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“You know drugs ruin people’s lives, right?”
“Really?” He gave a slight shrug. “It’s only made mine better.”
“Then you aren’t a user.”
“Anymore.”
My eyes took in his face with deeper clarity.
“I grew up in an orphanage. What did you expect?”
“When did you get clean?”
He looked away, like he was trying to do the math in his head. “Probably ten years. You can’t run the show if you’re high all the time.”
“Well, whatever your reason…good for you.”
“What about you?” he asked. “You seem to have a wild side.”
“No drugs for me. I don’t need that shit to have a good time.”
“I like that answer.” He refilled the communal wineglass and took a drink. He finished his plate, leaving a single streak of sauce. “Thank you for dinner.”
“You mean breakfast?”
His eyes softened slightly in that hard face. High cheekbones. Sharp jawline. Dark hair and dark eyes. He was the definition of tall, dark, and handsome. And he was a little scary too…the way his eyes burned me sometimes.
“Now that we got the small talk out of the way…why are you here?”
“Small talk?” His voice was so deep, deeper than the darkness of his clothing. “If that’s what it was, it’s the first time I’ve ever enjoyed it.”
I grabbed the glass between us and took a drink. “We agreed it was a one-time thing.”
“No deal is ironclad. There’s always room to negotiate.”
“Not with me.” If the circumstances were different, I would have caved the second I opened the door. There was no mistaking the fact that he was one in a million. He was the supreme lord of fucking. I’d be his fuck buddy anytime. Put him at number one on my speed dial for booty calls. God, he was so good-looking it hurt to stare directly at him. But I stayed strong because…I’d been down this road before.
The silence stretched on infinitely. That intense stare pierced me across the table, hard as marble, impenetrable as concrete. He had the best poker face in the world, because it was literally impossible to guess what he was thinking. He didn’t even let his emotions fill the room like smoke you could breathe. This man had the discipline of a monk. That was probably why he was so successful in his line of business. “Why?”
“I don’t owe you an explanation.”
“Yes, you do.”
Both eyebrows rose to the top of my head. “Excuse me?”
“When we fuck the way we do, damn right, you owe me an explanation.” He straightened and placed his arms on the table, getting closer to me, almost like he was threatening me. “Don’t act like your fingers haven’t slipped into your panties night after night pretending to be me.”
I kept my own poker face, but I felt a jolt of fear at the accusation.
“I’m not watching you.” He answered the question I was too proud to ask. “But I know because I’ve done the same thing. So, explain it to me—or fuck me.”
Thankfully, my heart was impossible to see under skin and bone, because he would see how it panicked. My lungs strained for more air, but I did my best to keep it controlled, to beat this sex god at our invisible game of cards. “You’re a criminal. You kill people—”
“Only when they deserve it.”
“Don’t you think that’s a bit subjective?”
“And the law isn’t?” he asked. “You know, in America, they let guilty people go and put innocent people to death all the time. They have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. But I’m the bad guy?”
