Beyond the Horizon (The Sons of Templar MC Book 4) (14 page)

I gaped at him when he leaned back. “Okay. We’re off then,” I decided and the men grinned. I didn’t have time to give them proper goodbyes as Asher dragged me away, I only waved over my shoulder.

“Wanna give me some explanation as to why you’ve been spending your nights at strip clubs?” Asher asked softly, his finger trailing up and down my arm.

I took a long pause. “I told you, I needed time,” I said finally.

Asher squeezed me. “I don’t think you did, flower. Now I’ve got you in my arms, thoroughly fucked, I know the last thing you needed was time. You were scared,” he observed, correctly I might add. “And when I said I’d give you time, I didn’t expect you’d spend it in strip clubs with sleazy fucks like Carlos Leith,” he added in a hard voice.

Thoroughly fucked was one way to put it. Asher had damned near pounced on me the moment we made it through my door. Well, after he made me stand at the front door and do a
“walk through.”

“No boogeymen hiding under my bed?” I deadpanned when he’d stopped in front of me after his inspection.

He had frowned. “Don’t like you in this place, and I’m fixin’ that window. Tomorrow. Now, I fuck you.”

And he had. Against the door. Then in my bed. Now we were here. My body felt like jelly, and everything was delightfully fuzzy around the edges, thanks to residual alcohol and the ability for the world to fall away when Asher was with me.

I realized we were in that silence, one Asher hadn’t tried to fill, hadn’t urged me to talk. He merely resumed lightly tracing my arm, letting me process.

“You don’t mind silence,” I observed.

He tilted my chin so chocolate eyes met mine. “I’ve got you in my arms, I’m in your bed. After almost two weeks of only hearing that sweet voice on the other side of the phone. I know you don’t like yabberin’ at the best of times, unless you’re with me, angry, or liquored up, somethin’ I learned tonight.” His eyes twinkled. “You need time to sort shit in your head, need time to process. I get it. I’m quite happy to give you that, as long as you’re naked in my arms,” he told me softly.

My belly did a little dip. He knew me. Saw right into me. After one night three years ago, and a few hours in my presence since then. It was unnerving.

“This is unnerving,” I vocalized my last thought. “This, us … it’s too intense. Too quick. I’m not ready,” I whispered.

Asher gave me a long look. “It is too intense,” he agreed. “Don’t know how to make it any other way. I know I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s right, you know it. You’re ready. You’re just scared. Shit that went down with your mom, flower that’s marked your beautiful soul. Damaged it,” he stroked my cheek lightly. “Bruised those delicate petals. It’ll heal. Might not mend quite the same, it’ll always hurt, but I plan on being right here while you figure out how to heal it,” he promised. “I’m done with the space. With the frustration of hearing the pain in that voice on the other end of a phone.”

I blinked away the tears his words were causing. The pins and needles I felt as he prodded at my mind, the place where the big sad was hiding, lurking.

“I don’t know if I can do that, be what you want me to be,” I choked out, truth to my words but also self-preservation. I’d just suffered a devastating loss, and I was setting myself up for it all over again. Cancer might not steal him, nor death, but probably boredom, reality. Realization that I wasn’t that girl, whoever he thought she was. I wasn’t special.

Asher’s eyes were resolute. “I don’t need you to be anything but who you are. My girl,” he replied with certainty.

At that moment, I didn’t want to argue, didn’t want to push him away in order to save myself. I was willing to sacrifice the future Lily’s emotional health for the current Lily’s survival. Because right now, being Asher’s girl, for however long, was something that I needed.

“Bex!” A high pitched voice screamed as soon as we tumbled out of our ride.

“Nat!” Bex’s less high pitched scream was directed at a slim woman with a head full of ashy blonde hair. Her outfit had me openly gaping at the sheer amount of skin the silvery bandage dress was showing, her sky-high heels looking like something even I would tumble down from. She was grinning warmly and drunkenly at us as we approached.

It was the night after Asher had told me I was
“his girl.”
Something that would have normally had me floating on cloud nine, yet it barely had me paddling in the ocean of grief I was stranded in. Belonging to the man I’d loved for three years may have been something good, something great, but it didn’t automatically erase everything else bad in my life. Especially when he had to leave early this morning for work, with no time to talk about him turning up at the strip club, or about what the heck was going on between us. I hadn’t been mad. A little part of me had been glad. Looking into to his eyes was like forcing myself into looking into me. Into what I was running from. I didn’t need that. I needed oblivion. Hence the fact I was in yet another of Bex’s outfits, filled with Bex’s homemade cocktails and at a club that was nowhere near my scene.

