Losing Control(64)

“My God, Tiny,” he says, tumbling me down on the sheets. “I’m becoming addicted to you.”

“Good, because I don’t know if I can live without you either,” I confess, trembling from the aftershocks.

“You won’t have to.”





Chapter 23


MORNING COMES TOO QUICKLY FOR me. I don’t think Ian allowed me more than an hour’s rest last night, and I feel sore all over. But each twinge of pain when I stretch puts a smile on my face because I recall the sinfully delicious ways that I worked out muscles I didn’t realize I had. I felt desirable and possessed.

“I hope you’re okay with your mom knowing that I fucked you like crazy last night.” Ian hands me a plate of perfectly poached eggs, wheat toast, and steak. It looks like a dinner but I guess I worked up an appetite because I fall on the meat like a ravenous beast. He actually made all of it, including the steak, which surprised me. I figured he was solely an order out and delivery sort of guy.

“Why’s that?” I ask, running a possessive gaze over his shirtless frame. He’s only wearing skintight boxer-briefs, which serve to emphasize the size of his package. Mine, I think. All mine.

“Because you have a smug but very hot look in your eyes. I think anyone would recognize what it means.” His voice has dropped, and by now I know that means he’s thinking about doing dirty things to me and with me. Predictably my body responds with clenching and moistening. I’ll never get out of here at this rate. Dropping my gaze to my plate, I clear my throat and cast around for a safer topic.

“How’d you meet Malcolm?” I finally ask.

“Do you know what your brother does?” he asks.

“He’s a drug dealer. I mean, I’m not sure, but I’m delivering a lot of small packages for him and they aren’t all full of legal papers.”

“That’s not the only thing he does. I went to him because he’s got a certain reputation for dealing with a lot of very attractive women who’ll do about anything for money and are fairly discreet.”

“Are you saying he’s a . . . pimp?” My mouth falls open.

Ian presses his lips together for a moment. “You could say that.”

This news rocks me, and I drop my fork onto the plate.

“So you needed a prostitute? You thought I was a prostitute?” My voice is getting unnaturally high.

“No. I knew you weren’t right away.” He repositions his chair so that he is sitting closer to me. “The women in the business have a certain look in their eyes that you don’t have. Plus, you tried hard to piss me off and no working girl is that bad at customer service.” He shakes his head and chuckles at the memory.

“You thought I was naive and could be taken advantage of?”

He shakes his head again. “Why are you always thinking the worst about both of us?”

Good point. I drop my eyes to my plate. “Just checking.”

He folds his arms behind his head and leans back against the chair. “At first, I wanted to fuck you because you’re so adorable. The attraction we had on the street,” he pauses. “That’s not normal, Tiny.”

He plays with strands of my hair as he talks. “I didn’t want you involved in the Howe project, but your need for money was obvious. When I discovered the situation with your mother, I caved. I knew you wouldn’t accept straight-out cash from me and, frankly, you would be the perfect person for Howe to pursue.”

Taking a sip of his coffee, he pauses for a minute and then continues in a darker, grimmer tone. “I just didn’t realize that I’d want to smite him for even breathing the same air as you.”

Stirring the egg yolks with the tip of my fork, I recall the meeting when Malcolm gave me the contract to deliver to Ian. “Malcolm once said that I’d need to service a train of guys to pay off my debt . . .” I trail off at the memory. “I guess he wasn’t kidding.”

Beside me, Ian stiffens. “What debt? And I’ll kill him if he thinks he’s going to sell you.”

A pain, an unwelcome one, starts throbbing at my temple. “I had to borrow money from him after my mom got sick the first time. She thought she’d be able to continue to work even during her chemo treatments, but she couldn’t. We ended up getting evicted. To live in the apartment we are in now, I needed first and last month’s rent, which I didn’t have because I’d spent it all paying rent on the apartment we’d gotten kicked out of. Then I needed more money because my mom is too weak to keep walking up five flights of stairs. Malcolm paid off my back rent, provided me the first and last month for the apartment, and promised to do the same when I found a new place so long as I worked it off.”