Please don’t be asleep yet.
If she wasn’t up and I waited to say what I had to say, I might lose my nerve and we would end up right back in limbo. That couldn’t happen.
I knocked on her door.
Once. Twice.
My pulse was a relentless anvil against my veins, and the hammering worsened when Scarlett answered the door.
She was still wearing her dress from dinner, but she was barefoot and makeup free.
Her eyes widened. “Asher? What are you—”
She didn’t get a chance to finish her question before I stepped forward, grabbed the back of her neck, and crushed her mouth to mine.
Her gasp of surprise traveled into my lungs, and there was a taut, suspended moment when I thought she might push me away.
But then her gasp turned into a moan, and her lips parted for mine, and I knew nothing would be the same ever again.
CHAPTER 22SCARLETT
The second Asher’s lips touched mine, I was lost.
Every argument for why I should push him away, every piece of logic that’d kept us at arm’s length for the past two months crumbled like a sandcastle beneath a tidal wave.
We stumbled into my flat, our hands tearing at each other’s clothes, our mouths hot and desperate with want.
It was nothing like our first kiss.
Our first kiss had been an exploration, a dip into the world of what if. What if we gave into our attraction? What if we said fuck it and did what we wanted, consequences be damned?
This kiss…this kiss was an explosion. Every guardrail I’d constructed, every promise I’d made to myself, incinerated with one touch.
I heard the dim thud of my door slamming shut, but it was so far outside my realm of focus that it might as well have occurred galaxies away.
Asher’s hands burned a path down my back to the curve of my ass, and another gasp escaped when he lifted me with the ease of someone picking up a rag doll.
Electric shivers rippled down my spine, and I instinctively wrapped my arms and legs around him as he carried me to my room without breaking our kiss.
My flat had one bedroom and the door was open, so he didn’t have to guess where to go. Every step added to the need building between my legs; by the time we passed through the doorway, I was nothing more than a bundle of anticipatory pleasure strung together with lust.
Asher pulled his mouth away from mine. I let out an involuntary whimper of protest, which elicited a soft chuckle as he laid me on the bed with exquisite, agonizing care.
“Don’t worry, darling.” The words feathered over my skin like tiny caresses. “We haven’t even started yet.”
My entire body tightened at the dark promise in his voice. I watched, blood thrumming, as he shed his trousers and boxer briefs.
We’d lost my dress and his shirt somewhere between the living room and bedroom. I was clad in my black lace bra and thong set—the one I always wore for first dates—and Asher was…well, he was naked.
The most glorious, mouthwatering type of naked a girl could dream of.
If I hadn’t been lying down, my knees might’ve buckled from the sheer visual pleasure standing before me.
Broad shoulders. Tapered waist. Abs like chiseled marble. And those thighs. They looked like they could crush a freaking watermelon.
My belly fluttered with a fresh wave of need.
I’d never admit it, but I’d always thought footballers had the best physique out of any athletes. Slim yet muscular, light yet powerful.
Asher proved all my theories right.
My eyes tracked a light dusting of hair—down, down, past the ridges of his abs all the way to his arousal.
The air evaporated from my lungs. My God. Even his cock was beautiful. Long and thick, perfectly proportioned to his body, its tip already leaking pre-cum.
Another soft laugh interrupted my greedy perusal.
“Close your mouth, sweetheart,” Asher drawled. “There’s plenty of time for that later.”
A flush worked its way from my face to my toes at the insinuation. However, my embarrassment faded when he approached me, his eyes dark with a mixture of heat, amusement, and something else that slotted between my rib cage like a key into a lock.
It wasn’t my first time having sex, but the lead-up had never felt like this—like I was teetering on the precipice of something that could upend my entire world if I let it.
And I wanted to let it. That was the scariest part.
I’d tried so hard to prevent myself from getting to this point. Every time I gave in over the past two months, I immediately pulled back, but one side had to win the tug-of-war between my heart and mind.
