take care of me instead of doing actual work.
“Kind of like how you’re doing now,” I muttered under my breath, as we sat in a cozy, dimly-lit restaurant in Hanalei, candles flickering in small cups between us on the tiny table.
“What did you say?” Asher asked.
“Nothing.”
I sipped my wine but drank him in instead. He looked devastating in a black T-shirt, his muscles straining against the material as he rested his large forearms on the table. Dark hair, dark eyes, his chin grazed with dark stubble…
Jesus, he’s a beautiful beast of a man. How have I not seen him naked?
Because Asher had been true to his word. We flirted as if it were an Olympic sport and we were honing our routine for the pairs event. But he respected my flimsy boundaries—boundaries that I was mentally tearing down every second I spent with him. Because depriving myself of his body wasn’t working—my stupid heart was stripping itself bare for Asher, whether I touched him or not.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
I muttered a curse into my glass and he looked up. “Talk to me, Faith. What’s up?”
“I was just thinking about how I came here to break my bad habits with men, and yet here I am, letting you take care of me, twenty-four seven.”
He shrugged over his pasta. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. You pay for more than half of our activities—despite my best efforts—and it’s not about money anyway.”
“Then what’s it about?”
“Give and take,” he said. “Sounds like when you were with those other guys, you did all the taking. That’s not the case here.”
“It’s not? We’re not even sleeping together. What are you getting out of this deal?”
“You.”
I sat back in my chair. “Me.”
“Yep.” His gaze grazed over me in my white sundress—light to his dark—and then met my eyes with an intensity that was full of depth and heat. “I get you.”
Damn him.
Worse than the no-sex, he was always saying stuff like that. Things that made my heart feel strange. As if I’d been starving it for years, and now it was gorging on Asher Mackey. It felt warm and satisfied in a way it hadn’t felt before.
This is bad. Real bad.
My fork clattered to my plate. “I can’t take it anymore.”
Asher blinked. “Sorry?”
“What are we doing? This. You. Me. What are we doing?”
“Having dinner.”
“Stop that,” I said. “Stop being so… unflappable. You can’t just say the incredible things you say to me and then eat your scampi as if we’re discussing the weather.”
“Faith—”
“I’m supposed to be here fixing myself, remember? Not falling—” I huffed a breath and took a sip of wine. “Never mind. Forget it. I’m fine. I’m just sugar-buzzed from all the shave ices we’ve been having.”
Calmly, Asher wiped his lips on a napkin and rested his elbows on the table, fingers laced together. “I’ve never spent this much time with a woman and not slept with her.”
“Same.”
“Spending time with you. Talking to you…” His eyes met mine over the table. “I don’t want to stop. I have two ten-hour shifts and a twelve coming up, and I’m already thinking about how I can see you as much as possible in between.” A soft smile I’d never seen him wear touched his lips and his hand reached across the table to hold mine. “I don’t know where this is going to end up, but the last fucking thing I want to think about is saying goodbye.”
Oh shit.
No man had ever said something like that to me before. No man had looked at me the way Asher Mackey looked at me, with fire in his eyes but something deeper too. And I wanted to live in that reflection. Bask in it. Drown in it…
So I did the logical thing: I snatched my hand away, stood up, and limped out of the restaurant.
Outside, the air was warm and did nothing to snap me out of my emotional freefall. Asher emerged from inside, hands in his pockets, brows raised in cautious curiosity.
“Was that your subtle way of telling me it was my turn to get the check?”
“We need to sleep together.”
His eyes widened. “Right now?”
“Yes. Tonight. Bring the car around and let’s go.”
“I thought we had rules. No kissing, no getting naked…”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“Faith—”
“This is ridiculous,” I hissed, flapping my arms and nearly losing my balance thanks to my bum ankle. “This… chaos I’m feeling? It’s just my body telling me that I’m about to combust if I don’t have you,