“Perfect timing,” Nat exclaimed as we cut in the front of the line beside her.

There were a couple of whiny grumbles from a group of girls behind us. We ignored them. Well, I ignored them, trying to shy away from any potential conflict. Bex flipped them the bird before turning to hug Nat.

“This is my best bitch, Lily. Once a hermit, now party girl,” she introduced with a slight slur, gesturing to me.

I did a lame little wave. “Hey,” I muttered, focusing solely on staying upright. The transition from sitting in a car to standing on a sidewalk messing with my mind slightly.

She grinned at me, looking me up and down, but not in a bitchy way. Her gaze was warm. Friendly. “Bex has told me heaps about you, I’m glad to finally meet you in the flesh.”

She surprised me by engulfing me in a hug. I wasn’t a hugger. I avoided human contact with strangers if I could possibly avoid it. I wasn’t one of those girls that hugged their friends every time they saw them. I didn’t like it. But maybe it was the alcohol in my system, or the fact that this new Lily was a hugger or the weird sort of comfort in the perfume and alcohol laden hug had me relaxing.

“Sorry about your mom, babe,” she whispered in my ear.

I jolted slightly at the reminder of my old life. The life I’d left behind when I put on clothes I didn’t normally wear, drank things I didn’t normally drink. Of that big sadness I was trying to escape. As if she knew what I was trying to do, the sympathetic look was quickly wiped from her face, and her drunken grin replaced it.

“Let’s party, bitches,” she said as the bouncer moved the rope aside to let us in.

Bex winked at me over her shoulder, and I followed, intent on forgetting everything.

I was on a bar. Like on top of it. Dancing. Grinding. Never in my twenty-three years had I thought I’d be on top of a bar in a crowded nightclub, dancing with my best friend and her posse. I was pretty sure most of them worked at Bex’s club, on account of their mad dance moves. The old Lily, given the choice, would have rather wrestled with an anaconda than dance on a bar. But I wasn’t the old Lily. I was the new and improved and appropriately liquored Lily. This Lily thought dancing on a bar was awesome.

Bex grinned at me. “You all good, babe?” she yelled over the music, her hands going to my hips. Her eyes were bright, unusually bright, with the shots we’d just done I guessed.

I beamed at her, having a feeling it was slightly crooked. I was feeling slightly crooked.

“I’m great,” I yelled back.

We were currently dancing to
“Timber”
by Pitbull and everyone was cheering us on. There were more cheers as Bex executed the perfect
“slut drop”
against my body, a term I had learned, and practiced this past week. I threw my hands in the air, twirling, closing my eyes. I soaked it all in. The cheers, the music, the exhilaration that masked the exhaustion. I tried to let it fill me up to replace the emptiness. It didn’t work. It didn’t make me forget about it, but made it seem somehow distant, or more removed.

When I opened my eyes, I was facing the crowd. It was blurry, a mix of bodies moving. But somehow, between the bodies I spotted him. Maybe because he was hard to miss. He wasn’t laughing, dancing, or grinding on anyone. He was standing near the edge of the gyrating sea, his arms crossed and his eyes firmly on me. They captured me from across the room. He had a couple of other men behind him I noticed, one was them was from the strip club, the other I couldn’t see properly and not really worth focusing on. Not at that moment. Instead of turning red, of scurrying off the bar and escaping this situation, the burning behind those distant eyes, I gave him what I hope was a sexy grin. I moved my hips, threw my hands up in the air again, and moved my body against the music.

My eyes didn’t leave his the entire time. My whole body burned with need, and somehow, this new Lily had the boldness to execute this way of communicating it.

“Holy fuck,” Bex shouted in my ear. “That’s the biker? My memory does not do him justice,” she declared in amazement, stopping her movement to gape at Asher. We had talked about him, in great detail this afternoon, when she had stumbled out of bed, but she hadn’t gotten a proper glance at him the night before. Well she had, but she said she’d been too
“shitfaced”
to remember him. And three years was a long time in Bex’s world, especially when she didn’t dream about him every night like I did. I guessed she was getting an eyeful now.

