Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
EDIE
Use it and get out? What an asshole!
I look in the mirror, my heart pounding in my chest. My hair is wild, the pinup girl style long gone. My cheeks are puffy from his whiskers, and my neck... God.
I trace my fingertips over the pinkest part.
I had sex for money with an awful, horrible killer. But it was... overwhelming. All-consuming. The dark rush of it is still coursing through my veins.
Who am I?
I should be scared. Repulsed. This man paid to use my body for his pleasure.
Yet I can’t stop thinking about his eyes. And his hands. And his chest—hard and strong and scarred like his hands. The way his cock bobbed up, thick and sturdy, a primal club wrapped in bronze skin and sinew.
The college guys I’ve been with would never just stand there with it out, looking me over. But Luka did exactly that, like a king surveying his domain, stroking himself, hardening more to take me.
I blink, lost in the memory of him hovering over me. The moment felt electric. And then he entered me and got me off so intensely... it’s like I was transported to another realm—a raw, uncharted realm of endless sensation.
And god, the look in his eyes after he pulled out of me, still hovering over me, like we’d shared something...
Even now, I can feel his dark pull. I want to go back out there. Is this what a junkie’s first taste of heroin is like?
Stop.
He’s a dangerous killer—that’s why things were heightened, I tell myself.
Cats purr when they’re hurt as much as when they’re happy, I tell myself.
But those are just things I tell myself.
Right then, my phone flashes. I have the sound turned off, but it’s ringing. It’s Bender with my excuse. How long have I been up here? Two hours? I shut it off.
With trembling fingers, I use a pin from my clutch to close the front of my dress. I unroll my wrinkled poncho and put it over my head, thankful I brought it. I grab my cherry lip gloss and roll it on. The smell of it brings me back to myself a little bit.
I came into this sinister world to save my sister, and I got my head turned around, and it’s over now.
He paid for the whole night. Or Dardan did, anyway. The folded-up money is still in my purse from when I slipped it in there. A thousand dollars is so much money. Do I get to keep it? Luka doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to take it back. It’s probably nothing to him, but I need it so badly.
And what will Officer Bender say? Will he take it away? Should I keep it secret?
Luka is wearing a hotel bathrobe when I walk out in my rain poncho. He’s got another glass of whatever he was drinking before, and his gaze is fixed on his phone.
“Well... thanks,” I say.
He looks up with the strangest expression .
Was that weird? Do hookers say thanks ? I immediately want to take it back. Why would I thank him? He should be thanking me.
“I just mean... for saving me from that asshole down there.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” he says all rumbly. “I’d toss you right out that window for a decent Lambrusco.”
I stiffen my spine. Such an asshole! “Well, maybe you don’t think it’s a thankable event, but for me, it is. Not—” I wave my hand at the bed. “I just mean... being with you is probably marginally better than being with Dardan.”
He crosses his arms. “ Marginally better?”
“At best,” I say.
“From what I could see, there was nothing marginal about your enjoyment. But I’ll accept the thanks.”
“I’ve changed my mind. It wasn’t a thankable event at all. I retract the thanks.”
“You retract it?”
Things feel wild between us. “That’s right.”
“You could barely keep that scorn going,” he says. “So, I’ll give you an A for effort but a D-minus for acting like you hated it. Not convincing.”
“Being in a position to take advantage of an economically disadvantaged woman doesn’t give you the right to define how I felt.”
“Being in a position to take advantage of an economically disadvantaged woman? You mean because I’m the savage who made the top of your head blow off three times?”
“Two times,” I say.
“Aha. Two times.” He gives me a smug smile. “I’d call that thankable.”
I narrow my eyes. “So full of shit.”
His gaze sharpens. Does he think he looks hot? All squinty with his dark whiskers?
“Again, consider my thanks retracted.” I head toward the door.
“Change of plans. You’re not going anywhere. ”
I freeze.
“Come here.”
I don’t turn. What have I done? Can I ignore him and keep going?
“Don’t make me say it again.”
“You released me already.”
“I’m retracting it.”
Heat kicks up between my legs as I imagine him picking me up again and carrying me back to that bed.
Would he hold me down again? Of course, he would. And he would hold my wrists, too, probably... hopefully.
I would have nowhere to go, and he would make me feel everything again. Or maybe he’d escalate things.
I stare at the door, heart bongo-ing against my ribs as I remember his belt. He would come after me. Maybe tie me up. And then the belt...
“So this is what we’re doing?” he growls.
