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“Hurry,” he barked. Troy’s heavy hands on my hips felt so sure of themselves. They traveled up my sides and back down over the bump of my ass in a firm way that made it feel like he was polishing me.
“Where?” I asked.
The gym was so dark that I couldn’t see much more than a few feet in front of me. “Where’s the light switch?”
Troy grumbled something under his breath and gave my backside a light shove. As quickly as his overwhelming presence had made itself known behind me, it disappeared.
I was left there, alone in the dark, while he searched the wall for the switch. In that moment, the gravity of the situation settled into my chest. Troy was still a client, no matter how much I flirted and played hard to get. That first time had been nothing more than the heat of the moment—but this was planned. Now, there was no denying what I was doing was risky. I couldn’t even sell myself on the lie, let alone anyone else.
“Got it.”
The sound of a switch flipping was closely followed by the most blinding sodium lights I’d ever had the displeasure of standing under. They were like mini suns, all beating down on me in unison. The way they lit me up in the center of the gym made me think of a scene from an old detective movie; specifically, the one where they’d turn a bright light on a suspect in the interrogation room to try to get him to talk. Maybe Troy was going to try to make me talk.
“Wow, that’s bright,” I said, stepping out from beneath their flood. He’d only turned on the one in the middle so there was still a bit of shadow to escape to nearer the wall.
“Mmm hmm,” he said, zeroing in on my figure with his fiery eyes.
I spun on my heel to take in the full view of the gym. I’d wanted to come down here before to see what he did with his time, but I never managed to find the excuse.
To my left was a row of heavy punching bags hanging from the ceiling. It struck me that they looked like wind chimes for giants.
“Are those… what you work out with?”
It sounded stupid to me as soon as it left my mouth. I’d just asked the most absurd question and it was going to give him a chance to pounce. Whether or not I could admit it, he still made me nervous.
“Wow. Really?” Troy’s cockiness bubbled at the surface each time he thought you were veering toward meaningless small talk.
“Yeah, it’s just-”
“I know that silver spoon is jammed pretty firmly in your mouth, but you had to have seen a punching bag before… right?”
“Of course, I have. I was just making conversation. You don’t have to be a dick about it.”
“Those are called heavy bags.” He walked the four easy steps to meet me in the middle of the room. Each inch closer that he moved made the temperature in the room seem to rise a few degrees.
“One hundred pounds each. About your size, in fact.”
I didn’t waste any time telling him I hadn’t weighed anywhere in the neighborhood of a hundred pounds since high school.
“Oh yeah? I heard those are pretty good at helping you get your anger out?”
He shook his head. The way the corners of his eyes creased when he smiled made it hard to tell if he was laughing at me or laughing with me. “Forget about the stupid bags,” he smirked. “If you need to punch something to relieve your anger, you should probably find yourself a good therapist.”
It was an absurd statement for someone who was aiming to make a living out of beating other men senseless.
Troy’s shoulders bulged like lava rising from the earth. His fitted t-shirt stretched and molded to show off his hard-earned body. He was just one of those guys who lucked out with the right genes when it came to the trap muscles. They stood out, defined and statuesque.
“It’s my job,” I said. “I’m supposed to learn more about what you’re doing with your time. That’s how the foundation reconciles the help they’re giving the… uh… clients.”
“Is that what I am?” His teeth gleamed white as his lips revealed more. “A client? Are you sure you don’t want to say what you’re really thinking?”
His eyes were pure torture. They invaded my soul. “What are you talking about?”
“You can say it. I won’t be offended.”
“Troy, I don’t judge.”
“A convict,” he blurted. “That’s what I am, right? It’s not like it’s any secret. That’s why you’re here, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to sugarcoat it.”
“Whatever. It’s just a professional courtesy. If you want me to call you a felon, I’ll do that. It’s your life.”
“Good,” he said. “I don’t have time to beat around the bush.”
He leaned closed and pushed two fingers between the waistband of my skirt and the thin fabric of my blouse.
