CHAPTER 13
Asher
Things have changed, and I have to roll with it. The downside to me fucking Hannah in my bed on Tuesday is that now I’ve given myself license to fuck her whenever I want. Or is that an upside?
At any rate, I’m lucky that whenever I want seems to coincide nicely with her wants. At least, she hasn’t yet told me ‘no’ the way I’ve given her permission to do so.
All this week, I’ve been waiting for her when she walks in my apartment. I strike before she barely gets the door closed. We’ve christened various rooms and pieces of furniture with all kinds of dirty deeds.
I’ve never fucked a woman in this apartment before. Never brought one here at all, because I don’t do romantic dinners or movie nights. After Michelle died, The Wicked Horse was where I went to get my kicks. What threatens to fuck with my head if I think about it too much is the fact I let Hannah into my space in a personal way, and I did it without any thought. On Tuesday, I saw her in my room and pounced.
No thought at all.
But once that deed was done, I figured it was okay to fuck Hannah in my apartment because she’s still just an employee. It’s at my whim, not hers, and I don’t have to stick around after to cuddle or talk about life. I went to work after, feeling fucking fantastic. Completely energized.
I’ve been in a good mood, or so my assistant has bluntly told me over the last few days. She actually said, “Whatever you’re eating for breakfast these mornings, keep it up.”
Well, these days, that would be Hannah, and her pussy definitely puts me in a great mood.
When I hear the slide of the key in the deadbolt, my body tightens. Lust courses through me. There’s also an eagerness to hear her voice, which I find strange.
The door opens, and Hannah steps over the threshold. I force myself to stand my ground. Her gaze comes straight to me, a knowing smile on her face.
A ready smile.
I can’t wait a moment more, so I take long strides across the living room to reach her. Cupping her face in my hands, I back her into the door. Her eyes are hot, her fingers coming up to latch around my wrists.
“Morning,” she says, her voice husky and needy. It causes my dick to turn to concrete.
“Morning,” I mutter before I slam my entire body into her, knocking her against the door. My mouth descends on hers, and I don’t remember kissing being this damn good with anyone else.
I consider the door I have her trapped against. We haven’t had sex here. It’s no Wicked Horse, but it’s wild and spontaneous. I’ve learned I don’t need the club to enjoy Hannah. In fact, the club itself doesn’t do much to increase my pleasure when I’m with her. It’s been consistently the same since we did away with condoms.
When I fill her up, a strange sense that I’ve been filled up as well takes hold of me. It’s a feeling that is foreign and unique—one that applies only when I’m with Hannah. If there’s one thing that concerns me about this arrangement, it’s that I have to admit she makes me feel something different.
I pull my mouth from hers, intent on her clarifying one thing that I wonder about sometimes. “Tell me you want this?”
She nods, uses her hands on my head to try to pull me back into a kiss.
I use my hands on her face to hold her in place, denying her advance. “Tell me no, Hannah. Just once.”
Her smile is amused. “But I only want to say yes.”
“Thank fuck,” I mutter before kissing her again.
Just as I start to contemplate the best way to get her clothes off—her standard uniform of a t-shirt and jeans—I’m startled by a knock on the door that we are currently pressed against.
“Just great,” I growl, gently pulling Hannah away from the door. When I turn her to the side, she scrambles for the kitchen, immediately putting distance between us.
I open the door, blinking in surprise at my sister. She merely smirks at me and drawls, “Good morning.”
Opening the door wider, I mutely gesture her inside. She eyes me critically, concentrating on my face for a long moment. Then her gaze brushes past me to the kitchen, her eyes going saucer wide when she sees Hannah there. Her appraisal is deliberate before she turns back to me, eyebrow raised.
“I would apologize for barging in like this, but you clearly forgot I was coming over this morning,” she tells me. “At least, I think that’s what your blank expression means.”
There’s a moment of blinking at my sister as my brain tries to process, but the only thought in my head is that I was moments away from falling into bliss with Hannah.
“My floors,” Christina prompts. “I told you I was having the floors in my house redone today—that I took the day off from work to get the workers started, but that I wanted to come over here to avoid all the noise and chaos so I could at least get what work I could done. You do remember that, right?”
And yes, it all comes back to me, but it just goes to show the strength of the Hannah-haze that is left behind after just a few moments of kissing. Christ, the woman has some witchy magic.
“Yeah, I remember.” I try to a smile, but because my morning with Hannah just took a solid U-turn, I say, “I’m headed into work if you want to use my office.”
“Perfect.” Christina beams, hitching a satchel I hadn’t noticed until now higher on her shoulder. I assume she’s carrying school stuff—perhaps papers to grade.
Then my sister does what my sister does best—she decides to get nosy. Without a word, she heads toward the kitchen. I have no choice but to follow.
“And who do we have here?” she asks, shooting an electrically beautiful smile of welcome and curiosity at Hannah, who returns her stare but not such a wide smile. In fact, she looks like a doe caught in the headlights.
I make hasty introductions. “This is my housekeeper, Hannah Madigan. Hannah… this is my sister, Christina.”
I get an arched eyebrow from Christina, clearly showing me she’s not buying this, but then she turns back to Hannah. She extends her hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I can’t say that Asher has ever hired someone so beautiful before, but then again, he’s never hired someone solely to clean his house.”
