“Are you sure? Because he must’ve propositioned me at least 60 times.”
“That’s just how he treats women,” I said. “For the most part, he’s harmless.”
“So I can just deliver the packages? Won’t the guys expect more?”
“Stick up for yourself. Set boundaries.”
“I’m going to kill my cousin. Have I mentioned that?”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t be happy about this either, but there is one perk.”
“What’s that?”
“You got a regular.” I rarely got with the same woman twice, but I liked her, which didn’t make any sense. I didn’t like anybody.
“I don’t know.” She got up and finished getting dressed. “I’ll have to think about that one.”
“Yes,” I said. “Think about it. Even if you don’t want to work with Tony anymore, you can still come back and see me.”
I couldn’t believe I was saying this. The idea of inviting a woman into my home was hard enough. I only did it because I didn’t see any other option than spending money on a sleazy hotel. Now I was asking her to come back for seconds. This was a terrible idea.
Chapter 8
Mercedes
“You don’t have to decide all at once,” Jake said.
I sat down on the couch after getting dressed. He was so close. I could feel him stare at me. I loved it and hated it, all at once. The intensity of it bothered me. His eyes were like daggers, slicing through my clothes, deep to the heart of me.
I still had the roll of hundreds in my hand. It was an obscene amount of money. I wanted to hand it back, but how could I possibly do that? I had to remind myself that this wasn’t just about me. I had to worry about my father and my mother. Even if they weren’t in the equation, I still had to pay my loans.
But money wasn’t the most important thing. I had to think about my psyche, and what something like this could do to me. If I agreed to this demented business transaction, I’d probably get attached, and ultimately, end up with a broken heart.
Sex breeds infatuation. There’s an emotional component to sex, along with the physical part of it. I couldn’t separate the two. I would start having feelings for this guy. If he never felt anything for me back, I’d get bitter, and eventually, I’d crack. I had to say no.
I reached out to give him the wad of hundreds and opened my mouth. Then I caught his eyes, and I melted. He’d given me one of the most powerful sexual experiences I’d ever had.
He closed my fingers around the money and pushed my hand back. “It’s okay if you can’t do it. The money’s still yours.”
He put me in a terrible position. I didn’t want to seem desperate for the cash or the sex, but I didn’t want to make it seem like getting with him was an obligation. That would’ve been rude. What motivated a man to do this kind of thing? It couldn’t be just sex. There was always a psychological button that needed to be pressed.
I wanted to know what that button was and embody the essence of it. I wanted him to want me because I wanted him. “This is dangerous,” I said.
He nodded. “Life is all about the risk.”
“I’m not a whore.”
“No, you’re not. Trust me. I’ve seen whores, and you are the exact opposite of everything they represent.”
“Like what?” Now I was curious.
“Exactly what you’d expect. They’re desperate for drugs and money, so they tease men to get what they want out of them. All they care about is their own selfish desires and the way they look. Most of them have had so much plastic surgery, they’re barely human.”
“I watched a show once where women would go into plastic surgeons’ offices to get them to help with their botched surgeries.”
“I could write an entire library on that,” he said.
My face went sour. “How do you deal with that?”