Page 20

Calisto

Pale blue eyes studied me in a way that said Asher was searching for the joke.

“You just came.”

There were a few things becoming clear about this man. One of them was that he was unfailingly practical. It was what made him such an efficient personal assistant. No wonder Cade couldn’t manage without him. He was the cool, calm logic to Cade’s more fiery personality. Rather than finding it unattractive, there was something solidly reassuring about it. It was because of Asher’s practicality in planning an escape route that I was here in his bed rather than wherever O’Reilly would have stashed me. I was guessing it wouldn’t have been a five-star hotel with excellent room service.

“It doesn’t matter.” I flicked a glance at my cock, Asher’s top notch hand job—and it had been top-notch—leaving it lying limp against my thigh. “I might not come again, but that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy it. You got condoms,” I pointed out, the box still sitting next to Asher’s pillow. Did he think I hadn’t noticed? I might not be a details person like him, but I wasn’t blind. “What were they for, if you didn’t want to fuck? Oh, unless you don’t top?”

The concept seemed absurd when Asher was a take-charge person, but maybe the bedroom was the one place he liked to cede control to someone else. “If so, that’s okay. I’m versatile. It’s just that”—another glance to my cock, this one more pointed—“you made me come, so it’s going to be a while before I’m capable.”

“I’m also versatile,” Asher said.

“Yeah?” Something about that made me smile. I seemed to be smiling a lot tonight. I blamed the endorphins still in my system from coming so hard. Realizing words just would not cut it with Asher, I grabbed his wrist and tugged him onto the bed. The blond man offered no protest as I pulled him on top of me, my thighs bracketing his narrow hips in an intimate position that had his hard cock pressing against my spent one, mine offering a feeble twitch in response to the sensation. “Fuck me,” I said again.

He stared at me, the position I’d placed him in bringing our faces close together. “Is that you want?”

“Yes,” I said, laughing. “That is what I want. How many times do I have to say it?”

“You might feel differently in the morning. I don’t want you to have regrets.”

Cupping Asher’s chin, I pulled him closer still. “Your consideration is sweet. Extremely annoying, but also sweet.” I kissed him before he could respond, Asher’s immediate surrender to the kiss making me want to smile again. Combining smiling and kissing was difficult, though, so I reined it in. Maybe I should be surprised that I didn’t just want to roll over and go to sleep, but I’d leave deliberation on such matters until the next day.

Asher pulled back an inch, his gaze searching. “Tanks and rocket launchers,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “So fuck me before O’Reilly storms your castle.”

“You want me to storm your castle before she does?”

I starfished my arms and legs. “Yeah, baby. Storm my castle.”

Something changed in Asher’s expression at being called baby, a heat that turned his frosty blue eyes to Arctic fire. Contemplation of how fair it was to throw out an endearment in such a blasé fashion given his feelings for me, came to a stuttering stop as a lubed finger pressed at my entrance. Asher had been busy during my mental absence.

“You have to keep me quiet again,” I reminded him as I bore down to accept the finger. I might have said that having come didn’t matter, but it made things more tricky in terms of relaxation. Asher was nothing, if not patient and determined, though, not rushing one finger becoming two, and giving my prostate enough attention that my cock did its best to stage a revival.

While Asher was preoccupied with my arse, I explored his body, running my hands over taut biceps, a sharp collarbone, and those fantastic abs of his. “If I got up at stupid o’clock every morning and did Tai Chi, would I have a body like yours?”

Satisfied I was loose enough to take his cock, Asher withdrew his fingers and knelt between my spread thighs while he rolled a condom over his cock. “Not unless you take a long, hard look at the proportion of carbohydrate, protein, and healthy fats in your current diet and make changes accordingly.”

“Sounds too much like hard work.”

“You get used to it.”

“And where does chocolate come into it?” Those same patches of color appeared on Asher’s cheeks as the last time I’d raised the subject. He really was touchy about it. “There is such a thing as being too perfect,” I added quickly.

“Is there?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Maybe so.” Asher dripped lube over the tip of his cock and then gave himself a couple of strokes to disperse it. I forgot how to breathe, never mind continue the conversation, the anticipation of taking his cock driving every other thought from my brain. “Do you want to discuss my diet? Or do you want to get fucked?”

