Asa (Marked Men #6)(42)

“What?” I made sure to keep my voice light because I could see he was just waiting for me to unleash a torrent of disgust and judgment at him and was unsure what to do with my indifference.

“That’s all you have to say about what I just told you?” He dropped the towel in jerky moves and walked naked to his closet. He really was perfect. Every long, lean line of his back, every flex and dimpled indent in his backside, the broad expanse of his toned shoulders … there was nothing about him that had any hint of imperfection. It was an interesting juxtaposition that such a beautifully crafted shell held so much ugliness and self-loathing on the inside.

“What do you want me to say? That you suck? That you were a total jerk and deserved what you eventually got? Do you want me to tell you that was a totally douche move not just to the first girl that gotten taken in by you, but even to the mean one because you were just using her, too? You know all of that, Asa. You might not have known it then, or not cared, but now you do, so me telling you what you already know is pointless.” Once my hair was mostly tangle-free, I pulled it into a loose ponytail at the base of my neck and dug around in my purse for my makeup kit. “Someone should have been around to take care of that little boy so he didn’t have to resort to that behavior in the first place.”

He pulled a faded black T-shirt on over his head and plopped down heavily on the bed so he could pull on his boots.

“No one made me do those things, no one taught me. I figured it out on my own, and by the time I was a teenager, I had learned every dirty trick there was in the book.”

I sighed at him and slicked a coat of lip gloss across my mouth. I crossed my arms across my chest and met his predatory look with one of my own. “Do you want to confess every single sin you’ve ever committed to me? Do you think it will scare me away or absolve you of past misdeeds? Because I have to tell you, neither of those things is going to happen.” I furrowed my brow at him and made my voice hard so he would know I was serious and told him pointedly, “I’m never going to dislike you as much as you dislike yourself, Asa.”

He got to his feet and moved toward me. He really did look like a big, wild cat stalking its prey as he prowled closer and closer. He stopped when we were almost touching but I refused to look or flinch away from him.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Red.”

I reached out a hand and put it right over the place in his chest where his heart was thundering. He was upset, but like usual I knew it was directed more inwardly than it was at me.

“Yes, I do, because I’ve been having a really hard time liking myself ever since Dom got hurt. I know how it feels and exactly what it looks like. Why do you think I was chasing after you so hard? I needed someone that wouldn’t tell me it was just an accident, that it wasn’t my fault. I needed someone that it was okay to feel bad with, and so do you. We aren’t always going to do the right things, make the right choices, and somehow you’re the only one I feel safe with coming to terms with that. You don’t judge me, you don’t try and make it better. You just let me feel bad while making me feel really good … I want to do that for you, too.”

His unusual-colored eyes flashed from gold to bronze as the truth and depth of my words sank in. He muttered something under his breath I couldn’t hear and then he tilted his head to the side a little and told me, “I’m the opposite of safe. I f*cked you without a condom on this morning because you make me stupid with want. That isn’t exactly looking out for your best interests.”

I fisted his shirt in my hand and tugged him down so that we were almost eye to eye. I appreciated that he felt like he had to keep warning me about all the ways in which this volatile thing between us could go wrong, but at some point he was just going to have to man up, get on board with what was happening, and stop waiting for it to implode all around us.

“There were two of us in that bed this morning. I’m just as responsible as you are for what happens there. I can protect myself and am more than willing to do so if you’re willing to be honest with me and tell me if this thing between us is important enough, interesting enough, to give a shot. If the answer is no, then that’s fine, but I won’t be back and we’ll just chalk it up to raging hormones and lust.”

He curled his fingers around my wrist and let his fingers rest over my erratic pulse. I wondered if anything with him was ever going to be simple.

“I’m not taking anyone else to bed as long as you’re in it, Royal.”

That was as much of an agreement to stop being a naysayer where we were concerned as I was going to get. I would take it. I pressed up on my toes and kissed him lightly on the mouth.

“Good. Now, how about you let me drive you to the Bar so you can meet with Rome and then we go grab something to eat at the Breakfast King after? I’m starving.” It seemed like such a simple, couply thing to do and I needed that. I craved it with him.

He ran his hand over the length of my still-damp ponytail and lightly tapped me on the ass. “Sounds good.”

Why couldn’t everything between us be that cut-and-dried?

George Thorogood was on the jukebox when Asa and I walked into the Bar. It was early enough that the doors weren’t open for customers yet but Cora was sitting at the bar talking to a guy standing behind it that I didn’t recognize. Asa deposited me next to her and introduced the new bartender as Danny before disappearing off toward the back office. I told Cora good morning and then spent five minutes staring at her trying to figure out why I thought she looked different from the last time I saw her.