Chapter Eighteen
The morning light flashed brightly through the window the morning after I lost my virginity. That, combined with the sound of men already hard at work in the barn was enough to wake me up.
Apparently, Asher was a heavy sleeper.
Or maybe I had just worn him out. The thought pleased me.
I looked at his sleeping face, resting peacefully. The rise and fall of his bare chest that glistened in the little amount of light the window was letting in. Ugh, could he be any more perfect?
I slipped out of bed and threw some clothes on, the last thing I needed was for him to wake up and catch me staring at him like some kind of freak. I left a brief note on the counter and tiptoed out the front door to head into town to grab some bagels and coffee for Asher and I plus the rest of the crew. The inside of my legs ached with every step and movement I made.
The soreness was something I was going to have to get used to but experiencing a little discomfort was way worth what I had been through last night. It had taken all my self-control to not wake Asher up and jump his bones moments before. Not that I thought he would have any complaints, but still, I should practice at least a little self-restraint.
Marge’s was pretty dead, as expected, besides a few regular stragglers out for their day at work or stopping in for a quick bite before they got back on the road for the morning.
I put in my order for a jug of coffee and a few dozen bagels and waited patiently behind the counter for the old woman working to gather my order. She was moving at a snail's pace. On any other day it might have bothered me but today I was glad for the silence, thankful for the time to gather my thoughts.
I couldn’t help but feel different. Maybe it was corny but I felt like I was a woman now. And I’d stayed true to myself, I’d waited until I was in love. Actually, I’d never fallen out of love, it had just taken a little time for Asher to snap out of it.
Asher.
Just the thought of his name sent butterflies through my stomach.
“I guess there letting anyone in this place these days,” a voice said loudly from behind me. “They should really learn to take the trash out back to the dumpster.”
I swung around and found Ashley standing in the doorway of the diner, her eyes traced into little slits as she looked me up and down. She was just as done up as the first morning I met her on Asher’s porch. Short white skirt with a blue halter-top that matched her nail color perfectly. Her hair and makeup were flawless, not an inch of her was out of place.
Jeez, had she already been up for hours getting ready or what?
“Great.” I rolled my eyes and turned back around, hoping that my order would magically appear and I could get the hell out of there. I wasn’t scared of Ashley or anything, I just didn’t feel like dealing with her this morning, not when everything had been so magical until she walked in the door. But my luck was starting to run out, the waitress was still pouring the coffee into a large container slower than ever.
“You’re up early,” Ashley said loudly, coming up to stand next to me. “Getting some breakfast after your night of whoring around? How much did you make, huh?” She looked me up and down slowly. “I can’t imagine anyone would pay much to sleep with you.”
“Back off,” I snapped, yanking my head to the side to meet her eyes for the first time. “Trust me, Ashley, you don’t want a piece of me, not this morning.”
“Oh, but I think I do.”
“Look…”
“No, you look,” she cut me off. “You think just because Asher told me to back off that I actually will? You think you’re special or something? He’s done this a million times before… been fascinated with the new girl in town for about five minutes but he’ll get bored once he realizes you’re just a gold digging whore like the rest of them and come crawling back to me just like all the other times.”
I laughed, refusing to take her seriously. “See, now I know you know nothing about Asher because the thought of him crawling back to anyone is hilarious. I’m pretty sure you chase him around until he caves in out of boredom because he has nothing else going on.”
Her face was seething. “You’re a whore! You’re just using him!”
I rolled my eyes, trying not to laugh in her face again. Using him for what? A quick barn fix up job, Asher would have done that for anyone, it was just the kind of guy he was.
“There’s not going to be any trouble in this diner today, is that going to be a problem, ladies?” The woman behind the counter raised her eyebrows, looking back and forth between the two of us. “Because if it is I can always call the sheriff down to straighten it out.”
I looked at Ashley, refusing to break her gaze until her eyes faded a few seconds later. She shook her head. “Nope, no problems here.” She moved closer to me and lowered her voice. “Enjoy it while it lasts, gold-digger.” She turned around on her heel and stomped back out the door.
I waited for the bell on the door to charm shut before I looked back at the waitress. “Sorry about that,” I mumbled, unsure of what else to say. The whole scene was embarrassing and would probably be all over town by lunchtime.
I made a mental note to ask Asher what the fuck the deal was between the two of them and to make sure he made it clear to her, the last thing I needed was for my daddy to wake up to rumors that his daughter was a home-wrecker.
The woman sighed heavily. “Don’t worry about it, honey, you aren’t the first girl Ashley has lost it over when it comes to Asher and you probably won't be the last.”
