WE STAY the night in my apartment after Asher refused my millionth attempt to make him leave. He even called Izzy, informing her I’d be spending the night with friends.
Friends. Psh, whatever.
Asher is probably the last person who could be considered my friend.
I spy on him as he washes the dishes in the kitchen—without using the dishwasher. Then he places the leftover mac and cheese in a casserole and puts that in the refrigerator.
Seriously, why does he keep doing things like that for me? It only makes me feel more apprehensive.
I retreat to where I woke up and close the door. It’s so similar to my room in Alex’s house, only this one’s closet is filled with leather skirts and pants, the latest fashionable bags and shoes.
With a sigh, I lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling. My phone and bag sit on the nightstand. Asher must’ve brought them in when he carried me up here.
I unlock Instagram then type.
Reina-Ellis: Are you there?
His reply is immediate.
Cloud003: For you, always.
A smile tugs on my lips. I need a friend so bad right now, and I don’t want to bother Naomi or Lucy with a long story this late.
Sure, I could’ve called Jace, but this anonymity gives me a lot of courage.
Reina-Ellis: I stood on the edge of a roof today and threatened to kill myself. I didn’t mean to, you know. I only wanted to bargain for something else, but as I stood there, a pull kept tugging me.
Cloud003: Did you give in to it?
This is what I like about him. He doesn’t judge me when I talk about this type of stuff.
Reina-Ellis: No, or I wouldn’t be talking to you right now *tongue out emoji*
My attempt at humor falls flat.
Cloud003: But you thought about it.
Reina-Ellis: I did, but at the same time, I didn’t.
Cloud003: How so?
Reina-Ellis: I can’t explain it. There was someone else with me, and as I stood there, I felt a strange type of freedom and told him things I’ve been keeping a secret for nine years, things no one else knows, things I don’t think I would’ve ever said if I weren’t standing at the edge. There’s something so liberating about having nothing left to lose.
He takes a few seconds to reply.
Cloud003: And what was his reaction?
I bite my lower lip. I don’t want to tell him about Asher or about my double identity, but at the same time, I want to continue talking to him.
He brings me calm.
Reina-Ellis: He didn’t like it.
Cloud003: He didn’t like what?
Reina-Ellis: Me standing on the ledge and threatening to jump.
It hits me then.
Arianna’s death. Oh my God—Arianna died the same way, and I just repeated the scene in front of him.
In my mind, I thought he wouldn’t care, but that look he gave me was the complete opposite of not caring.
He was on the verge of himself.
Reina-Ellis: Shit. I think I hurt him. What do I do?
Cloud003: Why are you asking me?
Cloud003: I don’t appreciate you talking about other men, my slut.
I roll my eyes.
The door bangs open.
I jerk, hugging the phone to my chest as if Asher could see my conversation with Jason. I mean, it’s not cheating. We’re friends.
So why the hell am I hiding the phone?
No, I’m not hiding it. I just don’t want Asher to see what I said about him.
He closes the door, trapping us both in the room as he leans against it. The soft lamplight casts a shadow on his darkened features, almost making them frightening.
Scratch that. They are frightening.
Although I feel lighter now that he knows I’m not Reina, Asher is still one of the villains in my story—if not the most dangerous.
I don’t feel drawn to other villains. I don’t clench my thighs upon seeing them like some high school girl with a crush.
“What…” My voice comes out breathy, and I clear my throat. “What are you doing here?”
He doesn’t answer and stalks toward me instead. His steps are slow, measured, and filled with so much sexual energy it radiates in the air and wraps a noose around my neck.
I hug the phone tighter to my chest, as if it can save me from Asher’s hold and teleport me out of here.
“What were you doing?” His question drifts like smoke without fire, impenetrable and asphyxiating.
“Nothing.” My voice is defensive and too loud, even to my own ears.
“Is that so?” He’s suddenly standing beside me, and I have to gaze up to look at him.
His heat radiates on my skin in waves and I can’t look away. I can’t do anything except stare like an idiot.
