“I’m so nervous,” I confided in him, and his answer was to wrap his arms around my shoulders and pull me to his chest. He was as tall as Asher, which meant my face was right between his pecs, but his touch was like a big brother’s. One who cared what happened to me.
“You’re gonna do great, El,” he whispered. He gave me a squeeze, and then let go. His lips pulled into a huge smile. “Go dance your ass off.”
I saluted him. “Yes, sir.” He chuckled, and I smiled in response as he pushed me toward the exit. I’d lost another couple of minutes to get to Aleste’s, but it was so worth it. In a couple of words, Jax had made me feel much better about everything. I hadn’t been fired, and although my nerves were still there, I felt more confident about the competition tomorrow.
The cool evening air whacked me in the face, but I didn’t have time to wrap my jacket around my bare arms as I ran across the lot and to my car. My key was in my driver’s door, and I was turning it, just as, “We need to talk,” came from behind me. I jumped out of my skin and spun around, ready to defend myself. “Not gonna hurt you,” the voice said again. Asher’s voice. It was Asher. Shit.
“I don’t have time for this right now, Asher.”
He snorted. “Make time.”
I shook my head and faced my car. “I can’t. Seriously.” I opened my door and slid into my seat.
“You think I’m gonna forget about the fact that you’re a high school stripper?” Asher asked. “You can’t even fuckin’ grace me with five minutes to explain what the fuck you’re doing takin’ your clothes off for men two and three times your age?”
My eyes fluttered closed, and I sank in my seat. He wasn’t saying anything I didn’t already know and hadn’t told myself, but hearing it out loud was like taking a knife to the stomach. It hurt. Really fucking hurt.
“I really can’t do this right now.” I tilted my head back to look at him. “I have to go.”
Asher shook his head, his nostrils flaring. “I should have goddamn known better.” He stepped back and gripped the edge of my door. “Why the fuck did I think kissing a stripper was a good idea?”
I leaned back in my seat as all the air seemed to escape my lungs. “I’m not just a stripper,” I whispered.
“I fuckin’ know that now,” he gritted out, and his tone was one that had me on high alert. The kind of tone which told me a threat was imminent. I’d taken it from everyone around me: my mom, her boyfriend, Knox. And I was sick and tired of being their punching bag. I was done with letting another person make me feel like shit with just their words.
I stared up at Asher, narrowing my eyes at him. “You only kissed me,” I whipped out. “It’s not like you fucked me, or even married me.” His eyes swirled with something I couldn’t place, but right then, I didn’t care. I wasn’t afraid to stick up for myself. I wasn’t afraid to say what I was thinking. I wasn’t afraid to be me. “Get down off your goddamn high horse, Asher. This isn’t about you.”
He opened his mouth and closed it, and I wasn’t sure what to make of the move. Had I made him speechless? Did he not expect me to talk to him like that? My hands started to shake the longer he stared at me, and for a second, I doubted what I’d said and the way I’d said it. “You know what?” He let go of my door and stepped back, each of his movements calm and calculated. “You’re right.” I blinked, waiting for him to continue. “It was just a kiss. It’s not like I’ll see you again anyway.” He chuckled, but it was a sad-sounding laugh. “Let’s just both forget it ever happened, yeah?”
My stomach churned at the thought of forgetting the way his lips felt against mine. Or not remembering the way his body pressing against mine made me feel safe and wanted. I didn’t want to forget—I wouldn’t forget. But it wasn’t like we could do it again. My two worlds had collided, and I couldn’t hide from it any longer. I couldn’t separate them in my mind, not if Asher was involved in any way.
And besides, I had Knox. Knox should have been the only person I was thinking about. So, I nodded at Asher and pulled my car door closed, shutting him away from me both physically and mentally. I could feel his eyes burning a hole in the side of my head as I turned the ignition and the engine rattled to life, but I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at him.
We both had to walk away before it was too late. Too late to walk away. Too late to turn our backs. Too late to acknowledge our spark could turn into a roaring flame.
