Asher.
Kisses me.
His lips collide with mine, soft and hard all at once, and somewhere inside, a pressure valve releases. Tension breaks. Heat spirals around my spine, singeing my fears, burning any hesitation that might have surfaced to ash.
In his arms, I am safe, complete, and I suspect that I might have been wanting this—needing this—for a very long time.
He doesn’t press for more, and within four, maybe five seconds, he pulls back, reestablishing space that I don’t want. Space I can hardly stand.
Panic rises, and without even opening my eyes, I shamelessly fling my arms around his neck, connecting us once more. This time, the kiss is frenetic. Hard. Wild. A clash of lips and tongues.
My first taste of Asher Foley is heady, all thrill and temptation and pineapple White Claw. My fingers thread through his hair, and the subtle groan that reverberates deep in his chest settles in my stomach, low and heavy. I press my body against his, welding us together, and let myself memorize every detail of his hard planes against my softer curves.
He’s in my arms. Lean muscle. Taut restraint. Confident hands grazing places he never has. Logic tells me it’s a mistake, that I could be destroying something precious, but now that we’re here, the locks on my outer walls are falling open. I should fear the breach, but in this moment, no panic surfaces.
No. This isn’t scary. This feels like deliverance, like I might sacrifice my very soul to keep him here. Right here. In my arms.
As the revelation hits, an inner voice whispers to hide how much I want this, murmurs that he knows we shouldn’t do this, that he’s argued against it before, and if I reveal these dark desires to escalate—potentially obliterate—our friendship, he’ll stop.
I don’t want him to ever stop.
I barely recognize myself.
No longer gentle, his hands tighten convulsively on my waist, thumbs digging into the dips beside my hip bones. An aroused sigh climbs my throat, totally uncontrollable.
In a flash, he tears himself away, and my chest spasms with the need to pull him back. His eyes spark when he looks down at me, sending hot, wicked waves through my veins. We stare, breathing hard for several seconds before he takes my mouth again with an almost violent desperation.
I’m not sure who moves first, but locked together, we stumble toward his bed, landing atop the green duvet with a little bounce. His skin is fire against my hands when I delve under his shirt, each muscle rippling as my fingers pass over. One hand locks around my wrist, pinning it to the mattress while his mouth dips to my throat. He feathers a tingly sensation down the entire column, launching a wave of goose bumps across my body.
When he finds my free hand and pins that one, too, my legs open of their own accord. He takes every inch I give him, pressing closer until we are molded together. My veins turn to lightning when the hard length of him drives right where I want him. Sensitive nerves beg me to remove the slip of a bikini bottom that covers them.
While his mouth does sparkly things against my collarbone, I wrap my leg around him, trying to urge him closer, to make himthrust. A stupid, pathetic whimper escapes my throat when he won’t, and helaughs, like he enjoys my suffering. He has me trapped beneath him, a prisoner salivating for her own cage, and my heart, still protected behind my innermost barriers, begins to beat his name.
Like heownsit.
That’s when the fear rises, a great surge of it, dousing the blaze.
No, no, no. He can’t have it.
I can’t do this. I was wrong. There’s nothing better outside these walls. There’s only the potential for pain.
My eyes snap open.
He’s too close. Dangerously close.
This desire is seductive, but deadly. Catastrophic to my protective walls. Fatal to our irreplaceable friendship. What am I doing, handing over parts of myself? I’ve already buried so many, I barely have any left, and I’m just... giving them away? Sacrificing the best friendship I’ve ever had in the process?
He can’t have my heart. It’s the only part that’s still marginally human. If he takes it, and something happens to him, I won’t survive it.
I can’t lose another piece of myself.
“Wait.”
He freezes at once, his quick breaths slicing against my tattooed collarbone. His weight is suddenly suffocating, and I push against his shoulder. He rolls away, landing on his back beside me, so we’re both looking at the white ceiling.
Neither of us speaks.
My head turns, my attention landing on the ink on his shoulder—a smiling stick figure with legs akimbo above a trampoline.
