“Like the fact that a few of my clients were definitely ranking members of crime groups,” he said, and stepped closer.
“Uh, what are you doing?” I wondered. He wasn’t quite in my personal space, but it wouldn’t take much to step forward, and he’d be in kissing distance.
“I’m bringing the subject back to the original topic,” he said slowly, and I took a step back, but he followed. My back hit the table, and I stared in confusion as he laid his hands on the table, closing me in.
“To what?” I asked, knowing I probably looked shocked, which was fine because I was...and more nervous than I should have been to have him that close.
“You asked what’s left, if I’m done offering my body to people,” he said softly, looking me over. “And the answer is simple. I want to give it when the time comes.”
“I’m going to be honest here,” I said, swallowing. “I’m having a difficult time using my brain cells at the moment. Could you clarify that?”
He smirked, clearly enjoying having such an effect on me. “To offer means...well, what I’ve done for years. It’s offered, the price is paid, and I sleep with them. But to give it to someone? That’s mutual passion, mutual interest, mutual lust. That’s person to person...having sex. Do you know what it’s like not to remember what it’s like to sleep with someone simply because you want to? Because I sure as hell don’t.”
“I didn’t realize,” I said, finding myself able to focus more now that the topic was heavier than the spike of arousal inside me. “I mean, I guess it makes sense.”
“Even when I did sleep with someone during the past five years without getting paid, I always had to question; do I like this person enough to want to sleep with them, or am I just so used to throwing my body at people that it’s second nature? Is it something I really want, or is it just going through the motions? Checking one more thing off the laundry list in my head?”
I stared at him, my heart hammering as I swallowed hard. “Are you talking about me or you?”
He tilted his head, smiling. “You know, I didn’t even think that there might be a comparison, but, I guess there is.”
“You said it yourself,” I said, shifting nervously, then freezing when my hip bumped his forearm. “I’ve been using sex to hide from people. If I just sleep with them, on my terms, they don’t have to be important to me. They can’t get close, and...nothing bad can happen.”
“You know what happens when you don’t let anything happen?”
“What?”
“Nothing ever happens.”
I let out a laugh and shook my head. “It’s not that easy.”
“There’s that word again, as if I’ve ever used the word easy to describe anything.”
“Other than me, you mean?”
His brow rose. “Really? How many times have we been alone? How many times has it just been you and me, and you’ve never tried anything? You’ve even stopped those terrible jokes…for the most part, so much so that they’ve finally started becoming funny. Easy isn’t the word I’d use to describe you.”
“What word would you use?”
“Am I kept to only one?”
“Can you stick to just one?”
“Lost.”
I backed up slightly, surprised. “Oh.”
“Like me,” he said, and I could see the same flicker in his eyes that I’d glimpsed when Ian had made his idiotic comments. It was probably the same look he’d held back every time I’d used sexual jokes and propositions as humor. Anything that reminded him he was once just a toy, an object for other people, a doll that they could dress the way they wanted, to play out their fantasies, and then get rid of as soon as play time was over.
God, I was kind of an asshole, wasn’t I?
“But lost doesn’t have to last forever, does it?” he asked lightly. “I don’t always have to strive to find out who I am under the layers of deceit I’ve used to protect myself. And you don’t always have to fight to be someone you’re not just so you don’t have to deal with your guilt.”
“Who said anything about guilt?”
“I heard you in that session, Clay. Those were the words of a guilty man. Though what you’re guilty of? I don’t know. And I’m not going to ask. If you tell me, then you’ll tell me when you want to. That’s something you can only give someone, not offer.”
“Kind of like you and sex?”
