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“How do I know you’re not just pretending to be normal?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “I mean, how hard would it be to act like a normal guy for a few hours?”
“Not hard, I suppose.” He picked up another fry, letting some cheese drip off before popping it into his mouth. “But what would I have to gain from tricking you into thinking I’m a halfway decent guy?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. But I really don’t even know who you are. I mean, how did you even know my grandpa in the first place?”
Landon hadn’t taken another bite of the fry he was holding. In fact, his fingers were squishing it so hard now that the potato was seeping out of the crispy exterior. “We were business partners,” he said.
“And you got that opportunity because you had a great resume? Which you submitted online at The Golden Pecker’s publicly searchable website, right?”
He flashed the shadow of a smile. “No. I knew him prior to getting the job. Our personal connection probably helped me land the opportunity.”
“And what personal connection was that?”
“The kind that makes someone feel guilty enough to try to make amends.”
I felt like I was trying to pull wet, slippery teeth with my bare fingers. “And what would my grandpa have done to you that would make him feel so guilty?”
Landon focused on the fries again. He was apparently done answering my questions.
I almost pressed him for more details on my grandpa, but I sensed something there. There was an emotional wound in Landon, and it had my grandpa’s name written all over it. Asking more questions, no matter how much I thought I might deserve an answer, felt like it’d be the same as rubbing salt on that wound.
“What about that James guy? Who is he?”
“James is my brother. He runs one of the sister clubs of The Golden Pecker. The Diamond Pecker.”
“Seriously?” I asked.
He nodded.
“So, you and your brother both manage BDSM clubs for a living. What about your parents? Did they run clubs, too?”
Landon hesitated. “My mom never really made a career for herself. She tried after…” he paused again, eyes searching for something on the table. “She tried eventually, but by then she was getting too sick.”
Another wound. The more I spoke to Landon, the more I understood why he seemed like such a cranky grump all the time. The man’s past was riddled with enough scars to make my skin tingle. “And your father?”
Landon’s jaw flexed. “He moved on from our family.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he fucked up with us and decided it’d be easier to start over with new people. Lucky for him, it seems like he did a much better job the second time around.”
I couldn’t imagine all the details that would lead to something like that, but I also felt once again compelled not to dig any deeper. Landon was clearly far outside his comfort zone in answering as many questions as he was. I decided to do the merciful thing and move the topic away from his family.
“So, why BDSM clubs? I mean, how do you even get into something like that to start with?”
“Personal reasons,” he said flatly.
I might have normally sighed with annoyance at the dodgy answer, but I instead found myself nodding. I may not have all the details, but I understood one thing about Landon Collins: he had a past that was just as full of tragedy as my own. Everyone had their own ways of coping with tragedy, and I knew that as well as anyone. Suddenly, it was harder to resent Landon for the way he’d acted toward me—not impossible, mind you, but harder.
“And how do you feel about all of this? I mean, I know I wasn’t thrilled to learn that my grandpa pretty much told me I had to get sexually involved with a stranger to claim my inheritance. But what about you?”
“Initially? I was irritated. I didn’t want to babysit you.”
“Initially,” I said slowly. “And what about now?”
“Now… I plan to make the best of the situation. You kind of remind me of this turtle. It was in the road, so I stopped to move it out of the way. But the moment I picked it up, it just let out the weirdest, whispery scream. It screamed until I put it down in the grass, and then the moment I turned to go back to my car, it bit my ankle.”
I burst out laughing. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Turtles don’t scream.”
Landon spread his palms. “This one did.”
“Also, I don’t bite.”
“That’s a shame,” Landon said.
I really never had been the blushing type, but I felt my face turn hot at his tone. I wasn’t the most perceptive girl on the block, but I was pretty sure he was flirting with me. Instead of doing the smooth thing and flirting back, I decided to turn things back to my original question. “Before you compared me to a biting turtle, you said you planned to make the best of this situation. What does that mean, exactly?”
