“Julio knew I wasn’t a call girl, Zeth. There was no point in lying to him about it.”
“So you lie to him about me instead. He knows me. He knows I would never…” He starts pacing, working on wearing a hole in the polished floorboards. His expression is stormy and tense.
“You would never what?”
“I would never submit to a woman. Not like that.”
“That’s bullshit. You told me to own you when we first…”
Zeth raises an amused eyebrow at me. “Fucked? See, you can’t even say it. That’s why I told you to own me. Because having you try was just too delicious. You’re so uncomfortable in your own skin. I just wanted you to break free from that. If I had to play a little game with you, so you could do that…” It’s his turn to shrug now. I glare at him, my temperature rising.
“I’m not uncomfortable in my own skin. Out of the two of us, you’re the one who’s not at home in his own body.”
A broad smile spreads across his handsome, incredibly annoying face. “Have you seen me, sweetheart? I look like a fucking Abercrombie and Fitch model.”
Oh, the smug, smug bastard. “No you don’t! You look like a fucking criminal. And you are a fucking criminal.”
“A criminal who models for Abercrombie and Fitch?”
“Urgh!” I contemplate throwing my phone at him, but then think better of it. I hurl a pillow at him instead, which is nowhere near as satisfying as the phone would have been when it hits his head. He’s too busy laughing at me to care, anyhow. I suddenly realize what he’s doing. He’s actually laughing. Laughing, like a normal person. My anger vanishes. I sit in silence, stunned over how surprising the moment is.
He picks up the pillow from the floor at his feet, still chuckling a little. He tosses it back on the bed, unaware of the reaction he’s caused in me. How he’s completely put me on the back foot. “Well, regardless of the why, you’ve landed us in a mighty fucking awkward situation now, Sloane Romera. You should have just blown me and been done with it.”
“What?”
He paces to the walk-in closet where he packed away his black duffel this morning, and surprise, surprise, pulls the damn thing out again. My palms start sweating at the very sight of it. “We have to figure out how to make Julio believe you’re as ballsy as you made out to be otherwise we’re both in a lot of fucking trouble, aren’t we? He’s already suspicious as fuck about me. Especially now he knows Michael isn’t here spying on me for Charlie.”
“Wait, what? Michael’s here? Your Michael?”
Zeth snorts, carrying his black bag to the bed and unzipping it beside me. “He’s checked into the room two doors down from us. Swanning around like he owns the place.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to.” Zeth’s amusement levels seem to have evened out again. He turns to face me, apparently finished fiddling with his duffel of tricks. “All you need to do is take something out of this bag and use it on me. And make me believe it.”
“Uhh…”
“Do it. Right now.”
“I…I can’t. It’s not that simple, Zeth. I can’t just decide to—”
He lunges for me, placing a hand over my mouth. “Stop talking.” He climbs up onto the bed, hovering over me, his face only a short inch away from mine. “Stop. Talking. Start. Doing.”
Despite his words, I can see in his eyes that he doesn’t think I can do it. This is exactly the same thing as him telling me to own him—he thinks I’m too self-conscious to do it. It’s very true, but it’s also seriously annoying. He wants me to start doing? Fine. I’m gonna give him what he wants. I already know he is not going to like what I do next. His hand’s still over my mouth, so I tilt my head to the side and clamp my teeth over his index finger, biting down.
“Sloane.”
I bite down harder, staring him straight in the eye. His mouth twitches, but he doesn’t say anything else. I have to release him for the next part. There are small red wheels on his finger as he pulls his hand away; that makes me smile on the inside, overly happy that I’ve marked him for once.
“Get off me,” I command.
He narrows his eyes. “Why?”
“Don’t ask questions. Do as your told.”
He smiles at me, wolfish and dangerous. I take the smile straight off his face when I slap him with my open palm. Hard. He looks momentarily stunned.
“Do you need me to ask you again?” I ask him. My cheeks are burning so hot that I must look ridiculous, bright red and flustered, especially with my chest rising and falling so quickly. Zeth isn’t looking at my chest or my cheeks, though. He’s looking me straight in the eye, transfixed. I can see him warring with himself over what I’ve just done to him. He hates me slapping him. He hates me lashing out at him in any way; I already know that from past experience. And yet, this is his own doing. He can’t react. He’s told me to do this.