I STAND in front of room 1003 at seven o’clock.
From what I’ve gathered about my odd relationship with Cloud003, we never met in person. We never had an encounter outside the Halloween parties.
So why does this hall seem familiar? Why does it feel like I’ve stood in a similar hallway before? I had the same feeling of the unknown.
No.
I have to do this. Besides, I’ll just talk to him and go. I brought my security with me. If I don’t come out in fifteen minutes, they’ll call, and if I don’t reply, they’ll come for me.
I pull on the sleeves of my denim jacket. I dressed in jeans and a white top, nothing too out there.
Maybe all this tension is because I don’t want to do any of this behind Asher’s back.
I told him I was going out with Lucy and Naomi, and I did catch a ride with them, but as soon as we were away from campus, I had my security guys drive me here.
They only report back to Alex, and he won’t ask what I was doing here. Even if he does, he won’t tell Asher.
Besides, I’m doing all this for that asshole. If he had let me talk to Jason last night, I wouldn’t be forced to meet him in a hotel room as if I’m a cheater.
I’m not a cheater.
With one last deep breath, I knock on the door. A few seconds pass but no reply comes.
I knock again. Maybe he’s not here yet? Well, it is seven, and he seems to be punctual, so—
My thoughts shatter when the door opens. The man standing in front of me isn’t Jason.
No.
He’s the last person I expected to find here.
Dark jeans accentuate his powerful thighs and a gray T-shirt stretches against his bulging muscles.
The eyes that shouldn’t be staring at me right now capture my soul in their merciless hold.
“A-Asher?”
“The one and only, my slut.” He grabs me by the arm and pulls me inside.
I’m too stunned to react or even move. It isn’t until the door closes and he pushes me against it that I slowly come out of my stupor.
“W-what are you doing here?”
Oh, God. Oh, no.
My slut.
He called me his slut. Only one person calls me that, and it shouldn’t be him. But maybe Asher saw our exchange? Maybe he knew I was meeting Jason and came to ruin it?
Why aren’t any of those options registering in my head? Why does it keep rejecting them as if they hold no weight?
It’s as if my head already knows the answer and those are not it.
“What are you doing here?” He drags his thumb down my cheek then grips my chin with both his fingers. “Weren’t you supposed to have a night out with the girls?”
“I…I…”
“You lied. That’s what you did. Do you know what happens when you lie to me?” He drags his nose down my cheek, and I hold my breath.
“Ash, I…” I clear my throat, as if that’s enough to dissipate the cloud suffocating me. “I thought you were Jason.”
“You thought I was Jason,” he repeats, his voice gaining a lethal edge. “First you lied, then you thought I was Jason. Those are two strikes, my slut.”
“D-don’t call me that.” Even as I say the words, I don’t mean them. In a deep part of me, I like being called that by him just like before.
Just like before?
Oh, God. It is him.
It’s really him.
“But you are…” He darts his tongue out and drags it over my bottom lip, making me shiver. “My slut.”
I’m too lightheaded to think or form any words. I just stand there like a deer caught in the headlights. “B-but Lucy showed me a picture of you at a Halloween party in England last year. You…you couldn’t have been here.”
“That was a day before. I asked my friend to post it late.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
What is that supposed to mean? He didn’t want me to find out? He was fucking with my head? Which exactly?
“I’m here.” He licks my lips again, as if tasting them for the first time. “Why did you want to meet?”
When I don’t speak, his fingers leave my jaw and wrap around my throat so tight, I nearly suffocate.
“What did you plan to do with Jason?”
“N-nothing,” I choke out.
“You expect me to believe that?” He snarls at my face.
“I only wanted to ask him about Arianna. That’s all.”
“Why have you become such an expert liar?”
I glare up at him with all the energy I have considering his hand is cutting off my air supply. “I’m not lying. You are.”
That causes him to loosen his grip a little, but he still has me pinned against the door. His free arm slams above my head so he’s leaning on it and staring down at me. “I am?”
“You knew who I was all along, but you never once considered telling me who you are. You’re a fucking liar, Ash.”
It hits me then—all the things I told him via messages, every dark thought I talked about and confessed, not to mention all the sexual things we did in the past.
He owned a part of me and made me feel bad, thinking I cheated on him.
The asshole.
He strokes his thumb over my pulse point. “You knew.”
“I…did?”
“You hid it well, but yes, you did. Last year, I was fucking you from behind while you were half-asleep and you called out my name.” He sighs, the sound long and baffled. “You even asked me to stay. Why the fuck did you ask me to stay?”
It all comes back to me.
Not in flashbacks, but in little tangible memories. The way he held my hair as he fucked me with the urgency of a dying man, the way he kissed me hard and rough and made me come over and over again.
