“Tired? I got you food.”
“Thanks. You’re in my seat,” he said smirking. I put his portfolio down and squared myself in the chair.
“There’s one right there,” I said motioning to the one across the desk. “We can eat together, like a date.” He leaned against the desk next to me and looked down at me.
“Actually, no. I’ll stand right here. You’re prettier from this angle,” he said. If I wanted to, I could have reached over and had his hard cock at perfect dick sucking height. “Is there something you want to tell me, Jenn?” he asked. The pit of my stomach heated. What? Why would he ask me something like that?
“How do you mean?” I asked, trying to sound natural.
“I didn’t want to bring this up, but I’m worried about you,” he said.
“Why?”
“The other day when you moved all your stuff to my room, I got a look at your pill bottles. Jenny, they’re not yours. Why do you have them?”
“You looked through my bag?” I asked, standing.
“I picked your bag up off the floor, and they fell out. I wasn’t looking through anything. Jenny, if something’s wrong, I want you to tell me. Why are you taking medication that isn’t yours?”
“It is mine.”
“It belongs to someone named Felicity Friedman. How did you get it?”
I parted my lips then closed them. The lies were getting to me. I didn’t want to keep telling them. Asher, if nobody else, deserved to hear the truth.
“I haven’t been completely honest with you,” I said. “The pills are mine. The name, Felicity Friedman, is my name. It’s my real name.”
“Then who is Jennifer?”
“When I got picked up in Arizona, I told my ride that that was my name. I didn’t want to tell him who I was. I didn’t think I’d end up using it longer than just the days it took me till I got back home. When Ryan came out of the shop to talk to me, I told him the same thing.”
“Why would you lie about your name?” he asked. I reached for his hand, and he drew it away. “Why would you lie about who you are?”
“I thought I was protecting myself.”
“From what? You told us all the same thing.”
“I didn’t think I’d still be here. The first night I spent at your apartment was supposed to be the last night. But then things changed, and I just didn’t say anything about it.”
“You’ve been here weeks. Why didn’t you say something sooner? Did it still not matter because you were going to leave anyway and forget this place?”
“No. The months before going to Arizona were the darkest in my life. I felt like I had nothing. When I said my name was Jenn, I was just being cautious, but then I realized that if I was her, it didn’t matter who I really was because I could start over. I’m still me, Asher.”
“Yeah, well I don’t know who that is. Who am I talking to now?”
“You’re talking to me. The girl outside your tattoo shop who you let stay in your apartment.” I grasped his hand hoping he wouldn’t shake me off.
“Were you going to tell me?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“When? I already found out on my own, so were you planning to do it sooner than that or were you just going to keep it going till you couldn’t anymore?”
“Asher, I wanted to tell you. I’m sorry that you found out this way.”
“But you’re not sorry you did it?”
“Stop it, Asher. I’m trying to apologize to you. I feel horrible for what I did, and I feel horrible that it’s made you feel you can’t trust me.”
“But you understand why, don’t you?” I shook my head.
“I can’t defend what I did. I was running. When I came here, I felt like everything that had happened to me didn’t matter anymore because as far as anyone here was concerned, I was someone else.”
“Has everything you’ve told me been a lie?”
“No, it was all true.”
“Then why’d you leave this out?”
“I was scared. I thought that Jenn was the person you wanted. This is the best I have felt in months. I never wanted to feel powerless and empty again. Being here, being Jenn, I could feel that. The person I was would never have gotten me here in the first place. She wouldn’t have hitchhiked to LA, come into your shop, any of it.”
“Would she have told me who she really was?”
“I’m still me, Asher,” I said. I touched him carefully.
“Which one?” he said, looking down at me.
“The one you fell for,” I said. He sighed, gently pulling my arm away from him.
“Let’s go, we can eat in the car,” he said simply. He walked out and left me standing in his office.
