“We've got him! We've totally got him!” he shouted, mad with joy. “All thanks to you! All thanks to you, you brilliant, beautiful woman!”
He ended the spinning and placed me back on the floor, still laughing with elation. The moment my feet were steady, his hands were cupped on each side of my face and he kissed my forehead with a joyful, solid pressing of his lips. All at once, my head was swimming and heat was rushing through my body. That’s when our eyes locked.
“I didn't do it for the company,” I suddenly said.
“What?” he asked, confused.
“I did it for you.”
I stared into his eyes, and saw a depth of emotion looking back at me I’d never before seen in any other person's eyes—even Jacob's in the days when we'd been in love. It was an intense, soul-piercing gaze.
Asher never said a word. I peered into his dark, mysterious eyes as his hands gently slid around the small of my back. He drew me to him with no resistance from me, tilting my head to accept the eager brush of his lips against mine.
When the kiss was finished, he released me and I thought that was the end of it. Honestly, it had been spontaneous, romantic and—I thought—almost sweet enough to give me the closure I needed to put my personal feelings away and step back into the realm of keeping things strictly business. I thought wrong.
My heart pounded as his strong, tender fingertips traced over my forearms and I shivered with delight. I’d never felt a sensation so vivid or appealing. I trembled under his soft touch. He slid the same fingertips over, beneath my shoulder and around until he cupped a breast in each hand, leaving his hands th
ere long enough for the transfer of heat to exchange from his fiery palm to my already fevered flesh.
Every inch of my body ached to have him take me right there. Yet, there was something tantalizing about being in the moment, focusing on the sensation of his touch. The time for speaking was over.
Asher slid his hands from my breasts, running them down along my sides to gently caress the soft swell of my hips before slipping around to gently cup my trembling rump. As with my breasts, he was not interested in kneading or squeezing, pinching, or poking—only warmly caressing, heightening the sensation all the more.
The softer his caresses and the gentler his stroking fingers, the more I trembled and ached beneath his touch. He needed only to touch me and I was putty in his hands. Despite the temperature-controlled room, I began to swelter from desire. He waited patiently until my entire body was aglow with perspiration before gently easing his right hand away from my ass, across my hipbone, and down to gently run the same fingertips through the field of dampness he had created.
That precise touch brought a gasp to my lips and a pulse to my loins. The moment the gasp escaped my mouth, his lips covered mine feverishly. In an instant, his hands were all over me and my clothes were in a pile on the floor. I gripped his shirt with both hands and simply ripped with all my strength. I had to have him. I had to have all of him. Every memory of our times together came flooding back.
I slid a hand down his sculpted torso, tracing my fingers over the smooth skin of his rippling muscles and guiding my hand further down until I felt it. It was waiting there for me, radiant with heat, throbbing, and rock hard. I made quick work of removing his belt and undoing the button that was keeping me from what I wanted most.
I took a few steps back until my calves met with the plush sofa behind me. I pulled him onto me, guided him inside, and gasped as I felt him fill me. He eased the length of his hardness into me. I gripped his chiseled ass and began to force him to move—faster, deeper, and harder as I gasped louder with every pulse of pleasure that each thrust sent pulsing through my body.
There was no time for drawn-out lovemaking sessions; this was catharsis, this was forgiveness, this was the release of bottled-up emotions, of raw desire held barely at bay over too many weeks.
And now—now it was time to finally release all of that.
Every last drop of it.
***
I stretched and rolled over. For the fourth day in a row, I woke up next to Asher. It was hard not to marvel at the man lying next to me, even at such an early hour of the morning. As we had every night of the vacation, we'd spent most of the previous evening making love rather than sleeping. Now that we'd come to the end of the trip and it was time to return to the real world, I wasn’t so sure I was ready to go back.
Going back meant facing my fears. It meant that I was going to have to trust that Asher wasn’t going to show me special treatment at work. It meant I was going to have to let my guard down.
I caressed his cheek softly as he slept, and then glanced at the clock. We’d barely been asleep three hours, but I woke up thirsty. So, I quietly got up to head to the kitchen for a glass of water. That’s when it hit me: a wave nausea. I hurried to the bathroom furthest from the bedroom and threw up violently. I almost collapsed when I was done.
This had been the second morning of being sick. Yesterday, we'd chalked it up to a combination of something I'd eaten the night before and too much sun. But with it happening again, I started to do the math in my head.
My period was overdue—like nearly three weeks overdue. I'd chalked it up to stress and being overworked because that had delayed things in the past. But I’d never been sick.
Now, however, I was having my doubts.
There was only one way to find out. I crept back into the room, grabbed some clothes, and got dressed in the living room. I called for a driver to take me into town. If the last few days were any indication, I had another three hours before Asher woke up.
Once in town, I went to a drug store and picked up a pregnancy test. Burning with anxiety and worry, I went to the first public restroom I came across. I had to know, and I couldn't wait a moment longer than necessary to get this done.
I waited in suspense to see what the test would indicate, nearly holding my breath the whole time. When I saw it, I almost passed out right there in the stall. Was it wrong? Could this thing have made a mistake? It was rated as 98% accurate. Those were some pretty intense odds. Still, there was that 2% chance that an error could have been made.
I googled a suitable clinic in town. When I found one, I headed there immediately. Luckily, there wasn't much of a wait, but 30 minutes still seemed like hours. I did everything in my power to keep myself calm while I sat in the small, white room waiting for the doctor to return with my results.