No thought at all.
But once that deed was done, I figured it was okay to fuck Hannah in my apartment because she’s still just an employee. It’s at my whim, not hers, and I don’t have to stick around after to cuddle or talk about life. I went to work after, feeling fucking fantastic. Completely energized.
I’ve been in a good mood, or so my assistant has bluntly told me over the last few days. She actually said, “Whatever you’re eating for breakfast these mornings, keep it up.”
Well, these days, that would be Hannah, and her pussy definitely puts me in a great mood.
When I hear the slide of the key in the deadbolt, my body tightens. Lust courses through me. There’s also an eagerness to hear her voice, which I find strange.
The door opens, and Hannah steps over the threshold. I force myself to stand my ground. Her gaze comes straight to me, a knowing smile on her face.
A ready smile.
I can’t wait a moment more, so I take long strides across the living room to reach her. Cupping her face in my hands, I back her into the door. Her eyes are hot, her fingers coming up to latch around my wrists.
“Morning,” she says, her voice husky and needy. It causes my dick to turn to concrete.
“Morning,” I mutter before I slam my entire body into her, knocking her against the door. My mouth descends on hers, and I don’t remember kissing being this damn good with anyone else.
I consider the door I have her trapped against. We haven’t had sex here. It’s no Wicked Horse, but it’s wild and spontaneous. I’ve learned I don’t need the club to enjoy Hannah. In fact, the club itself doesn’t do much to increase my pleasure when I’m with her. It’s been consistently the same since we did away with condoms.
When I fill her up, a strange sense that I’ve been filled up as well takes hold of me. It’s a feeling that is foreign and unique—one that applies only when I’m with Hannah. If there’s one thing that concerns me about this arrangement, it’s that I have to admit she makes me feel something different.
I pull my mouth from hers, intent on her clarifying one thing that I wonder about sometimes. “Tell me you want this?”
She nods, uses her hands on my head to try to pull me back into a kiss.
I use my hands on her face to hold her in place, denying her advance. “Tell me no, Hannah. Just once.”
Her smile is amused. “But I only want to say yes.”
“Thank fuck,” I mutter before kissing her again.
Just as I start to contemplate the best way to get her clothes off—her standard uniform of a t-shirt and jeans—I’m startled by a knock on the door that we are currently pressed against.
“Just great,” I growl, gently pulling Hannah away from the door. When I turn her to the side, she scrambles for the kitchen, immediately putting distance between us.
I open the door, blinking in surprise at my sister. She merely smirks at me and drawls, “Good morning.”
Opening the door wider, I mutely gesture her inside. She eyes me critically, concentrating on my face for a long moment. Then her gaze brushes past me to the kitchen, her eyes going saucer wide when she sees Hannah there. Her appraisal is deliberate before she turns back to me, eyebrow raised.
“I would apologize for barging in like this, but you clearly forgot I was coming over this morning,” she tells me. “At least, I think that’s what your blank expression means.”
There’s a moment of blinking at my sister as my brain tries to process, but the only thought in my head is that I was moments away from falling into bliss with Hannah.
“My floors,” Christina prompts. “I told you I was having the floors in my house redone today—that I took the day off from work to get the workers started, but that I wanted to come over here to avoid all the noise and chaos so I could at least get what work I could done. You do remember that, right?”
And yes, it all comes back to me, but it just goes to show the strength of the Hannah-haze that is left behind after just a few moments of kissing. Christ, the woman has some witchy magic.
“Yeah, I remember.” I try to a smile, but because my morning with Hannah just took a solid U-turn, I say, “I’m headed into work if you want to use my office.”
“Perfect.” Christina beams, hitching a satchel I hadn’t noticed until now higher on her shoulder. I assume she’s carrying school stuff—perhaps papers to grade.
Then my sister does what my sister does best—she decides to get nosy. Without a word, she heads toward the kitchen. I have no choice but to follow.
“And who do we have here?” she asks, shooting an electrically beautiful smile of welcome and curiosity at Hannah, who returns her stare but not such a wide smile. In fact, she looks like a doe caught in the headlights.
I make hasty introductions. “This is my housekeeper, Hannah Madigan. Hannah… this is my sister, Christina.”
I get an arched eyebrow from Christina, clearly showing me she’s not buying this, but then she turns back to Hannah. She extends her hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I can’t say that Asher has ever hired someone so beautiful before, but then again, he’s never hired someone solely to clean his house.”
Hannah has no clue what to say. I supply the relevant info that my sister needs to hear. “I misspoke. She’s more than a housekeeper. She sort of manages my household. Things like grocery shopping, handling my dry cleaning, cooking, and running errands for me.”
“Hmmm,” is all Christina says, not even glancing at me. She gives another warm smile to Hannah, who has yet to say a word. “Well, let’s hope you keep him straight. He needs it.”
To my surprise, Hannah’s eyes twinkle with something I can’t quite identify, but it doesn’t put me at ease. She leans in closer to Christina, inclines her head in a manner I would describe as conspiratorial, and says, “Well, if I could ever teach him to put his dirty clothes in the actual hamper when he discards them, I would consider that a major victory.”
