by Kreig, K. L.
“Oh, my God, Asher. That’s horrible,” she breathes, and I know she understands. While different circumstances, she’s suffered the same loss that I have. Then she rolls onto her back, encouraging us to change positions, so I am now lying on top of her.
With my head nestled on her stomach and my arms wrapped tightly around her, she strokes my hair, my back and quietly lets me cry the tears of anguish I’ve held inside for four long years.
Chapter 45
6 weeks later…
Alyse
“Thank you, detective. I appreciate the update.
“Yes.
“Please keep me informed.
“Thank you.”
I listen to Asher’s side of the conversation and know it’s about the class-one felony charges that were filed earlier this week against his CFO. The total funds embezzled were close to six hundred thousand dollars, occurring over a ten-month period of time and most of it has already been recovered, thankfully.
“What’s going on?”
“Reigen posted bail earlier today.”
“Well, we knew that would happen.”
“Yeah. Still chaps my hide that fucker isn’t going to be spending his nights on a cot being someone’s bitch.”
“Oh, I think he’ll get plenty of time to get used to that role. Four to fifteen years, to be exact.” I laugh, but he doesn’t. He frowns instead.
I turn back to the box I’m packing and we work in silence for the next few minutes.
“Is this box ready to go, baby?”
Every time he calls me that, my pussy tightens. I hope when I’m eighty, it still does. “Did you put the files from the bottom drawer in it?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Then it’s ready. You can tape it up.” I stand from the box I just finished securing, wipe my brow, and look around. My office is a mess of boxes and paper and…crap. I didn’t think I had this much stuff in here. It’s amazing what you accumulate over the course of a year.
“Did you talk to the landlord?”
“Yes. He has someone who’s interested in subleasing coming through on Tuesday. And Heather has the movers scheduled for next weekend.”
“She excited about moving to Chicago?” he asks, stacking the box he just taped up onto another. I admire the flex of his muscles as he lifts the heavy object. He looks delicious today in his black Foo Fighters T-shirt and faded jeans. The need to feel his two-day stubble scraping between my thighs is making me pulse with intense need. I want to strip every piece of clothing from him and have him fuck me against the wall. Hard.
“Alyse?” he asks, bringing me out of my lurid fantasy. Damn him.
“Uh, very. Her sister and three nieces live there, so she’s going to stay with them for a while until she finds a place. Her brother-in-law is in the military I guess and is stationed overseas for another three months, so she could use the help.”
“I’m glad she’s making the move,” he says, leaning his fine ass against the nearly bare desk. He crosses his arms, biceps bulging, and smirks as he catches me practically drooling. “Like what you see?”
“You know I do,” I retort, eyes silently challenging his.
“When is Tabitha planning to come?”
“She’s going to commute two days a week for now until they can sell their house. That may take a while in this market.”
He nods. “And Al? What did he decide to do?”
“Who cares?” I say, dropping the tape to the floor as I stalk toward him.
“I care. I want to be sure you’re staffed appropriately so you’re not working eighty hours a week. I’m selfish like that.”
“Wow,” I tease, running my hands underneath his untucked shirt, savoring the taut muscles contracting under my fingertips. “We’re adding selfish to the ever-growing list of notable personality traits, huh?”
“Yes,” he tries to answer, but it comes out as a hiss when my nails scrape his flat masculine nipples. His eyes dip to half-mast. I feel his growing erection against my lower belly. My core tingles, flooding with want. It’s heady to know I can bring a man like Asher Colloway to his knees with just a look or a simple touch.
“Fuck me,” I whisper, my lips finding the hollow of his throat. I don’t know if the movers are still outside in the main lobby or not, but I don’t care. Not like I’ll see them ever again. And my door is shut, so there is that.
His answer is to twine his fingers in my hair, yank me back, and take my mouth with claiming, branding force. His tongue invades, twisting with mine, our moans and breaths becoming one. My hands roam up and down his sinewy back, scratching lightly while his free hand snakes under my yoga pants and panties, palming my bare ass.
