ASHER (The Beckett Boys, Book Three) Read online

  And then, suddenly, he was by my side.

  No, not the sexy stranger I’d been trying to avoid staring at, but another man.

  This one was paunchy, slightly balding, and had hairy knuckles.

  “Let me buy you a drink, sweetheart,” he slurred. I sighed. Men like him always tried to hit on me. They thought that since I was considered a “bigger girl” they’d have more of a chance with me. What they didn’t understand was that just because I was carrying a few extra pounds didn’t mean I was desperate.

  “No, that’s okay,” I said politely. I indicated the drink I was holding. “I already have one.”

  He frowned, like he was trying to work out a particularly hard math problem. Then, brightening, he reached out, took the drink from my hand and poured it onto the floor. “There!” he exclaimed, proud of himself. “Now you need another one.”

  I was so shocked, I wasn’t sure what the appropriate response was. The man leaned in and slung his arm over my shoulder. “Come on,” he said, his breath smelling of alcohol and garlic. “Lemme buy you a drink.”

  “Leave her alone,” someone growled, and before I knew what was happening, the sexy man from across the bar had grabbed the back of the pudgy man’s shirt and had tossed him to the side.

  “Hey!” the man protested. He stumbled for a few steps, almost hitting the table behind us, then readjusted his suit coat. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  But my knight in shining armor gave him a menacing look, and after thinking about it, the man slunk away, back to his to group of friends.

  “You okay?” the gorgeous stranger asked. Up close, he was just as sexy, although less polished than I’d first thought. He wore an expensive suit, but his white shirt was unbuttoned at the top and rumpled, like he’d spent the day getting into fights instead of behind a desk.

  “I’m fine.” My throat had gone dry. This man was big – tall, at least six foot three, with broad shoulders and huge hands. I was five ten and carried more weight than I probably should have – most men made me feel big and oafish around them, but this man made me feel tiny. I imagined him grabbing me with those big hands of his, and heat flooded my core.

  “What were you drinking?”

  I was way too embarrassed to tell him I was drinking cranberry and ginger ale. “Um, vodka and cranberry.”

  He frowned, like this was unacceptable. He reached his hand up and motioned for the cocktail waitress. His sleeve slid back for a moment, revealing a beautiful silver watch and a strong-looking forearm. Not that I was surprised –Cora had chosen this bar precisely because it was supposed to be height of sophistication. But she must have gotten something wrong, because even though the clientele did seem sophisticated – mostly young professionals, out after work on a Friday night –a lot of them were already sloppy drunk. Not this man, though – this man was completely in control of himself and his surroundings.

  The cocktail waitress appeared as if out of nowhere. “What can I getcha?”

  “Two Manhattans,” the man said. He set his empty glass down on the waitress’s tray. I didn’t know what a Manhattan was, but I was pretty sure it had whiskey in it. Whiskey sounded dangerous and scary, the kind of thing you shouldn’t be drinking unless you had sophisticated tastes and a high tolerance for alcohol.

  “Oh, no,” I tried. “I’ll just have a – ”

  But the suited stranger flicked his wrist, sending the waitress away before I could finish.

  He turned around and gave me a smile. “It’s good to try new things.”

  “I try new things.” My tone was more defensive than I’d meant, but it was kind of a sore spot for me. I wasn’t known for being adventurous – in fact, the most adventurous thing I’d done lately was taken a hot yoga class – but this man didn’t know that. He didn’t know anything about me. And yet he was surveying me with a certain familiarity, like he could tell I was the kind of person who didn’t try new things. It was unnerving.

  The man’s eyes raked up my body, like he was trying to decide what, if anything, he should do with me. Instantly, I felt self-conscious, and I shifted on my chair. “You here by yourself?” he asked.

  “No.” I swallowed. “Bachelorette party.”

  “Fun,” he said, sounding like he knew it was anything but. He gestured to the candy bracelet I was wearing, another one of Cora’s bright ideas. “What’s with that?”

  “Oh,” I said, fingering it. “It’s … it’s kind of game. You know, for the party.” I gestured to the dance floor, where most of the party guests had morphed from dancing to completely over-the-top, crazy gyrating. Men, sensing their chance to possibly get lucky, had jumped into the mix, creating a colorful blur of sweaty bodies.

  My companion didn’t even turn to look. “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And what are you supposed to do with it?” He reached out and tugged on the bracelet. His fingers against my skin sent an electric current flying up my spine. The elastic bracelet zinged back and hit my wrist.

  “It’s too embarrassing to mention.”

  “Try me.”

  The waitress returned with our drinks, and the man grabbed them off the tray in one fluid motion and handed one to me. I hesitated. I didn’t usually drink. In fact, I’d just turned twenty-one.

  “Well,” I said, taking the glass he was offering. “We’re supposed to get different men to bite one of the candies off, and then have them sign our arms.”

  He laughed. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “I know.” I shrugged. “But how could I really say no? Everyone else was doing it.”

