“Do you find it weird living in a place that tourists gawk at daily?” Asher asked as he sat on the edge of the bed, tugging his jeans up his thighs with masculine grace.

And I . . . well, to be completely honest, I wasn’t sure that I was ready for him to leave. It wasn’t that I wanted him to stay, necessarily, but, okay, yeah, I wanted him to stay. Dammit, that was not part of the plan.

With Katie’s sheets tucked against my chest, I watched him pull the denim of his jeans over his butt.

“Avery?”

Startling, my gaze leapt to his face. “Sorry?”

In that familiar way of his, nothing in his expression changed . . . except that, this time, his blue eyes crinkled. Just enough for me to know that he wasn’t completely composed of stone.

His fingers slipping the button of his jeans through the matching hole, he said, “I asked if you find it weird to live in a notorious house like this one.”

Oh. Right.

I shook my head, both to get my brain back in the game and also in answer to his question. “There’s nothing but rumors to it. The sultan being buried alive in the courtyard? Fake.” Holding up my hand, I tucked my index finger down. “The vengeful brother murdering the members of the sultan’s harem and leaving the bodies strewn about the house? Also fake.” Another finger went down. “The blood seeping down the front steps the morning after a horrible storm?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. That part could be true. New Orleans has always been a violent city, even if it has nothing to do with some sort of bizarre mutilation scene in this mansion.”

He stared at me, hands still on his waistband, and his silence spawned more word vomit from me: “People will always believe the story that aligns with their best interests. It’s why people come to see me in Jackson Square—they’re seeking validation for what they already believe to be true.”

“So, the cards . . .”

I cocked my head, considering him. “What about them?”

“They aren’t real?”

The more time he spent away from the bed, the more I found it necessary to get some damn clothes on my body. “Sure, they’re real,” I said, scooting my butt to the edge so I could peer over the side in search of my shirt. Or my underwear. Anything, really, would do at this point. “But like anything else, the cards represent what we make of them. I could pull the same three for you and someone else, but their meanings would change immediately. No two readings are the same.”

Spotting my sweater beneath the window, I let out a relieved breath and slipped from the bed. Be bold. Be confident. Much easier said than done when I ditched the sheet and scooped up my sweater off the floor, naked as the day I was born.

“Is that ink?”

My sweatshirt was over my head when Asher voiced the question. Fabric masking my vision, I only heard the pop! pop! of his knees and then felt the trace of his finger along the inner line of my own knee. The left one.

I stepped back on instinct alone, not wanting him to have the time to read the words, and I went tumbling to the floor as my foot caught on a stray object. My arms pinwheeled, a curse leaving my lips, as I went down.

“Got you,” came Asher’s deep, rumbly voice, his bulky arms circling my thighs. The stubble on his cheeks scratched my thighs, and the warmth of his clothed body was like a furnace to my naked one. The moan that worked its way up my throat had nothing to do with my acute embarrassment for tripping and everything to do with the man who’d caught me.

I was accustomed to taking care of myself, and as I popped my head through the neck hole of my sweater, I vowed to get over this idiotic crush before it swallowed me whole.

That was, until my surroundings blinked back into focus and I found Asher staring at the words tattooed into my skin.

“Don’t,” I muttered, pulling on my leg.

He didn’t let me go. Hand flexing around my thigh, he held me in place. “You bow to no man, huh?” His tone gave nothing away, his thumb idly brushing over the calligraphy. “You get this done recently?”

Two years ago, on the ten-year anniversary of my mother’s death—not that I would ever divulge that sort of information.

I bow to no man, the script read in neat lettering. I’d gone to a place called Inked on Bourbon for it, right in the heart of the French Quarter. Immediately after checking in, I’d requested a female tattoo artist, and I’d gotten one in the form of the owner’s wife, Lizzie Harvey. A pretty, perky woman who’d taken one look at the words I’d scribbled on a scrap of paper and said, “Yeah, men can be complete pigs sometimes. C’mon in the back and I’ll take care of you.”

While splayed out on the table, Lizzie had told me a story about an ex of hers who’d dumped her on social media—Instagram, of all places—and I’d nodded in sympathy, murmured my “no, he didn’t!” comments in all the right places.

But a public dumping scandal didn’t equate to a stolen life, and on the anniversary of my mother’s death, there had been nothing I wanted more than to hunt Jay Foley down and give him a taste of his own medicine.

