by Maria Luis
I turned away, unable to meet him in the eye.
“Just say it, Avery. I can practically taste your desperation to be the saint here.”
I wouldn’t face him, no matter the fact that he was right. My brain was on fire, thoughts rioting through me, demanding to be voiced. Struggling to maintain my cool, I let my head hang low and kept my gaze rooted on my still bare feet.
I must have taken too long to speak or maybe it was that his patience was threadbare. Whatever it was, I didn’t expect to feel his hand on my elbow. He whipped me around, and my toes burned from twirling so fast on the scratchy carpet. Our chests brushed, and if that wasn’t enough to make me feel unbalanced, being the sole focus of the hard glint in his one un-swollen eye was like experiencing vertigo.
The room swirled, my lungs heaved, and I bit down hard on my bottom lip to keep from gasping out loud.
“Say it,” he growled, his hand still locked like a vice around my arm. “Say it.”
He pushed and he pushed and he pushed, and it wasn’t my fault that I snapped.
Teeth clenching, I stared up at him, refusing to back down. “If I hadn’t said anything, you would have murdered that man without thinking twice. I could see it in your eyes, the resolution there. And, for what? Because he punched you?” Shaking my head, I gave a dismissive laugh. “That doesn’t make you a hero—it makes you a cold-blooded killer.”
Silence.
It reigned in the scarce space between us, suffocating in the power it held.
And then, in a tone that sounded like it’d been pulled from the depth of his soul, Asher growled, “You’re right, sweetheart. You want to know the number of people I’ve taken out?” He leaned in close, his hot breath wafting across my face. “I don’t know. How’s that for a confession? I don’t know.”
Eyes widening, I tried to pull back, away from the anger in his expression, away from the shock of heat that hit me square in the belly. “Lincoln—”
He didn’t let me go. Didn’t let me flee.
Instead, he invaded my space. Step for step until my back bumped into the wall and his arms came down like iron bars, locking me into the space between his chest and the plaster behind me.
“Should I confess some more?” he whispered like the devil himself. “I want to fuck you, Avery.” His mouth dropped to my left ear, nudging at the soft skin there with the crooked bridge of his nose. When I gasped, he answered with a rough laugh. “Does that shock you? That even now that I know my asshole father married your mom, it doesn’t make me want you any less?” He nipped at my skin, keeping me caged within his muscular embrace. “I want to bend you over and fuck you. Me, a cold-blooded killer. I want to mark your skin and wrap my hand around your neck just the way you like it and thrust into your tight pussy until you confess.”
With every word that left his mouth, my breathing grew more erratic. I needed to breathe; I needed to remember that Lincoln Asher was not the man for me, for more reasons than just the recently made obvious. And yet, my response wasn’t a set down and it wasn’t a rebuttal.
To my utter humiliation, my response could be summed up with only three words:
“Confess to what?”
One masculine hand landed on my hip. “That you want me as I am. A murderer.” His palm skimmed up my body, past my ribcage. “A cop.” Over the curve of my small breast. “A sinner.” Gently circled the base of my throat as his lips made contact with my hairline and a shiver worked its way down the pearls of my spine. “A man who is, beneath it all, just a man like any other.”
But Lincoln Asher wasn’t like any other man.
He stepped into a room and people cowered in fear.
He took a breath, and grown men pissed themselves.
Tonight, one of the most powerful men in the city had sicced his lackeys on Asher, just so that they could have the slim chance at an upper hand.
And still they’d failed in grandiose fashion.
My tongue darted out to wet my dry lips, and Asher’s blue eyes tracked the movement hungrily. He said he was a man like any other, but I’d spent too many years watching and observing to take the words at face value. If I gave an inch, he’d steal a mile.
And if I submitted, he’d continue to believe that I was his for the taking.
Whenever he wanted me. However he wanted me.
How long until he turned those fists on me? How long until I ended up just like Momma, dead on my dining room floor, at the hands of a man who spun pretty words and yarns of lies?
