“Are you close?” Asher asks. “Because it’s been too long without you, and I can’t hold back anymore.”
“I’m close.”
“Then come for me, baby,” Asher demands, thrusting harder.
Seconds later, my inner walls pulse and flutter. Stars pepper my vision, my ears pop and ring, and I scream Asher’s name as the most intense orgasm I’ve ever had rips through me. Asher pounds into me even harder until he stills, spilling himself inside me.
“Fuck!” he gasps. “Fuck, Ella.”
Asher collapses on top of me, and for a few moments we just lie there, my arms and legs tangled around him and his face buried again against my neck. Our breathing slows. Our heartbeats quiet. And it’s only once the high of our orgasms fade that we allow ourselves to let go and for Asher to pull out of me.
He leans back on his heels and watches with a fevered fascination as his cum leaks out of me, sliding down my thighs. He reaches for me and brushes his thumbs through it, smearing it across my skin, pressing some back into my entrance. He leans down and presses a kiss to the top of my pussy, then leans his forehead against my lower abdomen.
“I don’t know what to do,” Asher whispers against my skin.
“What do you mean?”
He lifts his body up and sits back against his heels again. “I’m so fucking glad you weren’t on that trip with me. Threats from Katrina. Attacked by Yegor. Then my plane hit a storm that slowed us so much we were worried for a moment about running out of fuel. I couldn’t have handled it if you had been there for any one of those situations. And yet, all I could think about the entire time was how much I hated being away from you. I want you to travel with me. I want you by my side as much as possible, but I also don’t want to put you in harm’s way. And right now, that seems to be the way of my life.”
“We’ll take care of it. You can’t keep living this way. Declan and I have a plan we think will help.”
Asher furrows his brows. “Ugh. Don’t say my brother’s name while you’re lying naked beneath me with my cum in your pussy.”
I giggle. “Then we can talk about it later when I’m fully clothed. But you should know, I want the same as you. I want to be with you. Wherever you go. I know we can’t make it work all the time, but I want to be with you as much as I can. You are an addiction I can’t seem to kick, Mr. Langford.”
“I can’t say I hate the sound of that.”
Asher’s eyes shine with mischief, then he grabs hold of my legs and hauls me off the bed. I yelp in surprise as he slings me over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” I ask through laughter.
“Shower,” he grunts out.
17
ELLA
Beneath the warm water, we touch and kiss and fuck all over again, and after having him inside me again, I finally feel calm. We dry and dress in silence as if we’re afraid to burst the bubble, and this turns out to be a dream. I touch Asher often, to be sure he’s here, that he’s real, and he seems to be of the same mindset. And when we climb into bed, he pulls me close and I lay my head on his chest and wrap my legs around his, tangling us together.
“After you called me, I couldn’t stop thinking about something,” I say, drawing idle circles across his chest, which is mercifully bare.
“What’s that?” His chest vibrates and rumbles against mine with his words.
“About how fleeting life can be. One day my dad was healthy, and the next he was diagnosed with cancer. Everything can change at the drop of a hat. Before my dad died, he made me promise that I wouldn’t spend my time on things that don’t matter. He wanted me to live. He told me that work and bills and the monotony of life will always be there, and he wanted me to remember that if you let them, those things will overtakeyour life. They’ll take too much time away from the things that truly matter. Family. Love. Friends. Time spent on things you enjoy and value. I don’t want to do that anymore. I know our situation is crazy, but I don’t want to live in fear. And I don’t want to be away from you. What we have matters—even if it started as nothing more than a contract.”
“It’s a hell of a lot more than a contract now,” Asher says, his breath brushing across my forehead.
“Exactly. I know there are no guarantees, and that the future is murky. But I want to help you get past all this so that we can be together for real, without anything hanging over our heads. No outside pressure. No PR stunts. No threats from Sergei or Yegor. Just you and me and a real relationship.”
“I want that too, but I need you to know that in the meantime, we have to be very fucking careful. I can’t risk you. I won’t. So please be patient with me. The thought of anything happening to you scares me in a way I didn’t know was possible. I need you by my side, but more than that, I need you safe.”
I continue to trace circles over his chest. “I know. But now that we’ve been together so publicly, I don’t know if there’s any going back. Sergei and Yegor obviously know who I am at this point, and there’s no undoing that.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I was speaking to Declan about this.”
He grumbles. “Again, with my brother’s name while you’re in my bed.”