Even if Asher gave me a thousand orgasms, my mother’s death was none of his business.

I slapped his hands away, not the least bit surprised when he slipped his grip higher, closer to the apex of my thighs. “C’mon, Avery,” he drawled in that rough timbre of his, “don’t keep me in suspense.”

I could go tit for tat.

Give him an abbreviated version of events that truly told him nothing . . . in exchange for information on the list of names I’d found in his desk drawer. My mouth opened, the words hovering on my tongue.

But what came out wasn’t at all what I’d intended: “You jealous, Asher?”

He grunted, then twisted his face away.

Oh, this was too good. Cupping his stubbled jaw, I forced him to look up at me . . . and as he was on his knees, it was with a burst of excitement that I realized that I was the one with the dominant hand this time around.

Well, well, well. How the tables had turned.

“Tell me, Lincoln,” I said with a little smile, “have you ever bowed to a woman before?”

I felt the way his jaw clenched beneath my palm, and then there was no mistaking the way he spoke from between gritted teeth. “Trust me when I say that I only get on my knees before a woman for one reason.”

A visual of him licking my core flashed before my eyes. It’d felt fantastic when he’d done it earlier, better than I could have ever imagined.

“Why do you have the tattoo?” he demanded. “Or did you lie about still having your hymen?”

The thoroughly disgusted way he uttered the word “hymen” made me roll my eyes. “Do you really have to ask that?” My hand slipped from his jaw to curl one finger beneath his chin, urging him to look up at me. “Or are you about to go all caveman and question my authenticity all the while you don’t plan to sleep with me again? Hit and quit it, that’s how my roommate always puts it.”

“You have absolutely no faith in the male sex.”

How could I?

My stepfather had my mother murdered in cold blood, and then had set out to do the same to me.

The men I’d run into while living on the streets had been only too keen to paw at me, even though I’d barely entered puberty at that point.

Nothing about the men in my life, thus far, leant to a positive image now—except for Pete and Sal, and they were way too in love with each other to ever look at another human being, let alone me.

Scoffing, I dropped my hand from Asher’s face. “You’re right, I have none. And in case you’ve forgotten, you already made it clear that sex between us was a one-time guarantee. Nothing more.”

I patted myself on the back for not sounding like a bitter shrew.

Only, I’d greatly underestimated Asher.

In the blink of an eye, the sole of my foot was on his broad shoulder and his face was between my legs.

Oh. My. God.

It was too soon, right? Was there some sort of time restriction on how long you should give a recently de-virginized girl after demolishing her innocence? I didn’t have the rulebook, and truthfully, sex wasn’t a topic I talked about with anyone aside from Katie.

And Katie had lost her virginity long before I’d ever met her at the club she worked at.

“Ash—Lincoln,” I corrected, heart hammering in my chest, “it’s too soon, right? I mean, shouldn’t we wait . . . or something?”

“Hold onto my shoulders,” he husked out, and then spread me down below to lick up my slit.

Oh. Oh, wow.

My head fell back as his hands circled my hips to clasp my butt. One ass cheek for each palm, and two seconds later I understood why: he refused to let me wriggle away from the intense sensations.

He ate me like I was a feast made exclusively for him, his tongue lapping at my clit with determined fervor. And then he made the sexiest sound I’d ever heard in the back of his throat, like he was drunk on the taste of me.

I knew that feeling well.

I’d downed the Hurricane hours ago, but my whole body felt sluggish yet electrified, exhausted yet needy—Lincoln was the sole cause. Him and the magic of his hands and . . . other parts of his hard body. Desperate to see him work my body to distraction, I gathered the hem of my sweater and held the fabric behind me, knotted in one hand.

Lord, he was handsome.

All dark, messy hair and shut eyes and hard slopes and angles. There was minimal light from the window, but enough of the room was revealed that I could see the high color on his cheeks as he flicked me over and over again with his tongue.

A masculine finger probed my entrance, sinking inside. Curling inward. I was going to die, right here, right now. With Asher sucking on my clit like he was on a mission of his own design, his finger angling just right with every thrust.

It wasn’t fair that he could work me up into this quivering mess within seconds.

And when he pulled away to rise to his feet, his height made me feel tiny, submissive, all over again. I whimpered at the loss of him, and then mentally berated myself for doing what I had vowed to never do: beg a man to make me feel complete.

It grated on my nerves, rubbed me raw—it was a power struggled I’d never anticipated.

