Under Pressure(9)

“Talk,” she finally answered.

“About what?”

“I don’t care. Trident. Your dog. The last woman you screwed.” Oops, she hadn’t meant to say that one out loud.

Twisting his head, Asher glared at her. “Not funny, Kennedy.”

She shrugged, trying to brush it off as a joke. “Whatever takes your mind off the camera.”

He turned his head again, bringing his focus up. “I don’t have a dog, something you already know. You could probably speak more intelligently about Trident than I could.”

Which wasn’t true, but since those were easily the most words he’d said to her at one time without glaring or following up with some smart-ass remark, she wasn’t going to interrupt him to say so.

“And I’m not touching the last one with a ten foot pole.”

“Oh, come on. I’ve heard you with the guys. You have no problem giving Jackson and Knox a blow-by-blow—pun obviously intended—account of your conquests.”

A smirk tugged at the edges of his lips. Kennedy took a couple of steps sideways, wanting to see his expression better.

“Have you been eavesdropping, naughty little g-girl?”

She scoffed, the harsh sound scraping through her throat. “It can’t be considered eavesdropping when you make zero attempt at keeping the conversation private. Naughty? Yes. Little girl? Not in a very long time.”

His deep green gaze found hers, sending an unwanted shiver racing down her spine. “I remember,” he drawled, pulling the syllables out in that slow, sexy way of his.

His voice was lethal, even with the stutter. Maybe especially with the stutter. It made him endearing, a word she never would have used to describe him.

“How long did it take you to get rid of the idiot who got you arrested, anyway? I never asked.”

“About twenty minutes after you bailed me out of jail.”

He grunted, a sound she took as approval. Not a difficult mental leap to make, considering he’d been pissed that she let the asshole talk her into something so stupid. The car ride home that night had been humiliating and uncomfortable. Asher had glared at her, silently judging even as he’d refused to yell at her as she knew he’d wanted to.

If he had, maybe their entire relationship would have been different. Maybe she wouldn’t have felt so guilty and ashamed around him.

“It wasn’t entirely his fault.”

“On that we both agree. What in God’s name possessed you to get naked on a park slide in the middle of the night?”

Kennedy felt her skin go hot. She normally wasn’t the kind of woman to get embarrassed. Her parents had instilled in her a healthy sense of self-esteem. Her actions and decisions were her business, and there were only a handful of people whose opinions mattered to her. Unfortunately, Asher seemed to be one of them.

“Hormones?”

Getting arrested for indecent exposure had been the most embarrassing experience of her life...and of course Asher had been there to witness the aftermath.

Jackson had only been home for a few weeks at that point, bringing Asher and Knox with him to begin the process of opening a new business.

That night, a guy she’d met at a party had coaxed her into doing something spontaneous and daring. Stupid.

Thanks to an abundance of alcohol, she’d been pretty uninhibited, right up until the cops arrived, and the self-righteous coward had fled, leaving her half-naked and alone to be carted off to jail.

Her humiliation had been complete when she’d walked down the hallway of the jail to see Asher waiting for her on the other side of the locked door.

He’d been pissed, his jaw drawn so tight she could see a muscle ticking there from several feet away. He hadn’t said anything. The way he’d glared at her out of those flashing green eyes had been enough to send her stomach somersaulting.

And she hadn’t much appreciated it. She’d already been emotionally raw, and Asher’s silent judgment hadn’t helped.

She’d also been bedraggled, exhausted and scared. Not her finest hour.

Shaking her head, Kennedy realized they needed to move off this subject...especially since it was on camera and she’d successfully hidden her one stint in jail from her parents and brother. Somehow, Asher had gotten the charges dropped. She’d never asked him how. Actually, she’d never thanked him. Because she hadn’t realized he’d done it until days later.

“Thanks, by the way.”

“For what?”

“Taking care of the charges.”

He shrugged, stacking his hands behind his head and shifting to get a better view of her. “Not a big deal.”

