One Dirty Night - Page 142

The hair on the back of my neck prickled.

The monster inside me snarled to meet this other beast. To find kinship in shared sickness. But my struggling goodness did its best to remember this was a ruse.

I’d agreed to do this to prove I wasn’t like them. Not to turn my soul over to the devil.

Fuck.

Sweat rolled down my spine as I slowly turned to face the Master Jeweler.

I did my best to smile like a human but the moment the suave, self-composed asshole—who was rumoured to have singlehandedly trafficked over a thousand women—met my eyes, he knew.

He knew, just like my half-brother had known.

I might want to be good.

I might have fought all my life to remain a worthwhile citizen who pretended to be like everyone else, cared for his sickly mother, and paid his taxes on time, but the truth was…I wasn’t.

I was a monster.

Just like this bastard.

And I officially signed my death warrant by shaking his hand and stepping willingly into his den.

Chapter Two

………………….

Ily

“COME ON, Il, JUST ONE more drink.”

I looked at the sparkling disco ball above and said a silent prayer to whoever would listen. Please give me the strength not to break up with him. Not tonight. Tonight is his birthday. He’s a spoiled little birthday boy who’s already smudged my carefully applied makeup with a blowjob. A blowjob I wasn’t all that keen on giving him, by the way—

“Are you listening to me?” Sam waved his hand in front of my face. “Helllllooo. Dammit, Ily, you’ve got that spaced look in your eyes again.”

Was it my fault that I found my own thoughts more entertaining these days?

How had we ended up like this?

Four years together and every day was becoming more and more of a struggle. I’d had such high hopes that Paris would rekindle whatever spark we had. But alas…I spent my final meagre pounds on a dream and now I have to wait until I’m back in England before I can tell him the bad news.

“Jesus, woman. You gonna blink at me like a drunken owl all night or open your mouth and say something?”

I snapped out of my thoughts, smacking my coral painted lips together. “My mouth was plenty open back at the hotel. So open, in fact, you were able to put something of yours inside it if I recall.”

He sighed heavily, just like I knew he would. “It’s my birthday. A blowjob is tradition.”

“Not our tradition.”

“Every year you’ve given me one.”

“By choice, Sam, not by force.”

“Force?” His eyebrows shot up. The reddish-brown mop on his head glistened from the product he’d used to tame it off his high forehead. His green eyes glittered with anger. “I have never forced you. Not once.”

“I said I was feeling queasy. That the pastrami from lunch wasn’t sitting right. Yet you moaned and groaned and guilt-tripped me so badly that it was easier to drop to my knees and say ‘ah!’ rather than keep arguing.”

The anger in his eyes deepened. “You and I both know that your excuses when it comes to sex are getting more and more common.” His voice rose a few octaves, supposedly imitating me. “Oh, not tonight, Sam, I’ve started my period. Oh, sorry, didn’t I tell you? I agreed to go out with Alicia tonight. Oh, shit, I have to work late—”