Hannah has no clue what to say. I supply the relevant info that my sister needs to hear. “I misspoke. She’s more than a housekeeper. She sort of manages my household. Things like grocery shopping, handling my dry cleaning, cooking, and running errands for me.”
“Hmmm,” is all Christina says, not even glancing at me. She gives another warm smile to Hannah, who has yet to say a word. “Well, let’s hope you keep him straight. He needs it.”
To my surprise, Hannah’s eyes twinkle with something I can’t quite identify, but it doesn’t put me at ease. She leans in closer to Christina, inclines her head in a manner I would describe as conspiratorial, and says, “Well, if I could ever teach him to put his dirty clothes in the actual hamper when he discards them, I would consider that a major victory.”
My sister snorts. It’s obvious to me that she’s gone from being curious about this woman in my apartment to downright enraptured with her.
Grabbing Christina’s arm, I give it a tug. “Let’s not take up all of Hannah’s time. She has a lot to do. I have to get some stuff from my office so let’s go get you set up in there.”
My sister doesn’t hesitate. When we leave the kitchen, I shoot a look at Hannah. I’m rewarded with perhaps the best thing she could have given me this morning.
Strike that… the second-best thing.
She gives me a look of fond regret for what we were about to do and have now lost for the day. I send the same back to her, and she turns for the dishwasher.
In my office, Christina settles into the chair behind my desk. As she unloads papers from her satchel, I load my briefcase up. It includes blueprints of a proposed wellness center that we’re considering putting into one of the retirement communities we’re hoping to build.
“So who is that woman really?” Christina asks in a voice that sounds casually disinterested, but she’s not fooling me. She’s totally nosy.
“Housekeeper,” I mutter, closing my case and securing the dual latches.
“Quit fucking lying to me,” she says with a laugh. “You can’t hide shit from me.”
“Just a housekeeper,” I assert firmly as I pick my briefcase up.
“Oh yeah, then why was there a thump against the door just as I arrived? Why is your hair all mussed up? Why were her lips swollen and her cheeks flushed? I don’t even want to ever think again about the hard-on I saw you sporting. And why did the two of you share a long, regretful look before we came back to your office?”
Goddamned motherfucking intuitively nosy-assed sister. She grins at me knowingly.
I deflate, sigh, and then admit a few partial truths. “She is my housekeeper. But we’re sort of… seeing each other.”
Delight washes over Christina’s face. “Perfect. You can bring her to the gala—”
I hold my hand up, stopping her midsentence. “We’re fucking each other. And that is all.”
I’ve never held back from my sister. She’s my twin after all. She can also have as foul a mouth as me, so she’s not offended by my words. Christina’s face crumples, and frustration washes over her. “What is wrong with you? She could sue you for sexual harassment or something.”
Shaking my head, I try to ease her mind without revealing exactly how I came to have sole possession of Hannah’s pussy. “It’s not like that. She’s a very willing participant.”
“So it could turn into something more,” Christina says, a happy smile pulling the corners of her mouth up once again. Not a question to me but a statement. She believes that any woman I let in can give me something she thinks I need.
I hate hurting my sister. I really do. She loves me and only wants what’s best for me, but… “Sorry, it’s just sex, Christina. All it will ever be.”
“But—”
“No buts. Just let it go, Sis. Stop trying to push me to something you think I need, but that I clearly don’t want.”
A sense of capitulation is clear when she sighs and slinks back into her chair, finally giving me an acquiescent nod. I round the desk, bend over, and kiss the top of her head. “I love you. You’re a pain in my ass, but at the end of the day, I still love you.”
“Love you, too, you closeminded asshole,” she mutters, patting my face before I pull back.
When I have my briefcase in hand and make it to my door, she asks, “Want to go out to dinner with Jack and me tonight?”
I twist my neck, glancing at her over my shoulder. “Sure. But make it no later than eight. I have plans later this evening.”
“With Hannah?” she asks.
“With none of your business,” I reply with a wink before leaving the office. I pull the door closed behind me, not wanting any conversation I’m getting ready to have with Hannah to carry.
I find her in the living room, cleaning my glass-top coffee table. She straightens when she hears me come in, holding a spray bottle with blue cleaner in one hand and a rag in the other.
“That was awkward,” she whispers, sounding bemused.
Stepping right into her, I put a hand at the back of her head and place a long kiss on her mouth. “That was bad timing, and I’m not in a happy mood going into the office this morning.”
“Poor baby,” she croons, but it’s sarcastic—not empathetic. “Shall we hit the club tonight?”
“Fuck yes,” I reply, and then I kiss her again. “I’ll pick you up at ten. And just so you know, it’s going to be a long night since I won’t have you on the weekend.”
“Until then,” she says before squatting back down to continue cleaning my coffee table.
I watch her a moment, battling a weird feeling as she cleans. I find myself not liking it. As if the work is beneath someone like her, but then I realize… this job is a few steps above the work she was doing at that bar. I’m also paying her far more than she was making before, so I let that assuage these unusual misgivings.
Without another word or look back at her, I walk out of the apartment and head to work.