I’ve never been one to sneak around or break rules, but for some reason it seems so easy with Asher Ellis. Everything about him seems as easy as breathing. Just as comfortable. Just as natural.

Well, everything except that little fact that he’s my professor but I try not to think about that.

His eyes haven’t left mine since we got to Keaton and Violet’s house for the cookout. I know because I can feel the heat of them, the way they watch me as I dance from room to room with Violet or Kayla or Lily. There are words being said that I’m not even processing, a day that is coming and going so fast and so slow all at once. It is fun, but it’s also the last event of the day before I can go back to Asher’s place and do far more fun things.

And I believe he knows it too because I can feel his gaze on me.

When I taste test Violet’s casserole, I scrunch my nose in response because, well, she isn’t the best cook. But even that little nose scrunch is a small gesture that I know carries over to him. Maybe even on its own, like the slight movement knows it belongs to him. I guess to some degree it does.

It’s easier to concentrate when Asher instead lingers outside at the grill with Keaton and Joey. He and the boys have been circulating out the sliding backdoor and inside again all afternoon. And every time, I can feel the humid air waft in along with the sensation that Asher is to follow. That his gaze is bound to find me, and the unease in my chest gets more erratic each time he finds me.

Tonight cannot come fast enough but, for now, I’ll have to endure my very first low country boil.

There could be worse things to put up with.

“Damn, baby,” Joey says, peering into the bowl holding the corn on the cobb. “This looks amazing.”

“No, don’t eat yet,” Kayla says, slapping the back of his hand.

I smile over at them, and Kayla smiles back, walking over to knock her hip against mine.

“Well don’t you look like the belle of the ball.”

I laugh, shaking my head in response.

Kayla insisted I borrow a flannel top for the evening. She told me I needed to embrace the cookout atmosphere and flannel was apparently the only solution. Admittedly, the top is comfortable.

“She fits right in,” Asher says, lifting an eyebrow in my direction.

Heat builds from my chest and up to my cheeks. I shake my head, hoping the movement gives just enough wind to cool my face, but I don’t miss how Violet’s eyes dart between me and Asher. Sometimes I wonder if they have some sort of Ellis twin telepathy, regardless of the fact that they’re years apart.

The sliding door swishes open again, and Keaton pats his hands on his jeans.

“Meat is almost done!”

Joey’s hands fly into the air, as if praising the pork rub gods.

“I’ll go wash my hands,” I say, holding my own hands up in a surgeon pose. A little less euphoric than Joey’s pose, but I’m not sure much could match his energy anyway. Plus, I want any excuse to leave this room. I’m constantly paranoid someone will see just how often Asher and I look at each other and I’m trying to be low key as much as possible. Though, it’s difficult when his own flannel shirt fits him so perfectly.

“Bathrooms at the end of the hall,” Violet says, nodding her head in that direction. “You can use the guest room or our bedroom.”

“Thanks,” I say, peering around the corner and finding the last room on the left.

I flick on the light. It’s just a simple tub and toilet. The shower curtain is different shades of tan and peach, something abstract that I’d be willing to bet they impulsively bought just to have something to put in here. Yet, even so, it still encompasses the same feel of the rest of the house.

Warm. Calm.

I hear the wooden floors creak and before I can guess who it is, I’m looking into the eyes of the man who makes me feel warm as well. Though, calm is debatable.

Asher doesn’t give me time to comment on his presence before he’s already pushing me farther in and closing the door behind us.

His hands land on my waist, twisting me so I’m backed against the bathroom counter. I can smell the charred coal from the grill that’s been wafting into his hair throughout the day. I run my fingers through the locks, burying my nose at the nape of his neck, as he curls into me. His hand gathers in my shirt right at the curve at my waist, bunching the fabric in his hand like maybe if it doesn’t escape his grasp, I may not either.

It’s not possessive or demanding because Asher simply couldn’t be. But it is needing. Wanting.

He pulls back to look at me, glancing down at the tied front of my shirt and back up again.

“I do like the look.”

“You want me in flannel more often?” I ask with a giggle.

“I want you in nothing,” he says.

I try to hide the gulp that follows, but I’m not sure how successful I am.

“Kayla almost got me Daisy Dukes,” I say, my mind flashing back to when she held up those cut-off shorts that were borderline underwear.

He laughs, continuing to plant kisses along my neck. “I want that too.” And then he pauses against me, his next kiss purposeful and slow. It’s a defined movement that grants me the feel of his soft lips on my throat.

“No,” he drawls out. “I want something else.”

Sparks.

“And what’s that?” I ask.

“Guess.”

Another kiss.

“Me naked isn’t enough?” I ask. “What would you do if I had no clothes on?”

