For one thing, Garrak was hosting what he insisted wasn’t a party, but he spent the afternoon cooking dips and mini-sandwiches and these yummy little rolls of bread and mozzarella and pepperoni. I had to admit this was a very different kind of party prep than I was used to.
For another, I kept catching him staring at me, and I just knew he was thinking about the conversation we’d had this morning. He was judging me for helping my father cheat, I knew it. He already thought “Hendricks” was a bad guy, and now Garrak knew I’d helped him.
And finally, my stomach was full of knots because tomorrow…
Well, tomorrow.
The last few days, since Garrak had declared he was keeping me, I’d felt safe and warm and relaxed in a way I couldn’t ever recall feeling.
But today…
When my phone buzzed, I didn’t think anything of it. I pulled it out, swiped up…and froze.
What the fuck’s going on, Stephanie? Did you do the monster yet? Is my debt clear? After your flight, come see me.
Dad.
My fingers curled around the phone, my breaths coming too quickly. What an asshole.Did you do the monster yet. As if that’s all Garrak was. As if that’s allIwas to my father—the way to scrub his debt.
Holy crap, he was a grade-A asshole, wasn’t he? He sprung that surprise on me—that I was supposed to whore for him—then texted like everything was fine. He didn’t even to offer to pick me up from the airport?
I think I growled a little as I shoved my phone back into my pocket. My initial response had been fear, but now I wasangry. How dare he think he could just drop me a message like that, all cool and nonchalant, as if he hadn’t bruised me and sent me to do horrible things…?
But as the day progressed, his demand in the back of my mind, the dread slowly crept back in.
Tomorrow I had to go home. I had to face my father. I would have to explain to him why I’d failed, and try totalk him out of his threat to tell the LeClair brothers about my part in the cheating.
You didn’t fail.
No. No, I didn’tfail.
I’d done the right thing. When I’d heard what Dad wanted me to do, and seen how hot Garrak was, I had been willing to go through with it. But he’d turned me down, and in the days since then, I’d come to understandwhy: Garrak was a good male, and he wouldn’t have accepted that bargain for anything.
Dad might have sold me to cover his debt, but Garrak hadn’t accepted.
So yeah, I was anxious. Confused. If I’d been home, I would have poured myself a stiff drink or maybe lit up a joint, but here? Here, I threw myself into cleaning Garrak’s home so the place fuckingsparkled.
And with each baseboard I polished, I grew more and more nervous. I realized I was focused on the immediate future, of Garrak’s friends coming over tonight, of being surrounded by males I didn’t know. I’d met two of them at the building site, but I didn’tknowthem.
Didn’t know if they were the kind of guys who would get too friendly when the beer started, or would pressure me into doing stuff I didn’t want to do, even if Ihadbeen drinking…
“Stevie.”
I realized I’d been staring out the window at the dreary Eastshore afternoon, and now I jerked my attention to him.
Garrak was watching me, brows drawn in, as he stalked across the living room. “You’ve been upset all afternoon.”
“I’m not upset,” I immediately countered.
“Nervous, then.” He stopped in front of me. “Are you okay with the guys coming over for poker?”
“Sure,” I lied, faking a smile. “It’ll be fun.”
Instead of accepting the polite fiction I’d handed him, Garrak reached up to hold my chin in that way of his, with the pad of his thumb pressed against my lower lip. My lips parted as I exhaled over his thumbprint, and he brushed gently across my skin.
He didn’t hold tightly, the way Dad and other men in my life had. Garrak didn’t hold me like I was his property… He held me like I was his responsibility; like he was keeping me safe.
With a hard gaze, Garrak held me in place and leaned down. “Don’t lie to me, pretty little human.”
