I’m halfway done with my deliveries when my phone rings, the notes of “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine signaling a call from Malcolm. I’ve assigned ringtones to everyone in my phone. Neil’s is “Price Tag” by Jessie J and Mom’s is “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera. My old friend from high school was Pink’s “So What,” but I haven’t called or heard from Sarah in six months. My fault, though, because she kept asking me to go out with her and I kept telling her no. I couldn’t afford a night out with the ten-dollar drinks and the twenty-five-dollar covers.
“You need to get your ass over to my apartment. Nine sharp,” Malcolm barks into the phone.
“OK, that’s fine. I’ve got . . .” I start to reel off my remaining delivery jobs but Malcolm interrupts.
“I don’t give two shits about what you’ve got left. Just be here at nine or your side job will be given to someone who can do the fucking job as they’re asked.” He’s shouting into the phone, so I hold it a few inches away. I can still hear him. In fact, I’m afraid if I hold it any closer, a rain of spit will drench my ear.
“Got it. Nine sharp.” I hang up on him while he’s still raining profanities down the cell line.
At eight fifty-five, I show up sweaty and tired at Malcolm’s apartment building. There’s a big, gray, expensive-looking car idling a few blocks up. I only notice because it’s completely incongruous. Maybe Malcolm’s supplier? Who knows? I should care, probably, but I don’t want Malcolm any more pissed off than he already is.
“Lucy, I’m home,” I yell into the intercom speaker. The buzz of the lock being disengaged sounds moments later. I take the elevator up and then knock on the door. Malcolm is there before I can drop my hand away, and as the door swings open I see him.
He’s sitting there, his hand over the white box, which is all crushed and kicked-in. Ian doesn’t belong here. It’s not that he’s wearing a suit or anything, although I expect his expertly distressed jeans cost as much as a bicycle and that his big leather boots—black this time—could float my rent for the month. It’s just the way he holds himself. He’s commanding and looks like he owns the place. Malcolm stands to the side, his hands dangling out of the tops of his jeans pockets, shifting from one foot to the other as if he’s the visitor rather than Ian.
“Tiny,” Ian drawls out. Apparently he and Malcolm have had a long talk if he’s discarded my real name for my nickname. The way he says it, though, is so different than either my mom or Malcolm. With Mom it’s loving and with Malcolm it’s an insult. Out of Ian’s mouth it sounds like a caress. “Thanks for joining us.”
I decide that confronting this situation head-on makes the best sense. Tossing my helmet on the living room sofa, I drop into the chair opposite Ian. “Nice car out there.”
“Thank you.” He’s wearing his amused look. “You put that together quick.”
“Uh, it’s not hard. Rich guy. Rich car. Neither belongs in this neighborhood.”
His eyes slide almost imperceptibly toward Malcolm. “Not everyone made the connection.”
I shut up then because even though I might not get along with Malcolm, he’s still family, and I don’t want anyone else insulting him. Other than me.
Ian cocks his head and we sit in extended silence, engaged in a weird battle for control. I can sit here all night, my stare conveys. But under the table, I’m pressing my legs together and my pussy is clenching as if in anticipation of something other than my own fingers being shoved inside me.
His smug smile says I’ve been playing this game for a long time, but his eyes are burning right through me. If I lean under the table, I suspect I’d see a bulge in his pants. It takes superhuman effort not to check it out.
Malcolm breaks the tension. “Ian has a proposition for you,” he blurts out.
I bet he does. Even Ian’s unflappable face breaks into a tiny smirk at the double entendre delivered by my brother. We continue staring at each other, and I continue getting more and more turned on. Fuck.
Ian decides to give in first. “I do. I need someone to work for me for a period of two, possibly three months.”
“What’s it entail?”
