My anger was tamped down slightly. “Bex doesn’t exactly live a cautious life. You don’t know what she’s had to go through,” I defended my friend.
Asher gazed at me. “No, babe, I don’t. Everyone has their own demons. I know that. I don’t presume to know hers. But when her demons cause my woman to get involved…” he stroked my face … “to get hurt, it gets to me, flower. I don’t want you to face any more demons, your own or anyone else’s. I’d slay dragons for you, babe,” he murmured quietly.
I stared at him, a cocktail of emotion swirling in my belly. How do you respond when someone says that to you?
“You scare me,” I said finally.
Asher didn’t betray any emotion at my strange response, nor did he say anything.
“Saying things that like, it terrifies me,” I confessed. “Having you come in with your brothers, talking about bodies and killings like it’s a plan to go bowling, that scares me, too,” I whispered. “I feel afraid all the time. Afraid to be with you. Be without you. A girl that’s always afraid, that’s broken, isn’t ever going to be strong enough for that life. For your life,” I told him. “Bex was wrong before. I wasn’t going to do it. Shoot him. Even if it meant he hurt us, killed me even, I wouldn’t have had the strength to pull that trigger,” I choked out, feeling ashamed.
Asher moved me so I was straddling him, his hands grasping my hips tightly.
“You’re strong enough, flower,” he told me with certainty. “When someone breaks, they heal, twice as strong as before. You were strong before, babe, you’re stronger now. You’re strong because you’re gentle when most people would be rough. You stand when most people would fall. Strength comes in different forms,” his hand crept up my hip, “and you would’ve done it. As much as it pains me to say, you don’t have enough sense of self-preservation. You might not have done it for yourself, but you would’ve done it for your friend. I know that, because you’d do anything for the people you love,” he said with pride in his husky voice. “If I could have dreamt up my perfect Old Lady, she wouldn’t have been as good as you,” he murmured. “And that’s what you are. It might scare you, I’m man enough to admit it scares the shit out of me. When the world hands you something you treasure more than anything else you’ve ever had, all you can think of is the agony of losing it.” His hand moved to the waistband of my panties.
I sucked in a breath.
“But the feel of it, of you, in my hands is enough to make me forget that fear,” he murmured, his finger moving to caress my bare skin.
My body moved against him, tingles of pleasure radiating to my fingertips.
His eyes blazed with desire as his finger plunged into me. “You want this?” he rasped.
I let out a little moan and started to move with him. “Yes,” I whispered.
He sat up, grasping my neck with his free hand. “Then that’s all that matters,” he declared, flipping us so I was on my back.
I barely registered the change in positions, his finger continuing to move inside me.
“Top off,” he commanded.
I quickly complied, wrenching my tee off. The moment I’d tossed the fabric to the floor, Asher’s mouth fastened on my nipple. My hands drove into his hair and I arched my back slightly, moaning as his teeth grazed my sensitive peak. The cold air bit my bare skin as Asher’s mouth left my breast to travel downward.
“You’re going to come in my mouth, Lily,” he instructed, pulling his finger out of me.
I writhed in frustration at the loss, but my fingers grasped the sheets in expectation from Asher’s words.
“You’re going to come in my mouth, then you’re going to come on my dick,” he growled.
“Yes,” I hissed, my voice husky with desire.
I cried out as his mouth fastened on me, licking me, working his magic. My back arched even more, and my hands fisted the sheets ever tighter at the blinding pleasure that erupted from the base of my spine and shattered through the rest of me.
Asher moved from between my legs, his body moving atop mine and grabbing my legs so they were pressed up close to my ears.
I felt him poised at my entrance and he paused. “This is us, flower, all that matters,” he declared before plunging into me.
I cried out once more, this angle intense on my sensitive flesh. Asher held my ankles, pounding into me mercilessly. The pleasure was all-consuming, almost too intense, almost to the point of pain. But it danced that glorious line. Asher released my legs so he could settle his body completely atop mine and slow his strokes. His hands cradled my head and his mouth claimed mine. I could taste myself on his lips.