She looked down at the accounting textbook she’d been trying to study before it all became too much and realized he had mistaken her for a student. An easy mistake to make, considering she was only twenty-one. But she hadn’t felt as young as her age in years and at that moment, suspected she never would again.
He handed her a handkerchief, they got to talking, and the next thing she knew, she was installed in his club as a bookkeeper.
At least it started off as bookkeeping, but a few years later one of his managers quit and she asked if she could take over the position, and when his building superintendent passed away, she’d also jumped on that job and the free apartment that came with it.
She considered Tony a saint for giving an out-of-work waitress he’d found crying in the library a job, and though she knew more than anyone how quickly people could be taken away, she had started thinking of him as a permanent fixture in her life. Was it any wonder that she cried all the way home?
But her tears quickly dried up when she saw the state of her office.
“No,” she whispered. Then she saw the drawer where she’d hidden the security deposit key, the one that unlocked the box only she and Tony had keys for. It was sitting on top of her desk, quietly informing her that her most valuable possession was now in the hands of someone else.
“No! No! No!” she cried out loud.
CHAPTER 12
LACEY had never been so angry in her life. Not when she and her father had been forced to run away from New Jersey and relocate to Philadelphia. Not when she’d gotten fired from her waitressing job. Not even when her father died in the explosion meant for her. All those times she’d been more scared than angry.
But as she rushed up the stairs toward her apartment to confront her unwanted squatter, red tinged the edges of her visions. How dare he? Rooting around her apartment was one thing. There had been nothing to find there. But ransacking her office and taking the safety deposit key Tony had given her? An angry sound tore out of her throat as she opened the door to her apartment.
But then she came to understand she hadn’t really been mad. No, she didn’t really get mad until she found Suro standing at her counter, calmly drinking a glass of water with her silver security deposit key hanging around his neck on a thin chain.
That was when she knew the meaning of true rage.
She flew over the counter at him, grabbing for the key around his neck. Her key. The one thing that unlocked everything of value she had in this world. “Give. It. Back.”
“No,” he said, fending her off easily. He caught both her wrists in his hands. And gave her a gentle shove backwards.
“Give it back!” This time she screamed the words. “And then get out of my apartment, you psycho!!”
She tried snatching the key from him again, but once more, he simply caught her wrists and sent her stumbling backwards as if she were little more than a pesky child.
“Get out of my apartment!” she screamed, tears of frustration and fury gathering in her eyes. “You have no right to be here, or to take my things! You have no idea what I’ve been through to get the things I keep in my security deposit box!”
“No, I don’t know what you’ve been through,” he said in an infuriatingly calm voice. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“Because I don’t want to! They’re my secrets. Mine! And that is my key. Give it back!”
He inclined his chin at her, his eyes seeming to go even more dead, as if she were a bug he were studying. “No.”
This time she didn’t go for the key. Her hands went straight for his face in a very deliberate attempt to scratch his eyes out. But her fingers barely grazed his cheeks before her wrists were once again bound in his iron grip.
However, this time he didn’t push her away. “Calm down,” he said.
Which only infuriated her more. She pulled and tugged, trying to get her wrists free, but the more she tried, the stronger his grip became, until her arms were aching and her spirit was wrung dry.
She started crying. Not regular tears of frustration, but the kind of ugly tears that signaled a nervous breakdown. She was so tired of fighting for everything. Staying hidden, staying alive, making enough money, keeping her distance from Suro. And now Tony was gone. And she had no idea how she would get the key back. And her father. Her poor father…she remembered the tired smile he’d given her before she and Darla had left that morning long ago, the last smile he’d given her.
And she sobbed, her heart coming undone as if he had died all over again. For whatever reason, this gained her freedom. Suro let go of her hands, and her arms fell to her sides like worn strings as she continued to cry.
Then to her surprise, Suro’s arms came around her, wrapping her up in an embrace so stiff, it was obvious he hadn’t initiated a hug in a very long time, if ever.
But she held on, because though she hated him at that moment, she knew the alternative was having a nervous breakdown right there in her own kitchen.
Then they were kissing. She didn’t know who started it, but once it began, it blasted through them both like an unstoppable fire.
“Tell me who you really are,” he demanded, dragging his lips across her neck. “Tell me everything.”
Now it was her turn to say, “No.”
A glass of water crashed to the floor and the next thing she knew, she was bent over the counter, her breasts pressed against the formica tile as he pulled down her jeans before taking the elastic band out of her hair. She felt her dreadlocks fan out across her back and heard his sharp intake of breath behind her.
“Do you understand how you’ve tortured me these last few weeks?” he asked. “How much control you’ve made me exercise over myself?”
One hand held her in place, while the other pulled aside the crotch of her panties. “Tell me,” he said again.
“No,” she moaned. Her pussy was on fire now…she could feel it dripping, despite the situation she was in and how furious she was. The apartment’s cool air hit her exposed lips and it only made her squirm more. “No,” she said again, even as she moved her hips against the hand holding the crotch of her panties. “I’ll never tell you anything, so you can stop wasting your breath and just fuck me.”
“Tell me.” He plunged into her from behind, stroking into her deep as he said it over and over again, “Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.”
He worked her clit with fast strokes of his hand, his chest moving across her back as he commanded again, “Tell me.”