As I’m caught in his trance, he reaches over and snatches my phone away. His brows scrunch as he studies the screen, but there’s no other indication of his mood.
I finally shake myself out of my stupor and yank my phone back.
It’s too late, though. He must’ve seen the name, or worse, the last few lines of my conversation with Jason.
My ears and face flame with shame. Is it supposed to feel this crippling?
“Are you cheating on me, Reina?” His question is like a slap across my face. My cheek is hot and tingling where his imaginary hand struck me.
“N-No.” My lips tremble around the word.
Although I might have cheated before, I don’t now and will never do it again.
Why the hell did I cheat? Was it another way to remain detached and not grow close to Asher? Because I know—I’m sure—I felt something for him in the past.
These intense feelings didn’t spring up out of nowhere. They’ve been magnifying over the years, and when I finally had the freedom of amnesia, I just let them loose.
I let them consume me alive.
He leans over so his entire body is angled toward mine. “Why do I think you did?”
“What about you, then?” I cover my ignorance by jutting out my chin. “Didn’t you cheat on me?”
“No.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe. I don’t have the time or energy to focus on anyone else.”
My heartbeat hammers faster as his words sink in. He just admitted that he only has the time and energy to focus on me.
Even if it’s the most fucked-up type of focus.
“Not even in England?” I murmur.
“Not even in England.”
Well, shit. How does he have the power to make my pulse race this hard and fast? Is it a curse?
Or maybe it’s something stronger I refuse to admit.
“So, are you?” he repeats. “Cheating on me, I mean.”
“No.” I say the word with an odd type of conviction like I never cheated on him, like the thought never even crossed my mind.
“Good, because I don’t react well to others touching what I own.” His finger glides along my cheek, leaving goosebumps in its wake as he traces my lower lip in a sensual caress. “You’re mine, aren’t you, prom queen?”
Prom queen.
My chest flutters in and out of sync.
I don’t know why I love it so much when he calls me that. Could be because it’s neither Reina nor Rai. It’s neither identity theft nor confusion.
It’s just me.
His thumb and forefinger squeeze my chin. “Answer me.”
“I don’t belong to someone who wants to hurt me.”
I might be inexplicably attracted to Asher, but I’ve never, not once, forgotten what he did to me. That fear was wild and raw and I can almost feel how I hung on the roof or how these same fingers choked me with the intent of ending my life.
People think when you have dark thoughts about ending your own life, you’d feel relieved when someone else takes the burden away and finishes it for you.
It’s not true, at least not for me.
That terror I felt back then still pulses beneath my skin, pumping in my bloodstream. Those were some of the rare moments where I thought I didn’t want to die, that I couldn’t leave just like that.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget that type of horror.
“Oh, but you do.” Asher’s hand travels down until it wraps around my throat. “You fucking do.”
“But—”
He squeezes, cutting off my air supply and my words. “Shut up, don’t talk about that. Not tonight.”
Not tonight? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Still gripping my neck, his thumb strokes up and down my pulse point as if soothing it, feeling it, making sure it’s there.
There’s something about the way he holds my throat prisoner. Sometimes, it’s harsh, dominant, and meant to prove a point. Other times, like right now, it’s almost…tender, meant to establish a connection.
“You’ll never do shit like that on the balcony again, understood?” He’s not boring his eyes into mine. Instead, his entire attention is on my neck.
What is his problem exactly? He’s acting strangely for someone who’s been actively trying to end my life.
When I don’t answer—partially because he’s barely allowing me air to breathe, let alone talk—he wraps his other hand at the back of my head and forces me to nod, up and down.
“That’s a yes. That’s, I’ll never do it again, Asher. I won’t allow people to see me that way.”
He releases me then, both his hands pulling away from me. A funny type of emptiness prickles on my skin as if I don’t want him gone.
Why the hell do I not want him gone?
He stalks to the foot of the bed and I watch his every move. The word ‘stay’ is at the tip of my tongue, but I don’t say it.
Snap out of it, Reina or Rai or whoever the fuck you are.
