Defying Asher (Knight Security 1) (21 page)

“Good choice.” Asher cupped a hand beneath her elbow as they went down the steps together and walked to where the SUV was parked in the police car park.

“I met your sister earlier.”

“I thought Jonas was going to rip someone’s head off when they wouldn’t allow him to leave to go and collect her from the theater.” He chuckled at the memory.

Lissa smiled. “They’re very much in love.”

“Yeah.” He unlocked the SUV before opening the passenger door for Lissa to climb inside.

Instead, she placed her hand on his arm. “Asher, I…I made a mistake—”

“You’ve decided you don’t want to spend the night with me, after all,” he said wearily.

“No! Of course I want to spend the night with you,” she assured him, flustered. “That wasn’t the mistake I was talking about.”

“For the moment, all I care about is that you’re coming back to my apartment with me. We’ll deal with everything else later.” He didn’t wait for her to get in the SUV but instead lifted her up onto the seat. “I’ve been pumping adrenaline for hours. Right now, I need a whisky, a shower, and you, and not necessarily in that order. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Asher grasped the front of her sweater and pulled her toward him for a slow and lingering kiss. “I promise I’ll listen to whatever you have to say, but later, hmm?”

She winced. “After we’ve talked, you may not want me to stay the night.”

He gave a shake of his head. “I would have to be dead or unconscious not to want you with me tonight.”

Her heart skipped several beats. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

“As long as you hold me.” He closed the passenger door before going round to get in behind the wheel. “Whatever this is about, Lissa, we’ll work it out, okay?”

She hoped so.

Oh God, how she hoped so.

Chapter 15

“Want some?” Ash held the whisky decanter up invitingly.

“Yes. Please,” she accepted tautly.

Lissa was even more nervous and on edge now they were in his apartment. Worse, she looked ready to bolt at the least wrong move or word on his part. If that happened, he was holding the cat as hostage. Sherlock may have been more than a little disgruntled when they let him out of the travel basket when they arrived, but it hadn’t taken the grumpy animal long to down the cooked and cooled salmon, or to make himself comfortable on Ash’s bed.

Ash and Lissa were now free to drink the whisky he had poured for them both and take care of the conversation she wanted to have. Ash wanted that out of the way as soon as possible, because he had a few things he wanted to discuss with her too.

He sat beside her on the couch before taking a sip of his whisky. “So?” he prompted once the alcohol had slid down his throat and warmed him all the way down to his stomach.

“So,” she repeated uncomfortably, nursing her own untouched glass of whisky in both hands.

“Take a sip,” Ash encouraged. “Then take a breath. And remember, whatever it is you’re going to say, I’m not kicking you out of here any time soon. I’ll use the cat as blackmail if I have to,” he warned teasingly.

Lissa laughed softly. “You keep giving Sherlock salmon, and he’s going to want to come and live with you instead of me, anyway.”

“We’ll see.” Ash took another sip of whisky as he waited for her to speak.

Her hands were shaking, and she couldn’t seem to meet his gaze as she chose her next words carefully. “Asher, the morning I walked out on you last year.” She drew in a deep breath. “I— It was… There was a phone call while you were in the shower. I didn’t like to answer it, it seemed…presumptuous, so the caller left a message on your answering machine.”

“Go on,” he encouraged softly.

“It was a woman. She…she wanted to remind you about a special celebration that evening. She said she loved you.” Her eyes were awash with tears when she finally looked up at him. “I thought…” She closed her eyes briefly and those tears began to fall down the pallor of her cheeks. “I’m sure you can guess what I thought.”

“You believed she was my girlfriend.”

“Yes,” she choked. “But I know now that she wasn’t. The moment Lily spoke to me tonight, I realized…I
knew
it was her on the phone that morning. The woman who left you that message. I’m also guessing that special celebration had something to do with her and Jonas, not you.”

“From the timing of it, I think it must have been their engagement dinner.” He nodded. “The whole family was under strict instructions to be there, no matter what,” he recalled ruefully. “I vaguely remember her leaving me a message that day, but not the details.”

Lissa sat forward to place her untouched glass on the coffee table. “All this time, the accusations I made that day and since, and I was wrong about you. I was
wrong
, Asher.”

At least he now knew the reason Lissa had walked out on him that morning, after telling him she never wanted to see him again.

He also knew she hadn’t been completely wrong about him. Okay, so there hadn’t been another woman in his life he was cheating on, but up to then, he had definitely been a player, a love ’em and leave ’em type. A man who walked away in the morning and never gave the woman he had spent the previous night with another thought.

Would he and Lissa have seen each other again after that one night together?

Ash had no answer to that question.

The man he was now wasn’t the man he had been a year ago.

Maybe it was
because
Lissa had been the one to walk away from him that he had never been able to forget her. To stop wanting her. To want to be with her. To need to make love with and to her again.

That night with Lissa, and having her walk away from him afterwards, had been the start of the changes in him. For the better. He hoped Lissa would think so too.

Now it was his turn to choose his words carefully. “You were right to walk away from me a year ago, Lissa. I wasn’t…I wouldn’t have been good for you. Would only have hurt you if we had tried to stay together.”

Lissa felt as if a knife had pierced her chest and ripped into her heart. Shattering it. Leaving her broken. Totally exposed.

“I still shouldn’t have misjudged you. I’m so sorry I did.”