In the end, I let newfound lust do the talking.

“That was . . .” I swallowed, allowing my gaze to hold steady on Asher’s face. His full mouth glistened from my wetness and his eyes glittered. “We agreed to one-time sex, but technically, you broke that agreement. We could, maybe, I don’t know, go for another round before you head out?”

He licked his lips, and I gulped down air because that right there, him absorbing the taste of me, was an image that would remain locked in my head for the rest of my life.

Then he spoke, and it went right over me, I was so entranced by the thought of him working me up to another orgasm. If I became an addict, it was all Katie’s fault. She’d encouraged this, told me to live a little, and with Asher, I was all too willing to take the plunge.

One second passed.

Two seconds passed.

And then, finally, his words registered in my head.

My jaw dropped in pure outrage. “Excuse me?”

His gaze never wavered from mine. “You’ll bow to me, Avery. It might not be today and it might not be tomorrow, but it will happen.”

As though he’d taken a sledgehammer to my desire, it cracked in two like shards of broken ice. Fury curled my hands into fists at my side, and the blood pounding furiously at my temple had nothing to do with lust. That he thought he could just swoop up in here and lay down the law like he was some sort of . . . some sort of—

The outline of his gun under his sweater at his hip caught my eye, and I could have sworn that my right eye twitched. He might be a cop, he might have a shiny badge and the ability to lock people up, but he was not the law.

I’d be dead before I ever let him talk to me like that—like he owned me or had any say on what I did or did not do.

Finger thrusting in the direction of the bed, I snapped, “The only place I’m getting on my knees is if I’m on that bed and your cock is all up in my business.” My voice vibrated with rage, my body trembling, too. “I will never get on my knees before you for any other reason. You better get that through your thick skull because I’m not going to say it—”

His lips crashed down on mine, swallowing my fight, ending my tirade. The kiss was brutal, rough, and it was over before it had even begun.

Twisting away, leaving me breathless and panting, Asher shoved his feet into his shoes and strode for the door.

“Will I see you again soon?”

The question was out before I could stop myself, hanging in the air, humiliating in all of its transparent, longing glory.

Asher glanced back at me over his shoulder, the top of his face hidden in shadow. But I saw his mouth move, that mouth which had brought me to the brink of pleasure, and the words left me wanting to snag my taser from my backpack and put it to good use.

“When you get on your knees,” he said.

It wasn’t until I heard the click of the front door shutting that I erupted into motion. I snatched my shoes off the floor, my underwear, my jeans, dumping all but my boots into the laundry basket by the bathroom.

I would never, never give a man so much power as the kind Asher demanded. He was delusional if he thought I’d just hop to it, like some sort of badge bunny willing to do anything in the hopes of pleasing him.

I’d had sex with him tonight because I had wanted to. I’d wanted to feel the slick glide of his cock inside me, and I’d wanted to know firsthand that moment when my body burst apart like a firework, shattering as pleasure washed over me.

Asher had delivered on both accounts.

And that was that.

But as I got ready for bed some time later, I couldn’t help but rewind the night to before he’d learned of my virginity—to those tense moments when I’d been crowded up against the wall on St. Phillip Street, my jeans unzipped, his hand clamped over my mouth, his fingers playing me into a frenzy.

Anyone could have spotted us.

And I’d wanted them to.

I’d wanted to feel their eyes on me, to see me, in a way that I’d spent the last twelve years hiding in plain sight. Feeling exposed—vulnerable in a way that I never allowed myself to be—had been just as freeing as letting Asher take control. The realization washed over me like a gallon of ice water yanked straight from the Artic.

I slid the bristle-boar brush through my hair, combing through the knotted strands. It didn’t matter if I’d savored those moments for the control I’d given up. It would be a completely different case all the way around to submit to him the way he’d wanted on his way out the door.

Right?

It’s what I told myself as I put Katie’s sheets in the wash and set my alarm to wake me in forty minutes when the cycle was done. It’s what I told myself when I pulled my blankets up under my chin after getting into my favorite position on the sofa.

Forty minutes later, when the washing machine beeped its completion, I was still fooling myself into believing that Asher’s last command rubbed me raw . . . that it didn’t hold a particular thrill, the same thrill I’d felt with my jeans around my thighs and his finger sinking into me.

Luckily for me, I had a long-standing relationship with such lies. After all, I’d been living the biggest one of them all for the last twelve years. What was another in the grand mix of things?