When I come something moves inside me, a seismic shift. I hump his hand to wring out the last flickers of pleasure. He pulls his hand away before I’m done, and I moan.
Two fingers pull through my wetness, gathering it. He spreads it over his cock. The proof of my desire glistens on his ruddy flesh. He fucks his slickened fist, grunting in a way that’s more animal than man.
“I’ll make you dirty,” he says, his voice low like this is a solemn promise. “I’ll make you fucking dirty on the bathroom floor. Make you come so hard you don’t know your name, but when we’re done you’re coming home with me. You got that? You’re mine.”
Mine. I should tell him no. I should fight him, but I don’t want to win that battle.
I want to lose.
“Yes,” I whisper.
Triumph lights his eyes, and he lifts me up. Something blunt nudges at my sex. That’s the only warning I get before he thrusts inside me. His hands are firm across my ass, thrusting me forward and back, impaling me on his length. It’s too much. Too fast. The only thing I can do is throw my arms around his shoulders and hold on. I press my face into his neck, breathing in the salt-sweat scent of him.
“Again,” he demands, his muscles straining. He’s in the middle of his own earthquake.
“I’m yours,” I say, made breathless by his thrusts. And then louder.
“Again. Fucking again. Fucking forever.”
“Yours.”
It’s too soon for me to come again. My body is pliant and sated, only here to help Asher come. That’s what I think until he changes the angle. His cock jabs at some place inside me, insistent, almost painful, and then my legs start to shake. “Wait, wait, wait,” I cry, but that only makes him do it faster.
“Come,” he mutters, his face pressed into my neck. “Fucking milk me. I want to feel you come around me, want you to gush on my dick. Want to feel it dripping down my balls. Fucking do it.”
The words are hard and coarse, and that’s what makes me climax. My whole body clenches down, giving him exactly what he wanted, an impossible squeeze, the spill of arousal. His roar bounces off the tile. He grasps me against his body, hard enough to leave ten finger-shaped bruises on my ass.
We pant in the aftermath, me clinging to him, him holding me back.
“Again,” he says, his voice almost slurred.
I turn my face against his, loving the way his bristle scratches my cheek. “Yours.”
His lids are heavy, eyes flashing black. “I’ve been waiting for you, June Li.”
A shiver runs through me. The good daughter wasn’t only obedient. She was also kept guarded. It was a way of keeping myself alone. Until him. He climbed the tower.
He carried me down.
I drop my hand down his broad chest, and there in the ripple of muscle, in the coarse hair, over the flat of his male nipples, I write my own four letters. MINE.
Asher Cook is hard and crude and dirty. I’ve spent my whole life locked away. I’ve been waiting for you, he said, but I think I’ve been waiting for him, too. He’s the only man who’s ever seen through the cable knit sweaters and plaid slacks. The only man with the determination to peel away my layers to the surrender underneath.
His broad chest rises and falls in even breath, a blank canvas for what comes next. A dark gaze meets mine. So still and so patient. So determined it makes me shiver, because he fills his life with beautiful things. A Tudor house with ivy climbing the side.
A painting of cherry blossoms in full bloom.
And me, because I belong to him now.
I’m his, and he’s mine.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The blooms may be delicate, but cherry blossom trees are strong. The oldest tree is 2,000 years old, with a trunk perimeter over forty feet.
It becomes a regular thing—the way he takes me to his worksites. The way he corners me in a bathroom or a storage closet and has his dirty way with me.
The way I surrender to his every demand.
He makes the most money on his massive development contracts, skyscrapers and shopping centers and monolithic parking garages. Modern lines and materials. His heart belongs to the restoration projects, such as the theater with a rather illicit past.
He pulls into a wide cobblestone drive and past the fountain with a beautiful sculpture. Then to the back, where a couple of black SUVs are parked. A man leans against the side, his muscles bulging in a black T-shirt, black cargo pants molded to his legs, one booted foot crossed over the other. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s dangerous.
Asher insists that I wait for him to open my door, a sort of old-world chivalry at odds with the filthy way he treats me when we’re alone. He introduces me to the man as his fiancée, pausing to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the side of my neck. My cheeks heat at the intimate gesture in front of a stranger.
“Blue Eastman,” he says, his cerulean eyes alight with amusement.
“Do you own the Grand?” I ask, curious about the place that has been the subject of intense rumors. In its heyday it was one of the largest theaters in the South, hosting orchestras and operas of international renown. Its owners went bankrupt during the depression, leaving the building abandoned. It was then made into a glittering strip club, a dark and glamorous place.
Only very recently was it renovated and turned back into a theater. Many people in Tanglewood society accepted the venue into its fold, delighting in the scandalous past and the high-quality shows it brought to the city. Others, like my father, continued to snub it, so I never attended.
Blue shakes his head, his lips quirked. “No, I can’t claim that honor. I’m head of security here.” He glances at Asher meaningfully. “That’s why I called you. One of the performers has her own entourage. They’ve made some requests to change our protocols, as well as to the structure.”
“Bet you love that,” Asher says with a familiarity that makes me wonder if Blue was still head of security when the Grand was a strip club—and if Asher had visited as a customer back then.
“The recommendations are sound,” Blue admits. “Especially with the level of celebrity we’ll be dealing with for this tour. Not only the musicians but the patrons. They’re premiering the tour here so we’ve got A-listers clamoring for the boxes.”
“You’re saving a couple seats near the front for us, of course,” Asher says, in a mild tone that says he isn’t making a request; it’s mandatory.
“Of course,” Blue says, his tone sardonic.
“Is this the Harry March tour?” I have a whole playlist on my phone dedicated to Harry March, the celebrity tenor who’s topped the pop music charts and been in the tabloids.
“He’s headlining,” Blue confirms, “but he won’t be the only one. There’s a couple of gymnasts from Cirque du Monde. A Juilliard-trained pop star. A child prodigy in violin.”
“And Beatrix Cartwright,” I say, recalling that fact from the Life & Arts section of the newspaper. She lives in Tanglewood, but she’s very reclusive. Very mysterious. “Oh, I’m so excited to see her.”
“Then let’s see about these changes,” Asher says, planting a gentle kiss on my forehead. “You’ll be fine on your own a few minutes?”