He doesn’t move. Just lets me writhe against him, pushing my crotch against his. Stares down at me with those deep brown eyes—I see compassion in them, understanding, sadness. Eventually, he puts a hand to my belly and presses me backward, taking a step back at the same time.
“Annika…that’s not what this is.” Again, the gentle voice.
“Then what is it?” I demand.
“Help.” He closes the distance again. Gentle brown eyes. Gentle voice. His thumb touches my chin beneath my lower lip—gently. “I’m offering you safety.”
My lungs squeeze hard, all the oxygen leaking out, and my heart thuds painfully. Panic, panic, panic. “Oh yeah? In exchange for what?”
“Nothing.”
“Not what you just said.”
“I said nothing you wouldn’t eventually want. And by that I mean, nothing you won’t eventually offer me yourself.”
“I’m gonna end up begging for your dick, you mean.”
He shakes his head. “Jesus, you’re cynical.” He shrugs. “You wanna see it that way, sure.” Another shuffled half step closer, so he’s in my space, so I’m breathing his air, looking up at him and trying to remember how to make my body cooperate so I can run the fuck away. “How about I make you a promise.”
I force oxygen into my lungs. I can’t move, I’m still stuck in place. “Fine, I’ll play along.” My voice is steady, but then, I’m always steady. Even when I’m freaking the hell out. “What promise?”
His eyes touch on mine, roaming my face, my lips, my throat, my cleavage, back up to my eyes. “I will not touch you in a sexual way unless you directly ask me to.”
I laugh. “That’ll never happen.”
“So then what do you have to lose?”
“What is it you’re asking me to do, exactly?”
“Just stay.”
“Stay,” I repeat. “Just stay here, in this secret nightclub lair with you and your gang of over-testosteroned beefcakes?”
He snorts at that. “You’re funny.” His thumb slides over my lips. “Yes. I mean you, stay here, in my secret nightclub lair with my gang of over-testosteroned beefcakes, and our two kind, amazing, welcoming women.”
“Our women, huh? You share them?”
He growls. “No. Our in the sense that we’re protective of them, even if they aren’t actually ours in that sense.” He shakes his head. “You have a way of twisting shit, Annika, you know that?”
No one has ever been protective of me. Wonder how that feels.
“And then what?” I ask. “I stay here, and then what? Or that’s it, I just live here in this underground prison and I never leave?”
“And then we sort your shit out.”
“We. Meaning you and me?”
“We meaning whoever it takes.”
I shake my head. “Sort my shit out. Just like that? Just fix all my problems?”
He shrugs, nods. “Sure. All problems can be solved.”
“Not all.” I look away from him. “Not mine.”
“All.” He gets closer yet, towering over me, gazing softly down at me, like he sees something when he looks at me—something other than what I am. “Even yours. No matter what they are.”
“Fuck you,” I whisper. “You don’t know the first fucking thing about me or my problems.”
He reaches up and curls a springy tendril of my hair around his forefinger—for reasons I’m not entirely certain of, I seem to allow it. “I know you’re a fighter—a survivor. I know you’re an athlete. Or, you were. I know that vile little shit you came with has you by the balls, metaphorically speaking. I know you know it’s only a matter of time before he starts demanding shit you clearly refuse to give.” He’s not done. “I know you’re fucking gorgeous—you took my breath away, literally, the first time I saw you. I know you’re scared out of your goddamn mind but too stubborn and too proud to ever admit it, to yourself let alone me.”
“Joke’s on you—I’m fucking terrified.”
“Of what?”
“Alvin.” I shake my head. “Not even really him, but what he represents. Who he is and what he does.” I swallow hard. “And what my debt to him says about me.”
“Addiction,” he murmurs. “You’re an addict.”
I flinch as if struck—because it feels like being struck. “Like I said—not all problems can be solved.”
“Look at me, Annika.”
I shake my head, stubbornly refusing to do so. “Save your breath, Chance. I’m not looking for some hero to fucking swoop in and fix me.”
“Well, that’s a good news bad news situation,” he says. “Good news is, I’m not trying to be a hero who swoops in and fixes you. Bad news is, I can’t fix you. No one can fix you but you.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be fixed,” I lie through my teeth.
He just laughs. “Never bullshit a bullshitter, Annika.”
“So you’re a bullshitter, then.”
“Absolutely. I’m a bullshit artist of the highest caliber.” He smirks. “I’m not bullshitting you, now, though.”
“How am I supposed to trust you if you’re a bullshit artist?”
“Because you and me, we’re more alike than I think you’d care to admit.”
“Again, you don’t know me. You just met me.” I look up at him, assessing, searching—unfortunately, I see only truth in him.
He shakes his head. “Listen to me, mama—I want to help you. Yes, I expect to get something out of it—eventually. That’s no bullshit. What I expect to get out of it is you. The real you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, the real me?” I demand.
“You’re shielding. You’ve got solid steel walls around the real, genuine core of you a mile fucking thick. No one gets in, nothing gets out.” He touches my lips with his thumb again, a soft, brushing touch.
“Stop doing that,” I say testily, batting his hand away. “I don’t like it.”
He does it again. “Then why do your eyes dilate when I do it? Why do you suck in a breath like it’s your last one when I do it?” Another swipe of his thumb, ghost-soft, over my lips.
And shit, shit, shit—he’s right. He’s fucking right. He does it, and my chest swells with a deep breath I’m helpless to stop.
“I know you’re shielding and I know you’ve got giant-ass fuckin’ walls because you and me, mama, we’re the same.”
“Why do you call me mama?” I ask, my voice quiet.
He shrugs. “Dunno.”
“Bullshit.” I see the lie in his eyes. And I call him on it. “Never bullshit a bullshitter,” I say, my turn to throw his words in his face. “Why do you call me mama, Chance? The truth.”
He stares down at me. “Personal reasons.”
“So you won’t tell me.”
“Sure I will.”
“So?”
“If you tell me something of equally personal value.”