“It’s not that. It’s…” I trail off with a shake of my head, trying to shake a coherent thought loose. Because I have no fucking clue why I’m doing this. “It was supposed to be different with you.”
Her scowl deepens. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? For weeks you’ve been slinging innuendo at me, and when I finally give you what you’ve been begging for,” she says with a disgusted flick of her hand at that incomparable body, “now you don’t want me?”
Her rant hits home, and I suddenly understand. I do want her. But it’s not just her body I want. I want that smart mouth and sharp wit. I want those eyes that see things in an entirely different light and that mind that thinks in ways I can’t begin to untwist. I want to lose myself inside the incredible person she is and find out what makes her tick.
I want everything she is.
And fucking her now, before I leave for two months in Europe, is not going to get me any of those things.
“If we do this now,” I say, rubbing my neck, “then all it will be is a quick fuck. That’s not what I want from you, Lucky. When I get back, whatever you want from me is yours.”
She blows out a disgusted snort. “You mean whatever’s left of you after you’ve fucked your way across Europe?”
I shake my head, and this time it’s on purpose. “That’s not going to happen.”
Her arms fold skeptically over her chest. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Why?”
It’s like someone poured a beer down my throat then shook me. My stomach’s all fizzy knots. “Because I have a hunch there might be something here,” I say with a wave of my hand between us. “Because I want to find out if my hunch is right.”
“So, when that hot French girl gets down on her knees and unzips you…?”
“I’ll tell her to get the fuck up and grow a little self-respect.”
Lucky’s eyebrows shoot up. “She starts sucking you and you’re going to push her off?”
I take a step toward her. “There is one girl I want more than I’ve ever wanted anyone, and I just pushed her off. Frenchy’s got no prayer.”
There’s a second where I think she gets me…that she sees I’m, for once in my pathetic life, not totally full of shit.
But then her eyes narrow. She scoops her underwear off the floor and drags them up her legs. “You are so full of shit.” She’s off the bed, yanking open the door before I can react. She slams out into the hall and I start to go after her, but what’s that going prove. The only thing that will show her I’m serious is to keep my dick clean on the road. Which is something I’ve never even considered trying before.
I watch her load into the elevator and vanish. And now that she’s not here, piercing my soul with that knowing gaze, reminding me what’s at stake, I feel like the lowlife snake I am.
What if I can’t follow through?
Chapter 20
Shiloh
It’s sort of awkward going home with Billie. On the bus, it wasn’t her house. It was our hotel room on wheels that I was paying for. As much as she was trying to be the “parent,” I didn’t feel accountable to her when we were out there.
But this place is all hers. She keeps saying to make myself at home, but I don’t feel like I belong here.
It’s on the eighteenth floor and out my floor-to-ceiling bedroom window is an old white building that Billie says is the L.A. County Library main branch. All of the rooms are large and open, and full of stuff that looks really expensive. Everything is leather or antique, and everywhere I look, there are crystal vases and art on the walls that I can’t make any sense of. I’m not even sure the painting in my room is hanging the right way. Looks to me like it’s upside down.
I’ve spent the last week since we got here staring at it, trying to figure out what it’s supposed to be. It keeps my mind off what happened between me and Tro in that Miami hotel room.
Sort of.
I haven’t even gotten out of bed yet and it’s two. After living under a microscope and sharing a bus for the last two months, having my own space feels amazing, so I’ve just kind of stayed in here. My laptop is open on the bed and I slam it shut, hating myself for opening it in the first place. But I had to know. I flop onto my stack of pillows and stare out the window.
Tro is in Brussels. Or he was last night. But the picture on my screen is from Paris the night before. I didn’t need to translate the caption. I already knew what it said. “Tro Gunnison, sampling Europe’s finest.”
I turn my face into the pillows and scream. God, I hate him.
I take a deep breath and sit up, pulling open the laptop again. In the picture, Tro is sitting on a barstool in a club. An actress who looks familiar but I can’t place is wrapped around him from behind. She’s got her chin on his shoulder and her hands splayed on his chest. Tro looks like he’s talking to someone out of the shot, but I have no doubt he took that actress back to his hotel and fucked her.
Because that what he does with everyone but me.