We’re still standing at my apartment door when Asher pulls out his phone. “I’ll get us an Uber,” he says, pulling up the app.
I watch him keying information into his phone, while I question myself instead of calling the thrift store to see if they found my key. What am I doing? I can’t involve him in this. I should be taking what money I have left and getting on a bus, running again, hiding. Keeping everyone but myself out of harm’s way.
“Done,” he says, sticking his phone in his pocket. “We’ll have a ride in about ten minutes. We can wait at the door downstairs.”
I nod and both of us latch on to one of my bags, but I drop mine again. “I can’t do this. You don’t deserve to get pulled under with me. I won’t do this to you.”
“Sweetheart, you already pulled me under and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m not talking about whatever this is happening between us and you know it.”
He sets his bag down again, closing the small space between us, and cups my face. “Fate, sweetheart. The way we met. The locked door. You belong with me.”
“Fate isn’t always good.”
“Mark my word, and my word is golden. It’s good for us and bad for that prick chasing you. Come home with me.”
“Asher.” I breathe out, a knot of emotion in my chest.
“I’m his worst nightmare, sweetheart. Let’s get out of here.”
I inhale a breath and let it out, tormented with this decision, but my gut says to stay with Asher. “Yes,” I say, praying that it’s the right choice.
He takes my hand and kisses it. “It’s the right decision.” He grabs both bags this time with one hand. “I’ll go first again.”
Shielding me, I think. That’s what he does. He protects people. He has honor. I follow him down the stairs, with the understanding that he is so much more than tattoos and muscles, and even brains and a sense of humor. He’s a man of honor who makes life choices based on that honor. A man who would die to save a life, while Devin is a man who would kill to save his own. Asher is like no one I have ever known. I like him. I could maybe really like him and yet, I’ll never be free. Ever. Ever.
We reach the small foyer inside the apartment building and Asher catches my hand, leading me to the door, where he pauses to eye the street. “Our car’s already here,” he says, opening the door.
He exits first again, guiding me forward and keeping me tightly positioned at his side, his hand settling possessively, protectively, at my back. We walk toward a black sedan, and I sense his protectiveness. He heard me. He knows how dangerous The Beast is now. Maybe his awareness is why I don’t have that sense of being watched I’d had earlier. Maybe that feeling was paranoia, which at the moment is consumed by how big Asher has suddenly become in my life. Asher holds the door for me and I slide into the back seat. He joins me, sliding in close, me on one side of him, the bags on the other.
His hand comes down on my leg, possessive again, and in a way his touch had not been before our conversation upstairs, and I feel that touch radiating up my leg and through my body. He confirms the driver knows where he’s going, and finally we’re in motion, headed toward his apartment. We don’t speak or even look at each other right then, but there is a shift in the air between us, as if my confessions have torn down a wall instead of placed one between us as I’d feared. We’re combustible together, and I’m not sure where that leads. I was arm candy to Devin, a possession he used to soften his image. What am I to Asher? Sex? A challenge? Duty? That’s all I can be at this point. I have no right to ever ask for more.
I press my hand to his and I don’t even know why. Control, I think. I need to control where this thing between us leads. He looks over at me and without moving my hand, laces our fingers together. “Stop,” he says softly.
“Stop what?”
“Thinking whatever you’re thinking.”
I don’t know how this man reads me this well, but then, reading people is part of his job. What I used to do in a different setting, only he does it to survive and save lives. Still, I ask, because I need to know, “How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“You have the same look you had right before you bolted at lunch.”
“I’m not going to bolt.” I hope, I add silently. Running is old.
His phone buzzes with a text and he leans in and kisses me before pulling it from his pocket. I like that he does this. I like how it makes me feel, how present he is with me. He reads the message, frowns, and types a reply.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He types another message and then looks at me. “Something is off with Blake. I just texted his wife to ask what the hell is going on.”
My unease is instant. “What do you mean by ‘off’?”
He squeezes my leg. “Don’t read into that. It has nothing to do with you, and if I thought it did, I’d tell you. Blake is a good man who has a hatred of disloyal, corrupt people. I promise you, he’s the last person you have to worry about. Okay?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“He’s just cranky and unreasonable,” he adds, as if I’ve asked. “That’s not like him. I noticed it last night at the office.”
“Is the job going badly?”
“It’s not going well, but he rolls with that shit all the time. It’s something else. Something’s wrong and you don’t even want someone on a job with you that isn’t one hundred percent, even if they’re the boss.”
His phone buzzes again and he looks at the message. “Okay,” he murmurs, his lips thinning. “Well, fuck.” He surprises me by showing me the message that reads: Five-year anniversary of Whitney’s murder.