Well done you dumb bitch, now look what you did. All you had to tell him was the truth. Would that really have been too much to ask? I felt like garbage. I felt like every time we had been alone together had been another chance that I had wanted to come clean to him, and I hadn’t.
The way he was acting now, I felt like he wouldn’t have hated me if I’d said something earlier. I never thought it would come to this even though I wished it would. It didn’t seem real, so I hadn’t treated it like it was.
It wasn’t my real life. I was living in a weird fantasy where I wasn’t who I really was, but everyone else around me was real. What I did didn’t matter to who I really was, but they didn’t know they were part of my game.
With the traffic, the ride to Asher’s apartment was longer by half an hour. He ate his sandwich in the car, but I couldn’t touch mine. At the apartment I went to put the sandwich in the fridge, knowing full well I wouldn’t touch it again but feeling like it was polite.
He followed me into the kitchen.
“Is there anything else?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Anything else you want to tell me? If there is, say it now. I want it all out on the table. I don’t want to have to judge whether the things you tell me are true or not. If you have something to say to me, say it now.” His voice was so harsh. I’d never thought I’d hear him talking to me like that again. It hurt.
“There’s one more thing.”
“Okay, what about?”
I paused, taking a deep breath. Now was the wrong time to start crying, and I knew that for that reason, I was definitely going to start. I didn’t know anymore. I hadn’t known anything, to begin with anyway, but now I really didn’t know. I had had nothing when I came here, but now I felt like I had something to lose. My job, my independence, my new friends… him.
“I told you how I ended up here and why I was in rehab,” I said, pausing again. “What I didn’t tell you was my family has been looking for me. I wasn’t discharged from the Bermuda ranch. I left against medical advice twelve days into my program, and my family has been looking for me. They filed a missing person’s report not too long ago.”
“You left against medical advice?” he asked. I caught a tear on its way down my cheek.
“I couldn’t stay. I didn’t want to feel sick, and weak anymore. As soon as I was away from home, I started to feel better. I wanted to feel like myself again, not stay there and let a bunch of nurses and shrinks babysit me. Don’t tell me I have to go back because I won’t.”
“What about your family? You have to let them know that you’re okay if they’re looking for you. Why haven’t you talked to them?”
“I will, just not yet.”
“Why, Jen-?” he stopped himself, hearing what he’d called me. “Why? If they filed a report, they’re worried about you.”
“I don’t want to lose what I’ve gained here. I’m making money and meeting people and finally feeling normal. I stopped having a life in Seattle a long time ago. If this is what I have now, I want to protect it.”
“I’m not going to make you leave, but I can’t just stand by and let you do this to your family.”
“I’m going to tell them.”
“Tell them now. Tell them today.”<
br />
“Asher, I-”
“Tell them or I will,” he said forcefully. “You can’t do this to them.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and tapped in the digits to my father’s phone number, one of the few I knew by heart.
I tried to ignore him watching me. It rang a few times before he picked up.
“Hello?” he said. I couldn’t help smiling a little. I hadn’t heard his voice in weeks.
“Daddy?” I said. He didn’t say anything for a second.
“Lissy?” he asked, incredulous.
“It’s me, Dad. I’m alright.”
“Where are you?” he asked. I heard another voice in the background, my stepmother, and him telling her excitedly that it was me. I wished I was alone suddenly because it felt sort of private. I felt guilty that the reason I was finally doing this was because Asher had basically made me.
“Felicity?” I heard my stepmother ask. She sounded like she was crying. I looked up and realized Asher had left. It distracted me enough to make me ask my mother to repeat what she’d just said to me. I could hear them crying, annoyed but relieved that they knew where I was and they had a number to contact me with.
“Why didn’t you come home sweetie?” my father asked. Home. They meant their home, so I could lay in the bed I used to sleep in as a kid and have them take care of me. I hated the thought but placated them saying I was happy and safe where I was and was coming home soon.
Yeah. Soon.