I groan when his fingers slip between my crack, toying with my forbidden entrance. He moves lower, dipping into my wetness before bringing a lubricated digit back, pushing it in slightly. He swallows a long moan that passes through my parted lips.
“I want you here,” he murmurs against the line of my throat, nipping his way upward toward my ear. The raw lust in his voice causes ripples of pure desire to implode every brain cell. “I need all of you. Soon, baby.”
No one has ever been there. I would never allow it. But hell if that’s all I can think about now. “Yes,” I grate, my body willingly, submitting to his fervent ministrations. “More,” I beg, not able to understand the incredible sensations I’m feeling at such an illicit act. As he pushes in further, my eyes roll back, my breath expelling on a rush, a low curse falling with it.
“You’re incredible, Alyse. Fucking incredible.”
“Fuck me. Now. Please.”
“Baby, you beg so nicely. Makes me so damn hard.”
His finger hasn’t stopped its relentless assault and I’m so close to coming, it will take one swipe on my clit to send me into the stratosphere. I almost whimper when he withdraws his hand from my pants, but he’s quickly peeling off my clothes, along with his, dumping them unceremoniously onto the matted carpeted floor. As usual, his smoky, desire-drunk eyes never stray from mine.
But mine briefly break away when I notice he’s stroking himself, circling the angry bulbous head, rubbing pre-come onto his silky soft shaft. Sweet baby Jesus. There is nothing fucking hotter than your man taking his throbbing cock into his own hand while you watch. My eyes raise, connecting once again with his stormy ones right before he palms the back of my head, pulling me roughly to his waiting mouth.
“Do you want my fingers, my mouth, or my cock, baby?” he whispers crudely against my kiss-swollen lips.
“Do I have to choose just one?” I pant, my hands now full of toned, taut ass cheeks.
He chuckles darkly against my goose-bumped flesh. “All three it is then, my greedy girl.”
Before I can think or respond, the cold metal of my desk bites into the naked flesh on my back, but the warmth of Asher’s mouth on my aching sex lights up the only nerve endings that matter.
Two, then three fingers stretch me, thrusting feverishly in and out as Asher’s talented mouth devours me, tongue circling and flicking. The instant I feel suction on my pounding clit, I shatter into a million, ecstasy-filled pieces, floating aimlessly for long seconds. I feel nothing but searing pleasure race through each molecule. I never want to leave this wonderland of sheer euphoria.
Dimly I become aware that I’m being lifted and pleasure crashes into me once again when I’m slammed down onto Asher’s thick, hard cock. He stills for a few seconds to let me adjust to his size. My legs dangle over the edges of my guest chair, which luckily for me doesn’t have arms. I always hated that…until now.
His hands snake under my arms and up my back, gripping my shoulders from behind. God, I love the way he completely dominates me, while putting me on a pedestal at the same time. It’s sexy as hell.
“Ride me, baby.”
I tilt my pelvis and roll my hips slowly back and forth, wanting to draw out his bliss.
“Yes, just like that. You’re a goddess, Alyse,” he moans.
I tighten my walls, silently rejoicing in the swell I feel as he nears his own release already.
“Fuck, I love the way you feel clenching around me.”
“Keep talking,” I beg, loving every naughty word. I clench again and gasp when he leans me back and picks up his pace, driving into me harder and faster. Just the way I love it. The way I need it.
“Come, sweet Alyse. Come undone around my cock.”
As I watch the pleasure rise in his blue eyes, almost like the tide, darkening and swallowing them, I’ve never wanted to simultaneously stave off an orgasm and have it wash me away at the same time. But his own moan of desire, combined with the slight bite of his teeth on my neck unravels me completely and I explode again headlong into pure, uncontrolled bliss. Asher’s grip tightens seconds before he follows, groaning as his own orgasm takes hold. I feel his release deep inside.
