My body tenses without meaning to. I don’t have time to prepare. There’s no makeup or stilettos to shield me here.
He makes a sleepy snorting sound that’s endearing. His hand brushes over my body and cups my breast, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Stay,” he mumbles.
I don’t know if he’s fully awake, if he knows what he’s asking.
The answer is no.
My breathing becomes shallow as I prepare for some kind of maneuver to slip away. I don’t mind him touching me. I don’t mind him fucking me. But I mind very much the possessive shit he said last night. I mind him thinking he has some kind of claim over me. What we’re doing is an apology, a nostalgic trip down fucked-up lane. It’s not real. And it’s sure as hell not forever.
I only get as far as the edge of the bed before he grabs my wrist and hauls me back. My legs splay awkwardly, the opposite of sexy. I freeze as his hand finds my thigh. Calloused hands smooth up the inside of my leg, heading for my sex.
He finds me wet.
His groan is pure approval. “Every morning,” he says, fingers slipping inside.
The words are like ice to the heart. I jolt up from the bed, hopping and fighting to get away from him.
He blinks, his eyes still cloudy with sleep. “What the fuck?”
“I have to go,” I say, stumbling over to a pile of clothes on the floor. “I have to…have to leave.”
By the time I have my skirt on, he’s sitting up. He doesn’t leave the bed, but I don’t underestimate him for a second. If he wants me to stay, he’ll make me stay. He could be out of bed in two seconds flat. His hand would be on the door, blocking me in, just three seconds after that.
There’s no sleep left when he narrows his eyes. Only intense focus. “Want to tell me why?”
I’ve gotten hundreds of proposals.
It’s a professional hazard, common enough if I’m doing my job well. The thing people don’t know is how real the proposals seem, how earnest they can be when a man is horny and desperate and sad.
And none of them have meant a single thing, not nearly as much as those two words.
Every morning.
He comes to me like it’s inevitable that he’ll have me. He presses his forehead to my chest like I can stave off the world. The nakedness, the money—they wrap us in a cocoon that’s strangely meaningful. At least for two minutes in time. I’m used to being promised more than I’ll ever get, which is a fat tip if I’m lucky. I don’t want any more than that. I can’t have any more than that.
“Mrs. Owens needs me. Needs someone,” I say, stumbling over the explanation. Technically it’s true, but it’s not why I’m running. Judging from the way his eyes narrow, he knows that. “If I’m not there when she wakes up, she worries about me.”
“All right,” he says slowly. “Give me a second to throw on some clothes, and I’ll come with you.”
I take a step back. “Why?”
He stands up. “To spend time with you.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal. I said I’d come here, said I’d fuck you. That’s all.”
He shrugs, completely undisturbed. “Then fuck me there.”
“In front of Mrs. Owens?”
He grunts. “You don’t have your own room?”
“That’s not the point. I live there to take care of her. Not to bring customers back to her house.”
It’s like waving a red cloth, watching a bull’s eyes widen and his nostrils flare. He charges me, backing me up against the wall before I can even protest. “I’m not a client,” he says softly, his face inches away, eyes locked in mine.
Nervousness makes my breath come in pants. I wish I had on cherry-red lipstick and a tight skirt. I wish I were Lola, able to seduce and to manipulate. I wish I were anyone but me. “You can’t come over,” I whisper.
His jaw clenches, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “I meant what I said last night. You want to be Lola, I’ll call you that. You want to strip at the Grand. I’ll put up with that too, if it fucking kills me. But you’re mine. That pussy, that mouth. Every inch of you.”
“This is insane. You hate me. You despise me.”
“Yes,” he says slowly, as if thinking it through, wondering. “I do hate you. I hate what you did. I hate that you take your clothes off for other men, showing them what should be mine. I hate that you’re trying to walk out of here as if I mean nothing to you, the same way you sent me away all those fucking years ago.”
I close my eyes as he leans close. I don’t know what he’ll do to me. Hit me? Bite me? He seems almost feral enough to do it. So the soft press of warmth to my eyes is a shock. His lips. He’s kissing me, one after the other. Another kiss on my nose. And lower, on my mouth.
“But I want you too, the same way I wanted you back then. Your body, your heart. The way you look after Candy. The way you take care of Mrs. Owens when you don’t have to.” His smile is half-sad, half-dark. “The way you gave yourself to me so sweetly.”