Page 112 of The Influencer

“I think it could be fun. Interesting.”

I lift my head to look at him. “You’d want to watch?” I ask, unable to totally mask my horror at the thought.

“Maybe. Or just listen. But I’d wanna meet the guy. I’d wanna picture it, but I don’t have to watch. You’d probably get weird if I watched.”

How he’s able to state that with such confidence is beyond me, but he’s a thousand percent correct. I could never have sex with another man with Asher watching.

“It turns you on, doesn’t it?” I ask the pieces clicking into place.

“Uh… yeah.”

“What about it?”

He shrugs. “What can I say? Your sexuality fascinates me. It’s been a huge turn on since we met. It’s like your superpower,” he says.

“But you don’t want it all for yourself?” I ask. Those are the hurt feelings speaking.

“I would never try to hold you back like that.”

I think I may be bleeding out. I sit all the way up, a hand on my ruptured heart, and remind myself to breathe and also that Asher has no idea what he’s talking about, or how I really feel, and I have to believe that if he did, he’d either be more sensitive about what he’s saying to me, or run away from me as fast as he can.

Since I refuse to risk the latter, I also refuse to breathe a word about how hard I’ve fallen for him. I’m still trying to come to terms with it myself. To put it mildly, it is not my favorite feeling I’ve ever had.

“Hey,” he says, gently, wrapping a warm hand around my wrist. “That came out horrible. I just meant I understand where your job stops and where what you and I have going on starts. The way I see it, I do have you all to myself.”

Okay, so that feels slightly less awful. I chance a look at him. He’s got a sweet, affectionate look on his face. Sympathetic, even.

“Get back here,” he says tugging me to his chest and trapping my legs with his. “You wanna go to the beach this weekend?”

32

asher

Jade, in a shocking turn of events, wears blue swim trunks with a respectable five-inch inseam to the beach. To cover his pale skin, he tops the trunks off with a modest, white, long-sleeved rash guard. No hat, but his SPF 1000 sunscreen is like a shield of armor on his face.

“Are you sure you wanna be here?” I ask as I strip off my shirt and squint over at him.

He gives me an offended glance. “Of course! Why would you think I wouldn’t?”

“I feel like you might feel safer in a basement. Or a bunker.”

He huffs and rolls his eyes at me, popping a hip and giving me a shrewd up and down assessment. “Some of us weren’t blessed by the gods of melanin. Now put some sunscreen on and take some pictures of me.”

I grin, shaking my head. “Yes, dear.”

We drove up the coast for some privacy and better scenery. There was a hairy descent onto this small stretch of beach, but it was worth it. I had more trouble with the climb than Jade did. My height gives me a really high center of gravity, but his dancer’s grace got him down the steep slope in no time. Great reflexes, too. He was able to grab my hand to keep me from losing my balance during a slight stumble.

We spend more than half an hour working his angles for the camera. He exposes his chest, nipples, and ass briefly before covering them back up again, but mostly, he thinks he looks great in what he’s wearing and wants more fully clothed shots. And he’s right. He does look good. Delectable, some would say.

However, I’m no professional photographer, and he gets annoyed with me repeatedly for taking too long to snap pictures, but whenever he scrolls back through the photos I took, he’s kind enough to tell me I’m doing a good job.

“Can we go in the water yet?” I ask.

“Let me first. I want to get some wet shots.”

“You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

“It’s not like we can have sex here,” he says. “It’s way too sandy.”

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