Losing Control (6 page)

He’s amused. Again. Goddammit. Maybe his amused face is his pissed-off face. Or maybe he has only one expression. I don’t really know. I’m not like a body language expert. I’m a bike courier. I refuse to refer to myself as a drug mule.

“I’m here to buy a gift. Want to help me pick it out? I usually give the sales associate a tip, but that money can be yours.” His hand is on the door and I’m tempted.

“How much?” I’m swallowing back bile at the thought of some woman in his life getting lingerie picked out by him, but he’s offering me two things I want: time with him and money. I wonder if the gift is for the redheaded wig shop owner. Jealousy is a terrible taste.

He looks inside for a minute and then back at me. “20 percent of the gross receipts.”

Holy crap. 20 percent of just one item could pay for dinner for a week if I was careful. I push down the jealousy and grab hold of opportunity. I gesture for him to open the door. “After you.”

A sales associate comes over before the door shuts behind us. She was probably watching the whole thing play out in front of the plate glass store windows. “Can I help you?” She looks from him to me and back again, unsure of who she should suck up to.

“No thanks,” he says. Then he gives her that glorious smile and she almost takes a step back under the power of it. It’s obvious he uses it as a weapon. He’s too knowing. I don’t like that about him at all. Knowing, arrogant, and engaged in criminal activities. All bad qualities.

“Pick anything you think she’d like.” He waves expansively at the walls. Bras and bralettes are hanging in a multitude of spring colors. All made of lace. There’s a ramp that leads downward to another section. I head back there just to get away from the sales associates.

“What’s she like?”

“Hmm?” He sounds distracted, and I realize it’s because he’s looking at my ass. I clear my throat. So he’s knowing, arrogant, and unfaithful. He grins at me unrepentantly, and I mentally slot him right next to Malcolm in the jerk column. No wonder they are going to do business with each other.

“B cup,” he says, narrowing his eyes slightly.

“I asked what she is like, not her size.”

“Don’t you need to know her size?” His eyebrow is raised and it makes me feel stupid, which I hate.

“Do you want my help or do you just want to argue?” I snap.

His grin gets wider, if that was even possible, and his eyes are twinkling. Or it could just be a glint of the sun because eyes can’t really twinkle or dance. I move farther into the store so that I can get out of the sunlight, which is apparently so bright it’s causing me to see things. He follows me closely as if he’s my loyal Labrador. As if.

“I want both,” he whispers behind me. When I whirl on him, he reels off a bunch of things in rapid fire. “I want colorful things, very sexy things, and also a few comfortable things. A whole wardrobe. I’m getting to know her, so I’m hopeful that something I buy will strike her fancy.”

Lucky bitch. "What’s my budget?"

"There’s no budget.”

Of course not. In revenge, I pick out a ton of stuff. I just go down the racks and pick out one of everything. Well, not everything but most things.

He’s following me and fingering a few items. His strong, tanned fingers look ridiculously sexy against the fragile satin bows. I squeeze my thighs together as I imagine those panties on my body and his fingers gliding all over them.
You suck,
I tell my body.
Stop lusting after an unfaithful jerk.

"You wouldn’t be willing to try a few things on, would you?” His eyebrow is raised again. I wonder if he practices these looks in the mirror. Each one seems perfectly crafted to make a girl want to drop her shorts right then and there.

"You’re a dick, you know that right?” I ask.

“Why’s that?"

"Because you are flirting with me and buying lingerie for another woman. That’s the definition of a dick. In fact, if you looked it up in the dictionary, your face would be there.”

“They could be for my mom,” he says mildly. Jesus, does nothing offend this guy?

“Then you’ve got a weird thing going on with your mom.”

“Am I Oedipus instead of Batman today?”

I stare at him blankly. I have no idea who the fuck Oedipus is. I haven’t ever heard of the guy’s name before. Better that way, I think. Safer.

The sales associate is beaming at us. “So all of this?” Her arms are laden with tiny folded packages.

“All of it,” Ian says immediately.

