Page 3 of Contracted

“Since now,” he growled. That he didn’t elaborate, didn’t justify his reasoning wasn’t a surprise. He was obviously a man of few words.

Thanks to my profession, I’d become good—better than good—at judging a man’s character.

Evander snorted, his dark eyes narrowed. “Of all the women you’d want to deny us, did it have to be this one?”

Serafino ignored them and I wondered which one of the brothers was the underboss. I vaguely recalled some gossip on the street about Evander stepping into the position, but perhaps I’d heard wrong? Or perhaps authority didn’t count when it came to their sex lives with the brothers respecting each other’s needs?

Serafino only had eyes for me when he prompted, “How much?”

My pulse stuttered. I already stood to earn thirty grand thanks to my friends being a no-show. Could I earn even more if I was willing to spend the night alone with Serafino while pissing off his brothers?

It’s not like you’ll ever see them again. This is your last opportunity to earn serious dollars before giving up your profession.

I shivered as I held Serafino’s cold stare before I glanced down at the impressive bulge inside his pants. He was the type of man who’d forget his manners and fuck me in this crowded room with everyone watching on.

“Fifty k and I’m all yours,” I said, my voice breathless.

While his brothers stiffened, he nodded without hesitation, his longish hair falling forward then back. “Done.”

“What the fuck,” Evander breathed.

“Well, shit,” Alessandro muttered. “There had better be some decent pussy here tonight.”

Serafino ignored them both as he reached for my hand and drew me away from his brothers and the crowd of partygoers, while four men with long hair and ripped jeans stalked toward a small stage where guitars, a drum set and a microphone waited. I smiled at the distraction. There would be very few now in the crowd who’d notice us leave.

It wasn’t until I stepped out under a large portico with Serafino, and we headed toward a slate pathway, where gravel separated it and a concrete driveway on one side from some pungent, lemon-pine scented hedges on the other, that I found myself relaxing just a little.

The outdoors always soothed me, made me less guarded. That these gardens were lit up by solar lights and were mostly formal, clipped shrubbery didn’t matter. Mother Nature might be cruel sometimes, but people were far more so behind closed doors.

I closed my eyes for a second as memories of my widowed stepmother battered me. Her shrill, accusing voice. Her excessive use of prescription drugs and alcohol. Her paranoia about her looks and aging. Her hate-filled eyes as she’d looked at me—the spitting image of my father—while telling me how repulsive I was before she’d locked me in the attic with no way out.

It hadn’t mattered that it’d had a long lightbulb, not when it had swung like it’d been pushed by an invisible hand. It hadn’t even mattered that I’d had a window to look through, not when it’d been barred to stop anyone pushing it open and not when it’d been so dusty there had been little to see and any sunlight had struggled to infiltrate the room.

She hadn’t just imprisoned me; she’d chipped away at my self-esteem until one day I believed I’d deserved her abuse. At least it had made me realize I’d needed to leave the house before I lost my sanity. I’d never looked back. I’d escaped before I’d lost even more of myself to her.

“You’re trembling,” Serafino said, his voice low.

I sucked in a steadying breath, then flicked open my eyes. “Sorry,” I said with a hoarse, half-laugh. “Sometimes I let my past catch up to me.” I added hastily, “Rest assured, this is the first time I’ve allowed it to encroach on my job with a client.”

He clasped my chin, his fingertips rough and rasping. I shivered. What bad deeds had he done with those hands? That I imagined they’d bring me to ecstasy as easily as they’d ended others’ lives turned me on almost as much as it made me queasy.

To be so powerful and deadly that no one, least of all someone like my stepmother, would dare to treat him with anything but courtesy and respect must be remarkable. She’d probably piss herself facing someone of his reputation.

He looked down as he held my gaze, his shoulder-length hair sliding forward. “I don’t want your professional persona. I want to know the real you.”

I stared up at him, the shadows making him scarier somehow. But though I should have been intimidated, I was drawn to him, my anesthetized body responding to him in ways I’d never thought would be possible.

His dangerous, dark aura intoxicated me. Normal men didn’t do it for me anymore; they hadn’t in a long time. I needed someone who kept me walking on a tightrope. I needed excitement, I craved it.

Having sex and giving head to middle-aged, mostly married men, and to fresh-faced graduates born with a silver spoon in their mouths had long ago lost its appeal.

It was no longer enough, not by a long shot.

I bit my bottom lip. “You’re paying a hell of a lot of money to get to know the real me. Most men—all men—want the fantasy, not reality.”

“I don’t want the fairytale,” he refuted, reaching behind my head to untie my eye mask and gently removing it before pushing it into his jacket pocket. I blinked up at him, feeling exposed somehow, as though he was now reading past my mind and into my soul. He smiled a little. “That’s for men who can’t handle real women or the real world.”

He was the first ever client to request normal from their dream woman. That I needed the opposite wasn’t lost on me. While he was looking for conventional, I was seeking unconventional. Tall, dark and deadly was clearly my type.

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