CHAPTER 22
Hannah
I knock on Asher’s office door, then wait for him to invite me in. Even though he met me at the front door of his apartment this morning when I arrived, and promptly dragged me back to his bedroom for some wild monkey sex, I would never think it’s my place to enter one of his rooms with a closed door.
Particularly his office where I know he’s doing important things as the CEO of Knight Investment Group.
“You can come in,” he calls out genially, and I open the door to stick my head in.
His smile is breathtaking when he sees me. More beautiful now because he smiles at me in a different way.
It’s still just as knowing, but there’s a softness to it that he’s never shown me before.
“I’m done with everything else except your office,” I say hesitantly. “I don’t want to disturb you, though.”
“Your presence in my home disturbs me every minute you’re here,” he drawls, and my heart plummets over his harsh words. “I can’t think straight when I know you’re just in the next room over and I could be fucking you.”
My eyes go wide, and I swallow hard.
“But,” he says with a slow grin curving upward. “That’s my problem, not yours. So please… have at it.”
He sweeps his arm to show I can come in and attack the interior. I enter the room fully, leaving the door open. I have a carrying bucket with my cleaning supplies, and I pull out my feather duster to start on his custom-built shelves that line the wall behind his desk.
He has a rolling library ladder I use to get to the top shelf. I methodically make my way down the units, getting closer to where he sits. His desk is placed in the middle of the room and his chair is between it and the shelves. I’m going to have to work my way around him, or demand he get out of my way, which is probably the better way.
When I cast a glance at him, I find him lewdly watching me, his eyes pinned on my ass as I bend over to hit a bottom shelf.
“Perv,” I mutter, and he laughs.
“I can’t help it if your ass is distracting,” he murmurs in a husky tone. “So many things I want to do it.”
The back of my neck heats, and my nipples tingle. Just this morning, he was riding me from behind and he stuck his index finger in my backside. I’d shrieked from the unexpected burst of pleasure that hit me. I was so embarrassed I tried to get him to stop, but he held me tightly in place. When he started to move that finger in conjunction with his thrusts into me, I went dizzy from the pleasure. It was not like anything I’d ever felt before. Before long, I was throwing myself backward onto him.
Onto his finger.
His cock.
A strong cramp hits me between my legs. I wouldn’t fight him at all if he wanted to drag me off to his room again.
I stand, move to the next unit, and start at the top again. When I come down off the ladder, which is now just a foot from Asher’s chair, I tell him, “You’re going to need to move.”
He scoots his chair—which is on rollers—mere inches toward the desk, which is not enough room to get the rolling ladder by him.
I glare at him, and he smirks.
“Fine,” I say under my breath as I turn to face his desk. He keeps it pristine with documents neatly stacked in wooden trays and barely any knickknacks taking up the surface. I hit it with my feather duster, feeling Asher’s stare on me the entire time. I choose to go around the front of the desk rather than maneuvering behind him. When I get to the other side, he says, “Any chance I could get you to sit on my lap while you dust my desk?”
Biting back a smile, I try to look professionally stern as I swish my duster over the dark cherry surface. “Mr. Knight… that’s sexual harassment.”
“So sue me,” he taunts before suggesting, “Or… we could get naked.”
“Not interested,” I tell him—untruthfully—and pivot for the bookshelves again.
Asher’s hand shoots out, latching around my stomach, and he pulls me right onto his lap as he suggested. Screaming with laughter, I try to wiggle away. I can feel the thick ridge of him under my thighs, and he snatches the duster out of my hand while tightening his hold on me.
“You know,” he says in a playful voice. “I bet I could make you come with this thing.”
Oh, man. Really?
But I’m not ready to roll over and expose my belly so to speak. I try to snatch the duster back from him. He’s too quick and moves it out of the way. I lunge, faster than he gives me credit for, and my hand latches onto a fistful of feathers. I jerk hard. To my surprise, my hand sails back clutching a massive amount of brownish-gray feathers.
The force causes my arm to fly all the way across his desk, and it hits against something.
I hear a crash. As I turn to see what I just knocked to the floor, my stomach knots in horror as I see it was the picture of his dead wife and him. It lays face down on the hardwood floor, but I know it’s the one with Michelle. It’s the only picture he has in this office.
“Oh, Jesus,” I moan as I scramble off Asher’s lap. He makes this easy by releasing his hold on me. I kneel and gingerly pick up the frame. Glass falls loose onto the floor. I turn it over to see Michelle smiling back at me with some larger pieces of cracked glass still hanging onto the inside.
I turn to look at Asher, feeling like I’m going to throw up. “I am so sorry, Asher.”
He just sits in his chair, staring a little blankly at the picture frame in my hand. My stomach knots even more.
“The picture is okay,” I rush to assure him, glancing back down at it one more time to reassure myself that it is. And it is. The picture inside looks unscathed. My gaze goes back to Asher. “I can run out right now and buy another frame. I’m sure I can find one just like it. Christ… first the Chihuly and now this. I’m such a klutz.”
I’m startled when Asher reaches out. He doesn’t take the picture from my hand, but rather grabs my free hand. He squeezes it, giving me a soft, forgiving smile. “It’s okay, Hannah.”
“I feel terrible,” I say weakly.
Asher stands from the chair and takes the frame. I release it gladly. Without even looking at it, he sets it on the desk and then pulls me into him.
