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Asher studied me for a long moment and then brushed my hair back. “Little Ice Queen, so desperate to win all the time…What do you think will happen if you lose? The world won’t end, you know.”
“Maybe not, but my dad will know I lied to him,” I fired off before I could stop myself.
Asher studied me. “And? Have you never disappointed a parent before? They get over it.”
I snorted. “You don’t know me, or my family, Asher. Maybe your experiences aren’t universal.” That statement felt far too vulnerable and marked a pretty good time to shut the fuck up. I bit my tongue and refused to let him see my face and the telltale burn in my cheeks, outing my embarrassment for oversharing.
He stroked the back of my head. It was oddly comforting.
“Ice Queen, you’ve got all kinds of issues going on in that pretty, complicated head of yours, don’t you?”
“Go to hell,” I snapped at him. I wasn’t about to melt under his gentle touch. Not when he’d stripped me naked and was now stroking my hair like I was his badly behaved cat.
“You do know, it’s okay not to be okay, or whatever crap they tell you in therapy.”
I held my tongue. The last thing I needed right now was to be more vulnerable. I’d already showed my soft underbelly. One cruel blow was all Asher needed to crush me for real.
“You could be not okay with me. I don’t give a fuck,” he continued, and leaned in. His hot breath hit the top of my spine and moved along it. His lips traced silent words on my shoulder. “I don’t care if you’re crazy. I don’t care if you’re sane. It doesn’t matter to me. I’d play with you anyway.”
“How romantic,” I managed to get out. “We can be the most touching love story of the psych ward together. Let me up, I’m freezing my nipples off.”
“As you wish,” he murmured, letting up his dominating grip on my nape. I twisted around, forgetting for a split second that I was naked. Naked. Asher was close, pressed into me from the hips down, so that was a win. There was no hiding my breasts, though. Those were exposed for his perusal, and he wasted no time in looking. My breath caught, and my cold nipples ached when he brought his hands up and cupped my breasts. His rough, calloused fingertips ran over the sensitive peaks. The heat was a delicious torment.
“Should I warm them up for you?” he murmured, already bending his head to my left tit. His hot mouth fastened around my nipple and my knees nearly gave out. His mouth was so hot, the shock of it on my cold skin was nearly too much. I held onto his shoulders as his tongue worked over the bud of my nipple, rolling and teasing it, nibbling and sucking. Turning me inside out, once again, just like always.
After long, painfully good moments had passed, he moved to the next one. The wall was the only thing keeping me up at this point. My hands were in his hair. The unruly dark waves had always been tempting. They were as springy and smooth as they’d always looked. I enjoyed running my fingers through them, scratching his scalp. A low moan in his throat told me I wasn’t the only one enjoying it. What were we doing? Who was winning the game right now? Did it even matter?
He pulled back and I missed his touch immediately. Straightening up, he leaned in and my eyes closed, my head tilting back. When the kiss didn’t come, I blinked at him. He was watching me, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Your PI will be getting in touch. I assume you’re liable for his damages incurred on the job. Expect a bill for his ER visit, camera equipment, and car detailing.”
The sudden change of subject threw me.
He stepped back and I grabbed for the towel I’d discarded earlier. Asher slowly reached out and took it from the bench, holding it behind him.
“First, what I came for…Say cheese,” Asher murmured, just before he raised his other hand. He had his phone. The sound of a picture being taken was like a gunshot.
I glared at him, clamping an arm over my bare breasts and reaching for the towel. This time he let me have it. “What are you doing?” I demanded, wrapping it over my front.
He shrugged. “Seeing as you’ve decided to expand our game outside the confines of you and me…I’m going to need some kind of collateral. Involving my mom was a mistake, Your Majesty.”
“I didn’t mean that to happen.”
“And now you won’t forget, right?” he prompted, his voice annoyingly arrogant.
“Don’t you want to find your dad? The PI is only doing what he has to, to get the information he needs. So, don’t you want to find him? Be honest.”
Asher was quiet for a long moment, and then shrugged. “I don’t even know anymore. I’m not sure I want to know who he is, how he’s lived, what kind of man I come from. What do you think about that?”
I wet my lips, words dying inside me.
His lips quirked bitterly. “It’s cowardly, right? You can say it, Ice Queen, take the shot. I lined it up for you.”
“It’s not cowardly. It’s honest. And being honest is brave…not that I have any personal experience with it…but I read it on the back of a cereal box one time, so it has to be true.”
A beat passed where I thought that I’d judged his mercurial mood all wrong, and then he laughed. The booming sound made me smile, too. His laugh was infectious.
“Fuck, I needed that. You, Winter DeLaurie, are something else. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. No one is doing it like you,” he muttered, confusing me more with his cryptic words.
