Page 82 of The Midnight Order
“Are you alright?”
“No. Yes. I’m fine.”
The punching bag makes a loud thud as it falls from the ceiling and rolls to the floor. I eye it over his shoulder.
“You sure about that?”
“That thing’s old. It was on its last leg.”
I purse my lips. “We both know that’s a lie. We just got that. Now, you always preach that honesty is the best policy. Tell me the truth.”
He sighs, leaning his forehead against mine.
“I don’t know what came over me. I watched how you handled the situation, and it was so fucking hot, and I loved every second, but then you looked at her so lovingly, and something in me snapped. I was so… worried. So…”
“Jealous,” I finish when he can’t seem to.
I don’t smile at knowing just how he feels. It’s an awful feeling to be jealous, and I don’t wish it on my worst enemy.
I’ve suffered at envy’s hands for years, unable to get free.
Something about Silver unlocked that incessant need to worry and ruminate on what could happen, and I don’t want us to have swapped spots.
Seems that it’s happened, though.
“You don’t want me to touch her?” I ask him, trying to get to the root of it.
“No. That’s not it. I wanted to stand by and watch you fuck her; it was like… the more emotional side of things got to me. I don’t want your growing fascination with her to overshadow what we have.”
His words have my heart hammering. Asher is private, even with me. He guards his heart and feelings with a wall of stone—one I’ve only been over a few times in the fifty years we’ve been together.
I cup either side of his face. “That’ll never happen, you brute. Even with as stubborn as you are, I’ll love you with everything that I have until death parts us.”
“You’ll need to love Silver, too. The curse demands that…”
“I know what the curse demands, but any love that grows for her won’t diminish or change what we have.”
“How is it that you’re so strong and certain now, when you were the opposite with Valentina?”
His hands on my hips make me very hyperaware of how my body has begun to thrum, and I swallow audibly.
“I don’t know. This feels different. Doesn’t it? It can’t be just me who feels it.”
He nods. “It does. Just don’t stop looking at me the way you looked at her.”
I shake my head, rolling my eyes in disbelief. “You’re being absurd.”
I realize I’m invalidating his feelings when he’d never do that to me, and I tug his face toward mine.
“I promise. Nothing will change between us.”
The kiss we share is heated, per usual, and is only broken up when Silver crashes into the room and takes in the state of us with a tinge to her cheeks and arousal leaking from her pores.
“Listen, you can’t let me come between you. Wait, that sounded dirty. You can’t let me spread… no. You know what I’m saying!” she finishes in a huff.
Her face is flushed, and her hair is in a messy, wet bun.
She rushed through her shower, and it looks like she ran here.