I shifted uncomfortably, unsure if she was implying Asher went through woman quickly or if Ashley was just crazy enough to keep creating issues where there were none. I hoped it was the second one, I knew no one really knew anything about what was really going on between Asher and me but that was the problem with a small town… what people didn’t know they would make up.
She must have noticed the look on my face because she cleared her throat loudly and reached down to straighten out her name tag which I noticed for the first time had the name Maggie scribbled across the center in black sharpie.
“I just… I just meant that people aren’t used to having Asher around these days, that’s all.” She started stuffing bagels into a white paper bag. “Sure, some people treat him the same as before but some people just can’t get over having a millionaire so close to town… money changes everything, you know? Isn’t it sad?”
“Millionaire?” I choked out. “Who’s a millionaire?”
“Well, Asher, of course,” Maggie said slowly, looking at me strangely.
“Asher’s not a millionaire!” I laughed loudly.
Maggie shifted from one foot to the other. “He sure is.”
“He…” I trailed off, looking at the serious look on her face. She must have lost her damn mind. Asher wasn’t a millionaire, he was just Asher. Same as when I had left him. “He… you must be thinking of someone else. Asher Dawson?”
“Yup, that’s the one.” She set the bags on the counter and started to ring my order into the cash register. “There’s only one Asher in these parts, darling.” She frowned for a second. “Did you want any cream cheese or jelly to go with these?”
“But Asher Dawson works for a construction company! He still lives at home with his mom and dad! He doesn’t… he couldn’t possibly be who you’re thinking of,” I told her, ignoring her question. I was still sure that she had the wrong guy.
Maggie chuckled. “He doesn’t live with his parents! He has a house just outside of town and an apartment for when he does business in the city… while I mean; I guess he kind of does live with his parents since he paid off their bank loan for them a few years ago.” She shook her head. “I guess it all depends on how you look at it. Isn’t that funny? How different perspectives can change the facts of a story. I’ve always found that fascinating.”
I stared at her face that now seemed to be in deep thought and tried to bring her back down to earth. “But Asher Dawson is fixing up my barn right now. He works… he works construction and home improvement. How could he possibly buy his parents house and one of his own on that salary?”
Maggie looked uncomfortable. “Aren’t you close to him? Isn’t that what Ashley was getting so worked up about a few minutes ago?” Worry started to cross into her forehead. “I don’t want to have a reputation for telling everyone’s business…”
I looked at her hopelessly. I wanted to speak, I wanted to say something but I was at a loss for words. What she was saying couldn’t possibly be true, none of it even made sense. I would have heard something about this, wouldn’t I of? The memory of me telling my dad I never wanted to hear Asher’s name again popped into my mind.
Well, Asher would have told me, surely. Wouldn’t he have?
No, a voice somewhere in the back of my mind informed me.
A vision of the look on Ralph's face popped into my head when I said I was going to call Asher's boss. He was almost laughing, the thought was amusing to him...
And all the fancy cars Asher was driving around...
Suddenly, I felt like I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
Maggie sighed, clearly feeling sorry for me. “He doesn’t work for a construction company, love, he owns one,” she paused. “Actually, he owns several now… well, there’s not a contractor in the state you can find that’s not under Asher’s care these days and he just purchased his first company in Georgia last month…”
Her words sank into my skin but I shook my head slowly, shocked.
“You really didn’t know?” she pressed the issue.
I pulled myself out of my trance and slapped a fifty-dollar bill down on the counter before yanking the bag of bagels and jug of coffee toward me. “Keep the change,” I mumbled before bolting of the diner and letting the screen door slam shut way too hard behind me.
I was going to kill him.
***
I slammed the bag of bagels down so hard on the counter that it split apart across the bottom. Not learning my lesson I slammed the coffee down just as hard, sending it splashing over the top and onto my father’s white counter tops. “ASHER!”
A light shuffle came from down the hall.
“ASHER!” I called again. “GET OUT HERE!”
Asher turned the corner a few seconds later, a damp towel around his neck and a pair of gray sweatpants on his waist was the only evidence of coverage. His bare chest and the sudden appearance of pants that didn’t exist in this house was enough to temporarily distract me. “You took a shower? Where did you get those pants?”
Asher shook his head back and forth, sending specs of water flying everywhere. “I had someone bring me over some clothes.” He ran the towel over his head. “Now what has you so worked up that you had to walk in screaming my name?” He raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t you do enough of that last night?”
My heart sent shock waves through my bones at the memory of his naked body on top of mine but I pushed them away. “Oh, you had someone bring them over, huh? You mean like a servant?”