“When are you going to marry me?” he asks as we lay against each other panting, recovering from our mind-bending expression of our passionate love for each other. His fingers feather slowly across my back. I sigh in contented happiness.
This is a conversation we’ve had several times since New Year’s Eve. “I’m moving my business to Chicago and moving in with you, aren’t I?” And I even did it without a pros and cons list, because the only thing on that list that matters now is that’s where Asher is.
I declined Asher’s proposal to buy my business. I need to build its success myself before I can ever think of selling, and Asher’s already done so much to help with referrals that I’ve had to hire two more auditors to keep up. GRASCO did have some extra office space that I’m renting for a steal though, so I’ll be close to Asher every day.
“My mom’s not too happy we’ll be living in sin,” he jibes and we laugh, knowing it for the lie it is. Barb Colloway is over the moon thrilled that son number two is heading down the aisle soon. She’s made it pretty clear she wants loads of grandbabies. Sooner rather than later. Asher agrees.
“Well we don’t want Barb upset, do we?”
“No, we most certainly do not.”
“I always wanted to get married on a beach,” I say quietly.
“Then that’s what you’ll get, Alyse.” He gently sits me up so I’m looking at him. He’s still tucked inside me and I feel him growing thick again. “I’ll give you everything you want.”
“You already have,” I say, smiling, running a finger down his cheek. “You’ve given me you.”
“I want to give you my name, baby. I want everyone to know you’re mine.”
“I’m already yours. You’re an incredible man.” I lean forward to kiss his lips.
“Because of you. Now…a date?”
I’ve already looked at the calendar, trying to plan a date that will be after Livia gives birth, so they can travel. I can’t get married without my sister there. “July twenty-fifth.”
“July twenty-fifth? That’s months away,” he groans, beginning to thrust his hardness slightly, causing my eyes to float closed.
“We need to wait until after our nephews are born and I need time to plan. Find the perfect beach. Buy a dress. All that girlie stuff,” I pant, starting to lose my grasp on coherent thoughts, because all of my attention is now diverted south and focused on the way Asher’s cock is sliding slowly in and out of my very moist sex, each glide reigniting the sensitive nerves again.
“Okay. July twenty-fifth. Then you’ll be forever mine.” He grabs my hips and begins to drive into me slowly this time, his eyes daring me to stop him.
As if.
“I already am,” I tell him on a pleasurable sigh. “I already am.”
Epilogue
One day later…
Alyse
“You doing okay?” Asher asks, hand in mine, even though it’s shaky and clammy. He’s my strength. My rock. My steady.
No. “Yes.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go in with you?”
No. “Yes.”
“What about you, Liv? You holding up?” Asher catches Livia’s eyes in the rearview mirror. I turn my head to see she looks about as sick as I feel and she’s clutching Gray’s hand about as hard as I’m holding Asher’s.
“Good. I’m good.” She’s not.
Asher slows his SUV in front of a nice apartment building in Dearborn. We all sit there in silence, nerves thickening the air to almost claustrophobic levels. I pull at my turtleneck, wishing I’d worn something that didn’t threaten to choke the life out of me, because my own body is doing a stellar job of that on its own. My stomach churns wildly and I’m pretty sure I’m seconds away from having to open the door to vomit the meager contents of my stomach onto the snow-covered blacktop.
“You girls don’t have to do this, you know,” Gray announces. “We can come back another time when you’re ready.” Then I hear him add quietly, “I don’t want you to put any stress on the babies, Livvy.”
“The babies will be fine, Gray. They’re strong like their daddy.”
“No, they’re strong like you, angel. I want to go with you,” he murmurs.
“I need to do this by myself. Please. You’ll be right out here if I need you, right?”
“I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
“Let’s do this before I change my mind.” As if I haven’t done that fifty times already on the thirty-minute drive here.
