Page 93 of Asher Black (The Five Syndicates)
He nods, accepting my truth with little fanfare. “Have dinner with me tonight.”
“We’re leaving the penthouse?”
We haven’t been seen in public in a while. Maybe he has an event I need to be seen at?
“No, I’ll cook for you.”
“You’ll cook for me?”
The image of Asher naked underneath an apron crosses my mind, no doubt a side effect of having seen him come. I flush, pushing the notion out of my head. I can’t think about that.
“Yes, I’ll make your favorite dish.”
“Which is?”
I have a lot of favorite dishes. Food is my favorite dish. And it can’t be narrowed down to one item.
“Lomo saltado.”
Oh. He’s right. That is my absolute favorite.
“You’ll make me lomo saltado?”
Do I sound as stupid as I think I sound repeating all his words?
I can’t help my dubiousness, though. We haven’t spoken in a week, and he wants to have dinner with me and make me my favorite food? And it’s lomo saltado. It’s an art form trying to get French fries crispy while sautéing them in a sauce. I can’t even do it, and I’m a pretty darn talented home cook, especially now, after hours of practice on the Lucy’s Kitchen app on my VR console.
“Yes. Now, if you’re done playing Repeat After Me, I have a dress I’d like you to wear.”
He pulls a garment bag off of one of the lounge chairs and hands it to me. The bag is black, the same color of the chair, so I didn’t even notice it there. I don’t open it.
“So, you’re making dinner for me, and you have a dress for me to wear, even though we’re eating at home… Asher, what is this?”
“It’s a date.” He says it so casually, so matter-of-factly, but it still flusters me.
A date?
“I told you I can’t be with you romantically.”
“You also came with your pussy wrapped around your fingers while you watched me stroke my cock. A cock that got hard thinking about your face, your body. A cock that came at the sight of you finger fucking your own pussy.”
I shiver at the memories his brash words conjure. “So?”
“So, it changes things.”
“And if we came together in the alleyway outside of Rogue, would that have changed things, too? Would I have gotten a date, too?”
I wouldn’t have. We both know that. But I need him to say it. To say anything I won’t like. I’m stalling, because I want to let him cook for me, to go on this date with him. But I’m afraid of what it’ll mean about me if I do.
He’s a killer.
He’s killed a lot of people.
Remember that, Lucy.
“If you came as beautifully as you did a week ago, yes, that would have changed things.”
The smile slips past my lips before I can trample it like the traitor it is. “You’re a liar.”
