Desiring an Angel: Missing Link 3

2. Ashton

2

ASHTON

For once, I woke before Rhett, and I soaked in the pleasure of watching him in a state of slumber, the only place vulnerability owned his mind.

His dark hair stuck up from my running my fingers through it while he’d loved on me the night before. No furrow lined the skin between his thick eyebrows. His lips parted, slack and peaceful in slumber where he rested his cheek on navy satin sheets.

I wondered if he dreamed, and if so, what images filled his mind as the sunrise began to bathe the beach outside our bedroom window.

Once his eyes opened, that brain of his would fire on all cylinders, going through his plans for the day even though Saturday lay before us.

My favorite day.

No work, just hours spent with my lover in the peaceful silence of our oceanfront home.

Smiling, I ghosted my fingertips over his smooth brow and sharp cheekbones, down the bridge of his nose to the perfect bow of his upper lip I wanted to taste.

Rhett Stirling had drawn me in from his first “Hey” when I’d been crying my eyes out by my brother’s grave. Without knowing who the heck he was, I’d thrown myself into his arms since fate had sent him there to help fill the hole Archer’s death had torn open in my soul.

Twenty-three years together, and Rhett was still the one I clung to when my emotions overran and bled for the world to see.

Rhett stirred, his strong arm wrapping around my waist and easing me closer against his hard chest. He hummed under his breath, peeked an eyelid open to reveal orbs as dark as luscious chocolate, and zoned in on my mouth.

Smiling, I closed the distance and pressed my lips against his.

“Zing,” I whispered what I had the first time we’d kissed back in eleventh grade.

“Still?” he murmured, a hint of a smile lifting the corner of his mouth as he slowly blinked the sleep from his eyes.

“Always.” I snuggled against his body and soaked in the warmth and solidity of him. “I love you.”

“Love you too, baby.” He kissed the top of my head, his hand starting its trail up and down my spine.

“So, is coffee, a shower, or f*****g first on your agenda for the day?” I asked, since there was no way his brain lay as serene as our limbs.

“Let’s cook breakfast together, I’ll f**k you over the kitchen island once we finish eating, then I’ll wash you from head to toe, paying extra attention to every c***k and crevice on your body.”

My d**k twitched to life at his rumbling tone and the promise of a good time. Rhett Stirling was a book boyfriend come to life, and I couldn’t get enough.

“I f*****g love Saturdays,” I groaned and untangled from his body, ready to get on with the day even while wanting it to last forever and keep the following workweek from coming.

My smile faded as I pulled on the lounge pants I’d left draped over the foot of our bed.

Don’t waste the life you’ve been gifted. Carry on the family name…

The memory of my dad’s face etched with grief flashed in my mind as it always did when the anniversary of my brother’s death loomed mere days away.

My father been the only son of an only son—four generations back. Having twins, he had accomplished more than his ancestors, but that feat had crumbled down when my brother had fallen sick and a man instead of a woman had stolen my heart.

But there had been no stopping what had started that late night in the cemetery. Best friends connected at the hip, Rhett and I were both attracted to boys and girls…but our hearts had chosen each other.

I’d overheard my dad sharing his grief with mom later on the night I’d told them that Rhett was my future until death parted us.

While neither of my parents were homophobic, I’d been unable to keep my dad’s reaction from haunting my mind throughout the following years.

Rhett hadn’t been too keen on the idea of having children, but four years earlier, we finally sat down to discuss creating a family. His first idea had been surrogacy, but I desired more and had pushed for it—

“Maeve won’t be here until seven tonight,” Rhett said while climbing off the bed, pulling my mind back to the present, “so we have the day to ourselves.”

Maeve being our latest match on Missing Link, the polyamorous dating app Rhett and I had created after that conversation.

I kept my fingers crossed that she would possess the same sunshiny personality as Archer to balance my own, darker nature but also would be someone who would help Rhett express emotion, because after twenty-three years together, he struggled to reveal most of his inner workings to anyone.

