Page 61 of Resist

As for clients, sometimes I meet with them. Depending on their social and economic station, the personal touch of a face-to-face might bring more business my way. It’s something I should have done with Ryker from the start but dismissed.

But I never met him. I never donned the black wig and Vee getup for him. Shit. I thought I’d been careful. I thought there was no way possible that someone could figure out who I am—not the police, not social services, not anyone—but his words just proved me wrong.

“How did you know what SPD meant?” he asks casually as if he didn’t just blindside me so much so that I’m still trying to process his words.

“What’s it to you?”

“There’s no need to be snarky.”

My chuckle is sarcastic. “Says the man who took the crown in being an asshole earlier?”

Ryker stops and blows out a breath before turning to face me. “Look, I’m sorry. Like I said, shitty day.”

“Next time cancel our plans when you’re looking for a verbal punching bag. I didn’t deserve that.” Frustrated, tired, and a little hurt, I grab my shoes back from him and begin to put them on with the intent of leaving.

“Look, I said I was sorry.” When I don’t look up at him, his hand is on my biceps, his eyes willing me to accept his apology. “It’s just . . . I prefer to be in the know on things—”

“You don’t own me, Ryker.”

“When you don’t answer, I don’t like it.”

“You mean you don’t like not knowing if any of the men in the club were my clients.”

“I didn’t ask that.”

“You didn’t have to. You sat in that club and wondered if I’d slept with any of them.”

“Bullshit. I—”

“That’s such crap. It was written all over your face. It was in your posture.”

“That’s—”

“My sexual history is none of your business.”

His jaw clenches as he fights whatever it is he wants to say. There’s anger in his eyes, but he reins in his response. I tense when he puts his hand on my lower back. He’s just prompting me to walk with him some more, but a part of me bucks at acquiescing to anything he wants when we are having this conversation.

But for the sake of easing the tension, I abide.

And we do walk, both lost in our thoughts as we try to figure out what the two of us are doing here and who the other person really is.

“How did you know what SPD meant?” he asks again.

“I’m sure you could dig into my past and figure the answer out for yourself,” I say, still not happy with the invasion of privacy.

“I didn’t, though.”

“Why not?”

“That’s a good question,” he muses.

“Then answer it.”

“Maybe because there’s something about you that makes me want to figure you out all on my own. Maybe because if someone has gone through such great lengths to hide everything about themselves, there must be a damn good reason. And maybe, just maybe, I trust you for some odd reason and want you to be the one to tell me yourself. So do you want to answer my question or not?” Exasperation fills his voice, and I wonder if my resistance to telling him is more because I’m mad about him spying on me or because telling him lets him in a little closer when I already feel like he’s too close.

And maybe it’s because I care what he thinks about me and know he’ll pass judgment over my decisions, even though he doesn’t have anything close to the real answers.

“Come on, Vaughn,” Ryker says and reaches out to clasp his fingers with mine. “I want to know.”