As she is ringing it up, I start feeling terrible. The prices are so high and while I knew it when I walked in, the enormity of my spitefulness is sinking in. “Wait," I say. "I don’t think she needs all this.” I try to scoop away half of the loot.

He places his hand on mine and I’m frozen. “No. This is just the right amount.”

Both the sales lady and I are gaping at him. I’m completely torn now. Part of me is raging mad that some chick is getting this stuff and then I feel guilty for being petty and sad that I don’t have anyone buying underwear for me.

"Box it up,” he orders the clerk.

She does, folding each piece into its own separate tissue. Another associate brings a big, white box. Every piece goes into the gold-lined box and it takes three of them to wrap up the box with a bow and stick it in a bag.

“Anything else?” She gives him a card and writes her name on it. “Just give me a call. For anything at all.”

“Thanks, but I’m not taking it. I want it delivered.” He writes down the address. She starts to say it out loud but he reaches out and taps her lips. They fall open and I think I see her tongue creep out to lick his finger, but it falls away before she can get to it. I don’t blame her. I’d have wanted to lick the finger too. He’s a menace. He should be locked up.

He taps the card he just wrote on and says, “These are all the details you need to know.”

He leads me outside by the elbow and doesn’t let go until we’re in front a nightclub whose metal gate is down and is tagged with graffiti. He pulls out his wallet and hands me three crisp 100 bills.

I shove it back. “I can’t take it,” I say miserably. “I bought way more stuff just to punish you.”

He folds the one hundred dollar bills in half and then half again. I look longingly at them and then force my eyes up to his striking green ones. I kind of hate that he’s so good looking. I wish whoever was in charge of looks gave them out according to how they were inside. So many good-looking people walking around who are absolute monsters. My stepbrother is exhibit A and this guy is Exhibit B. Or vice versa. Either way, they are both prime examples of how karma never ever works. What goes around never comes around. The next person who says “karma” near me will get a throat punch.

“That’s a fierce look. I hope you aren’t directing it toward me.” He’s still holding the folded bills between us.

"What were you doing here anyway?"

"I have a couple of businesses I was checking on."

"Is that what we’re calling them now?"

"There’s another word for ‘business’ that’s been approved by the people at Oxford Dictionary? I thought the only new words allowed were ‘wassup’ and ‘hashtag,’ neither of which are euphemisms for business.”

I start laughing. Those words coming out of that elegant mouth seem hilariously profane. He smiles at me and then places a finger on my forehead. It’s like he’s pressed a mute button because my laughter dies off immediately and saliva starts pooling in my mouth. He drags his finger down between my eyes and over the ridge of my nose. Time’s suspended now and I can’t move.

“If I ask you to have a meal with me, are you going to say no?”

I nod my head. “Will you give me the job?”

“You don’t want it.” His hand drops away.

“I do.” I pause and clarify, “Or at least I want the money.”

“Money’s easy.”

“Only because you have it.” I walk back toward my bike and climb on. Ian is right behind me. With one hand on the top tube of my frame, he keeps me from riding away.

“I haven’t always,” he admits. “Is that what your reservations are? You like a certain type of Joe?”

I give him a once over. Today he does look more like a blue collar city worker than a white collar one, but there’s still something about him that exudes wealth. His hair is so precisely cut and his plain cotton T-shirt fits as perfectly as if it was custom sewn for him. “I can find any number of people to take me out to dinner” —though not really because I haven’t had an offer in months— “but I’m desperate for a job.”

“Are you?”

“Would I be working for Malcolm if I wasn’t?”

“Good point.” His finger rubs along the tube and the side of his hand nearly brushes the inside of my thigh. I nearly fall over and have to grab him for balance. He grips my upper arm and steadies me. The heat of his palm burns through the lightweight fabric in a nanosecond. When I get home, there will probably be an imprint there. That
might
be wishful thinking. I force myself back on topic. “And what’s your excuse? Why are you working with Malcolm?”

“Malcolm has certain connections that I thought would be useful.”

“But it hasn’t worked out.”

“Not as well as I would have liked.”

“Are you sure I can’t help you?”

His fingers close around the frame and tip me toward him until I have no choice but to brace my hand against the hard wall of his chest. His hand leaves my arm and comes around me like a shackle.

