“I’ll have it brought up with your meal.” Alfred’s nod is curt before he leaves.
The door to the suite closes with a soft click, taking my breath with it.
“Am I really about to playPretty Womanin somebody’s mansion?”
There’s playing with fire, then there’s scorching your ass for no reason. I still don’t know how I got here orwhyI woke up in a man’s bed who could be Count Dracula or a murderer. One of those wealthy men who squeezes his nuts for fun while hunting his victims for shits and giggles.
What if he looks like the Penguin inBatman Returns? Hammer toes, fins for hands, and jagged teeth to bite all of my major arteries?
Eeyuck!
“Okay, bitch. Take a shower, change your clothes, grab the cash, and run.”
The door to the room opens. My stomach does a Winnie the Pooh jiggle at the aroma wafting from a cart covered in a white cloth.
“Your meal,” a gray-haired woman says in Italian. Her orthopedic shoes book it out of the room before I get out, “Thank you.”
I’ll eat before I go. Mama Vee taught me never to waste food.
“Whoever is in the kitchen knows their way around the stove,” I say through a bite of pasta. I’d lick stale gum under a phone booth before I munch on sardines, but the little salty fish work with this meal.
The same woman returns to retrieve my dishes and the cart. No words or eye contact. All business and those fast-ass shoes. Does she feed every woman who comes in here, or does only Bianca get special treatment?
Bianca.
I snort in the shower. If I weren’t about to run for my life, I would leave a five-star review about the floor-to-ceiling slabs of marble and brass fixtures. Is it wrong to pretend to be somebody else if it keeps me safe and under this shower spray a littlelonger? My nameisBianca and the towel I grab off the warmer is a cotton pillow.
“Y’all about to come up short with these towels,” I say, scraping the day’s film off my teeth with the toothbrush left on the counter. “And the floors are heated? Maybe I should stay the weekend.”
I cackle at my reflection.
I’m many things, but a senseless bitch ain’t one.
Steam slips out of the bathroom in large puffs when I open the door. If only I had my spennanight bag. Jeans and a tee would be more comfortable than putting on my mismatched pajamas once it’s time to leave.
Spice and citrus force their way into my lungs. My breath is a relaxed sigh at the calming notes, quieting my heartbeat for the first time today. The cologne wasn’t there before, and it doesn’t match the profile of someone who sleeps in an all-black room and skins people in his spare time.
A squeak slips at the man in a burgundy suit. Mama Vee raised me to look every threat in the eye. I want to, but my legs tense with my ass, making it harder to turn around and run back to the bathroom. Shades of amber and rosewood catch fire in a gaze that sweeps over my bonnet and works its way from the towel knotted between my cleavage down to my toes.
Low light from the ceiling rakes over textured black hair and a sharp fade connecting into a trimmed beard. I draw in a ragged breath at the slow sweep of his tongue over the lower lip he pulls between his teeth.
I understand the mirror over the ceiling now. Sir Bennici isfineand no Napoleon.
The stare on this man alone will push me through a mattress. Tattoos are my weakness, and the ones painted on his exposed skin belong in somebody’s museum. Roman numerals count down the side of his neck, an appetizer to the main course.
A large rose decorates his left hand in black ink. If I had to guess, sleeves scroll up his biceps, forcing the fibers of his two-piece suit to bend.
“Come here,” he says lowly in Italian. His voice traces around my throat and squeezes.
Jesus.
The soles of my feet fog polished marble in a heated trail to the stare burning a hole through my towel. My inhale catches as his mint breath fans across the bridge of my nose. I yelp at the firm grip around my waist, pressing me into soft burgundy fibers. Hard muscle is underneath, filling out the athletic physique hovering above my bonnet.
The cut of his jaw and handsome face are a smoke screen. Behind round lips and hollow cheeks is a man who breaks hearts and coochies. He’s fine as hell and likely has someone tied up in his basement right now, living out their last days.
I can’t think while this close. I damn sure can’t breathe with him in my face, looking the way he does. Looking at me like he wants to spread me wide and suck me dry.
“The deposit you requested.” He pulls a stack of crisp banknotes from his pocket.
