Asa

by Jay Crownover

  “Remember, you were the one that told me some games are always better with two people.” I felt like I should remind her that she started this with her clever hands in the burlesque club.

  I think she could feel all the coiled readiness I was harboring because she simply let out a long breath and reached for my belt. She made short work of it and of my zipper, her touch light as her fingers brushed against the rigid erection she released. The chocolate in her eyes was all melted and warm when she told me, “There is no one else, Asa.”

  I couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement but either way the answer was no. There wasn’t anyone else in my bed and there wasn’t anyone else that could chase the dark away and cut some of those iron ties to the past so I was light enough to move toward her. “There is no one else, Royal.”

  She smiled at me and again I felt something inside me break and then fuse together in a better way. “Good, because that means we don’t need to use protection.”

  She turned around, wiggled herself out of her clingy shirt so that she was in front of me in nothing but her bunched-up skirt and miles of mahogany hair cascading down her back. For a split second I wondered if I had died again and this was what my heaven looked like. I reached out a hand to move her long curtain of hair aside so that I could sweep my hand down the flawless curve of her spine. I stepped closer so that I could kiss the back of her neck, which made her mewl softly and rub her naked backside against my throbbing cock. There was no more talking after that. There was no more trying to convince her of anything because she knew I wanted her and she wanted me, too. The time for any kind of games was long over.

  I stepped up close behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist so that I could bend her over just enough that I could hold her where I wanted her. I spread her legs farther apart with my own and urged her to brace her hands on the couch cushions in front of her. She gave me a speculative look over her shoulder and I just smiled at her with a lot of teeth. She bit down on her lower lip and I groaned as her hair slid in a sexy fall across one of her shoulders. Everything about her was some kind of perfect, so I needed to focus on doing exactly what she told me to do and appreciate everything about every single moment I got to have with her.

  I pressed in close, heard her mumble in pleasure as my dick glided along her slick folds. I was moving fast but she was clearly ready, and nothing was sexier than that. I pressed in, felt her hips tilt back to meet me, and suddenly I was engulfed in all her sweet fire and heat. I let out a litany of swearwords as her body immediately clamped down on mine while I pulled back out and slid back in. I didn’t want to rut into her, didn’t want to pound against her in a reckless and thoughtless manner. But the combination of being inside of her without anything between her quivering flesh and my own, and the way she kept looking over her shoulder at me and urging me on with her hot gaze, was too much temptation to withstand.

  I clamped her to me, thrust against her until the couch moved, and closed my eyes as I was sucked into a vortex of things that felt too good and too powerful to name. At some point I thankfully remembered I had a free hand that wasn’t holding her up and let it find its way to that hidden place between her legs. She was slippery and slick. She was hot and tight. She was as close to the edge as I was, so all it took was one swirl with my index finger and one little pinch between my thumb and forefinger to send her over. As soon as she gasped my name and broke across me in a flood of release and ecstasy, I was quick to follow.

  It was an orgasm that started at the bottom of my feet and blazed a trail up my legs until it hit my lower spine and nearly had me collapsing on top of her as we both fell forward onto the couch. I had to move so I didn’t crush her and that ended up with both of us lying with our legs dangling over the edge, half dressed, her back to my chest as we both panted and tried to catch our breath. I’d never been with anyone so fully before and it felt different. Not just on a physical level, but an emotional level as well. I smoothed my hands over her flat stomach and blinked dumbly up at the ceiling.

  “You’re right. There are really great things in this moment.” I wanted it to be flirty and fun like I usually was after sex, but I could hear the longing in my own voice.

  She put her hands on top of mine as we just lay there and absorbed what had changed between us tonight. “Every moment is what you make of it, Asa.”

  I was starting to wonder if there would ever be enough moments between her and me because so far they were some of my favorites … even the bad moments with her had been better than great moments I had shared with anyone else.