He was brutal, unapologetic, and used me up in every way possible. However, he pleased me, too. He looked at me with those bright green eyes through that black mask and told me without words how much he’s obsessed with me, almost as much as I’m obsessed with him. He showed me in his actions how much being away never erased the connection we had.
Of course I knew who he was. I knew the moment I saw his eyes when he walked into the party. There are no pairs like them in the entire world—at least not for me.
There’s no way the careful, standoffish Reina would’ve had a one-night stand. I was a calculating person who always looked ahead and plotted everything. One-night stands didn’t fit my agenda.
The only reason I did it was because I knew it was Asher. The camouflage of the costumes gave me the anonymity I needed to surrender to him.
“Because I wanted you to,” I say easily. “I wanted you to stay, Ash.”
He pauses, his finger freezing at my throat. “You remember?”
“A few things,” I murmur. “Those two times weren’t the only ones, were they? There was another one before you went to England.”
The memories are trickling in slowly, almost as if they’re in the air and I have to jump up to catch them.
He speaks as if easing me into those recollections. “At Sebastian’s lake house. It was dark and we were both drunk. I knew it was you because I was trailing your ass, but you didn’t. At least, I thought you didn’t.” His nostrils flare. “You knew about that, too?”
“Of course I did.” I smile a little. “I was trailing your ass, too. I just wasn’t so obvious about it. That’s what I did, you know. I watched from afar, stalked from afar, and told myself it was enough. That night, it wasn’t. Could’ve been the alcohol or the fact that you were leaving the following morning and I would never see you again, but I had to be with you, even for one night.”
Tears stream down my cheeks as the intensity of my emotions at the time slams into me. Even though I was drunk, nothing could’ve lessened the ache or the fact that I’d have to live in a world without him.
It was when the gloomy cloud struck the hardest.
“So I snuck to Bastian’s lake house, knowing you’d follow me. I even removed the jacket and shoes on purpose. I needed to feel you, even if just once.”
“Fuck, Reina.” He slams his hand beside my head. “Fuck! Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It would’ve broken the spell. You hated me back then, Ash.” I gulp. “More than any time, I mean.”
“So you made me believe you were fine with a one-night stand with a nobody after you always pushed me away?” He almost sounds bitter.
“You weren’t a nobody. You were you.”
“I thought you allowed a stranger to fuck you, Reina. I fucking hated you for it even though it was me.”
“Small price to pay, I guess. Besides, I wouldn’t have given my virginity to a stranger.”
He pauses, and I pause, too, realizing what I just admitted.
Asher took my virginity. Fucking hell.
“I didn’t know that.” His brows furrow. “You didn’t bleed or anything. You weren’t in pain either.”
I shrug, my cheeks heating. “Because it didn’t hurt.”
At that point, I’d wanted Asher for so long, having sex with him had become my favorite fantasy, so when it actually came true, I couldn’t keep up with the fact that it was better than any fantasy I could’ve had.
Of course it didn’t hurt; I was too aroused for that.
He picks me up in his arms and cuts the distance from the hotel’s living room to the bedroom. I squeal as he throws me on the bed in pure caveman fashion. My heart stammers loud and hard as I lie on my back. Asher yanks down my jeans, and I grip his arm. “W-wait.”
“I’ve waited long enough. I’m not waiting anymore.”
“Let me call my security—they’ll come up if I don’t.”
He groans in disapproval but throws me my bag. “You brought them for Jason?”
“As I said, I wasn’t interested in anything but talking with him.”
Which clearly isn’t the case with Asher.
It takes me a second too long to retrieve my phone with my trembling fingers and dial the head of my security, Gaige.
“Miss Reina.”
Asher doesn’t break eye contact as he pulls his T-shirt over his head, revealing his sculpted abs. The tattoo ripples over his bicep as he reaches down to his pants and undoes the button, agonizingly slowly. Then he pushes his jeans and boxer briefs down his legs in one go.
Oh, God.
He’s hard, thick, and ready. My own thighs clench in anticipation.
“Miss Reina?” Gaige’s gravelly voice pulls me out of the strip show.
“Uh, yes. I’m good, Gaige. I’m spending the night with Asher. You can go back.”
“We’ll stay here, too.”
“It’s okay.” I try not to sound breathy. “Nothing can happen to me here.”
And I mean it. I feel safer than ever when I’m with this infuriating but deeply wounded man.
I’m wounded, too, have been since childhood, and being with him has given me the hope I’ll be able to heal.
We’ll be able to heal each other.
“Very well, Miss Reina. I’ll stay just in case. Call me if anything happens.”
Asher is stalking toward me and I couldn’t focus on anything even if I tried. “Uh…yeah. Good night, Gaige.”
