Between Hello and Goodbye(41)

A loaded question. I answered with a safe reply that wasn’t: I want you to take me on this table right now…

“I was just thinking about how I came here to break my bad habits with men, and yet I’ve been letting you take care of me, twenty-four seven.”

The furrow between Asher’s brows arrived right on schedule.

“Not this again.” He shook his head. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. Despite my best efforts, you pay for more than half of our activities. And it’s not about money anyway.”

“Then what’s it about?”

“Give and take,” he said. “I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like when you were with those other guys, you did more of the taking.”

“All of the taking.”

“That’s not the case here.”

“It’s not? We’re not even sleeping together. What are you getting out of this deal?”

“You.”

I sat back in my chair. “Me.”

“Yeah, Faith.” His gaze grazed over me, then met my eyes with an intensity that was full of depth and heat. “I get you.”

Damn him.

Worse than the no-sex, this was far from the first time he’d said something that made my heart feel strange. As if I’d been starving it for years, and now it was gorging on Asher Mackey until it was warm and satisfied in a way it hadn’t been before.

This is bad. Real bad.

My fork clattered to my plate. “I can’t take it anymore.”

Asher blinked. “Sorry?”

“What are we doing? This. You and me. What are we doing?”

“Having dinner,” he said, his voice low.

“Stop that,” I said. “Stop being so…unflappable. You can’t just say the incredible things you say to me and then eat your scampi as if we’re discussing the weather.”

“Faith—”

“I’m supposed to be here fixing myself, remember? Not fall—” I huffed a breath and took a sip of wine. “Never mind. Forget it. I’m fine.”

Calmly, Asher sat back, turning his glass around by the stem. “I’ve never spent this much time with a woman and not slept with her. Being with you, talking to you…” His eyes met mine over the table. “I don’t want to stop. I have three twelve-hour shifts and a twenty-four coming up, and I’m already thinking about how I can see you as much as possible in between.”

“Before I leave, you mean.” I shook my head. “This…whatever we’re doing, is nuts. Isn’t it?”

He nodded, his expression hard. “But I can’t help myself around you. I know, rationally, we’re different people. There’s a literal ocean between us, and yet…” He reached across the table to take my hand. “I don’t see how this can go anywhere, but the last fucking thing I want to think about is saying goodbye.”

Oh God…

No man had ever said something like that to me before. No man had looked at me the way Asher Mackey looked at me. I wanted to live in that reflection. Bask in it. Drown in it.

So I did the logical thing: I snatched my hand away, stood up, and limped out of the restaurant.

I went around to the side and leaned against the stucco wall. The air was warm and did nothing to snap me out of my emotional freefall. My entire body was trembling, and I hugged my elbows.

After a minute, Asher rounded the corner. “You could’ve just told me it was my turn to get the check.”

I whirled on him. “We need to sleep together.”

He froze. “We do?”

“Yes.”

“Now?”

“Right now.”

His eyes darkened and he exhaled a ragged breath. “I thought we had rules,” he said, even as he moved closer. “No kissing, no getting naked—”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“Faith—”

“I can’t do this anymore!” I cried. “This…chaos I’m feeling? It’s only my body telling me that I’m about to combust if I don’t have you. Isn’t that why I can’t stop thinking about you every minute of my life? I wake up from dreaming about you, spend all day with you in a ridiculous bliss, then go to sleep every night hoping to dream of you some more.”

“It’s the same for me, Faith. Exactly the fucking same.”

“Don’t say that. You’re only making this worse!” I pushed a finger into his chest. “You have completely infiltrated every part of me.”

“Good.”

Asher’s hand snaked out to grip me by the back of the head, under my hair, in a delicious tingle of shivers mixed with a twinge of pain. He hauled me to him, practically lifting me off the ground, and held me pressed against him. His brown eyes dark and hooded as they roamed my face, I had just enough time to release a little moan of want before he crushed his mouth to mine.

God help me…

That lone thought was drowned in a tsunami that crashed over me with Asher’s kiss. His mouth mauling me, the taste of him, finally—finally—overwhelmed me. He was everything I knew he’d be—raw, masculine power—and more than I could’ve imagined. For long moments, I could hardly do more than let him take my mouth with a sucking pull that stole my breath while his tongue skillfully worked every corner. I clung to his neck until a surge of pure desire coursed through me. I fought back, trying to match his ferocity, trying to devour him like he was devouring me, both of us starved for the other.