Myself included.

While we had been content with each other, there were parts of us the other couldn’t fulfill. f**k knew we’d enjoyed our fair share of hookups throughout our years together while searching out the perfect woman to include in our household, but we’d yet to meet the one.

We’d spoken with the latest, Maeve, via FaceTime twice, and she checked off what we had listed in our ML profile to a T.

If only those wants input when we’d created our profile had been my desires rather than Rhett’s.

Maeve seemed polished and proper, her character more in tune with my stoic partner’s than what I desired for my children’s mother. I hoped for someone full of happiness and positivity—since neither Rhett nor I could claim those traits, and I wanted that for our future children.

We had yet to find a woman we agreed on, one that clicked at first call or meeting, one that made my insides zing yet rest with that sense of rightness I had only ever experienced with him.

Hundreds of men and women had joined the Missing Link community in the first two days of its release into the world. Three years later, and thousands had uploaded profiles, seeking fulfillment of their dreams and fantasies.

Rhett and I fell into the category of looking for relationships rather than hookups, but sifting through women hoping for the same as we did had become more laborious than fun like it had been in the beginning.

Unfortunately, Maeve proved just as disappointing as the rest.

Even though Rhett and I both found her attractive enough, the woman writhing between us later that night felt…wrong.

No, no, no…

I wanted to deny yet another failure, but her breath panting over my face hinting at sweet cherries from wine shared over dinner didn’t entice me to kiss her or drink down her moans.

I kept my eyes on Rhett behind her, his parted lips, the l**t in his dark eyes doing more for me than the wet p***y clutching at my d**k. Our gazes clashed, and I imagined it was my a*s he took rather than the woman between us.

Love you so damn much, I told him with my steady gaze, my heart breaking, and his eyes promised me the same without a word.

“Oh…” Maeve shuddered and came, her core clasping tight around my girth.

“Ash…” Rhett’s jaw clenched, and his tone, the need in his stare over her shoulder, took me to the edge. We fell together like we always did.

We left her boneless on our bed a few minutes later, both of us going to the bathroom to clean up.

“She’s not it,” I whispered, tying off my c****m and tossing it into the trash with a little more force than necessary.

Rhett hugged me from behind, his sweaty, hard body relaxing the tension riding me. I sagged into his familiar, comfortable hold. “We’ll find her.” He kissed my shoulder, his lips warm and sure.

I clasped my hand over his atop my heart, twining our fingers together.

“Promise.” Rhett kissed me again, and my back grew cool while he retrieved a wet towel for the woman we’d left sprawled in our bed. “I’ll take care of Maeve and send her on her way,” he whispered.

A heavy exhale caved my chest as he exited the bathroom.

She was far from the first to come between us. She wasn’t the first Rhett would see out the door while I showered either. But he’d always been better with letting people down, the confrontations I didn’t handle well, so I left him to it and accepted the fact we would have to continue our search.

I stepped into the spray, tilting my face into the pelting, hot water. The scent of rose perfume, sweat, and c*m, swirled down the drain. While my balls had emptied, I hadn’t found anything satisfying about s*x with Maeve outside of sensing Rhett’s d**k a membrane apart from mine, his focus on me, and the connection I’d felt since that night he’d found me crying by Archer’s grave.

Rhett had been the one to give my life worth, value, when I’d thought I should have been buried six feet under instead of Archer—

The glass shower door opened, and Rhett stepped in to join me, his allaying presence enough to ease my disappointment over our latest failed match and the swamping sense of worthlessness that always attacked whenever I thought too hard on my brother’s death.

Rhett wrapped me up in his arms again, and I melted into his chest, my head tipping back to his shoulder. “Sorry,” he whispered, his scruff scraping across mine and sending shivers down my spine.

“Nothing to be sorry for.” I reached around behind me, palming his a*s, holding his groin tight against my backside.