My sister snorts. It’s obvious to me that she’s gone from being curious about this woman in my apartment to downright enraptured with her.
Grabbing Christina’s arm, I give it a tug. “Let’s not take up all of Hannah’s time. She has a lot to do. I have to get some stuff from my office so let’s go get you set up in there.”
My sister doesn’t hesitate. When we leave the kitchen, I shoot a look at Hannah. I’m rewarded with perhaps the best thing she could have given me this morning.
Strike that… the second-best thing.
She gives me a look of fond regret for what we were about to do and have now lost for the day. I send the same back to her, and she turns for the dishwasher.
In my office, Christina settles into the chair behind my desk. As she unloads papers from her satchel, I load my briefcase up. It includes blueprints of a proposed wellness center that we’re considering putting into one of the retirement communities we’re hoping to build.
“So who is that woman really?” Christina asks in a voice that sounds casually disinterested, but she’s not fooling me. She’s totally nosy.
“Housekeeper,” I mutter, closing my case and securing the dual latches.
“Quit fucking lying to me,” she says with a laugh. “You can’t hide shit from me.”
“Just a housekeeper,” I assert firmly as I pick my briefcase up.
“Oh yeah, then why was there a thump against the door just as I arrived? Why is your hair all mussed up? Why were her lips swollen and her cheeks flushed? I don’t even want to ever think again about the hard-on I saw you sporting. And why did the two of you share a long, regretful look before we came back to your office?”
Goddamned motherfucking intuitively nosy-assed sister. She grins at me knowingly.
I deflate, sigh, and then admit a few partial truths. “She is my housekeeper. But we’re sort of… seeing each other.”
Delight washes over Christina’s face. “Perfect. You can bring her to the gala—”
I hold my hand up, stopping her
midsentence. “We’re fucking each other. And that is all.”
I’ve never held back from my sister. She’s my twin after all. She can also have as foul a mouth as me, so she’s not offended by my words. Christina’s face crumples, and frustration washes over her. “What is wrong with you? She could sue you for sexual harassment or something.”
Shaking my head, I try to ease her mind without revealing exactly how I came to have sole possession of Hannah’s pussy. “It’s not like that. She’s a very willing participant.”
“So it could turn into something more,” Christina says, a happy smile pulling the corners of her mouth up once again. Not a question to me but a statement. She believes that any woman I let in can give me something she thinks I need.
I hate hurting my sister. I really do. She loves me and only wants what’s best for me, but… “Sorry, it’s just sex, Christina. All it will ever be.”
“But—”
“No buts. Just let it go, Sis. Stop trying to push me to something you think I need, but that I clearly don’t want.”
A sense of capitulation is clear when she sighs and slinks back into her chair, finally giving me an acquiescent nod. I round the desk, bend over, and kiss the top of her head. “I love you. You’re a pain in my ass, but at the end of the day, I still love you.”
“Love you, too, you closeminded asshole,” she mutters, patting my face before I pull back.
When I have my briefcase in hand and make it to my door, she asks, “Want to go out to dinner with Jack and me tonight?”
I twist my neck, glancing at her over my shoulder. “Sure. But make it no later than eight. I have plans later this evening.”
“With Hannah?” she asks.
“With none of your business,” I reply with a wink before leaving the office. I pull the door closed behind me, not wanting any conversation I’m getting ready to have with Hannah to carry.
I find her in the living room, cleaning my glass-top coffee table. She straightens when she hears me come in, holding a spray bottle with blue cleaner in one hand and a rag in the other.
“That was awkward,” she whispers, sounding bemused.
Stepping right into her, I put a hand at the back of her head and place a long kiss on her mouth. “That was bad timing, and I’m not in a happy mood going into the office this morning.”
“Poor baby,” she croons, but it’s sarcastic—not empathetic. “Shall we hit the club tonight?”
“Fuck yes,” I reply, and then I kiss her again. “I’ll pick you up at ten. And just so you know, it’s going to be a long night since I won’t have you on the weekend.”
“Until then,” she says before squatting back down to continue cleaning my coffee table.
I watch her a moment, battling a weird feeling as she cleans. I find myself not liking it. As if the work is beneath someone like her, but then I realize… this job is a few steps above the work she was doing at that bar. I’m also paying her far more than she was making before, so I let that assuage these unusual misgivings.
Without another word or look back at her, I walk out of the apartment and head to work.
CHAPTER 14
Hannah
Leaning back in the passenger seat of Asher’s vehicle, I put my palms on the seat beside my thighs and rub them on the buttery-soft leather. It’s decadent, which is a little how I feel right now.
After a few hours at The Wicked Horse with Asher, where he spent most of the time “playing” with me—his words, not mine—I feel akin to a goddess who has just been worshiped. I’ve decided to stop feeling guilty about something that makes me feel so good, which has in turn provided me with an amazing opportunity to get Hope back.