Murder.
I hate that word.
“Who’s Whitney?” I ask.
“His late-fiancée, and any further details are not for this car. But holy hell, Royce is losing his mind over Lauren’s pregnancy and now this with Blake.”
“Why is Royce losing his mind? Was the pregnancy a surprise?”
“No. He and Lauren have been trying to start a family for a while now. She’s miscarried twice.”
“Oh well, that explains it completely.”
“It leaves me with Luke, the one sane brother out of the three of them right now.” He leans in and whispers, “I’m either going to have to drink or fuck a hell of a lot to survive this.”
My cheeks heat and I squeeze his fingers. “You’re bad.”
A low, rough laugh rumbles from that broad chest of his. “You’ll like how bad, I promise.” I never get the chance to respond. He sits up and taps the driver’s seat. “This is it.”
I glance out of the window to discover a red stone building in what looks like the Battery Park area, which makes sense. Asher said this is where he runs. It’s also one of my favorite parts of the city, where a short walk allows you to watch the ocean crashing against a man-made shore lined with sidewalks and restaurants. Asher hands the driver a twenty-dollar tip and exits the car, with the bags in one hand again, before offering me his hand. “You live here?” I ask, scanning what is about a twenty-story half-moon-shaped building that I suspect frames part of the park.
“I do,” he says as we walk toward the door. “My first contract job out of the SEALs was a job from hell that almost got me killed, but it paid for the down payment.”
“One job paid your down payment in this building?”
“Not all jobs pay that well,” he says, waving to the doorman as we enter the lobby with floors in gray and brown marble, chandeliers and towering high ceilings.
I glance up at him. “Am I allowed to ask what the job was? Or is that top secret?”
“A billionaire’s daughter was kidnapped by a Mexican cartel and held for ransom. Blake and I had both done work in Mexico, so we teamed up and went in and got her.” He motions to the security desk and we stop at the counter, where a tall, black man in a blue jacket greets us. “David, meet—”
“Kelli,” Sierra supplies, obviously using a fake name. “Nice to meet you.”
“Kelli can come and go as she pleases,” I continue, following her lead. “And no. She doesn’t have her ID. Her purse was stolen, but I need her on the approved list anyway.”
He glances over at me. “I need a last name.”
“Vincent,” I say, which is, of course, a lie.
He has me sign a form and Asher slides his arm around my neck and pulls me close as we walk toward the elevator. “Is Sierra your real name?”
“Yes,” I say, “but my apartment lease says Kelli, but I stupidly let my real name slip to the bar manager. And then I needed the job too much to turn back.”
We stop at the elevator and he punches the call button. “Did you fill out any paperwork at all?”
“None,” I say, “which is why I figured I could play it off and tell the manager he confused me with someone else tonight.”
“Yes,” he says. “Become Kelli.”
The elevator dings and opens and our eyes collide, while my heart begins to race. Asher laces our fingers together and guides me into the car, punching in the code for his floor. I back against the wall. He’s in front of me in an instant, and the minute his hands are on my hips, I admit, “I’m nervous,” my palm settling on his chest, and I can feel his heart thundering beneath my palm, as if he’s nervous, too.
“Because this matters,” he says. “Because we matter.”
“It’s too soon to say that.”
“Too soon and yet it’s now. Right now, Sierra.”
“I think I hit some hero complex button you have.”
“Maybe I hit some hero complex button you have.”
“No.”
“But that’s what it is for me?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“I do. I don’t fuck a woman who I see as my duty. You’re not my duty, Sierra. And you don’t belong to him anymore.” He presses his cheek to mine, his lips finding my ear. “I’m going to make you forget he ever touched you.”
I feel those words in every possible way. My sex clenches. My nipples tighten. My body is tingling all over, while my fingers close around his shirt, and when I would respond, the elevator dings. Asher pulls back, and he kisses me hard and fast before lacing our fingers together.
We exit the car and he slides his arm around my shoulders, and settles me close to his big body. We round a corner that way and I’m taken off guard by how immediately we’re at his door. He keys in a code at his door, pops it open, and reaches inside to flip on the light. When I expect us to simply enter, he drops the bags and pulls me in front of him, his hands on my arms, mouth back to my ear. “I have about ten different places that I could take you to keep you safe. You’re here because I want you here.” He releases me, his hands going to either side of the door, and I understand why. He wants me to be here because I want to be here, too. There’s no question in my mind that I want to be with Asher.
I walk inside and on some level I know that’s the moment that our fate is sealed, his to mine and mine to his.