Something heats inside me at his imperious tone. He thinks he gets to order me around? I shouldn’t give him the satisfaction of obeying—I shouldn’t!
At the same time... I’m nearly home free. Why would I jeopardize that?
I spin around. “What?”
He just sits there, one arm over the back of the chair, all lazy and superior, like every inch of the universe belongs to him.
He’s offensive—he really is, thinking he can order me around.
“Was there some ambiguity in the phrase ‘come here’?”
I force myself to take a few steps toward him and stop in the middle of the room, crossing my arms and holding my head high.
The way he looks at me... I want to punch him. Or maybe jump him.
He goes to a drawer, pulls out a box, and takes out a phone.
“You have a box of phones?”
“That’s right,” he rumbles like he’s angry .
God, that angry rumble rubs me the wrong way, and it’s not entirely unpleasant.
Luka rubs me the wrong way, like when you rub velvet the wrong way, and it stands on end, deep and dark. It brings out the intensity. The vibrancy. That’s what he does to me.
I watch him punch things into the phone.
“Is that a thing criminals have?” I hear myself saying. “A box of standard-issue criminal burner phones? Is there a special criminal Costco where they’re on sale?”
His gaze shoots up at me.
Why am I asking about phones? Why do I care?
“Sit down.”
I sit on the edge of the bed.
He comes over and puts the phone in my hand. “The password is green . You staying in the Bronx or Manhattan or what?”
“W-why?”
“Answer the question.”
“Manhattan.”
“What’s your name?”
“Honey.”
“Real name.”
I hesitate a second before blurting out, “Edie.”
He gives me a hard look. Does he want my full name? He goes to another drawer and takes out a stack of money that looks like fifties. It’s a lot of money.
“Two weeks,” he says, setting it in my hands.
Shivers flow over me. I’m almost afraid to close my fingers around the stack. It’s thousands of dollars. So much.
“This is double your full-night rate and some extra. For the next two weeks, you belong to me. When I want, where I want. I text, you come. There’s nobody else. You understand?”
“Y-you’re hiring me for two weeks?”
“Yes. ”
Frantically, I think about my school schedule. I have classes. Exams. Shifts on the Stafford cleaning crew.
“But I was just passing through to Vegas and… I have places to be...”
“Customers?”
“More like... obligations.”
“In Vegas?”
“Obligations,” I repeat.
“Break them.”
“I can’t.”
“Is it the money? I’ll buy you out of them.”
“It’s not a money issue.”
“Is it a people issue? Your handler?”
“Nothing like that.”
“What is it, then?”
“I don’t know if I can always be available. That’s all.”
He takes a step toward me. “I’m not playing here. You belong to me now. Like I said, I text, you come. Don’t make me send somebody to hunt you down. You and yours won’t like it. And trust me, I will find you.”
“B-but…”
“I just paid you for fourteen nights with a few grand extra thrown in. You’re mine, same as that jacket there. If you try to hide, I’ll find you. If you leave town, I’ll find you even faster. For the next two weeks, you are mine and mine alone.”
What the hell? This isn’t right. He can’t just do this! I grit my teeth, mustering up all of my hate.
“When I say come, you come.” He lowers his voice to a rumble. “When I say spread, you spread.”
Perversely, my sex swells with want.
A light appears in his eyes like he’s feeding off my bottled-up hate. “And when I tell you to bend over, you ask me how wide I want you to pull apart your ass cheeks.”
My jaw drops nearly to the floor .
“All that scorn is getting me hard.” He sets a finger under my chin and lifts my face to his. “You can never stop looking at me like that. It is really working for me. You understand? Nod if you understand.”
“It might not be possible?—”
“Two weeks. No other man will touch you. If you so much as look in the direction of another man, I’ll find out, and I will cut that man’s balls off. And then you will answer to me in a way that you will not like. Are we clear on that?”
I swallow—hard. Why am I arguing? I’ll go home, scrub off my makeup, change into leggings and an oversized sweater, and disappear into the faceless stream of college students, where Luka will never find me. He would never look in a college residence hall.
“We clear?”
“Fine.” I clutch my stuff and rush into the elevator, stabbing the lobby button a million times.
I check the time. Two hours I was in there with Luka, but it feels like a lifetime. There are two calls from Bender and one text asking where I am, pointing out that my shift is up, though he doesn’t seem overly concerned.
I text back:
on my way.
Finally, I’m back out on the street. It’s three in the morning, but Middleton Road is lit like a circus.
I suck down the smoggy air in great gulps.