Cooper

To make her mine.

Without speaking a word, not trusting myself to even open up my mouth, I reach my hands up and unwind her body from mine. She looks up at me with confusion before shock takes over her features and she jerks her body back in the seat.

“Don’t even think about it,” I seethe.

Her eyes flash, but she visibly tries to relax her protective posture.

I take a few steadying breaths before I walk back to the driver’s side and pull back into traffic.

It’s time that Chelcie and I have a long, overdue chat. I want to know what the hell she’s hiding, and more importantly, I need to make sure she understands just where the hell things stand between us.

***

The drive back to the apartments doesn’t take long in reality, but with the thick anticipation of what is to come coating the air around us, it feels like hours. Chelcie hasn’t spoken, not one word.

Her silence is alarming. I’m used to her sweet murmurs—the snarky bursts of fiery attitude she normally keeps closed off from others—and most importantly, that deep-rooted desire that is usually blazing in those brown-gold pools.

I hate this closed-off, scared version of her, and I’m almost afraid to believe that it could be me she’s afraid of.

We pull up, park, and silently make our way past a smiling Joe and into the elevator. She goes to press the button for her floor, but I grab her lightly, pulling her flush with my body.

“No,” I growl, the primal sound shocking even my own ears.

“Please,” she pleads, her eyes round with what I can only guess is panic.

“Sunshine, would I ever hurt you? Get that look off your beautiful face,” I murmur. Lightly pressing my lips to hers, I take a deep, reassuring breath when I feel her body relax slightly in my arms.

“You scare the ever-loving shit out of me, Ash. We need to talk, and right now, I’m just trying to take a moment to get over the fact that when you hear what I have to say…you could hate me forever.”

“A little dramatic, don’t you think?”

She doesn’t say anything, just looks up at me with pain very evident in her eyes.

Even with the anger from Fat Jacks still surfing through my body, I can feel the trace of apprehension starting to take hold of my skin.

“You don’t get it, Ash. There are things I haven’t told you, things that could change the way you think you feel for me. Things that could change everything, and I have no clue how to get past this. Don’t you see? Don’t you see how much you mean to me? I’m not sure I could handle you not wanting to be a part of my life anymore—even if it is just as friends.”

My brow creases with her words. “You’re going to realize real soon that when I say you’re mine, I mean it. We’ve been dancing around this for way too long.” The earlier feelings of uncontrollable anger over her being out with another man threaten to take hold of me again. It’s taking every thread of control to keep myself calm. To stop myself from throwing her on the floor of the damn elevator and showing her just how mine she really is. “And before the day is over, there will be no fucking doubt in that pretty little head just how much I mean that.”

Her eyes darken, but not out of the desire I wish I saw. No, this time they get darker with her sadness, and I wish there was something, anything, I could do to take that from her.

***

(Chelcie)

While sitting in the car on the way back to the apartments, I busy myself with trying to figure out what just happened. I’m almost positive that Asher just…claimed me? My ankle is killing me from where crazy Phil had his hands crushing deep into the muscles and tendons. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a huge welt-like bruise when I get a good look at it.

The ride up is more heavy silence. The tension between us is so abundant that I keep shaking uncontrollably. I don’t fear Asher. Even when he was at his drunkest, his meanest, and his worst, I never feared him. It’s almost been as if his pain was my own, which even to my own mind makes no sense. Sure, we’ve grown as close as two friends who have red-hot chemistry can get, but ever since the day that I met him, I knew there was potential for something so powerful that I’m not sure I would come out the same person in the end.

He makes me feel alive. And completely untethered to my own sense of reality.

I’m not exactly naïve when it comes to men and relationships. I’ve had a few steady boyfriends, but nothing that I was really willing to invest myself one hundred percent in. I haven’t been avoiding being in a committed relationship, but I’ve also been unwilling to give myself to someone who clearly wasn’t eager to look at me as anything other than a warm body.

Which is one of the main reasons I’ve avoided acting on the attraction between Asher and me.

That and the obvious elephant in the room.

And in the back of my mind, I have to be honest with myself. Sure, we have a friendship—as precarious as it seems at the moment—and the combustible attraction… But when he finds out about the baby, how do I know that, if he still wants something from me, it isn’t going to be just because I’m carrying a part of his brother.

With a deep sigh, I lean back against the elevator car and mentally prepare myself for what is to come.

Chapter 13 – Chelcie

“How did you know I was there?” I question when Asher all but slams the door, trapping me in a room I’m not quite sure I want to be in. Well, that’s a lie—my body wants to be here, but my mind wants to run.

He doesn’t turn around right away. He stands at the door, his hands braced on the thick wood and his breathing hard and heavy. His very presence alone is so strong and demanding that the air around us feels alive.

I wouldn’t have been able to control the thick shudder that flies through my body if I’d tried.

“Dee—well, Sway. Dee and Sway.”

He still doesn’t turn around, and it takes just a second for the blinding anger to take over my body. Damn them!

“Don’t be pissed at them, Sunshine. I’m damn happy they let me know where to find you. Tell me—did you like that asshole touching you?” He finally turns, and the look on his face causes me to take a giant step back.

He stalks me—predator to his prey—and I keep matching him step for step until my ass hits the wall. My shoulders pressed back as much as I can—praying that the wall will just swallow me whole.

“I’ll tell you how it made me feel. Walking in to see his fingers closed around your slim ankle, the look in his eyes when he was lost in whatever fantasy held him captive…to see another man with his hands on my woman… Do you want to know how I felt? Look at me,” he demands. “I felt a depth of wrath I didn’t know existed. A red-hazed fury chanting at me to kill. I wanted to rip his arms off his body and beat him with the hands that dared to touch WHAT. IS. MINE.”