Asher’s gaze slid from my face down to my neck and chest. His smile faded, and an electric shiver rippled down my spine.
Neither of us moved to close the door.
Tension swallowed our earlier levity, and I was suddenly conscious of how little I was wearing.
I hadn’t wanted to sleep in my workout clothes, so Asher had lent me one of his shirts. The vintage black tee hit mid-thigh. Underneath it, I wore my favorite lace knickers—and that was it.
No bra.
My nipples hardened to painful points beneath Asher’s scrutiny. His eyes darkened, and an answering pulse throbbed to life between my legs.
I wasn’t a casual fling person. I’d tried. They didn’t do much for me, so my vibrator and I had developed a close relationship over the years. Usually, it was enough, but right now, it wasn’t the thought of my Maximus 3000 Ultra that made my body sing with heat.
It was the thought of what Asher could do with his hands and mouth when his gaze alone turned me on.
It was the fantasy of me straddling him again—only this time, we were both naked.
It was the simmering attraction that had been building between us since we met, the one I’d done everything in my power to destroy, only to have it revive again and again like a phoenix from the ashes.
I wasn’t saying I wanted to date him or marry him, but I wanted him, and judging by the way his breathing shallowed, he wanted me too.
He took a step toward me. “Scarlett—”
The husky rasp of my name slapped me back to reality.
What the hell am I doing?
“Sorry again about the attempted murder, but I…I have to go back to sleep,” I blurted. “Early morning tomorrow. Talk to you later.”
I turned and beelined out of the kitchen before he could stop me.
It wasn’t until I’d safely locked the door and burrowed beneath the duvet that I realized I hadn’t grabbed a single thing to eat.
Good news: I was no longer hungry.
Bad news: My craving for food had morphed into a craving for something else.
After five minutes of tossing and turning, I gave in and pushed the covers to the side. The throb between my legs had intensified into a painful ache, and when I slipped a hand into my underwear, it was instantly soaked with my arousal.
I closed my eyes, lost to the pleasure and the montage of scenes unfolding in my head.
Asher opening the door and finding me like this, legs spread and fingers rubbing shamelessly over my clit.
Him climbing on top of me, his face half-shadowed by the relentless storm.
The weight of him pinning me down, the delicious stretch when he first enters me, the steel grip on my hips as he fucks me with long, hard strokes.
Oh God. My breath shallowed into pants. I rubbed faster, my skin slicked with sweat, but it wasn’t enough.
My other hand reached up to play with my nipple, and I kept my thumb on my clit while I pushed two fingers inside me.
A loud moan escaped. Fuck, that felt good.
It’d been so long since I got myself off manually, and the fact that I was doing it here, in my should-be enemy’s house, only made it hotter.
The slippery sounds of my fingers pumping in and out intermingled with the booms of thunder.
My pants came faster.
I was so close.
I could practically taste him on my tongue, a cocktail of sweetness and earthiness that made my head spin. I imagined it was his hand squeezing my breast, his fingers filling me up so well. The thunder was the slam of the headboard against the wall, and the blasts of cool air were his breaths on my skin.
It was wrong to imagine those things, but fantasies ran wild beneath the cover of night, and once they broke free, there was no holding them back.
My orgasm hit with blinding ferocity. White lights burst behind my eyes, and I was falling, falling into an abyss where there was only warmth and pleasure and an unbearable sensation of lightness.
I lay there, sweaty and breathless, until the world eventually returned in bits and pieces.
I’d taken the edge off, but as I finally drifted off to sleep, a pang of unfulfilled need remained, filling my dreams with images of dark hair and green eyes.
CHAPTER 14SCARLETT
I snuck out of the house the next morning like a coward.
When I woke up, the storm had passed and Asher was (presumably) still asleep, so I changed, placed his shirt in the laundry, and texted him a thank you before I hauled ass out of there.