“A servant? No… a guy who works for me.” He nodded toward the backyard where sounds were flowing in from the barn. “You got breakfast?” He moved toward the counter, looking interested.
It was clearly an act to keep me from asking any more questions. How could he just stand there and lie to my face? “So, were you ever planning on telling me, Asher?”
“Telling you what?” He took a bagel out of the bag and held it out to me. “You should eat something because trust me, you’re going to need your energy to make it through today.” He looked me up and down like he was undressing me with his eyes.
“Put some ice on it,” I snapped, determined not to get caught up in his sex antics and forget the point. “I know, Asher! I know that you’re… that you’re rich!”
“Oh,” Asher’s face fell. “That.”
“Yeah, that.” I put my hands on my hips. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
He dropped the bagel and sighed heavily. “Of course I was going to tell you…” He trailed off, meeting my eyes. “Maybe, I don’t know, I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“So, you were just okay with keeping it from me?” My mouth hung open. I was so angry I could have screamed. Where the hell did he get off? Keeping something like that from me!
“Does it even matter? What does it really change? So, I have money. Who gives a fuck?” He shrugged. “What? Is it going to hurt your rep or something? Sleeping with a millionaire?”
“That’s not the point, Asher!”
“Then what is it?” He looked exasperated.
“The point is that you lied to me!”
Asher grunted. “I didn’t technically lie to you, Bella, I just let you think what you wanted to think.” He walked over to the dining room table and grabbed a black shirt off the surface, yanking it over his head. “You had your mind made up about me a long time ago.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean, Asher? I did not!”
“Oh, come on, Bella.” He gestured toward me. “You just assumed when you came back that I was the same guy you left behind. That I was still dragging my feet, going through the motions, you wanted to believe that I was working some nine to five and still mooching off my parents. So, that’s exactly what I let you think.” He moved past me, grabbing his keys off the table. “You’re always right, remember?”
His words hit me like a sludge hammer. Was he right? Had I been so sure of what Asher was that I hadn’t even given him the chance to be something different? The answer made my heart heavy. The things I had said to him… the way I had talked down to him. He was right, I had never given him the chance to prove me wrong.
“You still... you still should have told me, Asher.”
“You’re probably right but, honestly, you didn’t deserve it. The girl I used to know wouldn’t have just stopped believing in me, not after everything we went through together.” He turned around and started to move toward the door.
Wait. What? How had this turned around on me?
“Asher!” I called out. “Wait!” I closed the distance between us and pulled on his huge arm muscles, forcing him to look at me. “I didn’t… I never stopped believing in you, okay? I just let my pride do my talking for a while. I wasn’t over what happened before I left.” I swallowed and traced my hand up and down his jawline. “But it was wrong to carry all that over into today.”
Asher shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “What do you want from me, Bella? An apology? That’s not me… it never has been. I can’t give you that, I can only give you what I have… I’m not… I’m not normal.” He pushed a piece of hair behind my ear.
My heart felt heavy in my chest, beating way too heavily for him.
He shook his head. “I should have told you about the money, I get it, but to be honest… I enjoyed not talking about it with someone for a change. Everyone in this town looks at me like a fucking circus clown or their next meal ticket… with you, I’m just… I’m just me.”
My whole body felt tense. “You’ll always be you, Asher. You never have to be anyone else with me. I…” I wanted to say the words, I wanted to tell him how much I loved him, how much I always had, but my tongue felt heavy in my mouth. I was still too scared of giving that much of myself away.
But I’m sure it was obvious since I had just given him my virginity. Was it, though? Something told me Asher was used to girls giving him things they had never given to anyone else.
Asher leaned in, cutting off my lingering sentence with his lips.
When he pulled away I let my head lay on his chest, inhaling his mint scent from his shower and running my fingers up and down his chest. I could feel his defined muscles even through the fabric of his shirt. Just the thought sent a hot shooting pain through my legs.
“Bella,” he moaned, sharing my feeling of excitement.
I looked up at him slowly. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay,” I inhaled. “I get it.”
“Yeah?” He slipped his hand between my legs.
“Yeah,” I gasped. “But….”
“But what?”
I inhaled, opening my legs wider to enjoy his touch. “But… no more secrets.” I closed my eyes, concentrating on the way his fingers felt just inches away from my center.
Asher pushed his fingers to the top of my waistband and forced my pants and panties down to my knees. “I agree,” he told me suggestively. “We shouldn’t have anything between us at all.” He reached down his pants with his other hand and pulled out his already hard cock. “Nothing at all between us.”
I sighed, too turned on to think straight. “Something tells me we’re talking about two different things,” I breathed out as he pushed his fingers into the soft spot between my legs.
