He steps away as he covers his face, bending over. “Fuck, Lou!”
He straightens, pinching the bridge of his nose and slinging blood off his other hand.
One of Buck’s bodyguards leans into the room with a questioning look. Buck shoos him out with a wave of his free hand and a shake of his head.
“What is it with you, Buck? You do know I’m a grown woman now, not some little teenager you can make decisions for, right?”
“Make decisions?” His voice has a weird nasal quality, reminding me of when he got his nose broken all those years ago.
“Yes! You and your pretty face and steady voice, sounding all reasonable and shit.” I deepen my tone. “Climb this tree, Lou. Come with me, Lou. Move in with Delores, Lou. Go to college, Lou. Get over m—”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
I let out a short breath. “I’m a big girl now. I take care of myself. ”
“By getting naked for guys you don’t know?”
“Fuck you. We get an ass shot of you every time you climb out of some tramp’s bed on the big screen. You get naked for hundreds of thousands of people you don’t know.”
“That’s not the same.”
The urge to smack him runs to my fist. “No. I guess not. My naked ass doesn’t pay quite as much as yours does.”
He steeples his hands over his nose and jerks. The crack it makes as he adjusts his septum drives through me like a stake. I flinch.
“Is that all this is about? The money?”
If I roll my eyes any harder they’d fall out onto the floor. “Of course, it’s about the money. You think I want to take my clothes off for a bunch of sweaty guys and end up in their spank banks as their go-to every time they want to rub their Johnson and get their rocks off?”
He drops to sit in the chair, leaning his head back. “Why didn’t you just ask me? I have money—plenty of money.”
“I wouldn’t ask you for a thing. Your obligation to me is over. You made that clear when you left and never called.” I massage the ache between my eyes.
He tosses me a glance, his frown etching lines around his mouth. “How much do you think you’re gonna make working here?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just go, so I can actually make some money. I can’t do that in this room with you.”
He tilts his head to the side, biting his bottom lip like he used to do when he was working out a problem. “Not here. But you can make money with me. I’ll pay you triple what Sadie makes in a week.”
I heave a sigh, shaking my head. “What’s your deal? You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me? Newsflash, Jackass: I’ve been had. You might’ve popped the cherry, but I passed out pieces of pie to half the battalion before I finished my first year as a Marine.”
His eyebrows shoot up and his jaw falls open.
Exasperation floods me. “Oh, close your damned mouth, Buck. You didn’t think I’d stay all chaste waiting on your ass, did you? Besides, it’s not as though you’ve been the model of morality these last few years.”
He stands, hands at his hips. “You want to hear my proposition or not?”
The curtains wait for me to push through them, to go my own way, to make this work on my own.
But three times the amount Sadie makes? That would sure as hell pay for the repairs on Aunt Delores’s house a lot quicker, freeing me up to get on with my life.
“Fine. What do you want?”
His big hands close around my hips, and he pulls me close. “Like I told you before—I just want you. I want all of you.”
THIRTEEN
I toss Thug One the key to my bike and usher Lou into the backseat of the SUV. Thug Two rolls up the darkly tinted dividing window between the front and back seats, giving me the privacy I crave.
As we pull out of the parking lot, Lou turns in her seat. “So, how’d you know where I was?”
I shrug. “Delores told Nan you took a job working nights at a convenience store near Slidell. I’m no mathematician, but I can put two and two together.”
“And getting past Lonnie and his watchdogs?”
I grin. “Lonnie was easy. Fucker’s as greedy as they come. He never has liked me, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to turn down the wad of cash I offered. Getting him to call off his bouncers and give me the room only took another handful of bills.”
She smoothes her hands over her thighs, picking at the side seam of her jeans and staring out the window. Her hair flows down her back; all those luscious waves call for my touch.
As soon as I slip my fingers into her dark tresses, she whips around to face me. “Okay, you’ve got me. What are you going to do with me?”