Love the Way You Lie(13)

“Can I talk to you?” he asks quietly.

This was what I’d been afraid of. Niceness. Curiosity. It’s not good, coming from a customer. It’s not good coming from anyone. “We’re talking right now, sugar.”

“Come here.” He pulls his leg even, making it clear he wants me on his lap. I remember that lap, his thighs strong and warm and thick under me. I had an orgasm on that lap.

I can’t risk it. So I slide to the floor instead, glancing up at him with a seductive smile. My breasts sway as I crawl toward him in the small space. I move like a cat, rubbing against him before flicking my ass. His gaze roams my body, hovering on each part, unable to choose a place to land. He likes my breasts and my belly, my ass and my legs.

Then he looks back at my face, locking his eyes on mine. “I said come here.”

He doesn’t let me get away with much. I can feel the invisible leash around my neck. I can feel him tug. I slip between his legs. It’s close enough to his lap that I can pretend innocence. Maybe this was what he meant all along. I give lap dances all night long, but very few men will turn down a blowjob if I’m already kneeling between their legs.

I slide my hands up his thighs, staring at the bulge in his jeans. He wants this, and somehow so do I. I don’t have any illusions about blowjobs. I don’t imagine it will taste good or feel sexy, but I want to hear him fall apart. I want to feel it.

His hands grab my wrists. His eyes are dark now, displeased.

He pulls. My body swings up, easy and lightweight in his arms. Then I’m in his lap, tucked into the crook of his arm, straddling his legs. Shit.

I force myself to pout, to keep things lighthearted. “I want to make you feel good, sugar.”

His arms tighten around me, half embrace and half prison. “You do.”

My heart pounds. He pushes past my defenses, just like that. Not with cruelty. That I could manage. Or at least, survive. He slips underneath my walls just by looking at them. I don’t know what would happen if he actually did more. How quickly I would fall.

And I want him to feel just as vulnerable—more. So I relax my body, as if I’m giving in. I rest my arms on his shoulders, either side. My palms slide down his chest to frame the necklace he wears, the one underneath his shirt.

“What’s this?” I whisper.

His expression closes. “It’s nothing.”

I recognize those walls—I put them up myself. And I recognize those lies. They are all I have left. That alone should make me respect his wishes. I can suck his dick without lifting his shirt. Instead I find myself stroking his neck, reaching down to the warm metal chain—and pulling out the necklace.

A cross. A simple cross with straight lines, formed out of a black stone with cloudy white swirling through. Marble? I think he must have worn it for a long time. But somehow I know I am one of the only people to ever see it.

Because he let me see it. I don’t fool myself. He could have stopped me. He could do anything to me, but he let me take out his necklace. The unexpected trust sits on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

“I didn’t take you for a religious man.” It isn’t only his presence here in the strip club. Hypocrisy runs deep. I wouldn’t be surprised to find half the men here in church on Sundays, wiping away their sins with the same hands and tongues they used to defile me.

But he has something they don’t, a kind of fight, a stark determination that says he walks his own path. He has his own plan—and no use for God’s.

“I’m not religious,” he says, tucking the cross back under his shirt. “That’s a gift.”

It has to be from a woman. While the shape of it is simple, almost primitive, it was clearly chosen with love and feminine affection. And it certainly matches Kip’s dark looks—his black boots and black jacket. His black eyes. They’re angry now, but I don’t stop. A wise woman would leave him alone. She would take her clothes off. She’d give him her body. But she’d never trust him with her heart.

“Who gave this to you?” I whisper. His mother? A girlfriend?

His wife?

I tell myself it doesn’t matter. Plenty of men here are married. Rings are common enough, worn by men too lazy or brazen to take them off before coming. But I don’t want this man to be married.

His expression darkens. “You want answers, but you won’t give me any. Fair’s fair, sweetheart.”

I flinch as his hand reaches for me, but he only tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. It’s always coming undone from the pins I use to hold it. My hair is always falling down around me, tumbling and wild. The admiration in his eyes says he likes it that way. His hand lingers in my hair, teasing the strands between his fingers.