I tap the hang-up button and push the phone and bag away.
“So you were a virgin, huh?” He crawls toward me, his hard thighs on either side of me.
He drags my jeans and panties down my legs in one ruthless go, and I fumble with my jacket and camisole. The straps get stuck in my hair and I nearly rip the strands out. It’s Asher who untangles it and unclasps my bra, letting it fall to the pile of clothes on the floor.
With a push, I end up propped up on my elbows as his body hovers over mine. The position is so intimate and…right. This is how Asher and I were always supposed to be.
“Answer me,” he grunts near my mouth, hovering but not kissing.
The tease.
“I was.” My breathing catches as I confess. “And you are the only one, Ash.”
“The only one?”
“Yes. No one before you or after you. I know it for a fact.”
Both his palms cage my face as he lowers his forehead to mine. “I thought I was the only one so hopeless for you.”
“I was hopeless for you, too, Ash.” I inhale his sandalwood and citrus scent, taking in his murmured confessions.
All of him.
The fact that he’s Cloud003, the one who knows all my secrets and still wants me anyway, the fact that he wanted to hate me but he couldn’t help coming back every year to be with me.
I inhale it all.
“You were my first and only, too, Reina.”
My lips part, my heart flipping and thumping. “But you were in England and…oh, my God. Wait. You were a virgin?”
“At eighteen. How fucking pathetic is that?” He smiles but there’s no humor behind it. “I guess I’m lucky you were too drunk to notice.”
“Ash…”
“You were the only girl I wanted to kiss since I learned what kissing is and the only one I wanted to fuck since I learned what fucking means. All the others were nothing compared to you. I couldn’t even get hard at the sight of them, and that didn’t change when I went to England. Every time I felt the urge, I pulled out your picture or thought of the nights we had together and jerked off to them. I might have wanted to ruin you, but I could never stop the need to own you, too.”
Asher’s forehead remains connected to mine. With every word out of his mouth, my breathing turns deeper and shallower, harder and faster.
We weren’t even in an actual relationship and he hated me, but he still remained faithful to me.
He didn’t consider the other girls because he couldn’t stop thinking about me.
“I never wanted any other man but you, and I never will.” I wrap my arms around his neck. “You ruined me for everyone else.”
His grunt is like music to my ears as he positions himself between my legs. “That’s my slut.”
Arousal coats my thighs at the rumble of his voice.
“Say it.” His fingers wrap around my throat, the movement erotic and so utterly dominant.
“I’m…I’m…”
“That’s not the word.”
“I’m your…slut.” Holy shit, why does it feel like such a turn-on to say it aloud?
“And you’re mine.”
“I’m yours.”
The words catch in my throat as he thrusts balls-deep inside me. My entire body bucks off the bed, but his merciless hold on my neck keeps me prisoned in place. I wrap a hand around the arm holding me as my other one remains around his neck.
“You always let me fuck you dirty and hard.” He grunts, picking up his pace. “I claimed both your pussy and your ass over and over again.”
Oh God, that’s why it didn’t hurt the other time, and was even pleasing. It wasn’t the first time or even the second.
“I own you, prom queen. All of you.”
“Yes…” I choke on my breaths, my heart rate intensifying with the rhythm of his thrusts.
He does fuck me like I’m his slut. He flips me around and pounds into me from behind with my ass hanging off the edge then slaps my thighs and my ass cheeks until I scream his name.
He’s not done.
As I shake and whimper with the force of my release, he maneuvers me so he’s sitting on the bed and I’m settled on his lap with his hard cock still throbbing inside me. He takes me slower and unhurried as our chests beat in sync. He pulls out as much as he can before stabbing inside me again.
With every in and out, my body ignites and stars burst behind my lids. I wrap my arms around his neck as both his stronger arms wind around my back, stopping me from toppling to the ground.
We hug each other as he moves slowly inside me. I realize with tears in my eyes that I’m not his slut now; I’m almost his…queen.
His one and only.
That thought alone pushes me to the pleasurable heights of another crippling orgasm. I scream his name, my teeth finding his shoulder and my nails digging into his skin. His lips find the hollow of my neck as he grunts and spills inside me.
My eyes flutter closed, exhaustion rearing on my nerve endings. He always fucks me so thoroughly I only have the energy to sleep afterward.
This is all I ever wanted.
All I ever needed in life, to sleep in his arms and feel so utterly safe.
“Why Cloud003, though?” I murmur in my sleepy haze.
“Cloud because of Gray, my middle name. 003 because of the day I first met you, January 3rd. It’s the reason behind this room number, too—1003.”
I smile against his skin. Damn this man and the lengths he went to for this.
I love you, my mind screams. I love you so much, and it kills me to think you don’t feel the same.