Resting my head against the seat, I smile and watch as the city lights pass us. Asher has taken to picking me up at my house on our evenings out, and then he drives me back again. He never gets out of the car, but stays parked along the curb, watching until I enter and close the door behind me. I can’t figure out if he’s being a gentleman or protecting his property, but either way, it’s appreciated. My neighborhood can be sketchy, a mixture of older lifelong residents who want peace and quiet and a rough crowd that likes to roam the streets looking for trouble. When I was working three jobs, I was hardly ever home, so it didn’t matter much to me except for that mad dash from my car to my house where I’d be relatively safe.
I always made sure Hope and I were locked inside by the time the sun set, protected by an early splurge of money after I’d moved in.
A shotgun.
My grandpa Brantley, who was my mom’s father, was a good old South Carolina redneck. He taught me to hunt when I was eight, a practice I now abhor because I can’t stand the thought of killing an animal. But I fondly remember the times I spent with him before he died. He was uneducated, having dropped out of high school in the tenth grade where he went on to work in a tire plant for thirty long years.
As backwoods as he was in many things, he always told me to be independent and to think for myself. He never considered me subpar because I was a woman, and he would brag to anyone who would listen that I would get a college degree one day.
That’s still on my agenda despite the fact I’m twenty-seven years old, so I haven’t fully let him down yet. Once I can get Hope back and get stabilized, I’ll figure out my education.
Until then, I make sure to follow his biggest piece of advice to me. He had said, “Hannah Banana… if you ever need to protect yourself with a gun, do not rely on a handgun. There’s too much room for error. Have a shotgun within easy reach if someone is coming at you. Just point it in their general direction, pull the trigger, and you got ‘em.”
“Thinking some deep thoughts.” Asher’s voice rolls over me like a velvety blanket.
I roll my head left and look at him. He gives me a brief glance before returning his attention back on the road. Not bothering to answer, I give him a slight shrug as I stare out the windshield, because I really don’t think he wants to know anything about me. While Asher is incredibly enamored with my body, he doesn’t appear to be interested in anything else about me.
Still, I’m happy with the situation.
It’s the sex, of course. It makes me happy, which is perplexing because Asher is nothing to me and I’m nothing to him.
Not really.
I was in love with my husband, make no doubt about it. Really in love, and I thought sex with him was the way things were supposed to be, even the part where I had to help myself along to orgasm. But it was the love that made it good for me. The marriage of souls is special. The connection and intimacy set it apart.
Right?
Well, I don’t have that with Asher. Yet, sex with him has shattered every one of my preconceived notions about sex and intimacy and how it’s entwined. It makes me wonder if I even know myself at all. The things I’ve done with him—am willing to do with him—still astound me. I’ve learned and accepted a level of freedom that has enhanced my sexuality and made me feel pleasure I never knew was possible.
I can be in that club with Asher, fucking him in front of dozens of people, and like it.
A lot.
Sometimes, that makes me feel dirty, but it mostly makes me feel empowered. That is something I never felt with Nelson.
When I feel Asher’s gaze on me, I ignore it. His words, though, jolt me to attention. “What’s your daughter’s name?”
Asher has never shown an interest in my personal life outside of manipulating things that would make me more convenient to him.
“Hope,” I answer cautiously, my head now turning so I can scrutinize him. “She’s five years old.”
“And is her last name the same as yours?”
I nod. “Madigan was my married name. I kept it in the divorce so Hope and I would have the same last name.”
His attention is solidly on the road where it should be, but he’s apparently intent on conversing. “You told me you don’t have custody because your husband was friends with the judge or
something like that?”
The question is without an ounce of censure or condemnation in my shortcomings, but he sounds genuinely curious. I tell him the truth of it, trying to keep the bitterness in my voice to a minimum. “That’s the gist of it. I mean, he was the moneymaker in the family and I was a stay-at-home mom. I didn’t have much money to hire an attorney, not one who would have probably been able to get the judge moved off the case for bias or something. Apparently, the judge felt Hope would be better off with her father, who had a gorgeous mansion and a solid income, while I only have a twelfth-grade education and no real work experience.”
“That’s hardly fair,” he says.
“Understatement of the year,” I reply with a mirthless laugh. “But I did retain an attorney with the bonus you gave me, and he’ll file something with the court next month.”
“Why next month?”
“Because he says I need an established work history while making this nice salary you’re paying me as your housekeeper. He says thirty days should do it, or actually… he said sixty would be better, but I’m impatient.”
Asher is silent, and I figure he’s reached his quota of curiosity about his “employee”. My gaze goes back out to the street, and I realize he’s in my neighborhood.
“I have a good attorney if you need help. I have my own “ins” with lots of judges if you want me to do something.”
It takes effort not to gape at his generosity, but I manage a grateful smile. “I appreciate it, but I think the attorney I hired has it covered. I might need a statement from you saying I’m in your employ and that I’m an excellent worker.”
Asher grins, intent on lightening the mood. “That you are. In fact, I could tell the court what a hot fuck you are. How everyone in the club wants a taste of you, but how I’d kill any one of them if they so much as touched you.”
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