Page 64 of The Consequence of You
I don’t get the chance to find out, as he moves down my body, giving attention to each of my breasts in turn, licking around my piercings while kneading my soft flesh in his strong hands. My back arches involuntarily, chasing the feeling, and as he sucks one of my nipples into his mouth, I come hard.
My entire body tenses as waves of ecstasy wash over me.
Asher drops my nipple and moves to the other and the waves of pleasure keep coming. He hasn’t even made it below my waist and he has me completely falling apart.
“Fuck. That was… you’re…” The words die on my lips.
“It’s not me. It’sus.You know that, right?” He fixes me with a look so sincere that, for a few seconds, I let myself believe there could be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ASHER
Afew weeks ago, Callie accused me of not thinking through my actions, and she was right. That’s how I’ve always lived my life and it’s never been a problem. But today, seeing that man’s hands on her, and the knife pressed to her throat. Every awful possibility of what might happen next ran through my mind, and every one of them was unacceptable. For the first time in my life, I care about someone. I truly care. It’s exhilarating, but it’s also fucking terrifying.
As we lie facing each other, my head propped on my bent arm, I stroke her soft cheek with my other hand, marvelling at the way her eyes widen at my touch. Her pupils dilate, making her dark orbs even darker, and I want to drown in them. Drown inher. Except I already am. I have been since the moment I admitted to myself how Ifeel about her.
“Asher…”
“I feel it too.” She draws in a sharp breath. “When I saw that fucker’s hands on you… I would have killed him if it meant protecting you.” Her eyes gloss over, and she blinks. A single tear escapes from the corner of her eye and I catch it with my thumb. “It fucking scared me, and I need to tell you something,” my voice cracks and I close my eyes for a second, trying to regain my composure.
What is this woman doing to me?I’m Asher Pennington. I don’t get nervous.
Clearing my throat, I try again.
“When we first started doing this, I thought it was just something we needed to get out of our system, and then we’d move on. But I can’t get enough of you.”
She swallows,
“I can’t deny our chemistry is insane.”
I shake my head.
“It’s more than that. You’re in my head. You’re under my skin.” I take a breath. “I’m not just talking about sex, Callie. I want us to do this for real.”
She blinks rapidly, and rolls onto her back, refusing to look at me.
“We would never work,” she whispers, more to herself than me. I bark out a laugh because she’s wrong, and she’s saying it like she believes that nonsense. Fucking hilarious. Maybe she’ll need a little more help to admit it to herself than I thought.
I climb over her, resting on my arms, and boxing her in so she has no choice but to look at me.
“We work. There might be hundreds of reasons why we shouldn’t, but for some unfathomable reason that’s an absolute mystery to me, wedo.”
She doesn’t argue with me but I can see in her eyes there’s so much she isn’t saying.
I take a deep breath.
“I’m falling in love with you.” I shake my head. “No. That’s not right. I’m already there. I love you.”
“You’re in love with me?” she whispers, disbelief dripping from her voice.
“Yes. I am one hundred per cent, hopelessly, irrevocably in love with you.”
She searches my face for a hint of a lie, but she’ll never find one. I can feel the strong and steady thrum of her heart just centimetres from mine, and I know it’s beating for me. She’s clearly not ready to admit her feelings to herself, let alone me, so I’ll have to do it for her.
“You’re falling in love with me, too.” I brace myself, waiting for her to deny it, but she doesn’t. In fact, what she says next isn’t what I’m expecting at all.
“We can’t. We can’t be in love, Asher. I can’t.I won’t.”
