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I held back a smile by sheer force of will, but it no doubt lit my eyes. I probably shouldn’t like his possessiveness so much, but I dug it all the same.
“Got another question,” he said. Like the previous one, it turned out to be sexual. As did the next. And the next. But the conversation gradually shifted to everyday things, some light, some not so light.
“Ihave a question,” I said. “It’s a little personal, though. So you probably won’t answer.”
“Probably not,” he agreed, but humor glittered in his eyes. “You won’t know unless you ask.”
I twisted my mouth. “You know all about my family. I was wondering if maybe you could tell me a little about yours. But only if you want to,” I hurried to add.
His eyes tracked the path of his fingers as he dragged them along the arm I’d tossed over him. “We were poor as shit. My parents were junkies, and they weren’t much good at being parents. They weren’t bad people. Weren’t cruel or abusive to me or my brothers. They were just selfish.
“They sold every gift we ever got to fund their habit. Mom often hated herself for it—it was written all over her face. So then I’d comfort her, because I was a kid and didn’t have the experience to understand that sheshouldfeel so bad about it.”
Without thought, I burrowed further into him. His voice was so toneless, his expression so blank. I was sorry I’d brought up the subject. I was about to suggest we drop it, but then he continued.
“Anyone who ever talked about my parents all said the same thing—not shitty people, just weak. When it came to their drug habit, they were even weaker. My dad screwed over a lot of people in his efforts to feed that habit. It eventually bit him in the ass. Six guys came to the house. The one waving the gun around made us all line up. He shot my mom first. Then my older brothers. Then me. Then my dad.”
My chest ached. How he could relay that story so matter-of-factly I didn’t know. “Wait,youwere shot as well?” I hadn’t heard that.
He nodded. “Neighbors called the cops when the shooting started. Paramedics managed to save me, but not the others. They died.”
“And the six guys who went to your house?”
“They’re no longer breathing.”
I knew it was likely that he had something to do with it. “I’ve never lost anyone close to me, so I don’t know what to say to comfort you.”
He shrugged. “You don’t need to. It was a long time ago. I was a kid.”
Like that made any difference.
“I have more enemies than my dad ever had, and they’re far more dangerous. You’re now on their radar, and I fucking hate that. You can’t give me shit when I do what I have to do to keep you safe.”
“I already agreed to your terms.” And if I hadn’t, I would have done so after hearing that story. Wanting to get rid of the hurt in his eyes, I joked, “Although … I suppose it might be fun to disobey you now and then. You’re cuter than hell when your face turns red.”
“Yourasswill turn red if you disobey me when it comes to your safety.”
“Will there be blisters?”
“More than you can fucking count.”
I snickered. “Relax, I’m messing with ya. Now kiss me. You fucked me good and proper, but I didn’t get a kiss, and my mouth is feeling neglected.”
His lips quirked. “We can’t have that, can we?”
Chapter Eleven
Damn, my girl had one hell of a voice.
Humming along to Inaya’s most recent kick-ass song—it was really no wonder that it had shot straight to number one in the music charts—I pressed the button on the side of my tablet to up the volume. I doubted there was a person in the world who’d expected any other contestant of the televised singing competition to win that particular year. She’d blown away everyone right from her first audition six years ago, and it was something she continued to do even to this day. Like she’d been born for it.
I placed my empty overnight bag on my bed and began flinging things into it. I’d be staying at Danton’s tonight. Again. There hadn’t been a single night when I’d slept elsewhere during the past few weeks.
We’d been officially together for a solid month now. A time during which I’d kept to my word and worked from his apartment a few days per week. Each time he strolled into the little room I used as an office and found me there, a look of supreme male satisfaction settled over his face.
Not only had he set up a separate workspace for me, he’d bought me a top-of-the-range laptop so I wouldn’t have to cart mine forward and backward from my apartment to his. It wasso pretty and shiny, and I’d adored it on sight. Still, I’d told him that I couldn’t accept such an expensive gift.
He’d twisted the whole thing, rightly pointing out that if the situation were reversed I’d be hurt if he refused to accept something from me merely because of its price tag. The little shit had talked me in circles for what felt like hours. And I came to learn that Danton was adept at emotional blackmail. Who would have thought it?
