Page 159 of Twisted Truth

“Yours,” I breathe.

He growls in approval. “Mine.”

“Get on the bed,” he orders.

As I do, theclinkingandtinklingof jewelry fills the room. I lie on my back, and Asher kneels over me. He threads his fingers through mine and lifts our hands over my head. He pins them there as his lips crash against mine, and he kisses me in the same way he just fucked me— claiming, demanding. Obsessive.

Then his kisses make their way down to my jaw, down mysternum, between the layers of necklaces resting there, over my breasts, down my stomach. Then he starts again at my right wrist and makes his way down my arm, and then he repeats himself down my left arm.

When he finishes, he stares down at me. He plants a small kiss to my nose, then an achingly tender kiss to my lips. He holds my eyes as he slides inside me again, slowly. When he moves this time, it’s all encompassing in a different way. This time it doesn’t feel like a claiming, it feels like an offering—like a promise. The black of his eyes has receded, and the sky blue simmers with fire, but a softer, more tender fire.

As we move together, the pressure between us builds into something more. I wrap my arms around him, probably scraping him with the cascades of jewels around my wrists, and hold him tight to me. Even an inch of space between us feels like too much.

Our foreheads meet as we lose ourselves in one another. We kiss and breathe each other in, and this time theclinkingof jewelry sounds at a slower, more languid pace. Because this is not fucking.

This is love making.

“Asher,” I whisper, so caught up in him, I can’t help but say his name.

“I know, baby.”

And soon, I’m falling over the edge, and I come, crying out his name again.

He thrusts into me a few more times before following me over the edge. “Ella!”

After we finish, we lie wrapped up in each other. My head rests on his chest, and he holds me in his arms. My nails ghost back and forth across his chest as he strokes his hand absentmindedly down my back. I could stay just like this forever, safe and sound in Asher’s arms.

He lifts my hand and kisses my fingers where at least twentyrings sit, and as I watch his beautiful lips reverently mark me, I fight prickles in the backs of my eyes. I do everything I can to hold back the sweet, beautiful, terrifying tears that want to escape. Because something has shifted between us. Something irrevocable. And that something both excites and terrifies me. Because I know one thing.

I’m falling in love with Asher Langford.

43

ASHER

Aknock sounds on my office door and before I can answer, Matthew opens it and enters, followed by Emily. Matthew never waits for me to tell him to come in, not unless I’m with someone. The habit used to drive me insane, and I barked at him a hundred times to change it when he first started working for me, but he never has. And now, it’s just a part of him I don’t willingly admit to liking.

I look up from my laptop as they take the seats across from my desk.

“We just got an interesting email,” Matthew says. “It went out to the PR team as well as the executives here at Langford Holdings.”

I furrow my brow. Who is emailing the PR team and the Langford Holdings executives? I check my email.

“It was leaked by an RTZ employee,” Emily says. RTZ is a gossip and tabloid website. “But what I don’t understand is why this employee decided to risk their job by giving us a heads up.”

I click on the email and curse. Ella’s ex-boyfriend, fucking Kyle, has done some tell-all interview with them. I skim over the article, fuming. It’s the same drivel that was written abouther when our relationship was first made public, about how she’s a gold-digger, but this goes deeper. Kyle insinuates that Ella only worked at Langford Holdings to try to get close to me, and that Kyle was a besotted boyfriend ready to propose to what he thought was the love of his life before Ella tossed him aside for me.

“It’s all false, obviously,” Emily says. “But it could be damning if we don’t get something out to combat it, quickly. Ella’s already had a lot of headlines written about her being a gold-digger sleeping her way to the top, and the more that are written, the more the public will believe them.”

“When does the story go live?”

“Tomorrow,” Matthew says.

“What do you propose for a strategy?” I ask Emily. “And where is Ella, why isn’t she here discussing this with us?”

“She’s in the conference room finishing up a call with Lennox Rose. I will bring her in in a moment, but I wanted to clear something with you first. There’s a piece in the article about you breaking into his apartment and threatening him, and it’s skewed in a way to make you out to be this big bad villain. So, I think the best way to combat this is to be transparent. We have proof of Ella and Kyle’s breakup timeline with her text messages. We have proof of him burning her things with her text messages. And we even have paparazzi photos of the day you all went to his apartment to get her things. There are photos of you all carrying boxes. We may need more than a generic statement. We may need a direct statement from you explaining how you intervened because of the history of domestic violence. I don’t know if Ella is going to be comfortable with that or not, but I think it’s the way to go. Not only because it clears her name, but because it’s the truth.”

“I’m willing to make a statement. Whatever we need. That fucker Kyle has a lot of goddamn nerve. I warned him that I would leave him alone, but if he ever fucked with Ella again, I’ddestroy him. Matthew, find out what the fuck his new business is. I’m going to bury it and make sure he can never work anywhere in this city again.”