He moved closer to her, leaning over to murmur something in her ear, and I tried my best to keep my focus on the road. I could tell how uncomfortable she was, but either he didn’t notice or didn’t care – he had already decided he was owed anything he wanted from this girl for claiming he’d saved her, even if she wasn’t exactly on board with it.
As I stopped at a light, I looked into the back again, to see his hand on her thigh – the dress had ridden up a little, and he was taking advantage of the exposed skin he could get his hands on. His fingers were inching up her skirt, and she was doing her best to playfully brush him off, nodding to me in the front of the car as though reminding him that they weren’t alone. But whatever she said, it clearly didn’t bother him – he leaned in a little closer, and when I pulled away from the light, I made sure to slam down on the accelerator a little harder than I needed to, sending him flying to the other side of the car.
“What the hell was that about?” He demanded, clearly pissed – he thought he had been getting somewhere with her, and now, I had managed to throw him right off his game. I pushed down a smirk, hoping he wouldn’t notice it.
“Sorry, there was someone crossing in front of us, I thought I was going to hit them,” I replied. It didn’t explain why I had been driving the way I had, but he was clearly flustered enough not to give a damn about it right now. He just wanted to get the hell out of there. Get to where they were going – and probably, get rid of me in the process.
He sat at the other side of the car, and she kept her eyes pinned to the window as though to avoid any attempts he might make at feeling her up again. I needed to keep her safe from him, and I would do anything I could to make it happen. I wasn’t going to let him touch her. I could tell she didn’t want it, and I was surprised he wasn’t able to see the same thing – though, maybe, there was some part of him that didn’t care. Some part of him that knew she belonged to him, whether she wanted it or not.
She had been with him the day we met – at least, she had just left his hotel room. What had she been trying to pull on him that evening? Trying to get his cash and get out? The last thing she had signed up for was to become his damn girlfriend, if that was the case, and I needed to get her out of here...
“Take a left on this street and stop in front of that store,” Arnold told me suddenly, his words making me jump. I knew I shouldn’t let myself get so lost in my head, but it was far too easy when I was thinking about her.
“Will do,” I muttered, and I took his directions and headed towards the small residential street he had asked of me. What were we doing here? It wasn’t until I spotted the store he had been talking about that it clicked – and my heart sank.
It was a pharmacy. And I knew there was only one thing he was going to be purchasing in there, when it came to how the rest of the night with her was going to go. I couldn’t believe this was happening, I couldn’t - I needed to stop him, somehow, I needed to force him to forget about her. But I didn’t have a single clue how to do it...
“Thank you,” Arnold told me, and he climbed out of the car once it had come to a halt and headed towards the pharmacy we were outside of. I locked eyes with Arianna in the mirror again, and both of our faces were drawn and panicked.
“What the fuck is he doing in there?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“He’s making a point,” Arianna replied. Her voice sounded hollow. She knew she would be the one on the sharp end of that point, and it was the last thing she wanted.
“Which is?”
“He must think there’s something happening between us,” she replied, her brow furrowing. “I don’t know how—”
“Maybe because you snuck into my room while I was in the shower?” I suggested, a little more sarcastic than I needed to be. She shot me a look.
“Whatever it is, he wants you to know he’s getting...well, you know,” she replied, shaking her head, her cheeks darkening.
“Condoms?”
“More like a little blue pill,” she replied. I snorted with amusement. I doubted he was quite there yet, but hearing her brush him off so easily was a relief. She clearly had no interest in him at all. I wasn’t sure my jealousy would have been able to take it if she did. Some part of me, possessive and demanding, wanted her all to myself, and I wouldn’t let anything get in the way of it. She was mine. She just was. As soon as I kissed her for the first time, I had known it, and nothing had convinced me otherwise since.
But the reality of the situation soon came settling in on top of both of us, and I could see how spooked she was. She wasn’t used to hooking up with her marks, was she? This must have been new for her. And it wasn’t a boundary, judging by the look on her face, she wanted to cross.
I knew I shouldn’t feel so strongly for her. I knew I should be able to control myself. I knew I should have remembered everything Rafael had told me about her – about how she would do anything it took to get what she wanted, how she would take what she thought she deserved, and that I would have been better off extricating myself from her entirely.
But when I saw her sitting there, that look on her face, the clear fear in her eyes, I wanted to do anything I could to help. Maybe that was on me, maybe I needed to be more focused on the job at hand, but how could I do that when she looked so...vulnerable? I had no idea if she was playing me as well as him, but I was willing to take a risk.
As though I hadn’t been doing that since day one with her. From the moment I’d seen her, I’d been taking risks, and I knew I would be taking a bigger one than I knew how to navigate if I tried to help her again. She was going out with Arnold, and I needed to let it happen. Whatever he was doing in there, it was none of my business, and I would have been smart to remember it.
But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I wasn’t about to leave her to find a way through this alone – she needed me right now, and heaven only knew I could use her help in the midst of all of this too.
“What are we going to do?” she asked quietly, her voice, for the first time since I’d met her, laced with actual fear.
I took a deep breath. It might not be what she wanted to hear – but I was going to give her the truth. I was going to give her as much of it as I thought she could handle.
And hope it would be enough for us to get out of this in one piece.