“Were you watching saucy prison movies?”
He glanced away guiltily and pinkness settled across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. “Some.”
“He was in minimum,” Demchenko said, and I shook my head.
“It was horrible. I am in desperate need of care,” I leaned forward and murmured into Stormy’s ear, and it was amazing to be flirting with him again, rather than staring at the mind-numbingly boring inside of a cell. In the face of his hot body, I’d forgotten the important point of my drained bank account. I sighed and stepped back, only to be jerked farther into the apartment by Stormy.
“All right, kids. I’m out. Be good. Or don’t be good. I make more money that way. Ciao.” Demchenko shut the door after himself as he left.
Stormy tugged my hand and urged me to follow him. His place was just as over-the-top fabulous as I remembered, and I’d been so deprived of entertainment inside, I looked at his bookshelves with new appreciation when we passed them. But as interested as I was in the apartment I’d been too upset to really take in the last time I was here, I couldn’t stop staring at him. He wore shorts cut higher than most men might find acceptable, and a red tank top with a glittery yellow star in the center. The tattoo on his chest played peekaboo with the shirt’s neckline, and his collarbones stuck out and made my mouth water to taste them. I was in his life again, and my body tingled with the thrill of it all, but then we smiled at each other. The weight of some kind of expectation settled on me.
I began to feel awkward fast.
I owed him money.
I wanted to touch him.
Fuck.
“Thank you. For Demchenko. Without him I might have been in jail longer.”
Stormy squeezed my hand. “No problem. I hoped you would call me again after that first time.” He gave me an appraising look but didn’t appear hurt, just… worried. That was even worse. If he was mad at me, I could at least just go crawl in a hole somewhere and die. He wanted something from me, even though it just seemed to be needing me to be okay.
I shrugged. “And I would’ve said what? Prison’s great! I only want to hang myself a little? It wasn’t a vacation.”
His eyes went sympathetic, and I wanted to kick my own ass. That hadn’t been my intention. “Well, what are you going to do now, for starters?”
I dropped his hand and scrubbed my fingers through my hair with a growl. “Everyone keeps asking me that. I have no plans. I’m fucked. Look for a job, I guess.”
He crossed his arms, and for the first time in my life I had the displeasure of watching anger burn in his eyes. I hated it. He was always so mellow in the past. “Wow. You did all that work to be mayor, and you’re going to scuttle under a rock like a cockroach because you got caught fucking?” He tossed his head. “Unreal. You’re not a loser, Ross. I can’t believe you.”
“And arrested.” I jabbed a finger at him but only ended up touching that tantalizing line above the scooped-out neck of his shirt. He fluttered his eyelashes and shook his head at me. I pulled my finger away as if it’d been burned because I hadn’t planned to caress him. “And lost my job. And, oh yeah, I had to clear out the last of my savings to pay fines.”
He shrugged. “Temporary setbacks.”
“I’m not sure why I’m here. You probably have paying clients to fuck,” I snarled, feeling fucking infuriated with the entire situation and still not sure why he’d give me the time of day.
He pursed his lips. “Not really. Life has been dull since you went away.” Stormy prowled up to me, and the way his jaw set and his mouth thinned into a stern line had me giving ground until I thumped against the door hard enough to rattle my brain in my skull. He kept coming until he caged me against the spot with a hand on either side of my shoulders. He was shorter than me, smaller by a good bit, but I truly felt like I couldn’t move. His eyes burned hotter and dread rolled through me like I was staring into a tidal wave.
“You don’t need to pretend you weren’t getting plowed the entire time I was gone. I honestly don’t give a fuck. I still want to bang you. It’s part of the appeal.” I gave him a wink. If I was enough of an asshole, he’d toss me, and this could all be over.
“Oh, I really wasn’t.” He somehow managed to slam his hand on the door beside my head, and I realized I’d sort of slid down a little, rather than standing tall. I straightened and knocked his hand away, but it wasn’t his physical strength he had me trapped with, rather the power of his presence. “Madam Winters asked me to take a vacation so no heat would land on the Courtesan.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry.” The guilt was back, scalding my neck and cheeks. “I owe you a lot. I feel really bad about all this. You were seriously in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Stormy let out a puff of air and his bangs fluttered. He brushed them aside. The move was kind of cute and I wished he’d do it again. “I knew better,” he grumbled. “The stars told me, and I ignored them. But you’re right. You do owe me.” His smirk turned predatory. “Maybe you don’t have a plan, but I’ve had two months cooling my heels around this place to think about what I wanted when you got out. Maybe I should take it out ofyourass. That’s all you ever really want to exchange currency for anyway, right? Well, you owe me.”
“Hey now.” My hands flew down to my butt without me thinking about it, and he rolled his eyes.
“What’s wrong? That scare you, Ross?”
“Uh….” I tried to move my hands away, but nope, I left them there, guarding my hole.
“Oh wow. It does, doesn’t it? I was kidding… sort of.” He snickered. “You’ve never had anyone knock on your back door?”
Clearing my throat, I went for myplease donate moneysmile. “It’s never come up.”
The fucker cocked his head in a way that only made him prettier, and I sighed. Damn it. “Or you don’t get up for it?”