“I’ll explain further only if you agree.” He snaps his fingers, and Malcolm immediately produces two pages that look a lot like the contract I delivered, only with fewer words. “This is a non-disclosure agreement. It’s very simple. I’ll disclose some information to you, and in exchange you’ll receive a weekly sum of money, along with other props necessary for you to carry out the work required of you—all of which you are free to keep after this project is completed. The only caveat is that you can never reveal anything I disclose to you. Very standard.”
I finger the document but don’t pull it closer. “How much?”
“How does $10,000 a week strike you?”
“What?” I push away from the table. “What kind of lunatic pays that kind of money for anything?”
“I’m guessing you don’t know who I am, is that correct?” he asks. I shake my head. “I made $27 million a day last year and this year I’m on pace to make $37 million. A day.” He emphasizes the time period. “This amount is so paltry that I doubt my accountant will even need to expense it.”
The mention of an accountant eases my fear a bit because surely if he’s got an accountant, everything he does can’t be illegal, right? I slide into my chair because the sums he just spouted off are knee-shakingly high. No wonder Malcolm jumps when Ian snaps his fingers.
“Then it sounds like what you’re proposing to pay me is too low,” I say slowly, trying to decide whether I want to work for this man who I’m insanely attracted to and who has warned me at least once that he intends to hunt me down and . . . I have no idea what he’ll do with me when he catches me, and I can’t spend much time contemplating the scenarios because if I do, I’ll end up being a puddle of goo on the floor.
Behind me Malcolm sounds like he is choking, but by the glint in Ian’s eye, I can tell he’s not offended at all.
“If the job you do is satisfactory, you’ll get a bonus.” And then he names a sum that makes Malcolm start coughing and me dizzy. A half-million-dollar bonus? I could buy an apartment when I was done working for him.
“What do I have to do?” I ask, but I don’t know if I care right now. So long as I don’t have to kill or torture or spread my legs, I’m pretty sure I’m on board, and maybe I’d even do those things.
“Sign the NDA.” He slides the paper over to me.
“Do I have to sleep with anyone?”
“No.”
“Not even you?” I peer at him between my eyelashes, ignoring Malcolm in the background. Amusement flits across Ian’s face. He leans toward me so only I can hear.
“Only if you want to.” He waits just a beat and then adds, “And you do.”
Sniffing like it smells bad to disguise the heat that suffuses my entire body at his provocative words, I eye the papers with disdain. “What holds me to this?”
“If you disclose, I take back all the money, Malcolm fires you, and I ruin your life by ensuring you never get another job again.” He says this calmly, as if he’s reciting a grocery list. This time the zip down my spine is one of fear. “But I don’t think you will disclose.”
“How do you know that?” He’s right, though. I wouldn’t tell, even if the deal went south. I’m not a narc.
“Because you’re loyal. Very loyal. You didn’t want me to talk badly about your brother here, and you’re engaged in business with unsavory characters in order to provide a better life for someone else in your family.”
I wonder what Malcolm has told him. “But you aren’t family.”
He leans closer, so close I can smell his aftershave and beneath that his warm male smell. Happiness is not a warm puppy. It’s the deeply masculine smell of someone who has got his big arms wrapped around you so you are wallowin
g in his scent. And right now, I’m tempted to climb over the table and into his lap—he smells just that good.
“For the money, you can pretend, can’t you?” he asks.
When he draws back, the gleam in his eyes is one of satisfaction and pure masculine desire. How will I work for him for three months and not beg for a spot in his bed?
“I don’t even know what that means. Am I going to do anything illegal?” I ask.
He taps the paper with his well-manicured finger. “Not until you sign.”
I can turn away from him. I can beg Malcolm for help, but the vision of my mother turning away from me in her bed, of Dr. Chen asking me when our living conditions would change, of all those medical bills piled up in the corner . . . I could deliver packages for Malcolm for years and never get out from under that debt.
There’s really no need for me to think even one more second about this. I scrawl my illegible signature across the straight black line next to Ian’s finger. “Nice pen to go with your nice car,” I say, handing the heavy rollerball back to him.
