“Jessica,” he whispered and lowered his face near hers.
His lips hovered, tauntingly close, and despite the crazy turn of events of the day, all she wanted was for this man to wrap his arms around her.
“Be with me,” she whisper-said. “And not just for tonight.”
“There’s, uh, something I have to tell you first.” Emotion squeezed his words. “It could change things.”
She shook her head and focused on his dark eyes. “Nothing could change how I feel.” She was desperate for his touch. “Please.”
His lips parted as his hand went to the small of her back. There was a fight, or conflict of some sort, in his eyes.
“Whatever it is, I promise it doesn’t matter. We’ve waited so long and . . .” She let go of her words when he hooked her leg up to his hip with his free hand, holding her tight. His length hardened against her, and a sharp ache of need settled between her thighs.
He sucked at her bottom lip and grunted as he rotated his hips, pressing her pelvis into him.
D.C. or New York. Hell, anywhere—it didn’t matter. With Asher, she felt like she was home, a feeling she hadn’t known she’d wanted until today. Until him.
“I need you,” she whispered when he tore his mouth from hers, both of them gasping for air. “So much.”
He lightly tugged at the braid resting over her shoulder and tipped her head back. He lost hold of her leg with his other hand, and his rough palm skirted up her neckline to her chin. “Tell me what you want.” His eyes possessed hers, and a shudder of excitement rocked her body.
“You. Inside of me,” she said when he eased his hold on her braid and sucked at her neck. Her eyes rolled skyward. “However you want me.”
He lifted his mouth from her neck and found her eyes, his other hand tracing a line down the side of her body before he grasped her hip. “No. Tell me how you want me.”
“On top,” she nearly breathed out. “Hard and fast.” Heat flooded her stomach and traveled south. “No protection. I want to feel all of you.”
“Fuck.” The word died inside her mouth as he ravished her lips again before kissing her neck. Cheek. Throat. His teeth at her earlobe.
“On the bed,” he commanded a minute later. “Naked.” His eyes narrowed as he removed his clothes, and she hastily stripped.
He sat on the bed, and she straddled him, looping her arms around his neck as she shimmied on his lap, anxious for him to fill her.
A hard pulse of desire tore between her legs, and she was sure he could feel it.
“I’ve never wanted anything more.” His velvety words had her breasts puckering, and she kissed him, harder and full of more intensity than ever before.
When he flipped her to her back a few minutes later, her fingertips skirted over the hard lines of his chest, and she whispered, “Make love to me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He lowered the weight of his body onto her. Their eyes remained connected as he pressed his tip to her center.
She nodded. “I’m on the pill,” she told him before he filled her.
His beard scratched a path up her neck before his lips found hers again. He continued to kiss her as they made love, as their bodies moved together.
No regrets. Not anymore.
Life was too short to go without the person she needed the most in this world. And maybe it’d taken her a while to get to this place, but she was grateful she had finally gotten there.
Her stomach muscles tightened, and her body tensed. The need to release and let go had her hanging on the edge.
“Asher,” she sputtered his name as she fought to hang on to control. “Oh, God.” There was no way she’d last any longer. “Yes. Yes. Yes!” Everything inside of her built up higher and higher, and then . . . “Asher,” she cried as she came, her body rocking with his as she released, unraveling in his arms.
He spilled inside of her, warming her from head to toe, and then slowly lowered his sweaty body closer to hers but without crushing her.
Bracing above her with one hand, he moved her braid off her chest, and his fingers skimmed up the slope of her shoulder to her cheek. “This day didn’t turn out as I expected.”
“I—” Her phone shrieked from the end table, but he didn’t take his gaze off her.
“Ignore it,” he said. “We have two weeks off, remember?”
“Right.” She kissed him, but the moment the call ended, her phone began ringing again. “Let me turn it off. One sec.”
He grabbed it for her, but then cocked his head to the side as he eyed the screen. “It’s my mom. I, uh, gave her your number for emergencies.” He shifted off of her and to his feet. “Mom?” he answered.
Italian floated from the other end of the line. Jessica’s Italian was decent from having lived on a base in Naples as a kid for a few years, but she couldn’t make out enough to translate what Asher’s mom was saying.
She didn’t have to, though. Based on the clench of his jaw and the blanching of his skin, something was wrong.
“I’m on my way.” He ended the call. “I must’ve left my phone at the hangar,” he said in a daze. “She’s been calling me.”
She gripped his forearm as he blinked a few times. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
His forehead creased, and he stared down at her phone, still tight in his hand. “There was a shooting.” His eyes flicked back to hers. “Sarah was shot.”
“What?”
“She’s . . . okay.” His arms hung heavy at his sides, the phone slipping free from his hold. “But Angelo’s dead.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“I thought you said she was okay.” Asher stared at his sister in the bed, hooked up to monitors. Her eyes were blank, focused on the ceiling.
His mom grabbed hold of his arm. His body stiffened as he looked over his shoulder at her. Every fiber in his being was ready to shred the bastards who had done this.