ASHER
I threw my fist at the punching bag and swung my leg at it, wincing as my foot connected with the leather the bag was coated in. I’d been running through MMA moves for the last two hours, needing to consume my mind with something other than what had happened over the last week. I wasn’t even sure why I was so consumed by it—by her. She’s taken up space in my head she had no right to, and it felt impossible to erase her from it.
I stepped back from the bag and wiped a towel over my face as I tried to get my breathing back down to normal. I trained in the same gym I had when I was a kid, and although I didn’t take part in the fights anymore, I did help my old coach out with some lessons for the younger students from time to time. But today was all about me. Today was me venting my frustrations out in a way that wouldn’t hurt anyone else.
“You only kissed me. It’s not like you fucked me, or even married me. Get down off your goddamn high horse, Asher. This isn’t about you.” Her words echoed over and over in my brain, and I wondered if I was acting insane. We’d kissed—once. And okay, she hadn’t been honest with me, but had I even asked? We’d only had two real conversations, but I’d felt something. My stomach churned when I thought about her, and my lips pulled up into a smile when I looked at her. There had been something there. Something I hadn’t felt before, at least not in this way.
But now it wouldn’t be anything. Now I just had to pretend like we’d never met. It wasn’t an impossible act. I could do it. I just didn’t want to. Fuck. My mind was a scrambled mess, and I had no idea how to make it right again.
I glanced around the gym, seeing only one other kid in here training, and decided I needed to get out of here. I needed to relax my mind and focus on shit I needed to get done. Like clearing out the empty apartment above my shop. It was Sunday, the only day I closed the shop, and although I’d been taking extra clients, I’d put a stop to it because I was burning out. Maybe that was the reason I was overthinking this.
I grabbed my bag and water bottle off the floor, nodded at my old coach on the way out, and headed toward my truck. The gym was in my old neighborhood, and although I could have found a new place to train, nowhere ever felt like home the way this one did. I’d spent more hours here growing up than anywhere else, which was why, when I was at my most frazzled, I came here.
My truck roared to life, and I stared out of the windshield, looking at nothing in particular. I was zoning in and out, and I knew if I didn’t make sense of everything in my head, it would happen more and more. I needed to focus. Focus on the here and now and not the what-if and why.
I took off the handbrake and drove out of the lot and toward my shop. I passed my house on the way, but I didn’t stop. My body was sweaty, my workout gear wet in places, but I knew if I went home, I wouldn’t come back out, and all I’d do was overthink everything.
Even though it was Sunday, it was still a nightmare to find a parking space outside East Ink, so I ended up farther down the road. I pulled into the first space I could and didn’t bother to look around as I switched the engine off and got out of my truck. I was in a world of my own, on a mission to distract myself, so I didn’t hear someone calling my name the first time. But when a hand touched my arm, I froze. My immediate thought was to spin around and grab the offender’s arm, but I stopped myself, knowing I wasn’t in any danger.
“Asher?” a soft voice said. I blinked several times, trying to clear the fog descending over me. The face blurred in and out, and I stepped back so their hold on me would be gone. “You okay?”
“I…” I
shook my head and cleared my throat, realizing it was Aleste, the owner of the dance studio. She’d come to get a tattoo from Lara a few weeks back. “Hey.” My voice was rough, but I tried to lower it.
“You’ve gone really pale,” Aleste said, moving forward, and it caused me to take a step back. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like she was going to hurt me, but my instincts were kicking in. I’d been frazzled for a few days, and I knew it was because of Lotus—or Elodie. Whatever her name was. Fuck. I couldn’t even deny how beautiful her real name was, and I—
“Aleste?”
My head whipped around at the sound of her voice. What was she doing here? Why was she everywhere I turned? Why was she in my head and in front of me? Jesus, I couldn’t get away from her. I stared at her, but she was doing everything in her power to look anywhere but at me. Maybe she was thinking the same thing about me? Maybe she was wondering why I was everywhere too.
