Torrid (Sordid 2)

“Why?” I demanded.

“Because it’s private,” she snapped.

“Wrong fucking answer, because now I want to know everything,” I fired back. “And do I look like a guy who always gets what he wants?”

Her eyes went to slits. “Yes.”

Smart girl. “I’ll get it out of you one way or another, so do yourself a favor and tell me now.” I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms, barely noticing the kid anymore. “Or don’t. That makes it more fun for me.”

Oksana’s gaze fell. “Usually when I compose, it’s structured. I have a formula I follow and things I want to say with each bar I plot out. My decisions are—” she searched for the right words, “—carefully considered.”

“Manufactured,” I corrected. It explained why I hated the first two songs she’d attempted.

“The one last night, when I wrote it, it poured out of me. I heard the whole thing in my head before I put it on paper.”

“Why was that one different?”

She knew the answer and didn’t like it. She definitely didn’t want to say it out loud. Her gaze darted from side to side, checking to see if anyone was listening. “Because I did something awful, and at the time, that song was my way of coping with it.”

I sat upright. “Wait a minute. The song . . . is about you?” The bad motherfucker’s theme was Oksana’s? I couldn’t believe it. “What did you do that was so awful? Kick a puppy?”

She leveled a gaze at me. “I killed someone.”

The kid could have been banging a million forks against glass and I wouldn’t have heard a single tap. The conviction in her was absolute. I’d had a guy brag to me once about a kill he couldn’t take credit for, and knew instantly he was lying. There’s a look you get when you’ve ended someone else’s life, and it’s a hard fucking one to fake.

She’d really done it.

Christ, Oksana was becoming more like me with every breath she took.

“Who?” I asked, interested. “How?”

She threaded her fingers through her long blonde hair, considering if she should answer. “The man who touched me when I didn’t want him to.” Her perfect posture wasn’t quite so perfect now. “With my father’s gun.”

I don’t know why I cared, but I did. Satisfaction rolled through me to know the guy who’d laid hands on her was no longer in this world. That she’d been the one to send him off? Even better. My chest expanded as I took a breath. “Gotta say, you are full of surprises.”

She looked pensive as she reached for her glass of water. I’d press for details later, where conversations about murder wouldn’t be considered inappropriate. She drank, and as I watched the delicate bob of her throat, all I could think about was last night when I’d had my cock shoved halfway down it. It was miracle she was still a virgin. I couldn’t go two minutes with her and not think about sex.

We lapsed into silence, and our food came shortly after.

She picked up her steak knife, and as she cut the burger in half, I made a mental note to check the knives in the kitchen when I got home. I didn’t believe she’d try to kill me, but better safe than sorry, and she’d confessed she’d done it before. The first one was the hardest. I found it much easier to kill after that.

“You don’t seem like you’re in a rush to get back to work,” she said.

“I work half-days on Mondays.”

She looked less than thrilled when she realized I’d be around the rest of the day, but had no comment.

She had eaten barely half of her burger when I’d finished mine. I watched her push her plate away, signaling she was finished, and my eyebrow arrowed up. “You didn’t like it?”

She startled at my tone. “No, it was good.”

“Then, are you a fucking bird?” It would explain why she was so skinny.

“No, I’m not a fucking bird, I’m just full. This is too much food.” The second the words were out, she looked like she wanted them back.

My annoyance dissipated somewhat. It probably was too much for her, since I had no idea what her life had been like in Russia. Could have been the Hunger Games, for all I knew. The burger I’d eaten was as big as my hand, and the dinner plate was overloaded with fries. It was almost too much food for me, and I was big guy.

“How bad was it in Russia?” I asked. “I mean, I figure it had to be pretty fucking bad for you to come here. You aren’t stupid. It seemed like you knew what they were going to make you do once you got here.”

She sucked in a breath. “I hoped for something else, but, yes. I told myself if it happened, I might get lucky and end up sold to some guy who was good to me. Maybe I’d even learn to like him after a while.”