“You didn’t misjudge me. I was a selfish bastard a year ago,” he added in answer to her questioning glance. “Totally incapable of appreciating you. Of caring for you in the way you deserve.” He gave a self-derisive shake of his head. “You were a first for me. The first woman ever to walk away from me rather than me walking away from them.”

Lissa drew in a shaky breath. “Maybe I should go—”

“I said I
was
a selfish bastard.” One of his hands moved to grasp both of hers. “Past tense,” he added gently as she looked at him. “There’s been no one else for me this past year, Lissa—well, apart from a woman in Puerto Rico, but that doesn’t count because I didn’t— Oh, shut the fuck up, Ash,” he admonished himself impatiently. “There’s been no one else, Lissa,” he repeated firmly.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “No one?”

“No. Funny thing is, I didn’t even realize it until I saw you again a few days ago,” he added ruefully. “One conversation with you and my frozen libido surged back into painful life. I’ve been in a state of arousal ever since.”

“Must be uncomfortable,” she attempted to tease, still not sure what Asher was telling her.

He gave a grin. “Feels fucking great, actually.” He stretched that magnificent body unashamedly revealing the bulge in his jeans. “This is because of you, Lissa.” He placed her hand on his swollen erection. “Only for you,” he added seriously. “Somewhere, somehow, in the past year, I’ve become a one-woman man.”

Her eyes widened. “Me?”

“You.” Asher held her gaze unblinkingly as he now held both her hands in his much larger ones.

“I’ve made so many mistakes.” More hot tears fell down her cheeks. “It was easier for me to believe those things about you last year. It meant I had an excuse not to care. Not to become involved. Allowed me to walk away. To tell myself you were another womanizer, like my ex-fiancé.”

“I wish you’d told me about him.”

Lissa grimaced. “There has never really been a lot of time for conversation between us.”

“True.”

She chewed on her bottom lip. “You asked me if anyone else had ever mattered to me. Any of the other men I’ve had in my life.” She looked down at her hands. “There haven’t been any other men. Just Adam—my fiancé. And you.”

Asher placed his fingers beneath her chin and turned her face up toward his. “No other men?”

“Cheating fiancé. One one-night stand.” She shrugged. “Not much of a résumé.”

“Let’s not forget your fucked-up family,” Asher reminded her. “Or mine.” He grimaced. “According to Caleb’s shrink—long story I’d rather not go into right now,” he dismissed at her concerned expression. “According to her, the Knight brothers losing their mother at a crucial time in their lives rendered us all incapable of love and commitment until much later in life than most other men. Apparently, it’s usual for men to reach that point in their lives in their mid to late twenties.”

“That seems rather a sweeping statement…”

“Well, she was only talking about Caleb at the time, but he passed it on to me earlier, said it applied to all of us. It made a lot of sense.”

“It did?”

“Mm. Remember how I reacted when you said you hadn’t realized I was domesticated?”

“Oh yes,” she confirmed with feeling.

“You were witnessing the last death throes of a man who wasn’t yet ready to admit when he was beaten, let alone loving every moment of it. Loving you,” he added gruffly as he raised one of her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles.

Lissa’s eyes widened. “You love me…?” Asher couldn’t really be saying these words to her. Could he?

“Oh yeah.” He smiled. “You’re prickly as hell, never listen to reason, and have a stubborn streak a mile wide. But you’re also warm and funny, kind and caring, and you happen to be the woman I love to distraction. Oh hell, please don’t cry again.” He put his glass down next to hers to take her in his arms. “I love you, Lissa. I love you so damned much.”

“I love you too.” She clung to him, her face buried against his chest. “I think I fell in love with you that first night. Half of me was glad to have a reason to walk out on you, to shut those feelings down and tell myself you were a selfish two-timing bastard. I
wanted
it to be true. As soon as I saw you again last Friday, all those barriers I had built up around my heart came crashing down. I felt raw, exposed, and hit out in the only way I knew how. By being insulting to you every chance I had.”

“I noticed.”

“But you stuck around anyway.”

“Couldn’t stay away,” he murmured against her hair. “You are so lovely, Lissa. Fiery. Passionate.” He moved back slightly to look at her. “I want that, Lissa. I want all of it. To possess all of
you
. Just for me.”

She gave a teary smile. “I’ve been yours since the moment we met in that restaurant a year ago.”

“Still think I’m an asshole?”

“Yes. But now you’re my asshole. Aren’t you?” She gazed at him uncertainly.

“Completely and utterly,” he assured unreservedly. “Till death do us part. If you’ll have me?”

She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “You want to marry me?”

He nodded. “And I want you to want to marry me. Will you?” He looked anxious. “I’m going to fuck up again, we both know that. I’ll make mistakes—” He broke off as Lissa placed her fingertips against his lips.

“We’ll both make mistakes,” she assured him huskily. “It’s who we both are.”

“But as long as we keep loving each other, trusting each other,
in
each other, those mistakes will get less and less,” he promised as he gazed into her eyes. “Marry me. Please.”

“God, yes…” Lissa threw herself into Asher’s arms, knowing it was where she wanted to be for the rest of her life.

No longer defying Asher but loving and being loved by him.

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About The Author

Carole Mortimer is the author of over 210 novels, contemporary and Regency romance. She is a USA Today Bestselling Author. Recipient of the 2015 RWA Lifetime Achievement Award. Received the 2014 Pioneer for Romance Romantic Times Award. Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Author. She was also recognized by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 for her ‘outstanding service to literature’.