dropping onto her haunches and giving Sam’s swiveling rear and thick shoulders a good rub as soon as she stepped inside the dimly lit house. She laughed as the big dog turned excited circles in front of her and showered her chin in wet licks. “Oh, yes, such a good boy! Your dog’s a nut, Asher. I mean, look at him. His whole body wags when I touch him.”
Asher was looking, but not at Sam. When she glanced up from her squat in front of him, still petting and scratching the deliriously happy hound, she found Asher’s eyes fixed on her. Those dark blue pools smoldered, tiny sparks crackling in their depths.
Snared in the intensity of his unblinking study of her, all the heat she’d felt during and after Asher’s kiss swamped her all over again.
He made a strange sound in the back of his throat. Not quite a growl, but a deep vibration that seemed to call to something wild inside her veins. Her pulse kicked, throbbing in the side of her neck and lower, a heavy throb that made her legs go a little weak beneath her.
When he finally spoke, she saw the gleaming tips of his fangs. “I’ll go turn on some more lights for you.”
He disappeared into the dark of the house, moving silently, with the stealth of a ghost. Or something far more dangerous than that.
As soon as Sam heard him in the kitchen, his floppy ears perked and he trotted off ahead of Naomi. She followed, feeling suddenly awkward and uncomfortable in Asher’s home. It wasn’t as if she belonged there. And she felt pretty certain Asher was regretting her presence too.
“You know, if it’s just a matter of laying low for a while, I do have other places I can go. I can get a new fake ID and change my appearance again.”
