My heart pounds, and my temples drum with the incessant thundering beat.
I refuse to be one of those people who get some good dick, then suddenly believe there’s something more to their feelings other than residual lust. Hearts in their eyes, hell. Not unless they’re penis-shaped.
“What, Asa?” I press, pinching the bridge of my nose and tossing my pen to the desk. “I don’t speak strong, silent type. Can you say whatever it is you stalked me to say, then go? I have work to do.”
“Stalked you?” He snorts then gives his chin a short dip. “To be fair, this is Pike’s End. You can’t drive from one end of the town to the other without seeing everything and everyone, so I would’ve seen your car here eventually.” He pauses. “I came here to apologize for leaving you alone this morning. I’d left Rose with Mom, and had arranged to have breakfast over there.”
“I assume with Jessie,” I add. “Speaking of, does he know you’re here now?”
“Yes, with Jessie. And no, he’s spending the day with his parents at some event.” He cocks his head. “India. We agreed to meet up at Mom’s before he even arrived in town. This morning had nothing to do with last night.”
Like hell. “Okay.”
“Okay.” He stares at me, eyes narrowed. “Just like that.” He shakes his head. “Why don’t I believe that it’s so easy?”
“What do you want me to do, Asa? Yell? Throw my stapler at you? Last night was last night. A one-time thing. I went in with my eyes wide open, knowing where I stand with you. Nothing changed from yesterday to today.” I smile, and it feels grim on my lips. “Besides, I just received this stapler from the school. God knows the next time I’ll receive one. I’m not wasting it by throwing it at you.”
“You went into it knowing where you stand with me,” he slowly repeats. “Enlighten me, India.” He pushes off the bookshelf. “Where exactly do you stand?”
I scoff, but inside… inside my lungs have decided now is as good a time as any to take a vacation. My pulse hurls itself against the base of my throat like a caged wild thing, determined to make a jail break.
“Are we really doing this?” I rise from my chair, flattening my palms on the desktop.
“Yeah, do it, baby girl,” he rumbles, and dammit, heat explodes to life inside me, licking at my nipples, belly, my pussy. That issued challenge is gasoline on a fire that never truly banks.
“Fine.” I straighten and meet those molten silver eyes, even though I yearn for nothing more than to glance away while ushering him out of my office so I can lose myself in work and forget him. Forget that even though I knew better, I let him… hurt me. “I had sex with you last night, aware that I would be your dirty little secret. And when you snuck out of my house, my bed, so Jessie wouldn’t be suspicious that you spent the evening somewhere else—like with his ex—you confirmed that.”
“You’re right.”
My lips snap shut, and I blink at him. He stalks closer until his thighs push against the edge of my desk and he leans forward into my space.
“You’re right,” he repeats, firmer, grimmer. “I left without waking you on purpose. Yeah, I did sneak out. Because I’m a fucking coward when it comes to you. You’re—” he broke off as sharply as a twig being snapped by a vicious wind. His jaw works for a moment, a muscle ticking along the side of it. “You terrify me. Everything about you. I’m scared to look at you and reveal just what the fuck it is you do to me when I have no business feeling this for you.” He pauses and his gaze sears past skin, bone, and tissue to the soul of me. “Had no business feeling when you belonged to a man I called friend.”
Holy shit.
Ice crackles along my veins, transforming me into a block of ice. Yes, we kissed that night I discovered Jessie cheated on me, but that’s not what Asa’s statement implied. From what he said, he desired me before it all went to hell.
“Yeah.” Asa nods, the corner of his mouth lifting in a smile that isn’t one. “You heard right. The reason I could kiss you, touch you that night you came by my house is because I’d been fantasizing about doing just that for years.”
“But you…” I shake my head, then clear my throat of the hoarseness. “You could barely stand to look at me. I thought you only tolerated me for Jessie’s sake. And now you’re saying…”
“That I’m a damn good actor.” He snorts. “Yeah.” He frowns, thrusting his fingers through his hair and dragging the chin-length strands out of his face. “Me leaving this morning without saying anything had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me afraid to wake you up and see the regret in your eyes. Or hear the ‘that was a mistake’ speech. Putting off both a little longer when I still had your scent on my skin became my short-term goal. So I got out of there like a little bitch. But India.” He stretches an arm across the desk and pinches my chin. Sparks ignite and pop from the skin-to-skin point of contact. “There’s one thing you’re wrong about. You could never be my dirty secret. Ever. I’d leave you alone first before I demeaned you like that.”
“Maybe not intentionally,” I whisper, his hold on me rendering my resistance to him the consistency of tissue paper. Any second now I’m going to tell him to remove his hand. To not touch me. Any second… “I don’t believe for a moment that you’d ever purposefully do that, Asa. But in your blind devotion and loyalty to Jessie? In your guilt for wanting me?” I smile, and it’s as humorless as his was. “Tell me the truth. At breakfast this morning, did you tell Jessie where you spent the night?” His full lips flatten and his grip on my chin tightens. It’s all the answer I need. Circling his wrist, I tug on it and tilt my head back, freeing my head from his grasp. “Just because you don’t volunteer the truth doesn’t make it any less of a lie. Any less of a deliberate secret.”
“What I’m trying to do is avoid hurting my friend. Shit,” he growls. Pivoting on his heel, he strides across my office, scrubbing a hand over the nape of his neck. “I’m trying to avoid hurting everyone.”
Including you?
The questions shimmers in my head, and I’m shaken by it. And in that instant, I’m caught between rounding the desk, charging over to him and wrapping my arms around him, and asking—no, demanding—he leave. For my sake. For my heart’s sake. Because it’s a foolish, stubborn, unreliable thing, and even now, it’s trembling in a stupid bid to throw itself at the toes of his scarred boots.
If what he said about concealing his secret… crush is the wrong word. What happened last night with his face between my thighs didn’t feel like a “crush.” But if he’s wanted me since Jessie and I were dating, then he’s had a long time to perfect a wall, a façade of indifference. And a person only did that to protect themselves. I ache to hold him, tell him it’s okay to let go. That I won’t use whatever he shows me, shares with me, against him.
One the other hand… On the other hand, my own sense of self-preservation urges me to run. Run as fast as I can and don’t look back, because those eyes, that face of stark angles and harsh beauty will surely reel me back in.
And only one thing exists down that path. Losing myself in a man only to lose myself.
Again.