I stood and went to Asher’s room, knocking on the door before I went in because I felt like I’d lost the privilege to just walk in. I pushed it open and saw him sitting on his bed, his back to me.
What had I done to him? I felt horrible. He had been nothing but good to me, for no other reason than he saw I was in trouble and needed it. I’d lied to him. I accused him of playing games with me, but what the hell had I been doing? I was selfish and shortsighted, and now I’d hurt him.
Maybe going home was the next logical step. My game was over. Jenn was dead. I was me again, and I wasn’t sure what that meant for us.
“Is it gone?” I asked.
“Is what gone?” he asked, not turning around.
“Whatever it was we had. Do you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you,” he said.
“Look at me when you say that,” I said, my voice cracking. He looked at me. I scanned his face, reading nothing. He felt nothing. Hate at least was something I could work with. If he hated me, then I’d know what to do with myself, but his indifference hurt.
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” I said quietly, turning to leave his room.
“Jenny, come back here.”
“My name isn’t Jenny, it’s Felicity,” I said petulantly, stalking over to the couch.
“Come back,” he said standing a few yards away from me.
“I don’t have to be in the same room for you to hurt me. I get it.”
“I swear to God, Jenny-”
“It’s Felicity,” I snapped. “I’m not coming in there. You’re plenty cold from right here. Don’t make me lie there when you don’t want me near you.”
“I shouldn’t want you near me, but I do. I wish I could hate you, but I don’t. I can’t. You lied to me, and all I want is to be near you.”
“Fuck you, Asher, I’m not going to let you hate fuck me.”
“Felicity,” he said. My name sounded so foreign coming from him. I wanted to hear him say it again and again till it stopped. “If you don’t want to be near me then fine, but don’t sleep on the couch and tell yourself it’s what I wanted.”
“If what you want is one more fuck before you send me on your way you’re out of luck,” I said, knowing it would make him angry but saying it anyway. How could he say that and expect me to believe him?
“Goddamit, Felicity,” he said, putting a hand through his hair. “What the fuck is it going to take with you?”
“If you want me so much, then show me,” I yelled.
He walked up and crushed our lips together, painfully. His hands were under my shirt, undoing my jeans roughly. His hand was down my panties firmly stroking my clit, catching me off guard. I moaned into our kiss, shivering when I felt him shove two fingers inside me and thrust quickly.
I held onto him feeling I would fall over if I didn’t. His hard muscles flexed under his clothes. I squeezed his bicep, feeling myself getting close. The heel of his hand remained pressed to my clitoris pushing me. I came, muffling my cry against his chest.
He tugged my jeans down my body so hard I had to hang onto his shoulders to keep my balance. I had never been with anybody who was so hell-bent on getting me naked. I was surprised nothing had ripped yet.
Hoisting me up in the air he walked us quickly to the wall pressing me into it. I groped at his shirt to get it off of him. He held my legs open and was inside me with one hard thrust. He took the wind out of me. Every stroke hit me like a blow. I screamed. It was loaded. I felt everything—the passion, his want, his anger, his love, if he still had any for me. It was all there. I let him ravish me wishing we could stay in that moment because I wanted to remember him giving me this. Accepting me still, even after what I’d done to him. We slid together, coming almost simultaneously. I felt myself squeeze around him and him mark me with his seed.
I touched my face when we’d finished, realizing I’d started crying. I felt his lips kiss my neck, up my jaw and finally meet my lips, slowly. Sweetly. A one-hundred-and-eighty-degree swing from the way he’d just taken me.
“Come to bed with me,” he whispered.
I nodded dumbly and let him lead me to his bedroom.
19
Asher
I couldn’t sleep.
Jenny’s, I mean, Felicity’s warm body lay next to mine, curled inward so her head was on my shoulder and her hand rested on my chest. Her gentle, steady breathing was calming, but not enough.
I didn’t want to close my eyes too, because when I woke up, it would be morning and she would have to leave.
I mean, she would have to leave right? She couldn’t stay.
