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What would it feel like for him to do more than this?
“You can tell me if you want out, Mila,” he says quietly. “What you’ve sold will more than cover the advance I gave you, I’m sure. There might even still be some profit for you. And we can go our separate ways. You don’t need to put yourself through this, if it’s too much.”
I want to laugh and sob all at once, when he says that—because he doesn’t understand. “I do have to,” I whisper. “So no. I don’t want out.”
The last part is a lie. If there was another way, I would take it. If he offered to go back, and take the arrangement I tried to propose to him in his office, I would do that—and gladly, I think now. But whether I want out or not, I truly feel that I have no choice.
Lorenzo looks down at me, his green eyes searching my face. “I should pull you out.” His voice is low and serious, and another jolt of fear spikes through me. “Desperation is bad in this line of work. It can lead to mistakes.”
“Then take me up on my other offer.” The words come out before I can stop them, but I mean it. From the sudden shadow on his face, the way his jaw tightens, I see that he knows I do. “Come back in for a dance. We can start there. If you don’t want me selling the pills for you, then that’s not the only thing I can do.”
Lorenzo breathes in, slowly, and I’m nearly overcome with the temptation to reach between us and touch him. I feel sure that if I did, I’d find that he’s hard. I can feel the desire vibrating off of him, the effort that it takes for him to keep his body from touching mine.
It’s intoxicating—his control, and how badly I want to find out what would make it snap.
Intoxicating—and deadly.
“No, Mila.” My name rasps over his tongue, faintly accented, and I realize dimly that he’s been calling me by my name. None of the Miss Ilenya of before. Just my name, thick and honeyed on his tongue, and the realization makes my knees weak.
It’s all I can do not to wrap my hand in his shirt and pull him to me, so I can taste the sweetness of that tongue in my mouth.
His gaze drops to my lips as if he’s thinking the same thing. The air snaps taut between us, and I feel my hands tremble as I shove them into my pockets to keep from touching him.
He draws in a breath, long and slow, almost as if he’s breathing in the scent of me. My perfume, my skin. I swallow hard, looking up at him, and I wonder if he can read everything that I’m feeling on my face.
And then he straightens, taking a step back, and the moment shatters.
“No,” he repeats, as if he’s telling himself as much as me. “I told you already. I don’t make deals like that for sex. As far as the pills?—”
“They’re almost all gone.” I blurt it out, the fear returning with a sharp chill. If he takes this job away from me, I have no idea what I’ll do.
I’ll have no choice but to take Niki and leave LA.
“I can do this.” I force myself to sound more confident than I feel. “It’s been fine so far. The cop just rattled me, that’s all. If you say it’s fine?—”
Lorenzo looks at me for a long moment. I can see him weighing his options and deciding what to say. My future, hanging on this man’s word.
Resentment and desire burn in the back of my throat together until I can taste them both, bitter on my tongue.
“Then call me when you’ve finished selling them. Next week, I expect. We’ll talk more then.” Lorenzo steps away from me, and a moment later, I see a car pulling around the back of the building. His car, waiting for him—a black SUV with tinted windows so dark that once he slips inside, I won’t be able to see him.
He turns and strides towards it, and I want him to look back. I want him to regret, just for a second, that he walked away instead of coming inside with me.
But if he does, he doesn’t show it. He just gets into the car, and drives away.
Leaving me there, aching.
Lorenzo
How long can this possibly go on?
I’m painfully aware of just how close the tension between Mila and I was to a breaking point, at the club last Friday night. She hasn’t left my mind since then—the delicacy of her face, her expression veering wildly between desperation and desire, the way she shoved her hands into her pockets as if it required physical effort for her not to touch me. As if she wanted me every bit as much as I do.
I can’t help but think I’m reading the situation wrong. That in my own fervent and unexpected lust, I’m seeing things as I want them to be, rather than as they are. That she’s putting on a show for me—a very well-done show—to convince me that her desire is equal to mine, so that I’ll give in and take her up on her offer.
It was clear, that night, that she’d rather earn on her back than sell drugs. I hate to admit when Dante was right, but that night was enough to tell me that it was a mistake, taking her on in that capacity. She’s desperate, and doing it only because she feels she has no other options, which is a recipe for disaster.
But I refuse to pay her for sex, and this is the only other choice I can see—short of literally handing her money for no reason other than to ease my guilt. I never thought I’d feel anything but satisfaction over taking out an asshole like Altiere, but apparently, my Achilles heel is when a beautiful, fragile girl turns out to be the collateral damage.
