As soon as he pulls up to the curb next to the apartment, I jump out, ignoring the night doorman and passing by the food sitting on the lobby desk. I jab the elevator button. By some miracle, the elevator doors slide open and I’m able to dart inside before Leka gets to the lobby doors.
“Wait, Bitsy.”
But I let the elevator doors close. I need some time alone. All this time that I was in Vermont, he was tracking my every move? And he never once came to visit me? Did he also have spies up there? Did they report to him how I cried myself to sleep for the first six months? Did they tell him how I didn’t have any friends other than Audie because I felt so odd around these rich girls who grew up in big houses and took European vacations and never once went to a restaurant where someone got knifed in the throat?
It’s a good thing he’s not in the elevator. I might have had to go all Solange on him and beat him with one of my ugly black pumps.
He’s waiting by the apartment door when I step off the elevator. His chest is heaving only slightly from having run up the four flights of stairs. It’s irritating how sexy that is. I brush by him angrily into the entryway and kick off my shoes.
“You’re my charge,” he says, as if his actions were perfectly normal. “It’s my job to keep you safe, which is a hundred times harder now that you’re here instead of in Vermont.”
I stick out my chin. “Well, I’m sorry you’re so put out. I can defend myself. I have mace in my purse and my cell phone can call 9-1-1 just as easily as it can call you.”
His brows crash together. “You think mace and a phone are going to protect you from some asshole on the street?”
“I also took self-defense courses. I’m not an idiot.”
“Really? Then what if a man does this?” He moves so fast, I don’t even realize he’s bodied me up against the wall until I feel the flat surface pressing against my shoulder blades. “Look at you. I’m not even using my hands and I’ve got you pinned,” he mocks.
I shift and press my knee against his leg. “I’m only letting you do this because I don’t want to hurt you.” I could easily shove my kneecap into his groin. He wouldn’t be so smug then. I should do it—just to teach him a lesson.
“You wouldn’t be able to land a finger on me, let alone get a knee even close to my dick,” he retorts.
I straighten. “Wanna bet?”
I bring my knee up, and when he reaches down to block it, I slide my hand right over his groin. His breath catches. So does mine. He’s hard. And huge. In my fantasies, I didn’t imagine him to be this big, but the length is larger than my unfurled hand. In that moment, my anger is replaced by something hotter, darker, and more insistent. My fingers curve around the shaft.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he growls in my ear.
“I’m defending myself.” I whisper. I squeeze him and his knees buckle. A hand slams above my ear. If I turned my head, I could kiss the inside of his wrist. Down low, between my legs, I can feel my blood pulsing hard and hot.
My squeeze becomes a caress. The cock under my palm twitches. The arm next to my head trembles. Leka’s body is radiating an intense amount of heat and it’s burning through my clothes, under my skin and igniting my bloodstream. His breath becomes ragged. This is it. This is my opportunity. This is what I’ve been waiting for. The door is open. The gate is up. I rise on my tiptoes to kiss the jaw I’ve been dying to kiss. I part my lips—
“Stop.” The sound that comes out of him is tortured. “Don’t do this.” His words are one part angry, one part self-loathing.
It’s the self-loathing bit that pushes my heels to the ground and unsticks my hand from the front of his pants. I want him to love me with his whole heart, not resent me because I made him horny.
Tears prick my eyes, but I keep my lashes down so he can’t see. Is loving me so terrible? Is wanting me so wrong?
“Why?” I ask. “Why is this so wrong?”
“Because it is.”
I hate that he’s so defeated, as if loving me is the worst thing he could do.
“Sorry,” I mumble and slide out from under him. I walk, unsteadily, to the kitchen. My palm is on fire, tattooed with the imprint of his cock. In the kitchen, I open the freezer and stick my head inside, ostensibly looking for the cookies ’n’ cream ice cream, but really trying to cool off and gather my self-control.