Sierra walks into my apartment. I enter behind her, dropping her bags inside the doorway, and flipping the locks, my need for this woman a thundering rush of adrenaline that doesn’t just surge. It pumps through me every second that I’m with her, and I pause just inside the entryway, inhaling the sweet floral scent of her lingering in the air around me, on my skin. I don’t know where tonight leads, besides a whole lot of us fucking and me fucking up her ex, but those are good places to start.
I rotate to find her walking into the kitchen. No, she’s running. That’s the word that comes to mind. She’s afraid of me and us because she’s afraid of him and that’s a barrier I have to remove. I follow her, closing the space between us, and she steps behind the island, the wall of appliances behind her, her hands on the wooden counter top. “I love your apartment,” she says as I stop at the end cap. “The island is beautiful.”
She’s beautiful and breathless for the wrong reason: she’s still nervous. I round the island to her side, and she attempts to dart the other way. I catch her hand, and she turns to face me. “Hi,” she says, her cheeks flushing a pretty pink.
“Hi,” I say, walking her to me and turning her to press her back to the island, her body between me and the counter.
She laughs, a soft, sweet musical sound that I feel in my cock and about ten other ways. In my fucking chest, and I don’t try to understand it now. “Did I really just say ‘hi’?”
“Yes,” I say, cupping her face. “And it was actually perfect.”
“Asher,” she whispers. “You—”
“Need to kiss you really fucking badly,” I say, and I make it happen. I kiss her, a deep stroke of tongue against tongue that ignites fire between us. I deepen the kiss, molding her closer, and we’re on fire. Kissing, touching, my hands caressing her waist, her breasts, wanting her next to me. But when I slip beneath her shirt, my palm pressed to the soft skin there, she grabs my hand. “Asher, wait,” she pants out.
“Wait?” I ask, pained just saying that word.
“I’m married. I suddenly feel very guilty.”
Brakes officially on. I press my hands to the counter on either side of her and lift my body from hers. “You still love him.” And fuck that idea punches me in the chest.
“God no,” she says, flattening her hand on my chest. “No. I don’t remember ever loving him.”
“You married him.”
“I know I did. He was—He is a decade older. I met him at a party, a charity event I was hosting. He was the eligible bachelor everyone wanted and he wanted me. I feel like I was worlds younger then. The billionaire rockstar businessman.”
“Billionaire.” My lips thin. “I suddenly wish I hadn’t given away all my money.”
“Don’t say that,” she says, her hand settling on my cheek. “I don’t want your money. I hated his money. I hated it and him beyond words, but I was trapped. He threatened my mother long before I even knew the things I know now. I didn’t love him. At most, I was stupidly young and enamored.”
“How long were you with him?”
“Two years. I dated him for one of those, but he traveled, and he was different then. A gentleman. Someone who cared. He introduced me to my mentor. He got me the internship.”
Her mentor that is a forensic psychologist, I think. He’s law enforcement or government. And a billionaire. She’s right. He’s dangerous.
“The minute I married him, though,” she continues, “he changed. The minute I crossed him, he threatened my mother and gave me reason to believe him.”
“He hit you.”
“He did a lot of things.”
“But you feel guilty with me.”
“My guilt isn’t about him, Asher. It’s you. I can’t get rid of him. Ever. I don’t want you to regret this. I don’t want you to—”
Brakes off. I kiss her again, a deep, kiss-the-hell-out-of-her kiss, and then I say, “Does that taste like regret?” But I don’t wait for an answer. I kiss her again, licking into her mouth and this time, she doesn’t pull back, there is no reserve in me or her. I need her. She needs me. I taste that on her lips. And I don’t like to be needed, but I do now. I do with her.
I press her shirt up, and cup her breast again, pulling down the lace of her bra to stroke her nipple. She arches into the touch, and I caress her shirt upward, intending to take it off, but she catches it. “I need to tell you something first.”
“Can you tell me naked?”
“No,” she says. “Not this.”
I inch back and look at her and she adds, “I have a scar.”
I go stone cold still. “Did he—?”
“No. It was a car accident three months after I married him. I almost died.”
And now his ability to control her makes sense. That’s when he changed. That’s when he shifted the power between them. “Sweetheart, I have a train wreck of scars on my body. I’ll show you mine, if you’ll show me yours.”
“I’m not an insecure person, but this—”
I kiss her. “I’ll go first.” I pull my shirt over my head, toss it on the counter and then present her with my right arm, and trace the deep scar there. “Did you not notice it?” I ask.
She reaches up and traces the line. “No,” she says, looking up at me. “I was too busy noticing…other things.”
“My ink.”
“That too,” she says. “I like it, but it’s just a bonus. Did you ink up to cover the scar?”
“No. I had to have the ink fixed after the damn thing healed.”
“How did you get it?”
“How else? A dirty bastard with a knife.” I reach down and unbutton and unzip my pants, pulling them down enough to show her the deep scar on my hip. “Shrapnel,” I say.
She presses her hand under my pants and covers the scar. “The battle wounds of a hero.”