“Oh, sorry, Elodie.” Aleste laughed and rolled her eyes at herself. “Asher, this is my student, Elodie.” She waved her arm at Elodie, and it took everything within my power not to glance back over at her. We’d gone years without ever meeting, and now it felt like we saw each other all the time. The earth’s force was pushing us together, at least, that was what it felt like. Or maybe I was overthinking again. The latter was probably more accurate.
“Elodie, this is Asher. He owns East Ink.”
“You do?” Elodie asked, her tone shocked, and I couldn’t keep my focus on anything but her. She was a magnet, pulling my stare to her and refusing to let it go. How the hell could she have so much control over me when I barely knew her? Was Aleste aware that she was a stripper too? Or was that a secret? Or maybe Aleste was the one who taught her. I had so many questions, and I was afraid I’d never get the answers to any of them.
“I do,” I told her, widening my stance and pushing my shoulders back. “And you dance?”
“She does,” Aleste answered for Elodie, and I flicked my gaze to her. Her long, almost black hair was braided into two, and her pale face was covered in makeup. “You should see the way she dances.” Aleste sighed and placed her hand on her chest. “I’ve never seen anything like it. The emotion and the—”
“Okay, Aleste, he doesn’t want to know all of that,” Elodie cut her off, laughing. Her cheeks had reddened, and for some reason, the sight brought a smile to my face. Was she embarrassed over someone praising her?
“What?” Aleste asked, spinning around so fast she made me feel dizzy. “You just placed first in the competition! You need to celebrate.”
Elodie shrugged, her gaze meeting mine but then moving around the stores which lined the small street. “Doesn’t mean much, though,” she whispered. “It’s one of two, and you know the odds of getting a scholarship or job offer from attending two competitions are slim.”
“Slim, but not impossible,” Aleste told her, straightening her back. “You know I can help you enter more comp—”
“No.” Elodie shook her head, her stare meeting mine. This time she didn’t look away. This time she was communicating something to me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Had I heard something I shouldn’t have?
For the first time, I started to think about Elodie and not myself. I’d been so consumed with feeling fooled by her and her age, but I hadn’t once thought about why she was working at Pink Feather. It hadn’t occurred to me that there was a reason she was a high school student who felt the need to take her clothes off. I’d only thought about myself. The idea of being so selfish had my breath rush out of me.
“Don’t do that,” she spat, but I wasn’t sure whether she was talking to Aleste or me.
“You know I can help—”
“Don’t need or want handouts,” Elodie flung back as if she’d said the exact same thing a thousand times. A ringtone blasted through the air, and she lifted her cell up, stared at the screen, and huffed out a breath. “Can I leave my car here?”
There was a beat of silence, and then Aleste replied, “Sure.”
“I’ll come and get it later.”
“Okay,” Aleste whispered, and I turned to face her, seeing the sadness echoed in the features on her face. Aleste wanted to help Elodie. She’d wanted to say something, but Elodie had shut her down. Shut her out. And I was starting to understand how she ticked. She didn’t want nor need help. She did whatever she could for herself, and I found myself even more entranced with her.
Maybe I’d been too harsh with her? Maybe I’d overreacted. I opened my mouth, ready to tell her exactly that when a set of tires squealed to a stop a few feet away. My shoulders straightened, and I turned to face the newcomer, but I couldn’t see through the blacked-out windows. The SUV was high off the ground—almost as high as my truck—and the beats coming through the system blasted throughout the street.
“I have to go,” Elodie said, but her voice was different now. I’d never heard her talk like that. I’d listened to her voice when she was pissed, seductive, annoyed, nervous, but this…this was different, and it had the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end in warning.
She walked toward the SUV, but she had to move past me to get to the passenger door, and I couldn’t stop from reaching out to her. My fingers wrapped around her wrist, gentle but firm. She shivered at the touch and halted where she was in front of me. Her hair was pulled into a bun at the base of her neck, and I could see the soft-looking skin I craved to touch.
