“Are you seeing anyone?” I ask in a whisper as one of the women picking through dresses eyes me. I wink at her, gauging the judgment in her eyes, no doubt due to my recent scandals, before directing my attention back to Tessa.
“No boyfriends, no,” she answers. “Not really much to choose from around here.”
“I might have someone for you.”
She perks up. “Oh? Please tell me he’s not a local.”
“He is, but he’s been in the service for years. He’s a little older than you, so I doubt you know of him. He’s one of the good ones.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Well, send him in for a dress for his mother.”
“I may just do that.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Trust me. You’ll know him when you see him.” And maybe she has, he is the Friar after all. Then again, I know nothing of the day to day of hood business anymore.
“Really? That hot?”
“That hot.”
“I’ll be on the lookout.”
She looks me over as I again sort through the rack. “I know that smile. Who are we dressing you for tonight?”
I pull a dress from the rack and lift it to my collar, eyeing my reflection in a nearby floor-length mirror before I turn to her.
“Me.”
“Well then. I have just the dress.”
I wake to the clink of ice against a glass, and a whiff of gin, spice, and leather. A second later, my bedside lamp clicks on filling the room with a soft yellow hue. Tobias sits at the edge of my mattress, invading me with his presence. He’s impeccably dressed in a single-breasted suit, his strong jaw flexing as he drinks me in, his eyes blistering orange-gold. He jerks the covers back, revealing me in my new curve-hugging dress that shows a touch of side boob. I’d gone sans panties tonight as I sipped whiskey on one of Eddie’s bar stools. Every time I enter his bar, he greets me with the stink eye, but he’s been serving me, and I’ve been generous with my tips—a sort of silent agreement.
Far different from the one I have with the man shooting flaming daggers at me from where he sits at the edge of my bed.
It’s been over a week since Tobias ravaged me. Stupidly, I’d assumed after that much time had passed, I’d seen the last of him.
Gauging by the look in his eyes, I was dead wrong.
I stare back at him from where I lay on my stomach, my head facing him from where it rests on my pillow.
Slowly, he raises his hand and collects a lock of my newly cropped hair before rubbing it between his fingers. Where it was close to waist length, it now rests just below my shoulder in mixed shades of light and dark brown. He drops the lock of hair and runs his palm along the expanse of my back before covering the curve of my ass and stopping mid-thigh to squeeze.
“Rough day?”
“You didn’t fuck them. Why?” I know exactly what he’s referring to. My bar trysts. Though I entertained the idea of giving my body away to a nameless, faceless man to try and erase Tobias, to erase them all. I couldn’t do it. Not out of loyalty, but because I knew it would only degrade me in a way I could never face my reflection again.
Instead of inching myself further toward the edge, I decided to white-knuckle my belief about my time with Sean and Dominic last summer. That I had been a girl in love and shared my body with two men I deemed worthy. The reckoning that it meant far more to me than it did to them was still a hard pill to swallow, but it’s my self-respect that took the front seat.
For Tobias, I have no beliefs. He’s the embodiment of a lone wolf. And I’m all too familiar with the phrase ‘a wolf loses little sleep over the opinion of sheep.’
In his presence, that’s all he thinks I am. Prey. Prey to play with. A new toy to pass the time. A business decision.
I’ll play sacrificial lamb to make him believe he’s gotten his victory, but I will never play into his judgments about me, nor will I fuck faceless men to prove him right. In me, he will find no more satisfaction.
The only belief I have about Tobias at this point is that we’re a treacherous mistake.
He stares at me with expectancy to answer his question, and I give him the same damning silence he and his brothers have given me countless times before.
“Do you still believe they’re coming for you?”
He flips me with his hand, smoothly turning me from back to front for better access, running his knuckles along the side of my breast, his eyes lingering on my skin before they lift to mine. “Or is it because you wait for me?”
“I despise you.”
“That means nothing. You could have gone anywhere. Instead, you chose to prowl around the bar I own to try and make your point.”
“You may have taken a great interest in learning everything about me, but I assure you, I couldn’t give a shit less about you, who you fucked at your junior prom, or what bars you own. Nor do I care about the psychology behind why you act the way you do.”
He stops his hand and raises his brows in mild surprise.
“Someone’s in a mood.”
“Blame it on the hormones rather than the backbone. I guess that’s easier for a sexist like you to believe.”
“Pussy wielding predator,” he chuckles darkly. “I have to admit, I almost laughed.” He’s had more than one drink, and I assume it’s the excuse he’s allowed himself to be here.
“That’s not who I am, as you well know, but feel free to make all the assumptions you want about me.”
He sets the rocks glass down and leans forward, his nose running along my collarbone. “Have you been smoking weed?”
Daily.
“Who would have thought?” He chuckles, ghosting his lips along my jaw. My nipples spike to life as I try not to inhale his scent. I don’t want to be wet. I don’t want to react. “And what message were you trying to send?”
“It has nothing to do with you.”
“Did you think I would come for you? Stake my claim?”
“I wasn’t thinking about you.”
“I don’t have to give chase. I have you.”
“You’ll never have me. Not in the way they did.”
His eyes flare and I grip his hand just as he snaps the strap of my dress.
“I just bought this, you bastard.”
He doesn’t so much as flinch as I sink my fingernails into the flesh of his hand while he lowers the fabric to cup my breasts.
“Under my fat thumb,” he muses, lifting the bodice before he slides his thumb along my stomach, and down, past my pelvic bone and through the thin smattering of hair, inching lower before pressing it against my clit.
“You hate me,” he presses harder and I wince, releasing his hand before he licks the pad of it and resumes his touch, massaging me in dizzying circles. “I have some hate for you, as well,” he exhales a gin-infused breath. “But you’ve given me a sort of gift. I never imagined I’d be here under his roof, touching what he treasures.”
He pauses his movement when I let out a self-deprecating laugh. “You’re sadly mistaken if you think I’m anything close to his treasure. He’s incapable of feeling anything. Just like you.” Instinctively, I buck my hips against his touch and close my eyes. “Why just months ago, Daddy told me he didn’t love me over lamb chops.”