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The back door of the bar opened thirty minutes later and Marek came out, glancing up and down before he spotted me in the doorway across the alley. Hunching his shoulders and shoving his hands in his pockets, he crossed over to me. Despite the temperature steadily dropping for the past week, he wasn’t wearing a coat. Guess he didn’t plan on staying long.
“You have five minutes, so say what you need to,” he said, stopping just out of arm’s reach with a guarded expression. While he waited, he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit up, exhaling a cloud of smoke downwind of me.
Since I was on a time restriction, I scrapped my carefully rehearsed speech and blurted out the basics. “Come back to Delirium.”
He shook his head immediately. If he wasn’t in the middle of another drag, I’m sure he would have started protesting verbally as well.
“Just listen,” I said, raising my hand before he could completely throw up his barriers. “What happened with Hayden was a regrettable lapse in judgment. The situation is more complicated than you realize, but I swear, Marek, I’m not asking you for anything other than your discretion. I didn’t mean to imply anything else.Thatis what I’m sorry for.Thatis why I’m here. I upset you and that was never my intent.”
He sniffed and flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette, looking down the alley, either to avoid looking at me or because he was worried someone might drive by. His jaw flexed for a moment and his dark gaze slid back to mine. “Why do you care if I come back? Or if I’m upset? What’s in it for you?”
“Why are you surprised that I do?” I cocked my head at him.
Raking his teeth over his lower lip, he looked down the alley again, refusing to answer by inhaling more toxins into his lungs.
“Tell me I haven’t wasted my time,” I said, taking a step in his direction and plucking the cigarette from his lips.
His head swiveled toward me at the loss of his cigarette and his dark eyes flashed with anger but he didn’t say anything.
Crushing it under my heel, I moved another step closer, invading his personal space. The muscles in his throat flexed and he pushed his shoulders back, not quite squaring off against me but not shrinking away either.
“Tell me I wasn’t wrong about you, Marek.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have so much potential. I think, deep down, you know that. Let me help you achieve it.”
“In exchange for what?” He skewered me with another look dripping in suspicion.
I couldn’t help the sad smile that crossed my face.Alwaysa skeptic. So young and so damn weary of the world already. My heart ached for him and whatever had happened that made him so closed off. “Not everything in life comes with strings.”
“Maybe notyourlife.”
“You can have this life, too. You can be the one pulling the strings, if that’s what you want.”
“As long as I, what? Suck your dick? Let you fuck me? Told you, I’m not interested, no matter how you phrase it.”
He was so damn exasperating! And yet, an unsettling thought needled the back of my mind. It had been there the night he quit Delirium, too, lurking beneath his word choices. Every time he mentioned sex, the suspicion stung me.
“Not everything in life is about sex,” I said, cautiously testing my theory.
If he realized I was on to him, it didn’t show in the smirk he gave. “Yeah, you’re right. Sex is about power. Isn’t that what Oscar Wilde said?”
“What are you doing working at a bar?” I asked out of genuine confusion, searching for the real answer in his dark eyes before they darted away. “Debasing yourself by”—I winced, shoving the thought down quickly and changing course before I blew up whatever progress I hoped to achieve—“selling drugs?”
His gaze snapped back to mine, the muscle in his jaw tensing. “Time’s up.”
Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heel. I seized his bicep and pulled him back, keeping him close while I desperately tried to salvage the conversation. My lead on Nirvana was still the top priority, but I couldn’t pretend I no longer had a personal interest in him, either. “Is this about money? I’ll double your salary.”
A dark smile stretched across his face and he didn’t fight to get away that time. It reminded me of the night at Dalton’s, how steady his pulse had been when I had my hand on his throat, that same cocksure expression. “Are youthathard up for me? Has no one ever told you ‘No’ before? Or is this still about getting to my supplier? For your information, I didn’t sell shit at Delirium. Check the cameras if you don’t believe me.”
Since appealing to his rational side wasn’t working and he didn’t believe in common human decency, I begrudgingly switched tactics to see if I could gain any ground. As sex-focused as he was, maybethatwas the only way to get through to him. If it meant earning his trust in a roundabout way, I’d paint myself as a lust-driven stalker especially since that’s how he already saw me—how he saw everyone, for that matter. And now I almost certainly knew the reason why.
Caressing the side of his face, I dragged my fingers down the column of his throat. The suspicion in his eyes lingered but his breathing quickened as my hand traveled over his chest, down his abdomen, and past his belt buckle before dropping away completely without touching what lay behind his zipper. I licked my lips, angling my face closer, our lips nearly touching.
“Please, Marek. Don’t make me beg.”
Despite the quick swallow, he didn’t look away. His gaze stayed locked on mine, allowing me a moment to marvel at the true color of his eyes. I knew they were brown but in the daylight, they gleamed a dark amber color, like Baltic treasure.
