Page 169 of The Influencer

“Yes. I forgave you as soon as I got my mouth on your nipple.”

I laugh. He does a little bit, too. And then I tell him the thing I’ve never told anyone. Not my mother, not even Aven.

“I was raped once, in New York. I was also arrested for prostitution twice, but I don’t have any trust issues around that. The rape, however… that was pretty fucked up and the reason why I moved across the country.”

Asher goes so quiet, I get scared. “Still with me?” I ask.

“Tell me what happened?”

It was long enough ago that I can tell the story without having a panic attack. Long enough to have dealt with the trauma of it in my own way. “I was at a club where I would give twenty-dollar blow jobs in the men’s room, and one of the guys who offered to pay me didn’t end up wanting a blow job.”

“Fuck,” Asher whispers, his thumb worrying the back of my hand.

“And that’s the story of how I lost my virginity,” I say as lightly as possible.

“That doesn’t count. It can’t,” he says adamantly. “Tell me about the actual time you lost your virginity. Tell me about when you chose it.”

I sigh and try to put this into terms he’ll understand. “It does count, though, Asher. Because the next time I had sex, I was so terrified of doing it that I only knew I’d survive it because I survived it when it was forced on me.”

Our breaths fill the silence for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” he finally says quietly.

“Thank you.”

“I love you very much. You trust that, right?”

“I trust you so much, it’s stupid,” I tell him.

“I don’t really have anything else for you at the moment,” he says.

“I don’t really either.”

“Actually, there’s one thing,” he says, “but it’s not really about my past or my shortcomings or anything.”

“Okay.”

“I know we’ve talked a lot about the OnlyFans, and I know you’ve kind of struggled with me and that a little…”

“Yeah…” I say, nerves kicking up again.

“I can’t explain exactly why I’m okay with it. If I do figure it out, you’ll be the first to know. Just, for now, know that I think you’re hot, and what you do is hot, and…whatever… What I’m trying to say is, if anyone lays a hand on you without your permission in a way that makes you uncomfortable or makes you even so much as grimace, I will fucking break bones. If you stay for me, you’re mine. At the end of the day, that’s my body.” His fingertips press into my palm. “This is my hand. That is my face and my ass and my cock—for me. And I will take such good care of all of it, you’ll think of everything else as a cute bonus.”

Be still my fucking heart.

“Is that okay?” he asks.

I nod, speechless. But only for a second. “I will not be so generous when it comes to you,” I inform him.

He grins the smallest grin. “Oh, really?”

“If any bitch so much as looks at you for more than three seconds, they’ll lose their fucking eyes. Is that okay?”

His smile widens. “More than.”

I draw my other leg onto the couch, opening my thighs wide. “Then I think it’s time you show me how well you plan to take care of your body.”

48

asher

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