Page 32 of Age of Shade

He wants to know more, I can tell, but he doesn’t push. Just like that, I lose another piece of my heart to Asher Roth.

It’s not without a price, though, and that price is burning, horrible guilt.

Finally, when the sweat has dried on our skin and goosebumps begin to rise on my skin, Asher rolls to the edge of the bed and helps me up. He steals another long kiss before heading toward a door, which must lead to the bathroom. “Take a shower with me?” he asks over his shoulder, as if the opportunity to see this man naked, wet, and covered in soap would be something I am physically capable of rejecting.

I’m in a trance as I follow him into the bathroom.

This one is smaller, but no less luxurious than the bathroom in the suite from last time. The mirror has already fogged with steam from the beautiful marble shower as I shut the door behind me. My poker face must not be as good as it used to be, because Asher frowns. “Everything okay?”

“Yup!” I slip past him into shower. Despite this reassurance, Asher still looks troubled as he gets in behind me. His handsfind mine, and I allow him to pull me close, holding each other beneath the cascade of warm water.

“Tell me what’s the matter?”

His voice rumbles through the ear I have pressed to his chest. It’s a question, not an order. He’s so gentle with me, so patient. For god’s sake, I’ve all but thrown myself at the man and he won’t have sex with me because he wants me to feel safe first. He wants me to trust him, and this poor guy has no idea that I’m the one who shouldn’t be trusted. I’m the liar here, not him.

My chest feels like it’s going to cave in. “I’m worried that you’re going to find out more about me and realize I’m not worth all the trouble. I’m… I might be fucked up, Asher. Like,reallyfucked up.”

“Adina.” Asher’s firm voice pulls me back from the ledge of a full-on mental spiral. Cautiously, I blink up at him. The bulk of his body shields my face from the spray of water, and some of the tension bleeds from my body. “I’m trying not to scare the hell out of you, but you don’t need to worry about me going anywhere. I’m in this. If you’re fucked up, we’ll fix you, angel.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ASHER

She still doesn’t trust me.

It’s been weeks, just over a month actually, since our second weekend at The Witt. We haven’t been back. Instead, we spend weekends holed up in my minuscule apartment.

I’d been embarrassed to show her at first. The place had been hastily rented following my breakup, and I never bothered to decorate or do more than throw together a few flat-pack pieces of furniture. The night before she came for the first time, I went to a home decor store and frantically purchased plates, glasses, and silverware that wasn’t plastic. It felt pathetic, being a grown man with his life together so poorly, but being able to serve my brand-new girlfriend dinner on plates that weren’t left by the elderly woman who lived in my apartment before me was a start (the faded rose motif was a dead giveaway).

Adina wasn’t disappointed in the apartment. If anything, she seems about a million times more comfortable and relaxed here than at The Witt, and I've even felt a growing fondness for the place since she started spending time here. Somehow, the ancient, heavily painted ceiling tiles and drafty windows feel less shabby and more quaint when Adina is kneeling on the floor in front of my coffee table, flashcards for her next test spread out before her.

She sleeps over sometimes during the week too, arriving past midnight with shadows beneath her eyes and smelling of stale coffee and the same kind of industrial cleaning supplies we have to use at the practice. Adina works harder than anyone I’ve ever met, flitting between school, an unpaid internship, and her two jobs in a caffeine-fueled blur. And, even with all that, she still makes time to make me feel like the luckiest man who’s ever lived.

I’m in love with her.

There’s no possible way around it, no way to dismiss the fierce, possessive feeling that grips me every time I look at her or think about her, or smell her shampoo on my pillow. In weeks, she’s become the center of my whole world, and it’s killing me to see her working her fingers to the bone, struggling, and not being able to do a thing about it.

Being open with her has, from the very first night we met, been easy for me. Even when I thought I wasn’t capable of committing, even when I thought my lies would spell the end of us before we’d even begun, I couldn’t help it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to bite my tongue lately, stopping myself from asking more of her than she’s ready to give.

It’s a never-ending exercise in willpower to keep myself from telling her that I’ve fallen for her, that I’d marry her tomorrow if she let me, thatI’ll take care of her.

She wouldn’t want that.

Adina is like a stray kitten I’ve been slowly winning over. She’s starting to grow more comfortable with me, but one wrong move will erase all the progress we’ve made. All I can do is keep trying, keep being consistent, andshowher exactly how much I adore her.

There are signs that it’s working. Little things are beginning to shake loose from the wall she’s built around her heart, tiny fragments of a dark early life. Her mother is dead and, like me,she never knew her father. Any of my casual, probing questions about who raised her or where she grew up have mostly been laughed off or rebuffed. She talks openly about her current life—her job at the coffee shop, her strange relationship with Ruby, her internship, and school—but anything before that is firmly off limits.

I have suspicions, and the desperate hope that I’m wrong about them, but that’s all. Like it or not, I have to be patient with her and trust that the incredible woman I’ve fallen for will one day trust me enough to tell me everything. Sometimes, though, the self-doubt creeps in. Am I making a fool of myself, being so utterly committed to a woman I barely know? Especially one who happens to be half my age and so deeply guarded.

Those thoughts tend to come when we’re apart, when I have time tothinkinstead offeel.

As I open the door for her late on Friday night, though, just the sight of her is enough to ease all anxiety about our situation.

Adina sags with relief and shuffles forward, dropping her battered backpack on the floor in my little entryway. She wraps herself around me without hesitation.

Fuck.This woman.

“I missed you,” she mumbles into my chest, and I press my lips to the top of her head. Even beneath the scent of coffee and cleaning supplies, I catch a hint of her sweet, floral scent. Just holding her is overwhelming.

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