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“I’ll be fine.” I push my chair back and stand. “Thank you for your help, Evander, but I need to go.”
He takes a roll of cash from his pocket—all twenties and hundreds, and I stare at it with wide eyes—and drops an absurd amount on the table. I turn and walk out of the restaurant, but he keeps pace.
This time, when he takes my arm, there’s a promise in the way he grips me. I turn to face him in the dark overhang of an insurance office and tilt my chin up, gathering all my strength to tell him off, but I stop mid-sentence.
He steps forward until my back bumps into the brick of the building, trapping me there.
We’re alone on the street. Evander is enormous. I should be afraid—I should start kicking and screaming—but it’s the look he gives me that makes my mouth stay shut for once in my life.
It’s total desire, pure and simple lust, like he wants to take me right here in public.
It’s a look I haven’t seen in averylong time, if ever.
Christopher used to be nice. When we first met, he bought me flowers and chocolates and took me to dinner and movies and all that cliché relationship stuff. I was totally smitten—because I was eighteen and he was twenty-four and had more money than I ever dreamed of in my life. He worshipped the ground I walked on, and I thought I was the luckiest girl alive.
For a while, anyway.
But that changed after the wedding. He turned sour, and got drunk, and slowly the violence crept in. At first, just a slap here, a shove there. Always he apologized afterward and begged forgiveness. I gave it to him, because what else could I do? There was no such thing as divorce in my world.
It got worse and worse and worse from there, until I found myself sneaking birth control just to make sure I never got pregnant—not that we were sleeping together. Christopher was too drunk most nights to get it up, but I had to be sure.
I couldn’t risk getting myself trapped with that man.
The way Evander’s looking at me right now, that’s something I’ve never experienced before. To Christopher, I was a maid he occasionally slapped around and tried to fuck with his pathetic limp dick.
To Evander, it’s like I’m the only person in the world.
“I’m offering you a room, no strings attached,” he says softly, still staring at me intently. “No date. Nothing owed. Simply a place for you to sleep.”
“Why?” I manage to croak. “I don’t understand why you’re trying to help me.”
His lips purse together. “Would you believe me if I said that I have sins I need to atone for?”
“Yes, but no thanks. I’m not interested in being your charity case.” Besides, based on the look in his eye, I don’t think this is pure altruism.
His soul might be stained, but this man has more sin in his future.
“You can tell me no,” he says quietly, his big body pinning mine, practically crushing me. “You can walk away and disappear. You can take your chances and see if any of those credit cards you tried to use back at the bar will work. Maybe they do, and you have a warm bed tonight. Maybe they don’t, and you are lost. Or you can come back to the Drake. I’ll book you the suite, it’s very nice. Let me spoil you for an evening. Let me give you something you can use to forget whoever you’re running from. That’s all I offer, nothing more complicated.”
It’s so tempting.
Sinfully, absurdly tempting.
This man reeks of money and power, and he’s so stupidly beautiful, like a massive Greek statue carved from pure muscle and hunger.
I want to feel his stubble on my neck and hear his massive grunts in my ear.
But I’ve never done this before. Christopher was my first and only, and even if I hate my ex-husband and wouldn’t mind going to his funeral tomorrow—that’s my only experience with men.
Evander’s something different. When he makes a promise, I believe him, and I don’t understand why. I don’t know him at all and here I am, head dizzy, desperation in my stomach, knowing full well that if I turn him down, I might end up sleeping on the street or in a park somewhere, and this could be my last chance at real pleasure for a very long time.
After tonight, I’m on my own, and things are going to behard.
But right now, I can feel good. For once in my short and stupid and pathetic life, I can feel good.
“Okay,” I whisper.
His lips hang inches from mine. His head cocks slightly. I feel his warm breath on my cheeks and mouth, and I want him to lean forward. I want him to kiss me so badly it’s like an ache between my legs. He’s warmth and power, protection and sin. I want to find out where this can go.
