“Well, you haven’t exactly been doing a bang-up job of gaining my trust.”
And there they were, in yet another stand-off, until Suro said, “I would like to make a counter offer.”
“What kind of counter offer?”
“Be with me, really be with me until Christmas and I’ll give you back the key.”
She seemed to be weighing her options in her head, running some kind of mental calculation. Finally she said. “Okay, but with a few conditions: no more asking me about who I am or snooping around my office or acting like a crazy stalker.”
He actually gave her conditions some consideration. He fully intended to find out who she was before Christmas, and not snooping around or fishing for answers would put a crimp in his plans.
When he needed information from a reluctant source, his go-to methods were searching the guy’s spaces and asking him the same questions over and over again. Along with food and sleep deprivation, this combination usually proved to be effective enough. And though Lacey had done a very good job of covering her tracks, she wasn’t a trained assassin. If he wore her down enough, he’d probably be able to break her.
The only problem was he didn’t want to break her. He wanted her to trust him enough to tell him who she really was, and if he played his cards right, he might be able to gain that trust by Christmas.
“I agree to your conditions.” He sat up and held out his hand for them to shake on the matter.
But she hesitated. “How do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?” she asked, sitting up, too.
“I am man of my word. The question right now is are you a woman of yours?”
Something about his question seemed to cause her a great deal of pain. Her eyes flickered away for a second, but then she said, “Fine” and took his hand. They shook on it. Then she smiled.
“You know most guys send flowers and candy when they want a girl to go with them.”
“Go with them?” His English was superior to many native speakers, but occasionally an idiom came along that he didn’t recognize.
“Be their girlfriend.” She reached for her t-shirt and used it to cover up her chest. “But I guess in this case, we’re more like sex buddies than boyfriend-girlfriend.”
“Don’t,” he said. He took the t-shirt away from her and let his eyes roam over her ample chest. “We’ve discussed this before. Don’t hide from me in this way, especially now that we’re ‘going with’ each other.”
She shook her head. “I can’t guarantee I’ll ever get used to sitting around with you naked.”
He leaned in and kissed her clavicle, then licked the salty skin on her neck. He liked the way she tasted, like sweet soap and sweaty sex. “You will.”
“Mmm,” she said, leaning into his kiss. “Can we move back to the bed, though? This kitchen floor is getting harder by the minute.”
So was he.
He helped her up and escorted her to the bedroom, wondering what he had just agreed to. He had finally gotten the upper hand. She wouldn’t be running away again, at least not until Christmas, and she would once again be sharing his bed. So then why did it feel like he had just made himself vulnerable?
CHAPTER 13
WHEN Lacey agreed to share Suro’s bed until Christmas in exchange for him stopping his investigation and giving her the key, she thought she was getting the better end of the bargain. Great sex and the time and money she needed to hatch an escape plan. All she had to do was keep her heart firmly locked away in the box she’d put it in when her father died ten years ago.
And that should have been easy enough. Suro was great in bed, but he wasn’t exactly warm or even all that romantic. She doubted he’d send her flowers or fill her ears with pretty words like Hector Jr. had.
And she had been right. Suro remained as silent as ever, rarely speaking unless she asked him a question. And then he only responded in monosyllables. Her: “How was your day, Suro?” Him: “Fine.” However, this only made the few compliments he did give her that much more special.
“You truly have a gift,” he’d said, the first time he tasted her shrimp étouffée, and the five-word compliment had her glowing all night.
She couldn’t imagine Suro saying, “Damn, babe, your body is banging,” as she’d heard a few customers calling out to the strippers downstairs, but the way he worshiped her curves with his hands and mouth every night made her feel like nothing short of a goddess.
Within a week of their handshake, she had gotten used to walking around the apartment naked until she was ready to leave for work and him slowly stripping her out of her clothes as soon as she got home. There had to be something sexier than watching her make dinner in nothing but an apron, but from the look on Suro’s face as she did so every night, he didn’t think so. And thank goodness she had acquired a taste for the mostly cold Japanese breakfasts Suro made, because often his eyes would heat up across the table and she’d find herself engaged in chair sex midway through the meal.
Even when she tried to cover up before breakfast, he only took off her clothes again, peeling each item off one by one, with steady hands and a chastising look on his face. It should have made her feel like a sex toy, but instead it made her feel treasured, like of all the women on Earth, Suro most wanted to be with her.
She began to suspect he didn’t give her gifts like designer clothing because he didn’t want her to get any ideas about actually wearing clothes when she was in his presence. But she soon found this didn’t mean she wouldn’t be getting any gifts from him.
The Monday after they made the agreement, he moved her schedule forward to nine in morning, ending at six at night. He gave the night manager an extra hour at the top of his schedule and hired a hulking bartender, whose duty it was to also keep an eye on the girls during the hour between when Lacey left and the night manager arrived.
And when she’d noticed the water wasn’t getting warm in her shower one morning, she’d gone downstairs to check the water heater, only to find a plumber already working on it.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Name’s Hank,” he answered, handing her his card. “Mr. Nakamura subcontracted me to do all the maintenance on your building. You must be the superintendent. Next time you’ve got a problem, just give me a call and I’ll be here to fix it in a jiffy.”
And as if that hadn’t been enough, Suro showed up at her office one day and said, “Come with me.”