At the hands of my stepfather’s own blood—his son?
Chin kicking up, I fixed my gaze on his battered face and made a confession of my own: “I’m not Laurel Peyton anymore. I’m not naïve or trusting or looking for a savior. I’m not in the market for one. And the next time you make a decision for me, taking my voice away because you think you know what’s best, just remember that I am not like other any other woman who will heel just because you tell her to.”
Haint-blue eyes burning furiously, he rasped, “Is that so?”
I would not cower, not like the rest of the population who saw him and ran. “Yes, it is.”
His lips pulled downward, jaw clenching tightly, and then he wrenched around with a violently uttered curse. “Any other confessions tonight?”
Fighting the urge to sag against the wall, I stood tall, shoulders back. My heart thundered in my chest. “I saw it the very first night you sat at my table in the square,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady as I watched his back flex with his labored breathing. “You’re a man who’s haunted by your past, Lincoln. I won’t go down in that fire with you. I’ve got my own flames to put out.”
With a bitter laugh, he glanced at me over his shoulder. “And what flames are those?” His tone baited me, daring me to rise to the challenge swirling in his gaze like a chaotic sandstorm. “Hiding in the shadows for another decade? Pretending to be someone you’re not? Sitting at your little table with your deck of fortune-telling cards and collecting information? You can judge me all you want, but don’t be mistaken. The only flame you’re fighting is your own cowardice.”
He might as well have stabbed me in the heart, slicing at the beating organ until every self-doubt of mine was splayed open for all to see.
I couldn’t catch my breath. Couldn’t see beyond the rage clouding the periphery of my vision.
“That’s what I thought, Laurel,” Asher murmured, his bruised lips turning up smugly. “Keep sitting on that high horse of yours. I’m sure the smell of bullshit is real sweet where you’re at.”
My feet were frozen, my limbs unmoving, as he turned for the door.
“Where are you going?” I heard myself ask, my voice faint in comparison to the blood pounding in my head.
He didn’t look back. “To sleep in the SUV where the air is a little less judgmental. I’ll get you in the morning.”
Fisting the doorknob, he drew it open and then froze, broad shoulders stiffening. “Ms. Sue,” he murmured, “thanks for bringing this by.”
She said something I couldn’t quite catch, and then Asher was turning around, a slip of white fabric in his big hand. He held it out, a silent challenge for me to step up and take it from him.
With wooden feet, I closed the distance between us.
Just before I would have clutched the material, he jerked it back and waited until I looked up, past his wide chest, his thick throat, to his hard blue eyes.
“White,” he said, voice low, his gaze crudely skimming my body, “how fitting for someone determined to be such a saint. You of all people should know that the world isn’t black or white, sweetheart.” I watched, eyes wide, as he purposely let the receptionist’s underwear fall to the floor at our feet. The tips of my ears burned with embarrassment as he tacked on, darkly, “I can’t wait for the day when you’re forced to make the decisions I’ve made in my life. What’s that saying again?” He snapped his fingers dramatically. “Oh yeah, I remember. How the mighty have fallen.”
“Fuck you,” I whispered, my voice vibrating with fury, my hands balled into tight fists.
“I wouldn’t want to stain your pristine innocence all over again, sweetheart, no matter how much you liked it.” He lifted one brow and then idly dropped his gaze to the scrap of white fabric on the floor. “But, maybe,” he drawled, “if you begged for it, I’d be down to tear off your panties again. We can blame black bears for their disappearance, if it makes you feel any better for sleeping with a murderer.”
With a wink, he disappeared out the door and closed it shut behind him.
I don’t know how long I stood there.
I don’t know how long the rage lasted, burning in my veins, threatening to drown me.
I do know that I went to bed panty-less, refusing to even touch Ms. Sue’s kind offering.