Tears poured down his mom’s face, and she pulled him toward her for a hug. “The doctor gave her something to relax.” Her voice was muffled against his chest as she cried. “Sarah was trying to get off the bed. Screaming. Crying.”
His throat burned, anger torching a sharp line down the center of his body. His hands gathered into fists at his sides as he pivoted out of her grasp to observe Sarah in the bed. “What the hell happened?” His temper flared so hard, his words were a hard echo striking the very air in the room.
“There was a shooting at that club Angelo owns.” She dropped down into the chair by the bed.
He knew that part, but he’d hoped his mom would know more. He’d read the news about the shooting on the flight back to the city, but the details had been sparse: it was still an active investigation.
He moved closer to the bed, where his sister remained lifeless. The bullet had torn through her bicep, but thankfully, the rest of her had been untouched.
“Did you know your sister was hanging out with Angelo?” He could hear the blame pinging off the walls.
He nodded without facing her. “What happened to Angelo? How exactly did he die?”
“Someone . . . shot . . . him,” she said between sniffles. “One of the bullets hit your sister.”
A targeted kill. And his sister had gotten hurt in the crossfires.
“No idea who is responsible?” Nausea swelled in his stomach; he pressed his closed hand against his abdomen.
“The police say it was a gang-related hit, but Angelo’s mom told me he wasn’t involved anymore.”
He whirled to face her; he’d had no idea she still spoke with Angelo’s mom. After their fathers had gone to prison, he had assumed they’d lost touch.
“The detectives tried to question Sarah, but when she learned Angelo didn’t make it . . .” She closed her eyes. “I had no idea she was seeing him. His mom didn’t know, either.”
“Asher.”
His stomach dropped at the sound of his sister’s voice, and he turned to her, reaching for her hand. “Sarah.”
She blinked a few times and rolled her head to the side to see him.
He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m so sorry.” He bent down to kiss her head. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“He’s gone,” she said, liquid gathering in her eyes. “Why?”
He gulped. “I’ll make this right. I promise.” He kept his hold on her hand, but he looked back over his shoulder to see Luke and Jessica outside in the hall.
He’d felt her presence somehow.
He’d told both Luke and Jessica not to come because this wasn’t their fight. But more than that, he was worried they’d try and stop him from what he had to do next.
* * *
Jessica stood before him, her eyes wide. “This isn’t war. You can’t take vengeance into your own hands. Not here. Not like this.”
He eyed the ink on his arm, the brush of failure darting down his spine, leaving pain in its wake. “What difference does it make where I kill? Murder is murder.” His shoulders shook at his words. “And that’s what I already am: a killer.”
He’d been grappling with what he’d done in Austria, and now . . .
How easily had he succumbed to wanting to kill again in the name of justice?
She grabbed hold of his bicep and lifted her chin to peer into his eyes. “No, you’re not.”
“I am,” he seethed and leaned in closer to her. “I killed Egon.” The truth dropped hard between them.
She didn’t respond.
He added, “There was no hostage.”
Her eyes thinned.
“And maybe I would’ve killed Samir if it weren’t for you.” He had no idea anymore what he was capable of.
Jessica had almost died.
Now his sister.
Two women in his life had their lives on the line, and he’d do anything—even sacrifice his soul—to make things right.
“No.” A line crossed through her forehead. “If you killed Egon it was because you had no choice. I know you. You don’t—”
“Maybe you don’t know me at all.” He needed her to see the ugly truth, to know he wasn’t such a good guy after all.
He could never be like her. Forgive a murderer.
No, hell fucking no.
“The guy was on his back with his hands in the air, begging me to live, and I put a bullet in his forehead,” he said through gritted teeth, allowing the anger at what Egon did to Jessica to thrive inside of him again, so he could feed off it like fuel.
Her gaze cut to the floor as if she couldn’t look at him, as if she finally realized he truly was a monster. And it was what he wanted. What he needed so she wouldn’t try and stop him from going after Angelo’s killer.
He shifted out of her reach, stormed to the window in his office, and pressed his palms to it. But damn her, she came up behind him and touched the center of his back. “Whatever happened to Egon . . . it doesn’t matter.” A quietness filled the space between them, but only for a few moments.
“You can’t just forgive me for that. It doesn’t work—”
“I can, and I will.”
He spun to face her, almost hating her for taking it so easy on him. He didn’t deserve it.
“If you go after him, you’re not just off the team—they’ll put you in prison.” She shook her head and her eyes closed. “Do you want to end up alongside your dad?”
His breathing slowed a touch. The team was everything to him. She was everything.
Could he throw everything away for the sake of retribution?
Her lids lifted, and the liquid in her eyes made them shimmer. “I just got you, Asher. Please. I can’t lose you.”
“I need to fix this,” he said, his voice calmer now.
She was winning the fight—breaking him down, even though he didn’t want her to.
She pressed her index finger to his chest. “How? How will you fix this? You’ll either end up dead yourself or behind bars, and—”
“That was the choice I was faced with once before, and I—”
“Joined the Navy and made the right call.” Her palm went to his chest, his heart beating erratically beneath her palm.