  CHAPTER 14

  Royal

  “So you and my brother, huh?” I had been preparing myself for this conversation all night long. So far I had been lucky, most of the evening was taken up by talk of babies and Ayden catching up with the rest of the girls, but I knew there was no way to avoid this subject all night.

  Shaw and Cora had lost themselves in mommy business, Salem was in deep conversation with Sayer, who was her boyfriend Rowdy’s sister. She was quizzing the elegant-looking blond woman about the current condition of her own sister, who had bailed on girls’ night, which apparently wasn’t uncommon, as Poppy rarely left the house for anything other than work, according to Salem. Saint had sent me a text an hour ago that she would try and make it, but there had been an emergency at the hospital, a little boy rushed into the ER with severe burns over most of his body. So even if she did get out of work in time for a drink, she probably wasn’t going to want to hang out at the Bar with the rest of us. All of that led to Ayden seeing her opportunity to ask me about what was going on between me and Asa, and moving in for the kill.

  Her eyes were the exact same burnt-amber color as Asa’s, which was a little disconcerting as she stared steadily at me. I couldn’t tell if she asked the question wanting a simple answer or an explanation, or if she was just stating the fact that I was, indeed, sleeping with her brother on an extremely frequent basis. I cleared my throat a little nervously and rolled the beer bottle I was holding between my palms.

  “I like him.” I winced a little as her black eyebrows danced upward, and gave her an awkward shrug. “I care about him a lot.” As it was, I was well on the way to being head over heels in love with him, even if the ride was giving me whiplash. I never knew which Asa I was going to get when I went over to his place after the Bar closed or when he appeared at my door during the night. Sometimes it was the fun and flirty charmer just out for pleasure and good times. Sometimes it was the quiet and brooding boy stuck in the past, obviously choking on regret and remorse but unwilling to move past it. Sometimes it was the rough, demanding man that wanted more than I was ready to give him, the man that still liked to push and play games. Sometimes it was the sharp-minded man that was obviously meant for other things than bartending in a dive.

  I tolerated all of those different versions of him because more often than not I got the guy I wanted to be with forever. The witty, too-smart-for-his-own-good, devilishly and effortlessly endearing version of Asa that only made an appearance when he forgot to worry about all the things he had done and ignored all the ways this undeniably significant thing between us could go wrong. That guy made putting up and navigating around all the other ones worth the time and effort even if he only appeared every once in a while.

  “Caring about Asa can be a draining task.” Ayden’s voice was raspy, made even more so by the tequila she had been downing at a steady pace for most of the evening. If I’d had as much to drink as her, I would be on the floor in a fetal position under a table. Ayden didn’t even seem buzzed while her eyes were intent on mine. I could feel her weighing and sizing up how she felt about my involvement with her older sibling.

  “It can be.” But when the Asa I wanted to love was around, it was so worth the exhaustion.

  Both of us turned to look at the bar, where Asa was watching our exchange with narrowed eyes. The Bar was pretty busy, so Dixie and the new girl, Becca, had been taking care of us
for most of the night. He had stopped by to hug his sister and to plant a hard kiss on my mouth with a warning look at Ayden before he headed back to the bar. It was a statement that couldn’t be missed. I knew she was going to want to weigh in on the situation, but so far it hadn’t really gone like I expected. Instead of the third degree or blatant disapproval, she seemed oddly curious as she watched me watch him.

  “I worry about him all the time still.” The corner of her mouth tilted up in a grin. “Every single day I have to fight with myself not to call and check up on him. Leaving him here just when things were starting to fall in place for him was one of the hardest things I have ever done.”

  I cleared my throat a little and shifted on the chair. “He seems pretty adept at taking care of himself, and one of his biggest fears is that he’s going to disappoint you again, so it keeps him on the straight and narrow.”

  She puffed out a breath and her bangs fluttered over her winged brows. “He’s a survivor for sure, but there is a difference between merely getting by and living the life you’re supposed to live. I had no idea how love was supposed to look or feel until I met Jet. I wasn’t living a full life until he gave me the strength to let go of everything else.”