“Asher,” she whispered, but she didn’t turn to face me. It was as if she was bound not to look at me. “Let go.”
“Elodie,” I murmured her name, but I wasn’t sure what else to say. A thousand things entered my head, but I struggled to voice a single one of them.
“Please,” she begged, her shoulders drooping. “Not in front of him. Please.”
Him?
She pulled her wrist from my grip, and I let her go. I could have forced her to stay. Made her tell me what had changed between the time I got here to the time the car pulled up. But it wasn’t my place. I didn’t have a right to demand that of her, so instead, I watched her walk toward the SUV and pull the door open. All I got was a glimpse of the driver whose eyes were narrowed at me, and then Elodie got inside, slammed the door shut, and they were speeding away.
I stood there, watching the back of the SUV, not sure how I felt about the whole situation. Something was off.
“He’s not good for her,” Aleste whispered, and I felt her stand next to me. She sighed. “I wish she could see that.”
“Who was it?” I asked.
“Her boyfriend.”
Boyfriend? She had a boyfriend?
“Right,” I commented, shutting down everything I’d felt since the moment my gaze had set on her. It was another lie. A lie I shouldn’t have been surprised by. And it solidified in my mind that I had to stay away from her. Aleste was sure Elodie’s boyfriend wasn’t good for her, but I was almost certain Elodie wasn’t good for me. I’d had a lucky escape, and instead of wallowing, I should have been rejoicing.
So why did my chest fuckin’ ache? Why was the thought of someone else kissing her lips so goddamn aggravating? And why the hell couldn’t I get rid of the buzz I felt from touching her?
Chapter Eight
ELODIE
I wrapped my palm around my wrist, trying to keep the feel of Asher’s long fingers on me for longer, but it was no use. The moment he’d allowed me to pull my arm from his grip, the feeling had evaporated. His palm had felt like a brand on my skin, but there was nothing there. No sign he’d touched me. No mark from where he’d gripped me. Nothing. It was almost as if I’d imagined it. But I hadn’t. He touched me. He’d stopped me as I was walking toward Knox’s car. He’d wanted me to stay, right? There was no other reason why he would have touched me.
“Who was that guy?” Knox asked over the loud music. I moved to lower the volume, but he slapped my hand away.
“Ow!” I held my hand to my chest, gritting my teeth from the stinging pain. �
�What the hell, Knox?”
He spun the steering wheel to the right and slammed his brakes on, causing the two guys in the back to be shoved forward and bang into the back of our seats. They both groaned but didn’t say anything else as Knox turned his head slowly to face me. His nostrils flared, his lips in a straight line, and my entire body shivered. “Did I say you could touch my shit?”
I swallowed, my nerve leaving me. I rarely talked back to Knox, because when I did—His hand whipped out, grabbing the bun my hair was pulled into and yanking me toward him. I called out, hoping the guys in the back would intervene as he pulled me half over the center console, but neither of them said anything. They looked away, acting as if nothing was happening right in front of their faces. I shouldn’t have expected any less. I’d never met them before, so they must have been trying to get into his good graces, not that his followers from school would have stopped him either. No one ever stopped Knox from doing anything.
“Knox, please,” I begged, gripping his arm in an attempt to lessen the pull he had on my scalp.
“Who was he?” he asked a second time. “Who the fuck thought it was okay to put his hand on my girl? Huh?”
“Please,” I whispered, trying desperately not to let the tears slip from my eyes. If he saw them, he’d know he got to me, and the last thing I wanted was to show him any weakness.
“Tell me who the fuck he was, El.” His grip tightened, and I stared up at his face. He almost looked bored, but I could see the swirling in his dark eyes. The threat was clear, and I had to diffuse the situation.
Burned Duet: Asher & Elodie: Fast Burn & Deep Burn (Easton Family Duet Boxsets Book 4) Page 10
