Chapter 88 Wolf In Gentle Clothing
Becca’s POV
I walked helplessly in the city's street. What more worse events was I going to face.
“Becca?”
His voice hit me first low, steady, too gentle to belong to the man I knew.
I blinked through the blur in my eyes.
My knees buckled again, and this time I didn’t hit the pavement. His strong arms caught me before the ground did… and the scent, clean cedar, expensive cologne, too familiar wrapped around me like a ghost.
“Asher?” My voice broke. “No… no, it can’t be you.”
But it was.
He pulled me upright with surprising care, like I was something that might shatter if he breathed too hard.
A soft blanket, where did he even get it? It was draped around my shoulders. He tucked it under my chin.
“You’re freezing,” he murmured. “Come on. You’re safe now.”
Safe.
The word felt wrong in his mouth. Like poison wearing velvet.
My heartbeat thrashed against my ribs, but my body betrayed me as I leaned into him because the world tilted, and I had no strength left to fight gravity, let alone fate.
His hand settled on the back of my head, warm and steady.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he whispered. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
Funny. That was exactly what he used to say before the hurting began.
The motel sign flickered behind us, humming weakly in the night air. My breathing echoed in my ears, rough and uneven.
Asher bent down, sliding an arm under my knees, lifting me like I weighed nothing.
“Asher don’t…” My voice cracked.
“Becca,” he said quietly. “Please let me help you. Just this once.”
Just this once.
Like he hadn’t said those exact words before shoving me against a wall. Before apologizing with flowers. Before breaking me again.
But tonight… he wasn’t smirking.
He wasn’t cold.
He wasn’t the predator I remembered.
His eyes, God, were softer. Carved with regret instead of entitlement.
It confused me so deeply I couldn’t breathe.
He carried me across the lot, footsteps steady, never jostling me.
He didn’t hold too close. He just… supported me.
I didn’t trust him.
But my body was shutting down, trembling too hard to protest further.
When he opened the car door and gently placed me inside, I stared at him like he was a stranger wearing my ex’s face.
“Asher,” I whispered, “why are you here?”
He paused, swallowing hard.
“For once,” he said softly, “I was in the right place at the right time.”
His apartment hadn’t changed much, still the same modern, neat building with it's faint smell of leather and mint.
He helped me onto the couch, his movements quiet, almost… reverent. As if touching me required permission from the universe.
“Sit. I’ll get you something warm.”
I watched him walk to the kitchen. No tension in his shoulders. No quick, irritated gestures.
He moved like a man who had learned to breathe slowly.
A version of Asher I had never met.
I shivered harder.
He returned with a steaming bowl.
“Soup,” he said, lowering his voice like he was afraid of scaring me. “It’s light. You’ll keep it down.”
He set it in my hands, but before I tipped it, he crouched in front of me, thumb brushing a cut along my jaw.
“You’re hurt.” His eyes darkened, not with anger, but with something frighteningly close to sorrow. “Becca… who touched you?”
“No one,” I lied too quickly.
He didn’t push. Nor accuse me of lying like before.
He simply said, “Okay,” and reached for a first-aid kit.
He cleaned my cuts with careful, almost trembling fingers.
Dabbed ointment. Taped gauze and whispered “sorry” each time I flinched.
This wasn’t theatrical regret.
This wasn’t manipulation wrapped in softness.
This wasn’t the Asher who used gentle moments as bait.
He looked… haunted.
Like each injury on my skin carved another wound in him.
When he finished, he stood up and pulled a soft sweater from his closet.
“Change into this. Your clothes are soaked.”
I stared at him. “Asher. Why are you being nice.”
He blinked once. “Because I should’ve always been.”
That sentence shouldn’t have hit as hard as it did.
He handed me the sweater, then stepped back—far back—to the other side of the room, turning his back so I could change without feeling watched.
The old Asher would’ve smirked, leaning in, making a joke.
This one didn’t move an inch until I said, “Okay.”
He returned, took my dirty shirt without comment, and placed it in a laundry basket.
Then he knelt beside me again.
“Becca,” he whispered, “I know I don’t deserve to ask… but can I stay with you while you eat?”
I nodded before I could stop myself.
He smiled—small, wounded, nothing like the arrogant curve I remembered.
He watched me eat with quiet relief, like each spoonful proved I was still alive.
Afterward, he brought warm water and gently wiped dirt from my neck, behind my ears, along my temple.
His touch felt foreign.
Not because it was harsh—
But because it wasn’t.
It felt strange to me
“I’m sorry,” he said again, voice cracking slightly. “For everything. Every bruise. Every yell. Every night I made you feel less than human.”
I froze.
He had never once admitted anything.
Not once.
He sat down beside me, but left space between us, his hands clasped tightly in his lap.
“I wasn’t a man back then,” he said. “I was… angry. Entitled. Cruel. But I left the city. Got therapy. Grew up, I guess.”
He laughed, empty.
“Turns out losing you was the first real consequence of my life.”
I stared at him, unable to reconcile memory with reality.
He continued, voice quiet and steady:
“I work for Langford Luxe now. That’s why I was at the gala. I design the men’s line. I don’t party. I don’t drink. I don’t—” He swallowed. “I don’t hurt people anymore.”
My heart stuttered.
His eyes lifted to mine, clear and almost unbearably soft.
“I want to start over,” he whispered. “Not as lovers. Not even as friends—unless you want that someday. I just… want to be someone who doesn’t terrify you.”
A painful knot formed in my throat.
“You don’t have to trust me,” he added quickly, hands raised slightly. “You don’t ever have to. I just want you safe. I want to take care of you until you can stand again.”
My breath trembled. I didn't know whether to run or fall apart in his arms.
Terrified.
Confused.
Shaken by this version of him—this man I didn’t recognize.
His hand hovered, not touching, but offering.
“Becca… let me be the one who doesn’t hurt you.”
I think exhaustion made the decision for me.
My eyes fluttered, heavy and burning.
My body sagged sideways on the couch.
Asher caught me gently and lowered me onto the cushions, tucking the blanket around me.
“Sleep,” he whispered. “I’m right here. I won’t touch you. I won’t move. Just rest.”
As consciousness slipped away, I heard him—broken, raw, full of an ache I had never heard in his voice before.
“I won’t lose you again,” he breathed, so softly it barely existed. “Not this time… not when I finally..”