Page 118 of The Influencer

Asher stops walking and faces me. I do the same, taking in this shadowed view of him with the ocean and setting sun glowing behind him. He lets go of my hand and cups my neck. “That first time wasn’t anything like my first time with sushi.”

“Why? What happened the first time you had sushi?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Did you puke?”

“No comment.”

“But you didn’t puke after you sucked my nipples, did you? Or my cock? That’s not why you ran out on me so fast, was it? So you could go puke in the bushes?”

He gives me the smallest, most indulgent smile. “No.”

“Promise?”

He lowers his lips to mine and presses a light kiss to them. “I promise.”

“Not even from the guilt?”

He shakes his head, holding my questioning gaze the whole time.

I love you. I love you. I fucking love you so fucking much.

See how impossible he makes it?

“This is almost romantic,” I mumble, trying to make it sound like I disapprove.

“Isn’t it, though? You look beautiful in this light. Wanna hand me your phone?”

No. I want to kiss him. I want to cover his body with mine. Sheathe him and lose myself inside his mouth. I want to make love to him with my knees in the sand and his face in my hands. I want him so badly, I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.

“Jade?” he asks while I continue to stare up at him.

I love you.

“Hm?”

“Your phone?” He offers his palm. “Trust me. You need these.”

I shake myself out of my love trance and force myself back on brand. Handing over my phone, I take a few steps backward and let him capture my image in the sunset.

“One with you and me?” I ask, when I’ve run out of poses.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

On the way back to my condo, Asher drives and plays heavy alternative rock while I pretend to crop and edit the new photos on my phone. The only ones I’m really looking at, though, are the ones of me and Asher. There’s a burst shot of a kiss where I’d forgotten he was even holding the camera. And damn is it obvious that there’s nothing else on my mind but him in those pictures. It wasn’t some simple peck, either. It was a deep, toe-curling kiss that had gotten me hard as fuck, which had been almost impossible to smile through after he went back to taking regular selfies.

We look almost comical together. We could not be more different in every way that’s obvious. I literally know no couples who look anything like us together—even Jax and Gideon share a certain edge that makes them match up despite their size and age differences. And now that Gideon’s got a full sleeve of tattoos, they’re even more similar.

“Am I the kind of guy you saw yourself with whenever you had your gay fantasy moments?” I ask as he turns off Highway One in Santa Monica.

I haven’t spoken for a while, and from the look he flashes at me, I’m assuming the question came out of nowhere for him.

“Um… no? I guess?”

“What did you picture?”

“Give me a second to think about that.”

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