His arms come around my waist, his head dipping so he can brush his lips across mine. My entire body wants to melt in relief. I feel like I could use a good wailing cry.
“I swear it’s fine,” he says after pulling back to look at me.
We stare at each other a moment, and I desperately search for some sign within his expression that he’s truly okay with this. His gaze doesn’t waver, and I’m slightly mollified.
Stepping out of his arms, I say, “Let me go get a broom and dust pan to clean up this glass.”
Asher smiles and nods. “Sure.”
I scurry to the door. Just as I’m about to walk through, I look over my shoulder at him. He’s turned to the desk and is picking up the frame. My heart seems to stall in my chest as he rubs a thumb over the edge while he stares at his dead wife.
Then, he pulls open a side drawer of the desk and puts it in there. I get the hell out of there before he finds me spying on him.
It should take me less than thirty seconds to get the broom and dust pan, but I’m still a little shaken by the whole incident. I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and drink half of it before I have myself calmed down enough to go back into his office.
With my implements in hand, I make my way back there. The door is still open. Asher sits behind his desk again, packing up papers into a briefcase.
Without looking at me, he says, “I’m going to go into the office for the rest of the afternoon.”
“Okay,” I murmur in response.
Is he mad? Morose? Indifferent? I can’t tell.
I make quick work of sweeping up the glass from the floor, then dump it into the garbage can by his desk.
“I’m really sorry,” I feel the need to apologize again, wondering if the status of this budding relationship just took a major hit.
Asher stands from his chair. Again, I get another smile—genuine and understanding. “Hannah… don’t apologize again. You hurt nothing. Do you understand me?”
I nod although it’s not clear if he’s talking about the frame, himself, or both.
He holds my gaze with his for what seems like a pointedly long moment, and then he bowls me over with his next words. “It was time I put that picture away.”
“Oh, no,” I rush to assure him, stepping in close and putting the hand still clutching the dust pan to his chest. “I would never want you to feel like you had to put away a picture of the woman you love just to make me feel better about the whole thing.”
A twinkle of amusement lights up his eyes, and he bends down to put his face on level with mine. So now, he’s not looking down at me, but rather right at me. It’s a move that says, I’m being serious so listen well.
His hand comes to my face. He uses it to take hold of my jaw, the implication being that I can’t look away from him.
“I did love Michelle,” he says in the softest of tones, yet its shot through with an iron strength of determination. “But that’s not why I’ve kept her picture out five years after her death. I had it out as a reminder that you never truly know someone.”
“I don’t understand,” I whisper as I lower my hand and the dust pan away from his chest.
For a moment, his expression turns pained, causing me to want to throw my arms around him. He grimaces and sighs. Setting his briefcase down, he leans back against his desk and crosses his arms.
“Michelle had some bouts of depression,” he explains. I feel ridiculous standing there with a broom in one hand and the dust pan in the other, but I’m rooted to the spot. “She took medication for it. I assumed it was working because not in a million years would I have ever thought she was in such a dark place that she’d kill herself. I’ve tortured myself since then, Hannah, wondering what I missed. How I missed it. Was I stupid or just naïve? Or was she just so fucking great at hiding it? What if I should have seen it, though? What if it was right there in front of me and I just missed it because I was so wrapped up in work or myself or what the fuck ever?”
“I can’t imagine the guilt you’ve felt,” I murmur sorrowfully. “I wish I could say or do something to alleviate that for you, but I don’t know what to do.”
He shakes his head. “You can’t do anything. It’s on me to deal with it. I’ve kept that picture as a reminder of the pain I felt when I found her. Of the anger I felt because I was pissed at her. As a reminder that I won’t ever get in that position again.”
I don’t know what to say to this. I mean, these are the sorts of things I knew about Asher. He’s withdrawn from life to some extent, and he’s closed himself off to so many things that could put his emotions at risk of hurt.
I lay it out there, so he knows I understand. “You’ve cut yourself off from relationships, so you won’t get hurt again. It’s why you go to a sex club. Why you wanted to keep distance from me. I understand it. I really do.”
We stare at each other a moment while the words hang in the air.
Then, Asher steps into me, sliding one hand to the back of my neck. Peering down at me, he asks, “Do you think you could free up a night sometime in the next week to have a night out with me? And I’m not talking about to the club. I was thinking dinner. Maybe a movie.”
An amazing feeling of hope and light fills me that this man is really putting his past in a drawer and is taking that first tentative step outside of the fortress he’s built up around himself.
“Yes,” I tell him with a firm nod of my head. “Nelson is going to take Hope from Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon, so if that works for you?”
“It works great,” he says, and then his mouth is on mine. It’s so atypical of the type of hot kissing we normally engage in. It’s thoughtful, somewhat hesitant, and yet there’s no mistaking the yearning within it.
My chest constricts, and I am fully aware I’ve fallen for this man. I have to admit it now—at least to myself—since he’s taken the huge step of opening up to me.
And despite the hell I went through getting out of my marriage with Nelson, and with being bullied and intimidated by him, I don’t find myself hesitant at all in giving myself to Asher. I trust that he will not hurt me the way Nelson did.
I just don’t think he has it in him, to be honest.
My arms go around his neck. While I make the kiss no sexier than what it is, I want him to feel from it that I’m ready for him to take that risk with me.