Devil's Bargain

“Why do you care?”

“Like I said, I’m curious.”

“Are you here because you changed your mind?”

“Changed my mind?”

“Last night. You didn’t exactly get what you…paid for.”

“No, I didn’t. But that’s on me. The debt’s cleared.”

I have trouble holding his gaze. “Thank you. I guess.”

“You didn’t expect that.”

“I don’t know what I expected. You’re not really who I thought at all, to be honest.”

He studies me. “Why are you like that?” he asks.

“Like what?”

“Twitchy. You were terrified when I touched you last night.”

I turn my back, go to the kitchen and pour myself more vodka. I drink it before I answer. “I don’t know you and I was naked in your bed.”

I face him, lean my back against the counter, force a blank expression.

Evade.

I know how to do that.

He raises an eyebrow. He’s waiting for more.

“And I’m not used to being naked in strangers’ beds. Maybe the women from your stable are but not me. I think fear is pretty natural.”

I don’t know if he’s offended by the insult. But I do know he doesn’t deserve it.

He just stands there watching me, though, his expression closed off as he sips his drink. The way he looks at me, it’s so focused, so intent, that I wonder if he can read my mind.

“I wasn’t going to hurt you. You knew that.”

“How would I know that? Because you said so? You’re a loan shark. A man who’d had me stripped and put up on an auction block. You can understand—”

“I told you you were safe. I’m a man of my word. But fair enough.”

Again, something I don’t expect.

“I know most men in your situation wouldn’t have handled last night the way you did and I’m grateful to you for that.”

“Any man who gets off forcing a woman is an animal, Melissa.”

Then even in my limited scope, animals are all I’ve known.

He walks into the kitchen, stands too close as he reaches over me to refill his glass. He remains there drinking, studying me.

He’s so much taller than me and I have to crane my neck to look up at him, but holding his gaze is a struggle so I look at his chest instead and think how much stronger than me he is. How power seems to throb around him.

I wonder what it’s like to be so powerful. So unafraid.

But it’s taking all I have to remember that he’s a very dangerous man. That any attraction I feel I need to quash.

“What are you really doing here?” I finally ask, the words somehow coming out sounding normal.

He sips his vodka and I don’t know if he’s comfortable with this strange, heavy silence but my ears are drumming with the adrenaline pumping through my veins and I need for him not to be here.

He makes me feel strange. Like he takes up the whole world when he’s in the room. Being this close to him is hard, harder than I like to admit. Everything about him from the way he looks to the way he speaks to the way he smells makes me want.

He takes his time to answer me, as if he’s collecting his thoughts. When he gets a strange glint in his eye, I know what he’s going to say next will change everything.

“I have a proposition for you, Melissa.”

I feel like my heart is going to beat its way out of my chest. “What sort of proposition, Hawk?”

“I want one month.”

7

Hawk

“What?”

She’s staring up at me, eyes huge. There’s something inside those yes. A child-like quality.

A child’s hope.

A child’s fear.

I wonder if it’s me she’s afraid of or something else. Because I got a call from Jack about an hour after leaving his office and I’m going to bet it’s that something else. Especially considering the half-packed duffel upstairs because I know for a fact she wasn’t unpacking.

“One month. With me. Like last night.”

“I don’t understand.”

“One million dollars.”

Her mouth falls open.

I wait for her to process.

“One million…That’s…” her voice trails off and she looks away like she’s trying to count it.

She gives a shake of her head and scoots under my arm. She walks into the living room and sits down on the couch to swallow the rest of her vodka. She sets her glass on the coffee table before returning her gaze to mine and when she does, it’s steelier than I expect.

“I am not a prostitute. What I did last night, I did because I had to. Because of Liza. This isn’t something I just do.”

“I didn’t mean to infer it was,” I say, going toward her. “I’m well aware of your…inexperience.”

“Inexperience or not, money for sex, it’s—”

“A business transaction. An equally beneficial transaction.”

“Business,” she snorts. “I don’t even understand why you’d want this knowing full well…I mean…after what happened last night.”

I move closer to her. She has to crane her neck to look up at me.