And as I stared up at the dark ceiling, I had only one thought: Lincoln Asher wasn’t just dangerous. He was the devil.
I punched my flat-as-hell pillow, turning onto my side, slamming my eyes shut.
Sleep eluded me, and by the time the sun began to peek through the blinds less than two hours later, I couldn’t shake off our heated conversation and the horrid realization that, like the devil himself, Asher had sussed out my inner truth.
I was a coward hiding in the shadows.
Had always been a coward hiding in the shadows.
It was time I did something to change that.
6
Avery
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I was back at Whiskey Bay.
Unlike yesterday’s visit, it was broad daylight now and unseasonably warm. The mid-afternoon sun beat down relentlessly, warming the crown of my head, turning my back so sticky that my T-shirt clung to my damp skin.
After driving back to New Orleans this morning with Asher—in pure, unforgiving silence—I’d only stayed at the Sultan’s Palace long enough to shower and pull myself together before grabbing a cab to the Bywater.
You’re an idiot for coming back.
Or maybe I was finally just making a move. Albeit, hopefully not an idiotic one.
The bouncer from last night was missing as I tugged open the door to the strip club. The dim lighting inside was an instant relief, especially compared to the hotter-than-hot weather outside.
Whiskey Bay might as well have been a different bar at this time of the day. The tables were scarce of gamblers, the dancers missing from their stages. Hardly anyone mingled at the bar, and I spotted only three Birkenstock-wearing fellows over by an old-school jukebox.
Movement behind the bar caught my eye.
Time to bite the bullet—not literally, of course.
With fake confidence, I ambled over, picking my way around tables and chairs. Slid onto a stool, elbows on the bar top. Like I’d seen in the movies, I lifted one hand casually, hailing down a bald bartender from where he was taking pint glasses out of a steaming dishwasher on the other side of the register.
Be brave.
Be bold.
“Hey there!” I exclaimed when he was an earshot. Pinching the fabric of my black T-shirt at my neck, I pulled it away from my clammy skin and made a show of fanning my face with my free hand. “Jeez, it is so hot outside.”
Dark eyes, glazed over with a lack of enthusiasm, didn’t so much as blink. “It’s N’Orleans in spring. That’s what happens.”
Huh. Guess bartenders weren’t generally happy at this time of day. I could have sworn I’d seen him here last night, mixing up cocktails and laughing with patrons. Then again . . . I squinted at his face, taking note of his bloodshot eyes. Maybe he was hungover.
It seemed silly to wish that my problem could be as simple as a hangover, but no, I got the shit end of the stick.
A stepfather who wanted me dead.
A sort-of stepbrother who I both wanted to bash over the head with a heavy object and climb onto his lap for non-bashing activities that involved both of us being naked from the waist down.
I never said it was great to be me.
In fact, I wouldn’t recommend it.
“I’d love a cocktail,” I said when the bartender seemed uninclined to ask me what I wanted.
“It’s two p.m.” Somehow, he managed to sound both disinterested and disapproving all at once. “And I’ll need your ID.”
“Yeah, sure!”
I pulled my wallet from my purse and handed over my fake. Like last night at the door, this guy gave the laminated plastic a cursory glance and handed it back over. “You look young for twenty-five,” he said after I ordered a screwdriver.
I lied about many things—my age wasn’t one of them.
“The perks of high-end skincare products.” With a casual shrug, I added, “And good genes. My mother had perfect skin.”
“Great.”
This guy wasn’t much of a talker.
Time to scrap the casual conversation and go straight for Plan B.
I edged my elbow a little farther on the bar, then scooted my ass to the very edge of the barstool. “Listen . . .”
He slid the screwdriver over to me. “Wanna open a tab?”
“Uh, sure.”
“Great.”
Any more of that Great-ing and he’d be giving Tony the Tiger a run for his money. “Right, thank you.” Because you’re any less awkward? This was so much harder to do now that I was here. And if I really wanted to dig deep and be honest with myself, I was suffering from a bad case of cold feet. Taking an irreparable step was a lot more terrifying when I had only myself to blame if shit went south.
