I gasped when I felt his gaze flick up toward the window as I ghosted out of sight, backing into the bed hard enough that it set my bruises off fresh enough to made me buckle. Crawling over to my side and diving back under the bedcovers was a fierce battle. I was shaking as I gathered myself, settling down against the mattress with my eyes closed tight.
My breathing was calmer a few minutes later when I heard footsteps approaching outside the room. I tried to feign sleep when the lock sounded and I heard the swing of the door.
I knew it was him. By his scent. His breaths. The rhythm of his feet across the carpet.
I couldn’t keep my eyes closed as he headed over to the still open window and pulled it closed with a thud.
“You should be sleeping,” he said, and I knew my act was pointless.
“I was,” I said. “I just needed a drink.”
He didn’t turn to face me. His silhouette against the dawn outside was rigid as he surveyed the landscape.
“A drink and an eavesdrop it would seem,” he commented, and I felt the burn of embarrassment.
“I was watching the sunrise.”
“With the window open?”
“I didn’t hear anything,” I assured him.
He laughed that evil laugh of his. “That’s just as well, sweetheart. Hearing my business wouldn’t be any good for that pretty head of yours. It’s barely any good for mine.”
I hated how my body was buzzing with the thrill of having him back in the room with me. How I was coming to respond instinctively to his presence, regardless of what my thoughts had to say about it.
I hated the devil inside me that wanted so much of him.
It was just as I was thinking so that he turned to face me. I’m sure he saw my scowl, directed at myself but seemingly anything but. He stepped forward, his hands thrust in his trouser pockets and a scowl on his face to match right back.
“I mean it,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to hear anything about my conversation outside. Ignorance is bliss.”
“Ignorance never means bliss,” I said, and meant it. “Ignorance means surprises. Surprises are terrible. Always.”
He tipped his head. “Maybe these surprises will be better unknown until they are upon you.”
“So I can’t dread what’s coming?”
“Something like that,” he said.
I dropped my eyes from him, staring at the bedcovers to my side. “I accept what’s coming,” I told him. “I heard a lot about Rebecca Lane. I heard a lot about what to expect in this place.”
“Nobody knows what to expect in this place,” he said. “Every experience is different. Yours will be very different from hers.”
“As long as I walk away at the end of it with enough money to help my sister, I don’t care what I experience in this place.” I was still tired, but it was more than tired. It was deeper than that. Darker than that. Still tinged with a filthy fascination for this man that kept my heart thumping.
He dropped onto the bed, leaning closer. “You’ll really give all of yourself for the sake of your drug addict sister? No matter what?” He didn’t even give me a chance to answer before he continued. “That’s very noble, and exceptionally naive. I can assure you a girl like your sister wouldn’t give all of herself for you.”
His words stung. Like papercuts on my fingertips when I was a little girl. Sharp and savage little gashes on the tender parts.
“I love my sister very much,” I said. “And she loves me. Love is the most important thing there is.”
That vile laugh again. “Love. Yes.” I could feel the burn of his eyes. “So tell me, little girl. You think if I offered your sister a decent pay day on the one condition she didn’t speak a word to you ever again, she’d turn it down?”
“Yes,” I said. “She’d turn it down…”
His laugh this time was far more free. “Naivety is cute on such a pretty thing. Cute but crippling. Losing your optimism would see you a lot more successful in this lifetime.”
I forced myself up on an elbow. “It’s not naivety,” I argued. “Without love there really is nothing that matters in this world. My sister knows that too.”
“Your sister knows that money buys a drug induced high. I doubt anything else really matters to her in this world.”
“It will when I’ve earned enough to put her through rehab and she’s found herself again,” I countered, but his laugh kept on coming.
“Tell me, Miss Emmerson, and tell me honestly. How much time has your sister found for you these past few years since she’s been chasing down the highs?” He paused, but not long enough for an answer. “I’ll bet you it’s whenever she needed you to bail her out of a crisis and rarely ever besides.”