  “Do you always do things just because everyone else is doing them?” A brief look of amusement crossed his face, like he couldn’t imagine doing something just because everyone else was. Then he reached out and took my arm, turning it over to inspect my wrist. “You don’t have any signatures.” His finger slid over my pulse point, then moved slowly up my elbow before he finally let go. His hands weren’t what I would expect from someone wearing such an expensive watch – his fingers betrayed something else, a hard past or maybe manual labor. They were manly and slightly rough, not the kind that came from typing briefs all day and dialing an Iphone.

  I took a sip of my drink. It was definitely whiskey. Or, at least, what I imagined whiskey to taste like since I’d never actually had whiskey before. It burned going down, but I was glad. The sensation kept my mind off what was happening.

  The stranger reached out and took my arm again, turning it over gently in his hand before raising it to his mouth. Then he reached down and slowly, deliciously, bit one of the candies off my bracelet. His lips were hot and soft, and I felt the quick flick of his tongue against my skin as he took the candy into his mouth.

  Then, with a flourish, he picked the pen up off the table where the waitress had left our bill, and put a big X on my arm. It was like he was marking me, taking ownership of me, and the thought filled me with a weird little thrill.

  “There,” he said.

  “You’re supposed to sign your name.”

  “But that would ruin the mystery.” He grinned, and I felt myself melt. I’d never understood how women could end up hooking up with guys they’d met in bars, but I was shocked to realize that if this man had asked me to go home with him right now, I would have done it.

  “Charlotte! What are you doing over here all by yourself!” Cora’s voice came trilling through the crowd, and then she appeared at our table. The strapless dress she was wearing was hanging down over her chest, and you could see the outline of her strapless bra. Cora had a great body – tiny waist, long legs, perfectly proportioned – but somehow, her clothes never seemed to fit quite right.

  “Oh,” she said when she saw the man standing next to me. “I didn’t realize you had company.” She held her hand out. “I’m Cora.”

  I took another sip of my drink as disappointment flooded my body. Now that Cora was here, I would be left in the du
st. I knew it was ridiculous – I’d just met this man, after all. And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t have time for a relationship, or even a hook-up. I was in my first year of law school, and it was demanding and crazy – I loved every minute of it, but it didn’t leave me much time for a personal life.

  “I was just leaving,” the man said. He didn’t offer an introduction of his own. In fact, he didn’t really look at Cora at all. He just drained the rest of his drink, then turned around and returned to the blondes who’d been patiently waiting for him.

  “What a jerk,” Cora said, obviously offended by the fact that the man hadn’t fallen for her charms. She looked down at my drink and wrinkled her delicate nose. “What are you drinking? Whiskey?”

  “Yes,” I said defiantly, and took another sip, even though my throat was still burning from the last one.

  “Well, come on, you need to dance.”

  She grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the dance floor, where I spent the next hour dancing and trying not be obvious about the fact that I was looking for the man who’d drawn an X on my arm. But I didn’t see him again. He must have left the bar soon after Cora interrupted us.

  Finally, at around nine o’clock, I decided that I’d had enough.

  I told everyone I had to be up early the next morning, which wasn’t a lie. The library was waiting for me.

  “Are you sure?” Kristin, another girl from our class, asked. She was drunk and slurring her words. “You should come with us to the next place.” She turned to Cora. “Cora, we’re going to the next place, right?”

  “Yes, in just a minute,” Cora said. She’d found a man with a shaved head who’d eaten a candy off her bracelet and had decided to sign her ample cleavage instead of her arm as the instructions had indicated.

  I said my goodbyes and slipped out of the bar.

  Once on the street, I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t particularly close to those people, and I’d always had a hard time partaking in small talk. Once you asked someone what they did for a living and where they lived, what else were you supposed to ask? There was nowhere for the conversation to go. I was a lot more comfortable in small groups, where people were a little more open.

  The city was pulsing with life as people ducked into bars and strolled down the sidewalk, enjoying the late spring night. In fact, the street was so crowded, that at first I didn’t realize someone was walking right next to me. I quickened my stride, but he matched his to mine. I glanced over, annoyed, expecting to see a homeless person, or perhaps a drunken bargoer who would try to engage me in conversation.

  My stomach flipped and my heart jumped into my throat. It was the stranger from the bar. Mr. X.

  “Hello,” he said. His voice was smooth, but there was a huskiness to it that I didn’t remember hearing before.

  “Hi,” I said. I swallowed. Part of me was unnerved and a little scared. Obviously this man had waited outside the bar for me to leave. The other part of me was filled with excitement.

  “Didn’t feel like continuing the party?” Mr. X asked me cheerfully.

  “No. I, um, have to be up early tomorrow.”

  “On a Saturday?” He seemed surprised by this, which didn’t make much sense. With the way he was dressed, I just assumed he was another lawyer or perhaps worked in finance. He shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact that I had to be up early on a Saturday.

  “Yes.”

  My original plan had been to grab a cab and take it back to my apartment. My little studio was fifteen blocks away, and I wasn’t in the mood to walk that far, even though the night was warm. My feet were killing me from the heels I was wearing. But now that this man was beside me, I didn’t want our time together to end. I was willing to keep walking if it meant we could continue our conversation.

  We turned the corner onto a side street, and the crowd began to thin out. There were no bars or restaurants in this area, and most of the retail stores were closed.

