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Shit!I hadn’t even thought about it. I really started to wonder what the hell was wrong with me. Dad taught me the skills on how to survive, but apparently, you couldn’t teach instincts because it was becomingpainfullyobvious that I didn’t have a single one.
His eyes widened as he stared at the deep purplish red horizontal scar just under my ribs, stretching about eight inches from the outer curve of my right side toward my stomach. Sadness crossed his face as his brows knit together. His eyes met mine.
“I guess that might have something to do with your confidence changing, huh?” he asked.
“It’s not what you think,” I started before he said what I assumed was about to come out of his mouth. “I’m notoffendedby my scar. I don’t find it ugly or repulsive. Idofind it to be a God-awfulreminder of what happened to me. To us. My family. I also find it to be physical evidence of why I’ve changedsomuch in such a short amount of time. My confidence is gone. Not because I feel ugly with a scar, but because I walk around petrified from anxiety daily, and I can’t even talk about it to anyone.”
Asher immediately stepped off the elliptical and came to stand next to me. He was still taller than me, but not by much. Without warning, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him. Just as unexpected were the tears that formed in my eyes when I rested my head on his shoulder and wrapped my arms around his neck.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” he said. “I know you don’t have a lot of reason to trust me, but I want you to know that you can. You can talk to me about anything.”
My body jerked as I held in an unamused laugh. “No, I can’t, and I can’t even say why.”
Asher smelled so good, and his body was so warm. He felt powerful. My sadness found comfort in his embrace, but my grief and anxiety needed more. It needed an outlet. One I couldn’t give into.
“I think this is why everything happened between Damian and me today,” I said, risking ruining the moment. I pulled my head back and looked into Asher’s black-brown eyes. “Damian followed me into the bathroom. I ran in there to hide from him. We heard a teacher coming, and he pushed me into a stall and hid in there with me. That’s all it was. All it wassupposedto be, anyway.”
Some of my bangs had fallen out of my hair tie, and he pushed them back as he continued to hold me. I stepped off the elliptical, but not away from him.
“What happened then?” he asked.
“He pinned me to the wall. Had his hand over my mouth because herightfullyassumed I’d yell at him. If I had, we would have gotten caught. It was innocent enough at first. I just stood there. But then he touched my leg.” I looked away from Asher. “I hate him. I can’t stand him, but there was something dangerous and fun about it, and even though I felt disgusted thathewas the one touching me, I also felt…free. It was like my anxiety was gone, and excitement had replaced it. I haven’t felt calm or excited without that hum of fear in months. So… I went with it.”
“I see,” he said. “You were using him. He was fucking with you, but you were using him to free yourself.”
I nodded. “I’m not proud of it. I forgot literally everything and everyone. All I could focus on was him. I’m honest to a fault and blunt. He’s hot. I’ll give him that. But I’m from a place where we learn a bad attitude can destroy your looks. A ten becomes a five. And the opposite is true. Someone not that attractive who has an amazing personality becomes a ten.”
There was a pause as he studied me. I could feel his eyes on me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look up.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Honestly, I don’t even know why I care, but I do.”
“What do you mean you don’t know why you care?”
My eyes met his then, and I found genuine curiosity. “I saw you today. You were hounding Chad. I genuinely thought you were all bullying him. Then, come to find out, Harper put Damian up to all that. Luna and Justin told me Chad’s Damian’s gopher. Was all that shit just a setup? A way to pin me against Damian and make us enemies so he’d have a reason to fuck with me?”
Asher sighed, his eyes closing. “First, Chad was Damian’s bitch boy last year, but honestly, once his bitch, always his bitch. This year, he’s Michael’s gopher. Second, yes. I didn’t want to go along with it, but…” He shook his head. “Let’s just say there are things I can’t exactly talk about, either. It was a setup. He was curious to see what you’d do, but he never saw what happened coming. You surprised him. He had no idea you were so tough.”
A crooked grin spread across my face. “Yeah, I found what little confidence I had left and faked the rest. It went well enough—except I protected a dumbass who didn’t need nor deserve it. Now I’m stuck in the middle of all this, and I just want to be left alone. All I wanted was to go to school and graduate and decide what I want to do with my life. That’s it. Now I have Damian fucking Wolfe to contend with.”
“I’ll do my best to rein him in. He listens to me. That being said, you should know that I don’t think he’s going to cave on this, and there’s nothing I can do to stop him if he decides to go totally diabolical.”
I nodded. “I figured as much. I can handle myself. I’ll be okay.”
“Can I ask you a completely selfish, completely inappropriate question?”
His fingertips brushed my face as he once again moved my stray hair back behind my ear. It was long enough to be hooked behind my ears, but not long enough to stay. I nodded as a chill went through me.
“What do you feel when you’re with me? Do you feel that excitement? That freedom?”
Thinking for a moment, I shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. When you touch me, I get chills.” I smiled, and he did, too. “I’m attracted to you, but it’s different. I can’t explain it. I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you—I’m sorry. I think you can understand why, though.” He nodded. “Even still, I somehow find comfort in you. With Damian, it was danger. There was fear, but not the bad kind. Excitement. It’s just…different. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to explain it, and I feel like I’m making this worse.”
As I looked away, his fingers found my chin. He tilted my head up so he could look into my eyes, and my breath immediately sped up again. He stared at my mouth, and before I could say anything, his lips were on mine.
I sucked in a deep breath through my nose as he pulled me tighter against him. His full lips were as soft and warm as they were skilled. A moan escaped me as my fingers moved up to release his hair. Ineededto touch it.
It was heavy, thick, and soft, and I loved how it tangled around my fingers. He groaned against me as I fisted a handful and pulled him tighter against my mouth. He tasted amazing, and I wanted more.
As if he’d sensed my thoughts, Asher reached down and grabbed the back of my thighs before lifting me and splitting them around his waist. I happily wrapped my legs around him as he carried me. Within seconds, I felt the wall behind me, but he never broke the kiss. I moaned against his lips, and he began kissing his way from my mouth to my jaw and then down to my neck.