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“It’s gonna be my business in about twenty minutes. I need to know how slow to go.”

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. Twenty minutes. He said it like he was reading me the weather. Like it’s already decided, and the only question left is how.

Any girl with sense would be telling Misha to pull this car over right now.

I’m still sitting here.

“No,” I whisper.

He goes completely still. His big hand’s on his thigh, and I watch his fingers flex one time, slow, tattooed knuckles going tight. He breathes out long through his nose, like he’s trying real hard not to do something.

“Never?”

“I’ve been busy,” I say, and it comes out defensive. “I work. I go to school. I work some more. When was I supposed to fit a man in? Between my eight a.m. and my double?”

“Nobody’s touched you.”

“I’ve kissed people!”

His jaw ticks. “Who?”

“Boy, I’m not giving you names.”

The corner of his mouth goes up, just barely. Then it drops, and he reaches over and wraps his hand around the back of my neck. His hand’s so big his fingers almost meet at my throat. He doesn’t squeeze. He just holds me there and leans in till his forehead’s almost on mine. He smells like cedar and clean soap and something warm underneath.

“Then I’ll go slow,” he says, low. “The first time.”

“And the second time?”

Why did I say that? Why did my mouth say that?

His eyes drop to my lips. “You’ll find out.”

* * *

The suite at the Beverly Wilshire is bigger than my apartment. Bigger than my apartment and the one next door. There’s a living room with a fireplace and windows all the way down one wall, and the whole city’s spread out down there sparkling. There’s a bar. There’s a dining table for eight people. There’s a hallway that just keeps going.

I stand in the middle of it in my polyester work shirt and my eighteen-dollar heels, holding my bag in front of me with both hands like a shield.

He takes off his jacket and tosses it over a chair. Rolls up his sleeves. There’s more ink on his forearms, all the way up to his elbows. Then he points at the couch.

“Sit.”

“You say that a lot.”

“You don’t listen a lot.”

I sit. Mostly ‘cause my knees are shaking.

And then this six-foot-five Russian gangster gets down on one knee on the carpet in front of me and picks up my foot.

“What are you…”

He slides my heel off. Then the other one. He sets them side by side on the carpet, neat. Then he wraps both hands around my right foot and digs his thumbs into my arch.

The sound that comes out of me is not a sound I’ve ever made in front of another human being.

“Oh my God.”