“Let me be perfectly frank with you, Victoria. There are lots of things that I’d like you to do for me. Some of them involve you on your knees. Others require you bent over a table. All of them require me to be between your legs. But I don’t pay for that.”

“No, I wouldn’t think you would,” I say faintly. No one has ever spoken to me in such a graphic and frank manner and I don’t know how to respond—at least not verbally. My body is reacting by getting hot and tight.

He nods then in confirmation that I’ve heard him. “I don’t dip my pen in the company ink. Nothing good comes of that. So let me ask you again. Are you certain you wouldn’t rather let me take you out to dinner and then home, where I would make you come so hard that you wouldn’t be able to remember your own name let alone that you have money troubles?”

I’m finding it difficult to breathe normally and it’s hard to remember exactly why I’m resisting him so hard. His hand has moved from my waist to my hip and his fingers are curling around my ass and pulling me close as possible despite the bike frame between us. I can even feel his erection against my hip. “The money troubles will still be there, regardless of my memory,” I manage to choke out.

His eyes narrow because he doesn’t like my rejections. “You should know that when small prey runs away, it only whets the appetite of a predator. Someday, Victoria Corielli, I’m going to get you to say yes.”

He pushes the bike frame upright and my body reluctantly follows.

“I’ll be in touch,” he says and then turns and walks away. I stare after him like a dumbass for at least five minutes.

W
HEN
I
GET
HOME
THAT
night, there’s a package waiting for me in the super’s apartment. It was too big for the mailbox slots in the first floor lobby.

“If you can afford this, then I don’t think you’ll need that extension on your late rent payment. It’s ten days past due,” the super says as he points to the box on the table behind him. It’s big and white and has a gold B embossed on the top of it. It looks expensive and exactly like the box that Ian had told the sales associate to deliver.

I stare at the box as if it contains deadly, hazardous materials because it does. If I open that box something is going to happen that could wreck me. Slowly I back away. “Yeah, sorry about the late rent.” I pull out a small wad of cash from the payment Malcolm had given me the other day and hand it off to the super. “Two months there.”

He grunts and counts it out slowly, not moving from the doorway. The box is calling to me, luring me in or at least holding me in place as if Ian is here with his warm finger pressed against my forehead.

“Any chance you have another place I could rent out? Somewhere with an elevator? Or a first floor apartment?”

The super draws back. “Think I’d be here in this shithole if I had some other place to live?” He counts out the money and when he’s satisfied I’ve paid him correctly, the box is shoved into my arms. Before I can ask another question¸ the door slams shut. There’s nothing to do but take the box upstairs with me.

The rest of the cash Malcolm paid me is in my bag. My thoughts flick back to the folded one hundred dollar bills that I stupidly turned down. When did my pride come before money? I should have grabbed those bills and ran.

“Did you pick up your box?” my mom calls from the bedroom. The apartment is filled with the smell of delicious baked pastry dough and my stomach growls appreciatively in response. “The super called.”

“Yeah. It’s from Malcolm," I lie. "A package he wants me to deliver." This second falsehood is told so she won’t open the package. I dump it on the other side of the pull out sofa that I have called a bed for the three years we’ve lived here.

She comes out into the living room looking rail thin under the velour sweatpants that I bought her, also from Malcolm’s money. “I made some dinner tonight.”

“You look great, Mom. I’m glad to see you’re up.”

“I went to church today. Louise picked me up.”

“I’m so glad.” I give her a hug, careful not to squeeze too tight. In the kitchen I see her homemade pot pie. “You must be feeling better. I prescribe church every night.”

“Yes, it’s good to get out.”

The words are an unintentional dagger.

“Dear, I’ve been thinking that perhaps I won’t go to treatment tomorrow.”

I nearly drop the plate of pot pie I’m about to place in the microwave. “What are you talking about?” I ask pretending as if I don’t understand.

She pushes my lax hands away and starts the reheat cycle on the microwave. The overhead fluorescent light illuminates everything in the tiny room and I can see how tissue-thin her skin is.