Clearly, he didn’t have time to beat around the bush.
“And this is how you like to solve everything, isn’t it?” I said, grabbing him around the wrist with both hands, but not making a move to withdraw his fingers.
“It’s always worked for me.”
“Hmm, maybe that’s why you end up in the situations that you do. A little too impulsive sometimes, maybe?”
The muscle in his jaw worked as he mulled my words. I knew there was part of him that still regarded me as the stuck up rich girl from the “good side” of the town. The struggle was evident in his eyes while he tried to determine whether he should let me talk to him that way.
“What about you?” he sneered. His eyebrows shot up with the question. The way they arched, perfectly framed his dark eyes. It put butterflies in my stomach.
“What about me?” The words squeaked out at somewhere just above a whisper.
“You walk around all the time with that look of indignation on your face. It’s like you think you’re better than everyone, or something. But that doesn’t stop you from being… what did you say? Impulsive?”
I shuffled impatiently, because I knew where he was going with this. When I tried to step back, he didn’t let me.
“At least, that’s what happened the other night when we fucked, right? Because that had to be a mistake. Someone like you wouldn’t ever let herself get mixed up with someone like me. You were just there to what… fix me? And then things got a little too impulsive.
My blood ran hot. I could tell he was trying to get on my nerves, but it still worked. “That’s right,” I snapped. “Just another rich girl who thinks she can save the world.”
Troy’s nose crinkled at my sarcasm and the fingers tucked inside the hem of my skirt probed deeper.
“Yeah,” I continued, my voice still on the razor’s edge, “I wouldn’t know a thing about hard work or earning my keep, would I? Because in your world, Troy, the only way a person like me could ever want to do something good—something hard—is for the social benefit. Isn’t that right?”
I was melting into a pool of rage. The offhanded way he dismissed the effort I put into my job fired me up at my core. Troy Eason was a prick, but I wasn’t going to allow him to get away with thinking all the work I’d done was to pump up my own status.
“Jesus,” he whispered, the confidence still painted on his face, “you’re kind of intense…”
“Call it whatev
er you want. I know what I’m worth, and just because you haven’t seen enough of the world to keep yourself from putting people in a box… don’t make it my problem.”
Troy’s chest swelled as he sucked in a breath of air. He was chiseled out of rock and the way his lungs inflated made it appear as if it was a serious undertaking to move the thick mass.
“You’re right,” he whispered. “That’s what has pissed me off my whole life. And now, here I am, doing it to you.”
He took a shuffling step forward and planted the sole of his size twelve shoe firmly between my two dancing feet.
“What do you mean?”
“For as long as I can remember, people have looked at me with judgment in their eyes. Some of it for what I’ve done to survive, and some just because of where I came from. I always hated that feeling, but I never considered it could work both ways.”
“So, you get me?” The sound of my own wavering voice made me flinch. I didn’t like that he had the ability to swing my emotions so easily.
Those eyes smoldered like doused coals, and even when he admitted that he was wrong, there was no hint of backing down in him. “I get you,” he said. “But you still haven’t proven anything. All you get from me is an open mind, not the benefit of the doubt.”
Troy covered my hands with his free one. There was an almost imperceptible, yet predetermined, game of tug-of-war going on over which direction his fingers were headed. “Now, this is your chance to show me what you’re really all about.”
I tilted my chin up just in time to catch a hot kiss on my wetted lips. He was firm with me, the way a man rarely is when he isn’t used to a woman yet. I savored his taste and the teasing hint of his cologne.
“You kiss like you want me to do more,” he said.
I didn’t know what I was doing, to be honest. When his demanding lips met mine, it was like my body sort of went on autopilot. It badly wanted him to give the next cue.
“You-”
But before I could get a second word out, his face lowered firmly against mine again and he sunk a kiss into me that was as urgent as it was meaningful. Troy’s tongue darted between my lips and pressed strongly against mine. We pushed each other around between our two eager mouths while his hand moved lower.
