Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76541 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76541 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Without another word or look back at her, I walk out of the apartment and head to work.
CHAPTER 14
Hannah
Leaning back in the passenger seat of Asher’s vehicle, I put my palms on the seat beside my thighs and rub them on the buttery-soft leather. It’s decadent, which is a little how I feel right now.
After a few hours at The Wicked Horse with Asher, where he spent most of the time “playing” with me—his words, not mine—I feel akin to a goddess who has just been worshiped. I’ve decided to stop feeling guilty about something that makes me feel so good, which has in turn provided me with an amazing opportunity to get Hope back.
Resting my head against the seat, I smile and watch as the city lights pass us. Asher has taken to picking me up at my house on our evenings out, and then he drives me back again. He never gets out of the car, but stays parked along the curb, watching until I enter and close the door behind me. I can’t figure out if he’s being a gentleman or protecting his property, but either way, it’s appreciated. My neighborhood can be sketchy, a mixture of older lifelong residents who want peace and quiet and a rough crowd that likes to roam the streets looking for trouble. When I was working three jobs, I was hardly ever home, so it didn’t matter much to me except for that mad dash from my car to my house where I’d be relatively safe.
I always made sure Hope and I were locked inside by the time the sun set, protected by an early splurge of money after I’d moved in.
A shotgun.
My grandpa Brantley, who was my mom’s father, was a good old South Carolina redneck. He taught me to hunt when I was eight, a practice I now abhor because I can’t stand the thought of killing an animal. But I fondly remember the times I spent with him before he died. He was uneducated, having dropped out of high school in the tenth grade where he went on to work in a tire plant for thirty long years.
As backwoods as he was in many things, he always told me to be independent and to think for myself. He never considered me subpar because I was a woman, and he would brag to anyone who would listen that I would get a college degree one day.
That’s still on my agenda despite the fact I’m twenty-seven years old, so I haven’t fully let him down yet. Once I can get Hope back and get stabilized, I’ll figure out my education.
Until then, I make sure to follow his biggest piece of advice to me. He had said, “Hannah Banana… if you ever need to protect yourself with a gun, do not rely on a handgun. There’s too much room for error. Have a shotgun within easy reach if someone is coming at you. Just point it in their general direction, pull the trigger, and you got ‘em.”
“Thinking some deep thoughts.” Asher’s voice rolls over me like a velvety blanket.
I roll my head left and look at him. He gives me a brief glance before returning his attention back on the road. Not bothering to answer, I give him a slight shrug as I stare out the windshield, because I really don’t think he wants to know anything about me. While Asher is incredibly enamored with my body, he doesn’t appear to be interested in anything else about me.
Still, I’m happy with the situation.
It’s the sex, of course. It makes me happy, which is perplexing because Asher is nothing to me and I’m nothing to him.
Not really.
I was in love with my husband, make no doubt about it. Really in love, and I thought sex with him was the way things were supposed to be, even the part where I had to help myself along to orgasm. But it was the love that made it good for me. The marriage of souls is special. The connection and intimacy set it apart.
Right?
Well, I don’t have that with Asher. Yet, sex with him has shattered every one of my preconceived notions about sex and intimacy and how it’s entwined. It makes me wonder if I even know myself at all. The things I’ve done with him—am willing to do with him—still astound me. I’ve learned and accepted a level of freedom that has enhanced my sexuality and made me feel pleasure I never knew was possible.
I can be in that club with Asher, fucking him in front of dozens of people, and like it.
A lot.
Sometimes, that makes me feel dirty, but it mostly makes me feel empowered. That is something I never felt with Nelson.
When I feel Asher’s gaze on me, I ignore it. His words, though, jolt me to attention. “What’s your daughter’s name?”