We all open our doors, mine with a shaky hand, and within ten seconds Asher has my face in his hands. I grab his waist, holding on for dear life, trying to stop my body from shivering with anxiety. “I love you, baby. I’ll be right here waiting.”
“Thank you for doing this. I know this isn’t…ideal.”
The pained look on his face kills me. “I’m not gonna lie. I don’t like the fact that he’s here and I have to stay outside, but I’m handling it. I trust you.”
I nod just as his lips descend on mine. “You’re mine,” he reminds me.
“Only yours,” I mumble as his mouth takes mine again in a possessive display of ownership.
Forcing myself to break the lip lock, when all I want to do is spend the day getting lost in Asher, I turn to see Livia waiting for me, Gray’s arm protectively around her waist.
“Ready?” she asks.
“As I’ll ever be,” I sigh.
She holds out her hand to mine and with a look back at our sexy men, we take the first steps toward the meeting I’ve been both anticipating and dreading in equal measure.
Beck was the intermediary to set up this little one-hour meet and greet with our mom. It surprised me to find out how close he and my mother really are and that she asked if Beck could be with her for moral support. Apparently at least she’s been a good mom to someone, and yes, as you can see I still have a little resentment securely stored inside. Forgiveness doesn’t happen all at once, but once you start the process it becomes easier.
Elaine and Roberto Mercado divorced two years ago, and according to Beck, the crux of their issues are currently about thirty steps away from her front door. After our father’s death, Roberto still didn’t want her to have anything to do with us. I guess she couldn’t live with that, but she never took steps to make it right either. Considering all this time apart from us, she was afraid of rejection. I try to put myself in her shoes. I suppose I can see where she’s coming from. I’ve been afraid of rejection almost my entire my life, so I try not to condemn her decisions.
I’m hoping this can be a new beginning, the next step to healing, to forgiving. To leaving the last of my past hurts behind me, because I have never been happier than I am now. I don’t want that last little bit of resentment weighing me down. It’s still a heavy burden on my soul and I want it gone.
I feel like I’ve found the other part of me. My heart and soul are both finally whole in ways I never thought humanly possible. Asher has healed me in ways he’ll never truly comprehend, but I also give myself credit, because I am the only one who can make the choice to be happy, to forgive. To live. He just finally gav
e me the reason to want to.
Our feet stop moving. We now stand at my mother’s closed burgundy door. Livia gives my hand a quick squeeze. I twist my head to look at her. Her smile strengthens me.
Even a month ago, I wasn’t ready for this, but Asher kept persistently convincing me I needed to keep my mind open to possibilities. He’s right, of course. Look how his persistency turned out for us.
“What’s Magic Eight have to say?” she asks, making us both chuckle.
“Cannot predict now,” I reply immediately, having every answer burned into my memory. I want to be optimistic that this will be the first step to building a relationship with my mother, but I also want to be realistic. I’m only human after all. Still in need of protecting my fragile heart.
“She’s never steered us wrong.”
“Nope. Never,” I quietly reply, remembering how Asher’s fate was suspended in the balance of a few shakes that first night.
With one last smile, I take a deep breath, raise my hand, and knock. Several moments later, the door opens and I’m looking at me, just an older version. I’m looking into my eyes. Watery, scared, chocolate-brown ones. I see Beck standing behind her in my peripheral, but am unable to tear my stare away from the woman standing in front of me to acknowledge him.
Then I break.
“Hi, Mom,” I choke, tears spilling over my lids in rivers.
Suddenly Livia and I are enveloped in her arms, all three of our bodies shaking from not-so-silent sobs, and all my faded childhood memories come rushing back in living color.
Her voice, her smell, her love wraps me in its warmth, comfort, and motherly embrace, and I decide that this is the only time that Magic 8 has ever failed me. Within ten seconds of setting eyes on my mother again, I know the answer to the question I asked her before I came would be decidedly different now.