  Her eyes flared hot, gold just like Asa’s did when he was excited about something. I was a tiny bit jealous that just saying her man’s name had that effect on her.

  “I want Asa to do more than survive, Royal. I want him to finally be happy for once in his life. I want him to do more than just get by. I want him to have something that is his and his alone that he doesn’t ever feel like he has to fight for.”

  I gulped a little bit as emotion started to clog my throat. I set my almost empty beer down on the table in front of me and twisted my fingers together. “He has all of that within his grasp, but his hands are too busy holding on to the past and reaching for the future to grab on to it.”

  She opened her mouth and then snapped it closed as she leaned back in her chair. She crossed her arms over her chest, covering up the Valkyrie straddling a flaming guitar and the word ENMITY as she did so. The shirt with the ripped-off sleeves that showed the sides of her black bra seemed out of place with her pointy red cowboy boots, but it was Ayden, so she rocked it and looked perfect doing so.

  She shook her dark head. “I know he is. I was hoping that since he can’t stop staring at you, and keeps looking at me like he wants to drop-kick me across the bar, maybe you had convinced him to let some of that go. We can’t go back in time and we can’t predict the future. He’s living in suspended animation.”

  I shifted again as the jukebox switched to an old Christina Aguilera song, which had several middle-aged ladies climbing up from the table they were sharing and doing some serious booty shaking. It made me grin even though the topic of conversation wasn’t exactly cheerful.

  “Every once in a while he puts it all away, and every now and again I feel like he’s reaching for a lifeline to stop himself from sinking. It gives me enough hope that I’m willing to stick around and see how it all plays out.”

  She ran her finger around the rim of her shot glass and licked the salt off. “What are you going to do if you ever have to lock him up again? He’s a trouble magnet. Even when he’s trying to keep his nose clean.”

  I sighed and shoved my hands through the front of my hair. “I keep telling myself I’ll cross that bridge if I ever come to it.” I leaned closer to her when the dancing women moved a little closer and their laughter got loud enough that I had to talk over it. “Did you know he was willing to do time, to sit in jail for a crime he didn’t even commit because he’s so twisted up on the inside about everything that happened before? How can someone even function with that kind of guilt filling them up?”

  My voice caught and I let out a shuddering breath. I started a little when Ayden’s hand reached out and landed on top of the fists I hadn’t even been aware I was making. I mean I knew about guilt and the way it could affect a person’s thinking. My own guilt had kept me away from Dom when he needed me most, but I let it go when I realized it was poisoning everything in my life. I would always feel bad for what happened that night in the alley and I would never get over seeing Dom fall, but it couldn’t be the only moment that defined my life or my career. I needed Asa to realize everything he was missing by refusing to let go.

  Ayden’s fingers squeezed mine, and I had to squeeze back because she was the only other person alive that could understand how hard caring for a man like Asa could be.

  “That’s why I worry. All he’s done since I brought him to Denver is function. Nothing more and nothing less. That’s no way to live. But now he watches you like you matter, like he’s worried I’m going to scare you off with all the stories of his past misdeeds. So I have hope, a thin, tiny thread of hope that there is finally something out there in the world that he’s going to realize he has to wake up and live for.”

  I looked over my shoulder toward the bar. He was leaning against the top and talking to a really good-looking man that had a dark beard and colorful tattoos scrolling up the side of his neck. Asa was obviously deep in conversation with the guy, but his eyes were locking on our table and I could tell he was watching me and Ayden intently. I gave him a little grin to let him know everyone was going to make it out alive and I saw his shoulders fall a little as a bit of the tension left him. I turned back to Ayden and tilted my chin up in a defiant manner.

  “I want to wake him up.”

  She laughed, a warm and rough sound that matched her whiskey-tinted gaze. “Atta girl.”

  Suddenly Cora stood up from the other side of the table and clapped her hands together. It was amazing that just a few extra weeks had led to her looking actually pregnant in other places than her boobs. Her face had rounded out a little and her tiny midsection had the barest hint of an actual baby belly starting to show. She was probably the cutest, most rock-and-roll expectant mom in the world and I didn’t miss the way Salem stared at that little bump with open envy.