  A second later, the man grabbed my hand and pulled me into a space between the buildings.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as he pushed his body up against mine. I reached out and tried to push him away, but he was too strong, his chest rock solid. My nerve endings were on fire, every sense on high alert as I breathed in his scent, a heady mix of alcohol and cologne.

  He didn’t answer, just gave me a devilish grin before taking a few steps back. “If you want to go, go.” His tone made it clear that he knew I wasn’t going anywhere.

  My breath was coming in short gasps.

  He licked his lips slowly and then his gaze traveled up my body, like he was trying to decide just exactly what to do with me.

  He didn’t move for what seemed like an agonizingly long time. We just stood there, our gazes locked on each other. He was biding his time, I could tell, waiting for me to leave, waiting for me to decide I couldn’t handle whatever it was he was about to do to me. My head was screaming at me to move, to run, to get away. My body was screaming the opposite. So I stood my ground. And finally, after what seemed like forever, he took a step back toward me.

  He grabbed my shoulders and ran his hands down my arms and over the X he’d drawn there earlier. He smiled in satisfaction at his branding before raising his eyes back up to meet my gaze.

  “Right now,” he rasped. “You are mine.”

  And then his lips were on mine. The kiss was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. He tasted like mint and alcohol. His lips were soft but his skin had a rough stubble, and the difference in sensations sent a burst of heat through my whole being. My nipples tightened as he pushed his body up against mine, his tongue probing my mouth.

  He broke away, then reached down and grabbed my hand, pulling my right arm up over my head. He repeated this maneuver with my left arm, until both my hands were above my head and up against the wall of the building behind me.

  He held me there with one hand, and used his other hand to pull down the top of my dress, then grinned devilishly as he yanked my bra down. My nipples tightened even more as the cold air hit my skin, and I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

  Part of me knew this was wrong, and my brain screamed at me to tell him to stop, to run, to get out of there. But my body was on fire. I had never wanted someone as much as I wanted this man, right now, in this moment.

  He traced his fingertip over my nipple, and I moaned.

  “Shhhh,” he commanded, moving his finger to my lips. “Quiet.”

  I was afraid if I made another sound, he would leave, so I bit my lip to keep from moaning again.

  He paused for a moment, and then turned me around so that I was facing the building. He pushed me up against the wall, my cheek hitting the coarse brick.

  My hands were still above my head, and he reached up and grabbed the candy bracelet around my wrist. He pulled the elastic band into a figure eight, and slipped the other loop around my other wrist, effectively tying my hands together.

  He tugged tightly on the elastic, using it to hold me in place.

  His other hand reached down and pulled my dress up, and then I felt him pulling my panties to the side.

  “My God,” I gasped before I could stop myself.

  His hand grasped my mound, and then he slid a finger inside of me. “You’re wet for me. You’ve been wet for me since I drew that X on you, haven’t you?”

  No one had ever talked to me like this before. It was both exciting and frightening at the same time. He pulled the makeshift rope around my wrists tighter. “Weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, I was wet for you since you drew on me at the bar.”

  His mouth was right against my ear, and the delicious tickle of his breath made me shiver. He undid his pants, and his cock pushed up against me. It was rock hard and felt huge. My heart sped up at the thought that maybe I wouldn’t be able to take him.

  “I’m going to fuck you now,” he breathed into my ear. And then he was inside m
e, filling me with one stroke. There was a brief flash of pain, but I was so wet, so turned on, that it only lasted for a moment before I began to feel pleasure. I tried to push back, to take him inside me as far as he could go, but he grabbed the bracelet and pulled my arms back, shoving his body up against mine, letting me know he was in charge.

  He fucked me hard, in and out, faster and faster, giving me his entire shaft, harder and harder, faster and faster, until my body felt as if it was going to ignite.

  “Come for me,” he commanded, and no sooner were the words out of his mouth then I did come for him, my orgasm taking over my whole body, causing me to moan in pleasure.

  He kept going, pumping into me, until I felt him come inside me.

  He held me up against the wall for another moment before letting my hands go. There were marks where the elastic of the bracelet had cut into my flesh. My breath was coming in short bursts, my heart beating so fast I could feel the blood rushing through my body.

  Every one of my nerves was on alert, stimulated so intensely it was almost too much to bear.

  Mr. X pushed my hair to the side and kissed me softly on the back of the neck.

  “What’s your name?” he whispered.

  “Charlotte,” I said. “Charlotte Holloway.”

  “Charlotte,” he repeated the word, and my name, which had always sounded old-fashioned and plain, now sounded sexy and dangerous.

  A second later, he was gone.

  I could still feel his lips on the back of my neck as I walked toward the subway. The air felt suddenly colder as I stepped onto the platform.

  People crowded around me, talking and laughing, most of them in good moods after a night out.

  But all I could think about was him.

  My face flamed, thinking about what I’d let him do to me. I wondered what everyone on the subway car would think if they knew I’d just let a stranger take me in a back alley. It was so dirty, so bad, so out of character from what I would usually do. It wasn’t even a one-night stand! A one-night stand had to take a whole night.