Deep breaths.
Wrapping my hand tightly around the cocktail glass, I swallowed my nerves and mentally whipped my ass into gear. It was now or never.
“I’m looking for Nat.”
The bartender’s dark eyes flitted over me, assessing. “Yeah?”
I gave a curt nod. Forced steel into my stone. “I read cards for her weekly. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make it down to Jackson Square for our usual appointment and asked for me to meet her here instead. Do you mind letting her know that I’m here for whenever she’s ready?”
Half terrified to breathe too sharply and give myself away, I waited and waited and waited for the bartender to make his call. White rag in hand, he wiped down the bar near the register, then swapped towels for another set, the latter which he used to buff the wine glasses dry.
“Nat’s been in a meeting all day,” he finally said, hooking the rag over one shoulder as he put those glasses up and grabbed another four by the stems from the dishwasher. “But I can see if she’d like for me to put you in one of the rooms while you wait.”
One of the rooms.
Immediately, I thought of Asher and myself at Stage One, him on his knees with his face buried between my legs. It was wrong, so wrong, and there was a good chance I’d be more likely to shoot him than hug him the next time we saw each other, but I still wanted . . . Well, I guess it should be noted that I’d been on edge all day.
Sitting next to a man for over an hour while wearing no panties—not my finest moment.
Also not my finest moment? Spending the entire hour of that drive wondering if hate sex was as magical as everyone always boasted that it was.
Sipping my screwdriver for fortitude, I waited in my corner of the empty bar until the bartender returned some twenty minutes later, tossing the rag from hand to hand. “She’s ready for you.”
Four little words, and yet I grinned like he’d spouted out the entire dictionary from start to finish.
“Great!” Now I sounded like Tony the Tiger, too. Pushing the cocktail away, I belatedly tacked on, “I’ll close up my tab after I speak with her. Any chance you can point me in the right direction?”
He closed a fist around my discarded glass. “The Basement.
She said you know where to go.”
An uncomfortable laugh bubbled up in my chest. Yeah, I knew where that was. Both the stairwell that led up to it and the fire escape that led out of it. Twenty-four hours was definitely not long enough to scrub the memories from my retina. Twenty-four years seemed only slightly more likely.
“I’ll help myself there, then.” Clapping my hand on the bar, I hopped off the stool and offered a short wave. “Thanks for the drink.”
It was time to put on my I-can-do-this attitude. Remember that—
“Want a suggestion, Miss Washington?”
No. I was actually rather convinced that I’d already hit my suggestion quota for this quarter. But because I wasn’t an unthinking asshole like Lincoln Asher, I kept my opinion to myself. Plastering a smile on my face, I peered over my shoulder with what I hoped was a friendly expression. “Sure,” I said, grinning way too brightly. There was a good possibility that my smile read screw you instead of you’re so nice to help me out.
That was the problem with reaching the end of your rope—you were incrementally closer to giving less and less fucks about playing nice with the world.
The bartender stacked one dry pint glass on top of another. Then, finally, he spoke: “We all know you were here last night, Miss Washington. Nothing stays secret in this place for long.” He added another pint glass to his tower, eyes on his masterpiece and not on me. “Nat’s not your most subtle creature, and she’s never been particularly fun to be around when she’s pissed.”
“Is anyone?”
Dropping the rag to the counter, he fixed his attention on me. “She came in this morning and fired one of my guys for serving an Irish coffee without whipped cream. Kid’s been with us for six years. Guess what I’m trying to say is, Nat’s in a special mood today, and if you’ve got any sense of self-preservation, you’ll turn around and head right back out that front door.”
Slowly, a smile worked its way across my face. “How fortunate, then, that I’m in a mood, as well.”
I didn’t give the bartender the chance to convince me otherwise.