With words no longer possible, I communicated my choice by grabbing my thighs and opening myself wider to him. Arctic fire blazed once more as Asher got into position, arms braced on either side of me as his cock nudged my hole. With typical Asher carefulness, he paused. “Are you sure?”

“Yes! For Christ’s sake, yes!”

Even that didn’t stop him from studying my expression to search for a lie. Finally, after what felt like an entire century had passed, he nodded. The head of his cock felt impossibly large as it breached me, and I pondered how long it had been since I’d been fucked.

Not this month. Not last month. There’d been a guy last summer who’d cruised me at the supermarket. He’d sidled up to me while I’d been choosing a melon, of all things. Normally, his approach wouldn’t have worked, but he’d been cute enough that I’d thought why the hell not and gone home with him.

Had it been him? No. He’d only been interested in bottoming. Longer than that, then. Six months? A year? Longer? However long it had been, this was well overdue. So why don’t you turn your brain off and just enjoy it then?

For once, I took my own advice. I stopped thinking and just felt. And there was a lot to feel as Asher withdrew, his return stroke nudging deeper every time he did it. “Fuck,” I breathed as he brushed over my prostate, all my nerve endings lighting up.

“Yeah?” he said, his eyes gleaming with a quiet satisfaction.

“Yeah,” I echoed. “Feels good.” There was no lie there. I didn’t have to be hard to enjoy Asher’s metronomic thrusts. He had a great body and knew how to use it, his back muscles flexing as I ran exploratory hands down the length of his spine. When a moan escaped my lips, Asher covered my mouth with his own, his tongue mimicking the action of his lower body.

Without the distraction of worrying about my orgasm, I found myself better able to enjoy this for what it was: a masterful fuck from a man completely in control of himself. Except, even as I thought that, small signs crept in of Asher losing his cool: a break in rhythm; a moan when he’d been silent up to that point; a new intensity to his kisses.

I goaded him, keen to see him fall apart completely. “Go on. Come in me. I know you want to. I bet you’ve dreamed about this for years.”

“I do,” he agreed, his hips speeding up. “I have.”

“Well, do it then.”

He reached for my cock, which had swelled to half mast from the constant stimulation of my prostate, but I knocked his hand away. I really wouldn’t come again so soon. Asher was good, but he wasn’t a magician who could wave a magic wand and get rid of refractory periods. “Just you,” I encouraged. “Come for me. I want to see it. Don’t hold back.”

He didn’t. When Asher eventually came, it was with a long drawn-out groan that had me wondering how soundproof the walls in his house were. Definitely not a hundred percent. Lola and Henry had proved that on more than one occasion. Hopefully, everyone was asleep. And if not… Well, that was a problem for the following day. We’d discussed me being quiet, but hadn’t given adequate consideration to the other side of the equation.

After coming, Asher collapsed on top of me, breathing hard. To my surprise, I had no desire to push him off, instead happy to bear his weight while I stroked the silky blond strands of his hair, gathering them up and letting them drop, before starting the process again. It was a strange moment of peace and tranquility I had no desire to bring an end to.

“Condom,” Asher eventually mumbled into my shoulder. “I have to see to it.”

I loosened my hold, letting him sit up and deal with it, and admiring his long-limbed grace as he levered himself off the bed to get rid of it. Should I have a little more chill and pretend to be less interested? That ship had already sailed when I’d come apart in his hands. Or if not then, definitely when I’d invited him to fuck me, knowing I wouldn’t come myself.

He returned in under a minute to stand at the side of the bed. “Come and shower with me.” When he held his hand out, I didn’t hesitate to take it and let him lead me into the bathroom. Asher’s shower was plenty big enough for two, and it only seemed natural that we’d wash each other, neither of us shy now that we’d had sex. In fact, my behavior of only a few days ago when I’d acted like a prude at discovering Asher’s nakedness felt like another world. Or if not another world, like I was a different person.

We didn’t talk as we left the bathroom, the bedroom bearing the slight musky aroma of sex as we tumbled back beneath the sheets, both of us still naked. Even if I could locate my pajama pants, putting them on seemed like something that would take far too much energy. Asher leaned over to press a kiss to my shoulder, and I went to sleep smiling.