“I chose her when you weren’t that interested,” he murmured against my ear, his breath warmer than the water hitting my chest.

“If there’s a match that catches your eye, I’m not going to say no just because I don’t feel it after a few emails and video calls. It’s like my sister always says,” I reminded him for at least the fiftieth time, “just because you don’t like a dress on the hanger doesn’t mean you won’t rock the s**t out of it.”

Rhett chuckled and kissed my cheek. “Which sister?”

“All four,” I muttered.

He lightly laughed again, and I turned.

“Love you so damn much it hurts,” I murmured and gave him my mouth before he could reply. Tasting him—hot male, heady and intoxicating—trickled life back to my groin. My body had always been insatiable when it came to him, but he pulled away before my d**k thickened fully.

“Let me take care of you, baby,” he murmured, reaching for the bodywash.

I went pliant as he washed me from head to toe like he’d done as promised earlier that morning, cleaning all trace of the woman from my skin. He massaged shampoo, then conditioner into my scalp until my eyelids fluttered closed, my entire body blissed out from having his attentive hands on my body.

When Rhett finished, he tugged me against his chest, his firm touch grounding. “Are you okay?” he murmured.

His question came as it always did after a waste-of-time date, but I knew he referred to more. The edge of concern lacing his voice was a telling, rare sentiment.

The following week I would experience the pain of an anniversary I despised. The one that had left me feeling incomplete and reminded me that denying death didn’t reverse its effects. Even though Rhett coming into my life had lessened those emotions, I still struggled with my grief and survivor’s guilt.

Losing a twin was devastating, especially if they were the happy sort, the one with light in their eyes regardless of circumstance. Always joking and laughing, thinking the best, and expecting great outcomes.

The sunny opposite of what I couldn’t help but be—

“Hey.” Rhett’s firm tone stopped my thoughts, his dark eyes peering into mine as he lifted my cheek from his shoulder, hands cradling my face.

I attempted a smile while he rubbed his thumb over my lower lip. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

A lie, one Rhett could read on my face, expected after twenty-plus years of being partners, but he wouldn’t refute.

We crawled into a freshly-made bed a few minutes later and came together like magnets, front to front. Shared breath, arms wrapped around one another. I rubbed my cheek against his chest, shuddering as a sigh rippled through me.

Rhett had always been home to me, even when we had lived apart, beneath the care of our parents.

“I love you,” Rhett stated quietly against my damp hair, and I closed my eyes, trusting his embrace, his words, same as I did gravity to keep my feet firmly planted on the earth.

“You’re my rock,” I murmured against his warm skin what I’d told him hundreds of times over the years, “my knight in shining armor. No one has cared for my well-being like you do.”

He squeezed me tighter.

Maybe it was time to face the truth that no woman would ever fit between me and Rhett in the way I dreamed of.

My heart had been so set on finding someone happy like Archer and my own mother. Someone who would be content as a stay-at-home mom and take an active part in parenting alongside us. Giving our children sunshine and happiness that came from positive energy neither Rhett nor I possessed.

I couldn’t imagine raising children in a somber household, especially when one of the dads never really wanted kids to begin with, especially of his blood.

But it seemed I’d been left with no choice. Fate hadn’t intervened like she had when bringing Rhett into my life.

“Do you still have all that information you printed out on surrogacy?” I asked, my eyes closed and voice quiet.

Rhett’s soothing hand on my back stilled. “Yes.”

I released an unsteady exhale, setting my mind on a new course, one he had already mapped out and waited for my consent. “I’m thinking about plan B.”

Tension I hadn’t realized ran through him eased, relaxing his body along mine, hard muscle and soft skin I’d memorized by sight and feel from forehead to foot. “You’re sure?” he murmured, his tone soft.

No.

“Yeah.” My throat tightened.

Swallowing against the tears welling behind my clenched eyelids, I clung to Rhett harder and told myself it was time to face reality.