I pull her to me, my hand under her hair at her neck. “Careful where you touch.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No,” I say. “But you’ll make me forget we’re doing show and tell right now.” I kiss her. “I have another on my ass. You ready for that one, or do you want to show me yours first?”
“I’m pretty sure the entire female population is ready for that one,” she says.
“You’re the only woman who I want to be ready for anything.”
“Asher, you’re…”
“I’m what?”
“Different.”
“Different than him.”
“Oh yes. So different. But different than anyone I’ve ever known.”
“Show me the scar, sweetheart. Okay?”
“Why don’t I care when you call me sweetheart now?”
“I don’t know. I’m still asking you to get naked.”
She laughs. “Yes. You are.”
“Show me,” I say gently.
“It’s on my stomach.”
I lower myself to my knee in front of her. “Can I?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, pulling her shirt up.
I unbutton and unzip her pants and as I pull the zipper down she trembles with anticipation and not the kind I want her to feel. This scar really bothers her and I’m more curious than ever now. Her jeans are low on her hips and I easily slide them down just enough to see the damage done to her skin from hip to hip and up to her belly button. I don’t react, but fuck. It’s bad. Really bad. I look up at her. “Metal or glass?”
“Both,” she says.
I press my lips to her belly and she trembles again under my kiss. And holy hell, my mind flashes to war scenes I’ve lived, to images of shrapnel in bodies that killed innocent people I couldn’t save. She could have died from this. I can’t believe she didn’t. “It’s okay, Asher,” she says when I don’t immediately react. “I know it’s ugly and—”
“No,” I say. “It’s not ugly.” I kiss her belly again and stand up, my hands settling on her shoulders. “I’ve seen people with metal in their bodies, and it’s too easy for me to imagine metal and glass, in your body. It’s not something you want to know someone you care about experienced.” I stroke hair from her face. “But, sweetheart. You’re beautiful. Stunning. That scar does nothing to detract from that. In fact, it just reminds me what a survivor you are.”
“I can’t have kids. It damaged me. I can’t—I can’t ever have kids.”
“Then I don’t have to use a condom, right?”
“Asher, please. This is a big deal to me.”
“I don’t want kids. I’ve seen too many people die. Kids die. I can’t have one of my own that could die. If you want kids—”
“Don’t say adopt. I’ve heard that. I don’t want to hear that, and I don’t want to adopt. I don’t want kids.”
She doesn’t have to say more. The bastard husband wanted kids and made her pay when she couldn’t have them. He probably mocked her scar. He probably did a lot of things I don’t want to think about until I stand in front of him, and I will. “This is us. We decide what matters for us. Yes?”
“Yes,” she says.
“So,” I say, trying to shift the mood. “No condom, right?”
She rewards me with that soft, sweet laugh of hers. “No. We don’t have to use a condom.”
“Then it’s official,” I say. “You’re the perfect woman.”
She surprises me then and leans into me, pushing to her toes and pressing her lips to mine, her hand on my cheek. And for a moment, I let her mouth linger against mine, just enjoying the first time that she’s actually kissed me, but I am too hungry and hot for her to last long. My mouth slants over hers, my tongue licking into her mouth, at the exact moment the doorbell rings.
“Holy fuck,” I murmur against her lips. “I feel like I’m never going to actually get you naked.”
“You do know we only just met, right?” she teases. “It’s not been long.”
“It feels like a lifetime of me wanting inside you, sweetheart. And since I only have a few people on my approved list, this is a Walker keeping me from being there.” I kiss her. “Fix your clothes. You’re for me, not them.” I grab my shirt.
“Did you miss your meeting?” she asks, attending to her zipper, which she pulls up while I really just want to pull it back down.
I pull on my shirt and glance at my watch. “I have an hour and a half before I have to be at the office.”
“Should I go someplace?” she asks. “Another room or—”
“You stay right here, with me. That works just fine.” I kiss her and head to the door, zipping up my pants on the way. The bell rings again and I open the door. “Hold your fucking horses,” I say as I bring my father in his six-thousand-dollar blue pinstriped suit into view.
“Hello, son.”
“You’re not on my approved list.”
“I bought the building. I’m on everyone’s approved list.”
“Of course you did,” I say, considering he’s always trying to own me. “What do you want?”
“Invite me in.”
“Not really feeling that kind of love right now.”
“Invite me in, son.”
I open the door wider and leave him there, walking back toward the kitchen. Sierra’s behind the island and she mouths, “Your father?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I say, rounding the island to stand next to her.
“Should I go somewhere?” she asks again.
“Stay with me,” I say again as well, right as my father appears at the other side of the island. I look at him now the way Sierra might see him, a fifty-five-year-old version of me when I had no tats, and my hair was short. I hate that image. I hate anything that reminds me that this man and I are blood.
“I see we have company,” he says, eyeing Sierra. “And you would be?”
“With him,” she replies, repeating what I told her, which is not only a smart response considering her circumstances, but an amusing one. No one talks around my father but me, and now Sierra. He intimidates the damn wind, but not her. But then, she has practice with men like him. Her ex, I realize now, is someone quite like my father. And I’m his fucking son, who many think is a flip of a switch from becoming his father. Or, to Sierra, a clone of the man who is trying to kill her.