Her parents had an investigation out for her. The police had gotten involved. Nobody had known that she was here, and she wasn’t supposed to be here. I didn’t want her to go, but that would have been the right thing for her to do. It would have been the right thing to ask her to do. The right thing. The thing that would take her back to where she was supposed to be. That was what was most important. It sucked the most, but that was what it was.
I ran a hand down her arm to see whether she’d wake up. If these were the last moments that I could have her like this, I wanted her awake. I did it again, running my hand down her slim upper arm. What the fuck, Asher? Let her sleep. If you’re fucked up about this, how must she feel? I settled back into my pillow. I didn’t have to ruin her good night’s sleep because I was chopped up.
I thought about everything she’d told me. She had said it was all true, but how true could it be if she had been lying about who she was in the first place?
It was just the name. Just the Jenny thing. She had just used a different name. The stuff she told me about her family, and her old boyfriend, and rehab, all that had been true.
At least I thought it had been. She had said it had been, and I wanted to believe that. Even if it was, she’d hidden things from me. Why do you keep a secret unless you want to deceive someone? She’d kept me in the dark on purpose.
Why didn’t she feel like she could say something to me? When would I have heard it from her? Maybe I wouldn’t. I’d have just gotten the fucking cops at my door, or woken up one day and not found her anywhere.
Come on. She fucked with you, man. She lied to you. She didn’t care about you enough to tell you the truth. If you hadn’t caught her, you’d still think she was called Jenny.
I tried to get mad. Why was I laying here with her like she hadn’t done it at all? Why was I so chewed up at the thought of her leaving? It fucked me up. Everything. This girl. I wasn’t mad enough
to push her away. I wanted to do that stuff. That ridiculous fucking stuff like taking her to see my mom and asking her to be my girlfriend. I wanted her to live here with me—for real, not just a duffel on the floor and a pile of t-shirts in my closet.
I didn’t want her to leave. I wasn’t ready to lose her. She was mine. She wasn’t going anywhere. She’d told her family where she was, so they knew she was safe. She had a place to stay, and she had a job. She was a grown woman; they weren’t going to make her go back there if she didn’t want to.
Fuck, what if she did want to?
I had to get up. I was too wired to stay still. I slid out from under Felicity as carefully as I could and walked over to my closet to put some underwear on.
“Asher?”
Fuck. I turned, seeing her on the bed, sitting up. Messy hair, half-lidded eyes, naked tits peeking out from under the comforter. She was sexy.
“Go back to sleep, babe,” I said gently.
“Are you leaving?”
“No, I couldn’t sleep,” I explained. There was enough light from outside to let me see her face. Sad, tired and worried.
“If this is because of what I told you, I’m so sorry, Asher,” she said. Great. I walked over to the bed, still naked and held her face so she looked up at me.
“Sleep,” I said, kissing her forehead. She wrapped her arms around my neck and caught my lips, kissing me fiercely.
“Sleep with me. Let me help you,” she whispered. She pulled me into her, determined to get me back on the bed. I let her. I didn’t think coming would help me fall asleep, but it would put us in the same place at the same time, and I’d feel her with me, and I’d forget that she might actually want to leave after tonight.
I got on top of her, getting the comforter out of the way. She opened her legs up so I was between them. Her legs wrapped around my hips and pulled me into her. I put a hand between her lips to see whether she was ready. She gasped and pushed them forward. Could be wetter. I rubbed her clit making her cry out and writhe on the bed.
“Fuck me, Asher. I need you inside me,” she begged. I felt it in my balls, ready to bust. I didn’t need any encouragement getting to full mast. I slid into her and groaned. Smooth, wet, hot. Perfect. We were connected. As long as we were like this, I knew what she was thinking, and I knew it was where she wanted to be. I couldn’t get closer to her than this if I tried. She couldn’t get away from me when we were like this.
Asher (Heartbreakers & Troublemakers Book 6) Page 15