  “We should dance.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder to where the older ladies were still getting their groove on in an uncoordinated and messy show of undiluted joy. “That’s going to be us one day, ladies. Escaping the men and children at home so we can have a night out to ourselves.” She laughed. “Granted we’ll be more colorful and have better haircuts, but that’s so going to be us.”

  Sayer held up her hands and rose to her feet. She was ridiculously classy and looked like she had just left the courtroom. “Sorry, but I don’t dance, ever.” She pushed some of her perfectly sleek blond hair over her shoulder and looked at the bar. Something in her blue gaze shifted and at first I thought she was looking at Asa, which made me scowl, but when I turned around I noticed the bear of a man at the bar had shifted in his seat and the two of them were locked in an unwavering stare-off. “Um, I’m just going to go tell Zeb hi really fast.”

  Somehow saying hi had never sounded so much like “strip naked and fuck on the bar.” That was a lot of sexual tension happening and it was thick enough to fill the space separating the two of them. With the modern-day-mountain-man look Zeb was sporting and the clearly defined muscles straining against his plain, white T-shirt, I couldn’t say I blamed her. There was always something appealing about a man that looked like he could take care of business, no matter what that business might be.

  Ayden pulled me to my feet and I suddenly found myself not only in the middle of bumping and grinding but also doing shots. The night faded into a blur of drinks and laughter, more dancing—who knew Ayden was a two-stepping machine?—and a lot of hugging, and hushed talk of what it was like to have sex with a guy that was pierced “down there.” It sounded like a whole lot of fun, but I would take a guy that whispered dirty, sexy things to me with a southern drawl over a guy with metal in his junk any day. There was also a lot of gushing about their men and babies, and of course everyone had to grill Cora on when she was actually gonna tie the knot. It was so much fun I couldn’t believ
e I had ever been hesitant to throw myself all in with this entire group. For someone that had never had friends, that had never really been comfortable around other girls like this, I hit it out of the park by being so fortunate to land with this crew.

  Since Cora and Shaw couldn’t drink because of all the mommy stuff in their lives, they were tasked with getting Ayden and Salem back to their men in one piece. Sayer had slipped out at some point when we were all rocking out to Guns N’ Roses without saying good-bye. Though I could have easily hitched a ride with the other girls, Asa sent Dixie over while I was shimmying and shaking to an Eminem song to tell me that he wanted me to hang out until he was done closing the bar and that he fully expected me to go home with him. Uh, yes, please.

  I told her to tell him that was fine, but if I was going to stick around he needed to make it worth my while. His response had been to send his bearded friend over with another round of shots and the order to keep me company and keep me out of trouble until he was done working.

  Surprisingly, Zeb was really nice and superfunny beneath his intimidating appearance. I liked the way his emerald eyes glittered with easy humor and the way his teeth flashed straight and white in his ruggedly handsome face. Not to mention those muscles he had for days were drool-worthy and totally worth checking out every time they flexed as he brought the beer bottle up to his mouth. I had to give it to Sayer, she had good taste. He seemed fascinated by the fact I was a cop and asked me a hundred questions about my job. At some point in the conversation he mentioned that he had served time, which normally would have made me uncomfortable and turned the conversation awkward, but he was so open about it and so matter-of-fact that I just rolled with it and went on to ask him how he knew Rowdy’s sister.

  Bringing up the icy-looking blonde shifted the mood of the conversation from mellow to something more intense. He told me Sayer had hired him to fix up her crumbling Victorian. He was obviously interested in the pretty lawyer and seemed slightly annoyed by the fact. It was really cute—well, as cute as a guy that was as masculine and burly as Zeb could be. We chitchatted until Dixie wandered over and told us that she was done and wanted to lock the door on her way out. Zeb told her he would walk her to her car as we all got to our feet.