I didn’t move my eyes from him. “Yep,” replied.

At that moment, Asher’s burning eyes seemed to change, and he pushed from his spot to part the crowd like the Red Sea, his cut, his general menacing air making people scurry out of his way. I didn’t miss the way women’s eyes roved over him as he passed them. He didn’t notice. He only had eyes for me.

Me.

A warm feeling settled in me at this. One right between my legs.

“You’re so getting laid tonight,” Bex informed me with a grin.

It wasn’t lost on me the only time I’d felt whole since this all started when I was on the back of his bike. When he was inside me. When his hands were on me. When I spoke to him on the phone.

I barely realized I had stopped moving. Stopped breathing. That was until he reached the edge of the bar, his head tipped up at me, his jaw hard.

He didn’t have to speak, his eyes said it all.

I turned to Bex, whose eyes were in danger of popping out of her head. “I’m gonna go,” I shouted in her ear.

She nodded, not moving her eyes. “Yeah, you are!” She winked at me, kissed my cheek and gave me a little shove.

I stumbled a little, which was not her intention, I didn’t think she realized the extent of my intoxication. Luckily I righted myself and moved to step down. That was until hands fastened around my hips and I was lifted down, my body running over a hard one as I came down to earth.

I was set lightly on the ground, firm hands biting into my hips.

“Hey,” I whispered to his glittered eyes.

Asher’s jaw was hard. He didn’t say a word, his hands tightened even more and before I knew what was going on, he yanked me to his body, plastering my mouth on his. Again, normally I would be highly embarrassed over someone as hot as Asher sucking face with me in the middle of a crowded bar. Nothing worried me at the moment. I thought of nothing but his mouth on mine. The flame his touch ignited. When he released me, I was breathing heavily and swayed slightly. Again, he didn’t say a word, merely grasped my hand and tightly yanked me toward the exit.

I was so in for it. In a good way.

We hadn’t spoken. He had texted me earlier in the night, asking where I was, after I’d told him I had gotten radio silence. I had guessed he would have been checking in, since I knew he was all protective. All of them were. I saw how Cade was with Gwen, I guessed it was contagious. I didn’t expect him to turn up at the bar, not that I had complained when he dragged me out without a word only that smoking kiss. He had silently fastened my helmet, got me situated on the bike, and we roared off into the night.

Then again, sex spoke in volume. Or was it sex sells? Whatever it was, words were not needed when attraction shouted.

The breeze against my skin served to sober me up slightly, even with the jacket Asher had draped over me. Too soon we were pulling into the parking lot of my building, the lights illuminating reality that was easy to escape on the back of the bike.

Again, Asher silently divested me of my helmet and snatched my hand to half drag me toward the stairs leading to my second-floor apartment. I scuttled slightly to keep up with his pace. I didn’t complain. I wanted to be somewhere with a bed as soon as possible, even if it was my shitty apartment. I didn’t even find myself embarrassed by it. Not at this moment.

“Give me your keys,” Asher demanded when we reached my door.

I riffled through my purse quickly and handed them to him silently.

When we made it inside my apartment, I thought it might be pertinent to speak. To explain something, my shabby décor maybe. Or the array of empty wine bottles littering the table, which was usually pristine. I hadn’t thought about it the night before, I’d been too focused on Asher.

“Asher,” I began, closing the door behind us.

He whirled on me, his eyes seeming to glow. He pushed me against the door. Not gently, but not so much that it was painful. It was the opposite.

“Do not speak,” he commanded against my mouth, his hands running up my sides. “I’m gonna fuck you senseless.” His breath tickled my ear. “I need to relieve the pressure in my cock that started the moment I saw you on top of that fuckin’ bar,” he hissed, his eyes meeting mine. “So do not speak,” he ordered roughly. “Not until after I’ve fucked you. Then we’ve got a lot of fuckin’ speaking to do.”

I didn’t speak, not at that moment. I didn’t want to. I wanted to obey him. Do whatever it took to have him
“fuck me senseless.”
Luckily I didn’t need to do anything, his mouth captured mine the way it had at the bar, but this time it was leading somewhere. His hands roved, squeezing my breasts roughly, causing me to moan into his mouth. I wrapped my leg around his hip, needing him closer, as close as humanly possible.