He jerked up at the realization.
“Damn,” he muttered, staring down at her damp belly. Even her lower breasts glistened with his ejaculate. Are you out of your fucking mind?
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice low and a little rough. She lifted her head from a couch pillow when she noticed his anxious expression. She glanced down at her wet stomach. The phone had stopped ringing, but then it started again.
“None of it went inside me. It’s okay, Asher.”
“It doesn’t take much,” he stated grimly.
He stood rapidly from the couch, the abrupt action making him feel a little light-headed. Or maybe what had just happened, that inexplicable, intense rush of primal possessiveness, was what had left him dizzy in its wake. He jerked up his pajama bottoms.
“Let me get you something. Don’t move,” he muttered, stalking toward the hallway. He wouldn’t allow his brain to focus on what he’d just done . . . the crazy things he’d just been feeling and thinking. He returned a few seconds later and handed her a towel from the bathroom. She sat up.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” she asked him uneasily.
He blinked, breaking his mesmerized stare from her naked body gilded with sunlight and his semen.
“Yeah,” he muttered thickly, making a beeline for the phone. He needed to rein in his brain . . . bring himself back into the present. Into reality.
Because he’d sure as hell checked out of it during those moments on that couch with Laila.
• • •
Laila watched him as he picked up the receiver. His expression as he’d stared at his semen on her body had alarmed her a little. He’d been shocked at what they’d just done . . . at having sex without using protection.
She was pretty surprised herself. But her disbelief didn’t begin to approximate what she’d seen on Asher’s face just moments ago. It had been something close to horror. He’d been stunned that he’d allowed himself to be so vulnerable with her, that he’d let his guard down, given the inevitable impermanence of their affair.
She heard him curse. She finished drying herself and stood, pulling Asher’s bunched-up T-shirt down over her.
“No, it’s okay. You can send him up.” Asher glanced back at her. “I just completely forgot he was coming by, that’s all.”
“That was the doorman,” he said a moment later as he hung up the phone. “Rudy’s downstair
s. He’s on his way up.”
She blinked. “Not Rudy, Rudy.” He nodded once. “Rudy Fattore . . . from Crescent Bay?” she asked in amazement.
“He’s from Los Angeles, nowadays. I canceled dinner with him the last few nights because—” He gave her a swift glance, and she understood he’d canceled because he’d gone to see her at the club both nights. “I told him I wasn’t feeling great, and suggested he come by this morning. I forgot about it. With everything.” She saw his gaze shoot to the couch behind her. His mouth tightened. “I would have made another excuse just now, but he flew in from L.A. just to see me for a few days. I didn’t want to—”
“No, it’s all right. Of course he should come up. I’ll just go and shower, if that’s all right?” She edged toward the hallway. She felt awkward, beyond the unexpected situation of Rudy Fattore suddenly springing out of her past, just like Asher had. Something seemed wrong with Asher. He was regretting the intense intimacy they’d just shared. She just knew it. She hesitated. “I’d like to see him again. Is it . . . okay if I come out after I shower?”
“Of course.”
She nodded once, her uneasiness escalating. She started toward the hallway.
“Laila?”
Her heart jumped and she turned around anxiously.
“Do you remember how Rudy wanted to be a celebrity photographer back in Crescent Bay?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he became one. A pretty major one, actually. He’d love to get a photo of Yesenia. That’s why we first showed up at the club on Thursday night,” he explained tensely.
“Oh.” She glanced nervously toward the foyer and the front door. Rudy would arrive any second.
“He won’t get that Yesenia and Laila from Crescent Bay are the same person.” A loud knock resounded from the front door. She jumped. “And I’m not going to tell him,” Asher continued in a firm, hushed tone. “So don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll just tell him we met up accidentally yesterday. You’re an account manager for Microsoft, just like you tell your parents.”