He heaved out a deep breath and looked heavenward. “I can’t let these animals roam the streets.”
His hands tightened into fists at his sides as he thought about Angelo, about the bastard who’d killed him and nearly murdered his sister.
He peered out the window, doing everything he could to avoid looking at her. But he squinted in the harsh light of day as the gleaming sun reflected off the building across the street and hit him, placing his sins on view. Everything exposed.
“Angelo was trying to be a better person, right?” She brought her hands to his face, forcing his eyes to behold hers. “The last thing he’d want is for his death to have you going backward when he’d been trying to go forward.” Her eyes glinted with unshed tears. “Sarah needs you. Your mom does, too. The team. Me. We can’t lose you.”
He reached for her right wrist, her pulse climbing beneath his thumb, matching his own. “I’m a fighter. A killer. What if it’s the same damn thing?”
“No, Asher. Every life you took in the past was—”
He removed her hands from his face and looked away. “Was what, Jessica? A bad guy?”
“Yes!” She reached for him again, refusing to give up on him.
His gaze lowered to her face, to the tears gliding down her smooth skin. She’d been keeping so much of herself hidden for years, but now, the evidence of her emotions was in plain sight. She was baring everything, but what if he didn’t deserve it?
He wanted to wrap his fist around his heart and squeeze so it turned to dust. The struggle for breath grabbed hold of him, and a tremor rocked through his body.
“Let me help you find the men responsible for Angelo’s death, and we’ll put them behind bars where they belong.” She tilted her head. “We’re a team, remember? You go.” Tears flowed down her cheeks now. “I go.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Knox, Liam, and Luke walked into the conference room where Asher and Jessica had set up, drawing his eyes from the screen.
“You called the guys?” Asher glanced at Jessica from across the table.
“Of course.” She shifted her dark-rimmed glasses to the bridge of her nose and looked back at her laptop.
“We’ve got your back, man.” Knox sat next to Jessica. “Owen’s stuck in D.C., but Echo’s en route.”
“I, uh—” He didn’t know what to say. He’d kept this part of his life from his team for a reason, and now here they were, being roped into his past.
“There aren’t many cameras outside Angelo’s club,” Jessica began. “I have to spread the search area a bit wider during the time of death.”
“You could’ve told us about Angelo. About your past,” Liam said in a low voice as he positioned himself next to Knox.
Asher placed his hands in prayer position beneath his chin, struggling to find the words to say. It was never easy to lay the truth out. “It’s complicated” was all he managed.
Liam slowly nodded. “No witnesses came forward?”
“None,” she said with a shake of the head.
“Most people at the fight club weren’t exactly eager to talk about being there,” Asher noted in a glib tone.
“If the NYPD did snag any statements, they’re not uploading them into their systems for me to find,” she added. “They’d want to protect a witness from retaliation, especially if this is gang-related.”
“But he got out of all of that.” Asher looked at the images of all the known gang members from Angelo’s part of town in the file Jessica had miraculously pulled together in the last twelve hours.
Jessica grabbed her tablet and pointed at the screen. “This is Zander Jameson.” She handed the tablet to her brother. “He runs a small Irish crew in Hell’s Kitchen. He’s known for throwing some illegal fights as well.”
“What makes you think he’s a suspect?” Luke asked, speakin
g for the first time, and Asher wondered what the hell he was thinking.
Had Jessica told him about Egon? Or how yesterday he’d been hell-bent on finding the killer to put him six feet under himself?
“Sarah and Angelo were at the club we were all at on Valentine’s Day,” she explained. “And I saw Zander arguing with Angelo that night. I pulled his image from the CCTV footage and ran it through my program to get a name.”
Valentine’s Day. The day his dad had been arrested, and now this. His stomach lurched at the memory of his father’s arrest. His mother’s homemade pasta all over the floor. The trail of marinara sauce spreading throughout his home as officers tossed the place.
“Zander was arrested for murdering two teenagers last year,” Luke said while scrolling through the details on the tablet. “He really got off on a techni-fucking-cality?”
Asher’s cheeks filled with air as he thought about the possibility Zander had murdered Angelo. He didn’t know the guy, or why he’d want Angelo dead, but one thing was for certain—he sure as hell wouldn’t get away with it.
“I think there’s someone who might know who did this,” he said as the realization hit him.
“Who?” Jessica asked as Luke handed her back the tablet.
Asher dragged a palm down his face and blew out a hard breath. “My father.”
* * *
Asher had memorized his dad’s eight-digit prison ID a long time ago, even though he’d never used it. His father had sent him letter after letter, and each envelope had the same number attached to it on the return address.
He’d never opened the mail, but he used to stare at the envelopes before heading to the fight club. It had helped provoke and fuel his rage before entering the ring.
He wasn’t sure if the letters had stopped coming to his mom’s place during his time in the Navy; his mom had known better than to bring his dad up during his deployments.
He’d been seventeen when his dad had gone to prison. Had twenty years really gone by without a word passing between them?
Hell, he’d been out of his life for longer than he’d ever been in it.
Finding the Fight: A Stealth Ops Novel Page 24