“Everything I have is nice,” he says, and the innuendo makes my tongue feel two sizes too big for my mouth.
“How’s your mother, Malcolm?” Ian asks, never once taking his eyes off mine.
“She’s fine.” Malcolm responds tightly. It’s apparent to all of us that she really isn’t fine.
“Still down in Atlantic City?”
He nods brusquely and I feel bad because Malcolm’s mom has a gambling problem, which is partly the reason why he’s into half of this shit.
“You should get her out of there. Atlantic City kills people.” Ian’s nonchalant attitude is suddenly grim. Apparently he does have more than one expression. This one looks scary. I prefer his smirk. Folding the contract in thirds, he stands. Business is over.
“I look forward to working with you . . .” he pauses and a fiendish gleam appears in his eyes. “Bunny.”
“You really are the devil,” I gasp as I catch his reference to our earlier encounter when he told me I was small prey.
“Ah, stroke my ego a little more. It’s my second favorite nickname.” This time he winks at me.
“What’s your first?” I ask like a half-wit.
“God,” he whispers in my ear, and walks out.
“What’d he say?”
“Bruce Wayne,” I lie. The box is still lying there, and I guess there isn’t anything to do but take it home.
Mom’s asleep and snoring softly, her rhythm sounding perfectly healthy. I set the box on the table, make up my bed, and go into the bathroom to run through my nightly ritual of facial scrub and moisturizer. As I brush my teeth, I wander back into the living room and stare at the crumpled box.
Finally I climb onto the mattress and situate the box between my legs. Opening it means something. If I return it to him again, I think he’ll back off. After flicking the light off, I set it on the floor and crawl under the covers. And lie there. And wonder. And wonder some more.
With a curse, I sit up quickly and turn the light back on. Ripping off the bow, I pull off the lid of the box, revealing the golden tissue inside. I push it away and see a riot of gorgeous, mouth-watering lace in every tropical shade in the beach crayon box—from aqua to coral to sand. But as I lift out the items reverently, I notice that there are only bottoms. Everything we bought, but just the bottoms.
There’s an envelope and in it are the three hundred-dollar bills, still perfectly creased, and a small MP3 player. I grab my earbuds and listen. His smooth voice plays out like a velvet chocolate spread—sinful and completely irresistible.
“I couldn’t decide if I wanted to keep the tops or the bottoms. Did I want to imagine your breasts wearing the silk or satin, or your sinful secret part? I opted for the latter. You know where the rest of the sets are. Come and get them.”
CHAPTER 8
I call the number he leaves for me at the end of the message even though it is very late. He answers on the first ring.
“I thought you didn’t want to have sex with people you paid. Something about contaminated inkwells.”
He laughs and the low sound vibrates throughout my body. “I’ve decided that I’m particularly skilled at compartmentalizing, so I’m going to make an exception.”
“Do I want to know why?”
“Probably not. You’re not ready for it. But it can be drilled down to the fact that I’m not interested in self-denial.”
“You should look into it. I hear it’s character building. Anyway, thanks for the awkwardly intimate gift.”
“You’re welcome. I prefer to think of it as generous and intimate rather than awkward. And my character was set at the age of fifteen. It’s immutable now.”
“Fifteen?” There’s a story there.
“Yes.” He offers me nothing more, and I’m not ready to push.
“Are you always so confident and knowing? It’s not attractive.”
“Then I guess you’ll have no problem resisting me.”
I stick out my tongue again since he can’t see me being childish. “I’m not sleeping with you.”
“Who says we’ll be sleeping? I anticipate a lot of rigorous activity followed by a complete loss of consciousness.”
“That’s not sleeping?”
“No, that’s fucking until you’re nearly dead.”
“Sounds terrible.” It sounds amazing. I’ve never had someone talk to me so boldly. They certainly don’t talk like that in the movies. It’s more about showing soft lights and wide-opened mouths. Although, I wouldn’t turn that down, either.