Asher and I have dabbled in dirty talk recently. It’s something strange and new for me, something that burns like an itch in the back of my mind. I want to hear the words drip from his mouth like sickly sweet honey.

I’m still not good at it. I’m not accustomed to the thrill of words causing a spark between my thighs. Though, while my dirty talk skills are lacking, Asher, on the other hand, is a well-sharpened tool.

“If you had no clothes on, I would tease those beautiful breasts of yours, darlin’.”

“Tell me more,” I say, breathy as his lips journey just below my earlobe, planting small kiss after small kiss down my neck and to my collar.

Asher chuckles when I gasp in a breath.

“I’m corrupting you,” he whispers against my skin, but the rumbling of his low voice sends trembles through me that might be more lethal than the words themselves.

“You don’t seem to mind.”

“I don’t,” he responds, shifting his other hand so that his thumb caresses just below the curve of my breast, drawing a line against my underwire. “It’s a bit too hot for this, isn’t it?”

“My shirt or my bra?”

“Yes.”

I laugh for only a moment before his hand clamps over my mouth. A jolt like lighting shoots through me.

“Shh,” he hushes, the tone harsh yet still so very Asher—gentlemanly even when cornering me in a bathroom.

“Do you want dirty talk or not?” he asks.

My body sizzles with heat.

I tilt my head to the side. He tilts his back in a challenge and I smile against his hand, slowly nodding in response.

“Yes?” he asks, and I nod again. He smiles, his perfect, white teeth grinning back at me. “Then you’ll have to stay quiet.”

He removes his hand gently, wiping the pad of his thumb against my bottom lip, dragging it with him for just a moment. I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced anything more erotic in my life.

“You just like being in control,” I whisper.

He shakes his head with a grin, shimmying under the hem of my shirt, sliding his hand across my stomach. Goosebumps scatter across my flesh, the warmth of his palm covering right over my abdomen and around the curve of my hipbone before dipping slowly, slowly, slowly down the waistband of my shorts.

“No,” he clarifies. “I like that you want me in control. You. Beautiful, Type A, insatiable Delaney.”

It’s true. There’s something about Asher. I can’t find it in me to give up control over anything. But Asher being in control of my orgasms? Now that’s a different story.

His finger shifts aside my underwear, landing right at the spot he knows all too well.

Yes, control is normally an issue, but with Asher not so much. Something in me lets him, encourages him, practically begs him to do whatever he likes.

He chuckles, and I can see the red spreading up his neck and to his cheeks. He opens his mouth to speak, closes it, then speaks again.

“I want to bend you over this sink,” he says, the movement of his finger slow and intoxicating against my clit.

“Asher—” I breathe out.

“I want you to look at me when I pleasure you.”

I gasp and he halts the sound with his own mouth before pulling apart again. I miss the warmth already.

“Press your hands to the mirror and watch…”

“My professor,” I interrupt.

“Your professor,” he mutters back. “Exactly. Watch your professor take that tight pussy—”

“Asher!” I say, the harsh word radiating through me, from the explicit warning bells sounding in brain, all the way down to where his finger swirls faster.

It’s taboo and I love it.

“Shh, what did I say about talking?” he says.

“Asher, we’re—” I don’t even know what I’m trying to say because all I can feel is his hand.

“Would you like that?” he asks. “Would you like to watch me take you?”

“I…”

Would I? I would want all of it. All of him. Every single word leaving his mouth creating ripples of pleasure through me.

His fingers move faster against my clit, circle after circle after circle until my legs are trembling with need, my knees barely keeping me stable.

“Tell me you want it,” he says.

“I want you.”

“And this?” Asher presses his weight against his hand, pushing the hard curve of his cock against the both of us, sending shivers through me, applying pressure to his rapidly increasing rhythm. I can feel my own need building, the sensation curling in the pit of my stomach.

“Asher, I’m going to…”

“Tell me.”

“I’m going to come.”

And just as the words leave my mouth, just as the thought of ecstasy leaves my mind, of telling Asher what exactly he got me to do, I lose all control.

My orgasm barrels through me, compounding into another as two of his fingers bury themselves into me, finding their way to my bundle of nerves just inside.

My head throws back on its own accord, and I let out a moan. Thankfully, Asher’s hand is faster. He covers me right as the sound leaves my mouth, discordant but muffled against his palm. My voice cracks, the last whimper a staccato on the last breath of relief in my wave of pleasure.

And then, even though his face is red, even though he’s just as embarrassed by our private show as I am, he tucks a piece of hair behind my hair and whispers low and quiet in my ear: “That’s what I wanted.”

And I’m not sure I’ve ever agreed with him more.