“Mm.” One of his hands leaves the counter, slides over my waist, and trails up my back, leaving a flash of goosebumps and unbearable need in its wake. He raises his hand and tugs the pin keeping half my hair up. I let out a soft sigh as the prickles at my scalp recede, only to be replaced when he winds the length of my hair around his fist, using it to tilt my head back.
My sigh turns into a gasp. My hands land on his chest of their own accord. He stares at me with a wealth of desire written into every sharp, angular pane of his face.
“Do you want to have sex?” he asks softly. “Or do you want me to fuck you so thoroughly I’ll ruin you?”
Oh, God. My thighs clench, and my heart speeds. My fingers curl into the material of his white button up. “I—”
His hand tightens, prickling my scalp just a little more. Inexplicably, I like the bite of pain. It makes everything more visceral, and paints a stark contrast to the perverse gentleness of his words. “Speak up. I wouldn’t want us to have a misunderstanding.”
“I want you to fuck me.”
“Are you sure, Victoria?” He dips his head and skims his teeth up the column of my neck. “I can do gentle, sweet, and slow. What you’re asking for is different.”
“What are you offering?”
“Hard, fast, andraw.” He pulls back, meeting my eyes. “If I fuck you, you better be a good girl andlisten.When I tell you to scream, you’ll scream. When I tell you to beg, you’ll beg.” He lowers his lips to my ear. “When I tell you to come, you’ll come.Hard.”
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
Hearing him call megood girljust about undoes me. I love the way the praising words roll off his tongue, and I want him to call me that all night long.
“If you want me to stop, just say so, and I’ll stop. But until then… I have no intention of pushing the brakes.” His words are a challenge and a promise, wrapped in sin and tied with lust.
I want everything he’s saying. He’s awakening a part of me that I wasn’t awareexisted—one that doesn’t wantto be in control, or make all the hard decisions that life constantly throws my way.
“Is that what you want?” he asks.
“Yes.” My consent comes out more like a plea.
“Thank fuck.” He hoists me up into his arms and carries me off.
I don’t have the presence of mind to look around the apartment as he carts me somewhere into the depths of his lair. All I can focus on ishim. The way his long lashes flutter against his cheeks each time he blinks. The bowed curve of his upper lip. His aristocratic nose. His hard shoulders, his slender and even harder waist, and thehardestpart of him pressed up right against me.
I’ve felt his erection before. When we kissed at the club, and when he fingered me into a puddle of hormones at the pizzeria. But now, when I know I’m moments away from feeling him inside me, the sensation lands differently. It’s frightening, incensing, and arousing all in the same breath.
I hear a door creaking open, and a moment later I’m being lowered onto a soft mattress. Asher looms over me, his gaze roaming my body, glimmering with possessiveness. A thrill travels up my spine and hardens my nipples intodiamonds.
He looks like he’s about to fall on me like a ravening beast. Instead, he works open his button-down deftly and swiftly, revealing a six pack that speaks to the many hours of work he puts into honing his body. My mouth waters as he shrugs out of his shirt and I greedily drink in his broad, taut shoulders and bulging biceps.
“Careful, or you’ll start drooling.” His voice is tinged with amusement.
I’m beyond the capabilities of speech. Instead, I respond by sitting up and reaching behind me, trying to find the elusive zipper of my dress. Asher stops that with a small shake of his head.
“That’s my job.”
He flips me to my stomach so suddenly I gasp, sinks his teeth into my neck, and rips down the zipper of my dress.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Asher
I’ve never been one to unwrap presents carefully. The few Christmases that I spent with my family, I’d tear apart gift paper and boxes to reach my prize—whether it be a Lego set, clothes, or any of the other dozen things that made it onto my list for Santa.
Victoria is different. She’s the most priceless gift I’ve ever had the pleasure of unwrapping, so I take care not to rip her dress—though my impatience to get her naked does end up straining the zipper.
“Do you have any idea…” I lick over her nape, soothing the sting of my bite. “Any fucking ideahow often I’ve fantasized about this?”
Her slim frame trembles, and a small moan leaves her lips. I’m so attuned to her body right now, I can sense each frantic thrum of her pulse, each shiver that wracks through her, each noise she traps in her throat.
