Page 51 of Indecent Demands

Just say something, dammit.

The same boldness that had seized me when I chose to start stealing seized me now. I hadn’t gotten anywhere in my life by being timid. I had helped hundreds of people because I’d dared to take a chance and risk it all. Now I needed to do the same when it came to my heart.

“I don’t want to leave,” I blurted out.

Not my most eloquent statement, but it was all I had.

Seth stared up at me, his brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean—I don’t want to leave you. I know we’ve got this little charade going on but I don’t care about that. I wanted you to ask me out, when we first met, before I realized what was going on. I don’t know—I know you can’t probably—but I want you to know—”

Seth put his finger over my lips to silence me. “I don’t want to hear it. Not right now. Not until I’ve sorted it all out and taken care of you.”

Taken care of me?“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I don’t want to start a relationship with you with all this hanging over us,” Seth clarified. “But I’m not going to let you go to prison, either.”

I swallowed hard, wanting so badly to believe him. “But your reputation. The truth. How are you going to handle all of it?”

Seth smirked. “You’ll see.” He paused, and looked around the room, then put his gaze back on mine. “I’ve never brought a woman in here.”

I looked around, taking in the half-finished bedroom. It was rather bare, but it didn’t feel like the kind of bare that I’d noticed in the homes of a lot of other men I’d hooked up with—this feeling like they just didn’t know how to care for their home, or that they weren’t mature enough to put in the effort to make their home a place they enjoyed living in.

It was more… unfinished, and all the more vulnerable for it. He was letting me into an area that wasn’t polished, wasn’t all set up and ready to receive visitors. It was raw and open. Like us.

Seth hadn’t brought anyone else into his bedroom. Just his sex room, I assumed. But he’d brought me here.

I hoped that meant something. I hoped it meant what I thought it did.

Seth smiled gently. “I’ll take care of Damien, all right?”

I nodded. I believed him.

And I think I knew what he was trying to say in that moment—that he was allowing me into a place he’d never brought anyone before. That he was doing things with me he hadn’t done with anyone else. The two of us, together, were something more to him, too.

I had to trust that—and hope that we’d actually get out of this without either of us going to prison.

Chapter21

Seth

Iwas determined to keep Ariana from going to jail.

Was this selfish of me? Yes. Probably the most selfish thing I’d ever done. But she wasn’t a bad person and I didn’t think she deserved to go to prison for trying to help people in a broken system. The system had failed the people she helped and allowed just a few to get insanely rich. Ariana never did anything for herself. She did it all for other people. Why should she be punished for that?

I knew I should get up and take care of things, but first, I just held her in bed for a bit, letting our skin cool. My fingers ran through her thick hair. I hadn’t had sex like that in… well, technically I hadn’t had sex like that in years, but I didn’t really think I’d hadintimatesex like this ever before. I’d never done this with someone I really wanted tostay.

That wasn’t something I was going to let go of so easily.

In a more just world, meeting Ariana would’ve been more like a romantic comedy. The banter we shared, the mutual interests, my respect for her skills… we would’ve had a simple, easy meeting and start to our relationship. Instead, we had to deal with this.

But for the sake of what we could have, and this connection I felt—dammit, I wasn’t going to let this go. This was what I’d been waiting for all this time and I was going to fight for it. What kind of man would I be if I didn’t?

I was tempted to fall asleep right then and there, but I made us get up and shower together. There was still a bit of tension in the air. The threat of prison loomed over our heads. But Ariana was relaxed with me, and almost playful. I couldn’t wait to introduce her to my parents and to my friends, to see her blossom even more once she was no longer so alone in the world and so closed off.

But for the first time—for the first time since I’d decided to give in and try for that romance I’d always wanted—I let myself be a boyfriend to someone. I goofed off in the shower with her, kissed her under the spray, and she wore more of my pajamas even though I’d gotten her plenty of her own clothes she could pick instead.

We made sandwiches for dinner, since in my worry over Ariana and her running around everywhere, neither of us had eaten in ages.

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