“It was to me. And for keeping the incident to yourself. Most guys would have gone running to my brother.”

“Please. Jackson’s in no position to cast stones. He’s made plenty of boneheaded decisions in his life, and I was present for more than half of them. Hell, I even talked him into a few of them.”

She laughed, the tension that had filled her body slowly leaking out. This was nice. Something she really hadn’t experienced with Asher before. From that night going forward, there’d been this wall of antagonism sitting between them. But tonight, it was gone, replaced by something a heck of a lot more dangerous.

Slipping onto the edge of the bed, Kennedy folded her legs beneath her. “You’ll have to tell me some of those stories.”

“I don’t think so, cupcake.”

Part of her wanted to growl at him for using the derogatory nickname again, only this time when he said it, it didn’t sound like a curse, but a caress.

And she wasn’t going to push. Not when he’d been talking for five minutes with the camera rolling and no sign of a stutter.

“So, tell me something else. What were you like as a kid?”

He stiffened. Kennedy didn’t understand his reaction, but before she could ask, every muscle in his body relaxed again, as if on cue.

“I grew up with my grandma. She raised me after my dad was killed in Iraq, in the same house he grew up in. I slept in his old room, played with the toys she’d saved.”

Kennedy had no idea how to react to that.

“Wasn’t that...kind of heavy? I mean, a constant reminder of what you’d lost.”

“No, it made me feel closer to him.”

Kennedy wanted to change the subject, partly because this wasn’t where she’d expected the conversation to go. But mostly because she was too interested. She didn’t need to think of Asher as a grief-stricken little boy.

She didn’t need to be thinking about him at all. And, yet... “I’m guessing you were a hellion.”

He flashed her that wicked grin, the one that made her go weak in the knees whenever he aimed it in her direction.

“Are you kidding me? My grandma wouldn’t allow me to be a hellion. Although, my teenage years were a little harrowing for both of us. It was difficult not having a male figure in my life. Luckily, I had coaches and teachers who tried to fill the void as much as possible. When I’d let them.”

Kennedy rolled her shoulders, realizing for the first time just how much strain had settled there. The past few days had been hectic. Hell, the past few weeks had been stressful as she’d worked to pull all the pieces together for this project and interview for the position in Seattle.

Reaching up over her head, she tried to work out a kink.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Asher grumbled beneath his breath. She couldn’t hear all the words but caught enough to realize he was bashing all women who employed the word nothing when it obviously didn’t apply.

“Fine. I think I pulled something carrying the camera equipment. It’ll be okay. I just need to loosen it up.”

“Come here,” Asher said, shifting his body until he was propped up against the wall at the head of the bed.

“What?”

Motioning her closer, he repeated, “Come here.”

She eyed him. “Why? What are you going to do?”

“Jeez, just do as you’re told.”

She laughed. “Not likely.”

That smirk was back, a wicked little tilt to his lips that matched the impish glint in his eyes. This was the dangerous, crafty and ruthless man she’d come to expect over the past two years. “Do you want me to rub your shoulders or not?”

Kennedy stared at him. It was obviously a trick question. Who wouldn’t want the strong, maddening, sexy man touching them? But she shouldn’t. Couldn’t.

However, that didn’t seem to matter. She twisted, scooting backward.

His hard thighs pressed against her. Heat rolled off of him...or maybe the sizzling sensation was strictly internal.

She started to pull away, but his heavy hands settled over her hips.

And she was done.





5


ASHER STARED AT the curve of Kennedy’s back. The fall of her dark blond hair across her shoulders. Crap. Why had he offered to touch her?

But now that he had...

She sat there, her body stiff, almost as if she expected him to pinch her or smack her over the head with a pillow. He supposed he deserved her wariness, considering he’d worked hard over the past two years to keep her at a distance.

That wasn’t going to work tonight.

Leaning forward, Asher wrapped his arm around her waist and hauled her back farther. She gasped, the sound of it shooting through him as surely as any bullet could have.