Page 69 of Russian Roulette
“If you insist.” I tug her tighter against my side. “Though I need to warn you. My mind is already traveling to places it shouldn’t. Now I can’t stop thinking about drizzling warm chocolate sauce on your naked body and slowly licking it off. I’ll start here first.” Leaning over, I push her hair back over her shoulders and kiss the sensitive spot on her neck. “Or maybe here.” I nuzzle lower, to a spot below her collarbone. “Or since you’re the one who loves the taste of chocolate so much, you can lick it off me.” I glance up at her with a mischievous grin to catch her reaction. “Whatever floats your chocolate boat.”
“I was wondering how long it would take you to suggest something along that line,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“You started it,” I remind her. “Don’t blame me if my mind goes straight into the gutter.”
Her eyes meet mine and we both abruptly stop talking. The air is charged with the sexual chemistry crackling between us. We both realize there were too many things left unsaid from last night. Reaching over, I cup the side of her face with my hand. Gently, I touch her bottom lip with my thumb. “What am I going to do if you run again?”
My question catches her off guard. Breaking my gaze, she glances out the window. The question slipped out because it’s on my mind constantly.
“I don’t know what to say,” she whispers in a low voice.
“You can tell me who you really are and how to find you if you disappear. You haven’t told me anything personal.”
“And I can say the same,” she replies. “I don’t know the real you, either. Most of the things you’ve told me sound like they’re scripted straight off your media kit.”
I don’t respond or disagree with her. Instead, I try to put myself in her position and understand where she’s coming from. Jade doesn’t know about Dad, my hustler past, and my poverty-stricken childhood. All she perceives is the rich, playboy image I project because it’s part of my job.
“I’d like for you to learn more about me,” I tell her. “The real me. Not this bullshit.” I wave a hand at the limo we’re riding in. “What’s inside here.” Taking her hand, I place it palm flat against my chest, where my heartbeat is steadily thumping. “I want you to meet the real man inside, not the character I play up on stage.”
“Are you saying you’re not who you appear to be?” she asks, lifting her eyebrows.
“That would all depend on how I appear to be to you,” I reply with a shrug. “Appearances can be deceiving, and I’ve worked hard to maintain a certain appearance in my public life. I want to learn everything about you. The problem is, I have a gut feeling you won’t let me do that. You don’t trust people easily, if at all.”
“Neither do you,” she points out.
True.
“Here’s an idea,” I suggest. “What if I tell you one big secret about me, and you tell me one about you? It’s a fair trade, in my opinion.” She studies me carefully, wondering if I’m trying to trick her.
“Okay,” she finally relents. “I’ll play along. Tell me one thing about you. It needs to be something big and one thing that I wouldn’t already suspect. And it has to be one hundred percent true. No lies.”
I remove my arm from around her shoulders and reach over to take her hand in mine. Now that she’s willing to listen, I’m not sure what to say or how to begin. I can’t tell her everything.
Not yet.
She might jump out at the next traffic light and run away again. Who could blame her if she did? Telling Jade the truth will be the same as pulling back the curtain on my illusionist tricks. Revealing myself to her will show I’m nothing except smoke and mirrors. I’m a fraud, a fake.
Her fingers tighten around mine. “What is it?” she asks, her eyes narrowing. “You’re nervous, I can tell. Why? You can tell me anything. If it’s confidential, I would never share what you tell me. It’s not as if I have anyone to tell, anyway. I’m great at keeping secrets.”
“My dad is in prison,” I blurt out suddenly.
Jade’s eyes widen in surprise. I expect her to pull away from me, but she doesn’t. “Are you close with him?”
“Very close. He’s the most important person in my life.”
“What about your mom and the rest of your family?” she asks. “I remember you mentioning how you showed them magic tricks until they begged you to stop. Where are they?”
Damn!She remembers all the stupid lies I told her. “There is no family,” I admit quietly. “No mother, aunts or cousins. Only me and my dad. That’s it. My mom left us when I was a little kid. We waited a few weeks for her to come back because she’d taken off before. It wasn’t anything new. My parents fought a lot, mostly over my dad’s lack of steady work or her drinking. She’d leave and then eventually come back. For a while, things would be okay again until the cycle repeated itself. This time she didn’t return.”
“What did you do then?”
“We packed up a few things. Then we hit the road in an old truck with a little camper on the back. What we couldn’t pack into the truck, we left behind. We traveled around the country for years until we finally landed in Vegas on a hot summer day. The moment we drove into town and saw the bright, sparkling lights, Dad said we’d found heaven on earth. I’ve lived here ever since.”
“So I guess it wasn’t true about you getting a magic kit for Christmas as a child?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head slowly. “None of the story is true. I’m sorry for lying to you. The story is a press release that my public relations team came up with. It sounds much better than the truth.”
“What is the truth?”