“Mmm,” he moaned, slipping his fingers inside of me one at a time. “Someone’s already wet, aren’t they, Bella?” He moved his hands up and down inside of me slowly. “You probably can’t stop thinking about last night, can you?”
He had no idea. “It might have crossed my mind once or twice.” I closed my eyes and let my head tilt back a little bit, enjoying the sensation of his touch and letting the thrill wash into my veins.
“Just once or twice, huh?” Asher pulled his hands out from between my legs and shoved his fingers into my mouth so I could taste my own juices. “Well, if you’re sure it was only once or twice…” he trailed off and started to put his pipe back into his pants like he was going to stop giving me the attention I so badly craved.
“Okay! Okay!” I clawed after him, linking my hands into his shirt and pulling him back toward me. I opened my mouth and latched myself onto his mouth, letting my tongue get lost in his and deeply trying to take every taste of him I could get.
Asher let me kiss him for a few seconds later before he pulled back and ran his fingers back and forth over my bottom lip. He stuck his hand inside of my mouth and started to shove his fingers down my throat while he kept his eyes on mine. “Say it.”
I sucked on his fingers a few times, allowing him to fuck my mouth slowly with them. I ran my tongue over them slowly, reminding him of how much I enjoyed sucking things that belonged to him… especially big and thick things.
My plan to turn him on, even more, must have worked because he yanked his fingers out of my mouth and grabbed me by the back of the head hungrily, pulling me toward him. “Say it, Bella.”
“I can’t stop thinking about last night,” I whispered.
“Were you thinking about it all morning?”
I nodded slowly.
“And what were you thinking, exactly?” He raised his eyebrows up and slipped his hands around to my back while he pushed my body across the kitchen floor and cornered me against our kitchen table. “Tell me all the dirty things.”
“I was thinking about what it felt like…” I looked down at the ground.
Asher shook his head and made me look at him again. “Look at me.”
“I was thinking about what it felt like when I had you inside of me.”
Asher grinned in glee. “Yeah? You were thinking about my big cock inside of your tight little pussy, Bella? You were thinking about how good it felt when I was working you out?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “About how much I wanted you again.”
He groaned in agony, his own game starting to take a toll on him. “Tell me, Bella, tell me how bad you want me to fuck you.” He leaned into me again, stopping just inches away from my lips.
“I want you to fuck me again, Asher, so bad.”
“Now say please.”
“Please,” I whispered, praying he would put an end to my torture soon. I wasn’t sure how much more my body could take. It wasn’t a lie, I had been thinking about him all morning until I saw Ashley and now that I was in his presence again I was starting to remember all the hot things he had made me feel last night. All the feelings that I wanted so desperately to feel again. Asher was like my own personal form of crack.
And I needed my next fix. I needed it bad.
Asher howled loudly and flipped my body over, pushing my face into the kitchen table so that my butt stuck up in the air. I could feel him breathing heavily as he stood over the top of me, rubbing his cock back and forth over my butt slow at first and then faster and faster.
I could feel my juices dripping down my thighs slowly.
“You want this hard cock, Bella?”
“Yes, please,” I moaned. “I want your big cock.”
Asher finally gave me some release by sticking his hands between my legs and running his fingers over my center a few times before he stuffed his cock inside of me.
I moaned loudly and squirmed for a second from the pain, but just like last night, it only lasted for a few seconds before intense pleasure took over and all I could feel was satisfaction.
Asher pushed one of his hands into the back of my head and pumped his cock into me over and over again, grunting loudly as he allowed himself to get off inside of me.
“You like that?” He breathed loudly into my ear. “You like when I fuck you over the kitchen table like the bad girl you are?” He slapped my ass hard, gripping onto one of my cheeks with his fingers.
“Yes!” I screamed. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
“Ugh, your ass is so fucking big, Bella.” He let go of my cheek and brought his hand back, slapping one cheek and then the other over and over again while he continued to pump his wood inside of me.
His words thrilled me, turning him on in general thrilled me.
Asher gave one final thrust and then came all over the inside of my curtains, breathing heavily in satisfaction as he let loose, finally satisfied. A second later I followed his lead and came all over his cock.
He pulled out of me and I collapsed to my knees, trying to regain my composure. No wonder the entire would was obsessed with sex, I’d had no idea what the hell I was missing out on. Now that I’d had a taste I didn’t think I would be able to handle ever being without it again.
Asher readjusted himself, pulling his pants up and grinning down at me in fulfillment. “You better pick yourself up, Bella.” He leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “Because there’s plenty more where that came from.”
That was more than fine with me.