Page 73 of Cinder
“You can now.”
I push his hand away. “Keep your money. I don’t want any more of your help. You’ve done enough. I’m not your responsibility.”
“You think I can sleep easy knowing you live in that shithole?”
“Why does it bother you so much?”
“Because I have a fucking conscience. There are three kinds of people who visit the Blue Lagoon. The desperate. The cops. Or the fucking medical examiner when they’re picking up another body. It’s no place for a young woman on her own.”
“I’ve put up with worse.”
So much worse.
Ironically, I feel safer at the seedy motel than I have in the last three months in the Moretti mansion.
But Lars steps closer and reaches around me, engulfing me in his scent—something earthy and warm and so fucking sexy I can almost taste it on my tongue. He pushes the wad of cash into the back pocket of my shorts, then brushes his lips to my ear. “And don’t believe everything you see, Little Cinder. If anyone is going to warm my bed beside me, it will be you.”
And with that, he walks out of the room, leaving my lips parted and my skin pebbled with goosebumps in his wake.
CHAPTER 33
Ella
I feelfoolish for my reaction.
But I don’t get a moment to think about it, because two minutes after Lars leaves, Bambi walks into the kitchen and cautiously approaches me like I’m an activated bomb.
“Can we talk?”
“Sure,” I say brightly.
She takes me by the hands and squeezes them gently. “I didn’t know you were interested in Lars.”
I’m caught off guard. “Oh, I’m not int?—”
“Mya told me.”
I’m starting to think Mya is the town crier of this clubhouse.
“If I had known, I would never have spent the night in his room.” Her eyes widen. “Not that anything happened. I mean, I offered, because I didn’t know that you were interested in him.”
“I’m not inter?—”
“But he turned me down. He slept in a chair across the room from me. I’m so sorry. Tell me you’re not mad.”
“There is nothing to be mad about. Lars and I aren’t?—”
“I’ve told the other girls that he’s off limits from now on.”
Oh my God.
What is even happening right now?
“You didn’t need to do that. Lars and I aren’t a thing.”
“But you’re interested in him.”
I pause long enough for the silence to speak volumes.