I expect him to leave, but he turns around. The dangerous lust on his face takes me by surprise as he reaches for me.
“What—”
Words die at the back of my throat when he grabs both my ankles in his strong, merciless hold and pulls me toward him in one ruthless tug.
The phone falls from my hand, clattering to the ground. My legs fly open and the leather skirt bunches up my thighs, barely covering my butt.
Asher kneels on the ground as both my legs hang helplessly on his broad shoulders.
“What are you doing?” I gasp, my voice breathy and choppy like I’ve been running.
“You had your dinner. It’s time I have mine.”
I hardly process his words as he tugs my skirt up around my waist and yanks my panties down. A gust of air covers my core and my spine jerks.
A groan tears out of him as he widens my legs to watch me closer. “You’re wet. Why the fuck are you soaked, prom queen?”
I don’t know. I really don’t know. It’s baffling even to my own brain. Something about me is wired wrong, and I have no idea what it is.
Or maybe I do know, but I don’t want to admit it even to myself.
He runs his middle finger along my slit, ripping a whimper from me. “You were hardly wet before, if ever. You never moaned, either, or shook with desire like you do now.”
The confession doesn’t lessen my reaction. If anything, it makes my limbs shake harder like a leaf in the wind outside the windows.
He slides his middle finger up and down again before he thrusts it inside me and murmurs against my slick folds. “You changed.”
In the beginning, I also thought I’d changed, but now I realize that’s not the case.
Losing my memories allowed me to let myself loose, to not think about confiscating Reina’s life, and for that reason, it seems as if I’ve changed when the truth is, I was just releasing my bottled-up feelings.
“I like the new you.” His voice rumbles as he glides his tongue from the bottom of my clit up.
Oh, God.
His confession along with his touch grips my body like a possession, nearly pushing me off the edge.
“Just so we’re clear.” He nibbles on my sensitive skin with his teeth, sending rolling pleasure to my belly. “This. Pussy. Belongs. To. Me.”
With every word, he bites, making me writhe and squirm on the bed.
“You belong to me, prom queen. Now say it.” He thrusts his tongue into my entrance and my thighs quiver with the building pleasure coiling at the bottom of my stomach.
He thrusts in and out of me as if he’s filling me with his cock, as if he’s punishing me, teaching me my place, and eating me alive.
In the midst of all that, he’s bringing me shattering pleasure, the type that turns me mindless and blind. There’s too much intensity, too much control.
Just too much.
He teases my swollen clit with his thumb, continuing his ruthless assault.
Sparks fill my vision as my head rolls back and my nails dig into the sheets on either side of me.
“Oh…oh…”
“That’s not the word.” He slaps the inner flesh of my thigh in such an erotic way that it makes me gasp for air. “Now, say it.”
I gulp, trying to gather enough energy to speak.
He slaps my ass this time, and my mouth opens in a wordless cry. Shit. Why the hell is that such a turn-on?
“Last.” Slap. “Chance.”
My body jerks off the bed as I choke out the words. “I…I belong to you. Only you.”
“Repeat that.” He slaps me again, the hardest he ever has, the sound echoing in the thick air.
I scream the words as stars form behind my lids. His tongue and fingers don’t stop, bringing me a pleasure so wild it drains me of all thoughts and what-ifs.
All I can do is feel—his slight stubble, his wicked mouth, and his uncut intensity.
Just him.
My villain and my savior.
My damnation and my salvation.
The only person I ever told my secret.
His head lifts from between my thighs so his eyes lock with mine. They’re filled with raw lust and mischievous sadism. “Only me.”
I nod, barely catching my breath. The skin he slapped earlier is flaming and pulsing with the need to have his hand on my ass.
How can I want this man so much? This is so fucked up.
He disappears between my legs again, his breath tickling my hypersensitive skin.
“Ash…? What are you doing?”
“I just started my dinner.” I can feel his smirk without seeing it. “I’m going to tongue-fuck you until you can no longer move, prom queen.”
And then he makes good on his promise.
