“Fuck,” he snarled. “You didn’t hear what you thought you did.”

“Bullshit. I heard you ask him if you could keep her. I’m not stupid—I know what that means.”

“Baby—”

Six months’ worth of pent-up fury unleashed. My first punch to Adam’s cheek landed only because he hadn’t expected it. My next two were easily deflected. So I switch tactics and bared my nails, wielding them like ten tiny blades. I scratched and fought until I was panting. I belatedly realized fighting was way more strenuous than I thought it would be.

“Are you done?” Adam growled.

With my lungs burning I couldn’t answer, thus he mistook my needing a break from kicking his ass for being done. He grabbed my hand and yanked me into my room.

“Now you’re gonna listen to me.”

“Adam—”

“My goddamn name is Asher,” he grounded out.

Asher?

“What?”

“My name’s not Adam, it’s Asher,” he repeated.

“Asher?”

“Fuck,” he grumbled and tore his hands through his hair. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

“You expect me to believe that when I heard you ask Lorenzo for a girl?”

“Sloane, baby, if I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve already done it. I followed you to ask you about Elise. I had no idea you heard any of that fucked-up conversation with that fuckwad. But since you did, I’ll repeat—you did not hear what you thought you heard.”

Adam…Asher, whatever his name was, was correct. Lorenzo was a fuckwad.

“Takes one to know one,” I spat my immature comeback.

“Seriously, that’s all you got?”

“I’m sorry, Asher, I don’t know exactly what you want me to say. It’s not every day I find out I kissed a man who’s a vile, filthy pig who likes to fuck virgins. That’s gross. But what’s worse is I’m so stupid, I was so caught up in you, I was willing to overlook things about you to have you. But this…no fucking way.”

“That’s a load of crap. You were willing to fuck me for information. You were playing me.”

Oh, shit.

“How do you know that?”

“You’re not even gonna bother denying it?”

“Why bother? I don’t like to lie and you’re probably gonna kill me anyway.”

“Jesus fuck, I’m not going to kill you.”

I wanted to believe so badly. Mostly because I didn’t want to die.

“Ask me how I know about Elise?” he demanded.

My heart was already pounding so hard that my chest was burning.

How did he know about her?

“Ask me,” he barked.

He was at the club but didn’t touch. He watched—not like the others, not with lust, he watched. He observed. He never left with anyone. He’d turned down every woman and man who’d asked him to play. He’d watched me closely and called me out on not liking the club, when no one else caught on, just him.

I don’t share what’s mine. He’d said that to me more than once. He’d demanded that I not participate. He knew I was playing him. He knew at the restaurant, and when he had his chance to have sex with me, he didn’t. Even before we got into my apartment, he tried to get me to call it off.