“Tell me about yourself,” he invites, and in the background I hear the rustle of sheets as he gets more comfortable. There’s not a doubt in my mind, he’s nude. I wonder what he looks like in his bed, his golden skin contrasting against his white sheets. Does he touch himself? Malcolm always has a hand down his pants. When I asked him about it once, he said his balls itched. I figured that was a sign of some kind of STD and never asked again.
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything you’ll share with me. I can see that you aren’t much for social media. Your Facebook profile hasn’t been updated since your mom was deemed cancer-free three years ago.”
“I’m just not that social.” I’m not sure why I’m talking to him. I have to get up in a few hours for work, but I can’t put the phone down. Not while he still wants to hear me. “I’m Sophie Corielli’s daughter, a bike courier.” I’m boring. “Who are you, besides a rich man?”
He ignores my question and asks his own. “Is it just you and your mother, Tiny?”
I glance over at the wall separating the living room and my mom’s room. “Yes, just the two of us. My father died when I was a baby. He was a deliveryman too. Trucks, though. Large-scale items. Made more money.”
“My father passed of a heart attack when I was thirteen.” My character was set at the age of fifteen.
“Then you understand.”
“I do.” His words are like a balm, a soothing cloth on my aching heart.
“It’s not like I want to work for Malcolm.” Or turn you down. “But my circumstances . . . I don’t have better options.“
“Your mother needs you. Is it dire? Malcolm seemed to think so.”
My first instinct is to deny and pretend, like I have for the past four weeks, that everything will be fine. But he’s so understanding, his voice almost caring, that I find myself telling him things I never intended.
“During the year that Mom was fighting cancer, I didn’t have time for friends, not girls or boys, and when we came out victorious at the end, I found many of my friends had moved on. And by then, I just wanted to spend time with my mother more than anything. She’d become my best friend. We do everything together. Go to museums, the park. We love going to the Central Park Zoo. I can’t imagine my l
ife without her.” I fall silent for a moment, my throat tight with emotion. “Yes, it’s dire. That’s a really good word for it.”
“You’ll be alone then? If she is gone?”
I nod, which he can’t see, but he seems to sense the answer. “I know what that feels like. I want to help you, which is why—against my better judgment—I’ve agreed to let you do this project with me. I could offer you a thousand different positions working for me, but I sense that you wouldn’t accept because your sense of fair play would be offended. Somehow you think that doing these things for Malcolm, you’ve earned it.”
“Yes.” My voice is nearly inaudible. “I guess I figure that no one gets hurt that way. That I’m not taking advantage of anyone. That my debt is paid. But hey, if you want to just give me a million, I guess I’d be OK with that.”
“A personal jackpot? It’s yours. I’ll send a cashier’s check over in the morning.” He’s dead serious.
“I wish I could accept it.”
“But you won’t because you think you can do this job for me, right? What if I said that you could deliver packages for me and earn the same money?”
“I’d know I was ripping you off.”
“And you’d never sleep with me then, would you?”
“No, because it would feel like you were paying me for sex.” I hurry and add, “Not that I’m going to ever have sex with you anyway.”
“Of course.” His voice is colored with mild amusement. “Good night, Tiny. I’ll be thinking of you wearing the peach-colored panties with the flowers. You have very good taste.”
After he hangs up, I pull the box onto my lap. I know I shouldn’t but I can’t resist. Inside I find a coral pair of panties. The lace is shaped in little rosettes with vines and leaves weaving them together. The band has side bows made out of some soft stretchy material. I’m surprised that the lace isn’t itchy but rather conforms to the curves of my butt like it was custom-made. I don’t know what to believe. Did he really buy all this stuff just to get me into bed? If he only knew. I’m way easier than that. Maybe that’s how the rich do it, though. Like, they exchange presents as a courting ritual. If he expected one in return, then he was going to be sorely disappointed.
Losing Control (Kerr Chronicles #1) Page 6
