She hesitates for a second as if she’s so lost in her thoughts. I could tell by the way she was swinging her hands just a few minutes ago, she wasn’t happy about who she was speaking to on the phone.

“No, it’s my sister. She’s just…” She sighs. “It doesn’t matter.”

Just as my PI found, she has one step-sister, Hayley. It seems that everything’s going according to plan. She’s a teenager out in Kansas, no doubt getting into trouble like most teenagers her age. I see a different side to her as she stands in front of me. She doesn’t seem seductive or even as confident as she was only a few hours ago. If anything, the conversation she was having with her step-sister must have touched a nerve.

“Well, what do you say about instead of just standing outside a window, I can take you shopping, so you don’t have to just look at the clothes, but you can buy them.”

She raises an eyebrow, and even the words may surprise her, but not as much as they’re shocking me. It’s as if I’m having an out of body experience and I see my body in front of me, but the words coming out are from some guy that’s soft. No way is he fucking me. And as for that smile, shit, I just need to wipe it off my face. It’s fucking creepy because I don’t do nice. No fucking way.

She shrugs. “Don’t you have anything better to do than take a girl shopping?”

My cock twitches as if it can read my mind. It knows I want to say, ‘Yes, fucking!’ But it refrains me from talking, and that stupid fucking smile takes over my mind one more time. “You look like a girl who needs something to smile about.”

The way I’m fucking doing right now.

Her lips tremble and then she slowly bites her bottom lip as if she’s thinking twice about it. I know she’s not going to say no. The pants and the shirt she’s wearing nicely sculpt her body. But they’re not labeled and certainly not designer gear. She knows if I’m offering to take her shopping then I’m not taking her to TJ-Max. Far from it, as her eyes quickly dart to the limo.

“What do you want me to do? Get down on my knees and beg?”

She quickly shakes her head. “No, you’re nice to me, and I’m still upset about my family.”

I chuckle. “I can relate to that. Mine drives me mad at the best of times.”

They’re the last people I want to talk about, especially today. After the week I’ve had, trying to get them out of my mind. Once in a while, they would pop in there and then I would feel down. As if my life was coming to a fucking end. Just like Maria’s did the day she tried to leave. I vowed that I’d put the past behind me. I wouldn’t think about it anymore. That’s why I left that fucking life… to get away from it. Not to spend my days going over and over it again.

This is the first of a new day.

I’ll stop going to the clubs. Start trying to connect with women and maybe one day go back down the road of marriage. Not to someone like Leah, but she’s the type of girl that could get me back on the road. The one I’ve been avoiding for too long. She could help me forget about the past and move on for once. That’s all it takes. One to make me move on from the shadow that’s cast a dark spell over me.

I know Leah can do it, but I’ll need to tread carefully. She doesn’t know what she’s agreed to by just coming out with me.

“It’s very kind of you, but I don’t even know your name?”

I nod as I think about the fact that she’s so astute for a girl that comes from a small town. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought she knew my name by now. There’s something about the way she said it that makes me think otherwise. “You can call me Beast.”

She shakes her head. “Why? Like Beauty and the Beast?”

I nod.

She laughs. “You are a charmer.”

I touch the tip of her nose. “Nothing like Beast at first, but he soon changed his mind.”

She doesn’t agree. “More like Bella made him see the error of his ways.”

I know Leah isn’t going to do that, but she’s helped me in ways that I’ve failed myself. “Do you think that you can make me see the error of my ways?” I hold up my arm for her to loop her hand around it.

“I could do that, Marco. But the question is… are you willing to try?”

I could tell there’s a double meaning in her statement. Not only did she confirm that she does know my name, but she also confirmed she knows something about me. The question is what?

Leah’s screaming like a little kid as she picks up her bags and her eyes are green with envy. “Everything in here’s expensive. I mean they have no price tags in the store.”

I point to her. “That’s because if you need to know the price…”

“You shouldn’t be in the store. I know you told me the first and second time,” she says as she greedily grabs the bags and tries to put them all on the empty seat next to her.

The shopping trip was more fun than I’d expected and a bit more frustrating. I wanted to take her so badly when she wore the white dress. She looked a picture of innocence that’s so hard to explain and even more difficult to forget. There was a part of me that wondered if she knew the effect she has on people. Even the shop assistants were mesmerized by her beauty. From her long legs and her infectious eyes which are blue in one shade and green in another. It’s as if everything about her changes when she goes from happy to sad. When she put on a casual outfit as opposed to a formal one. There’s no situation that she can’t fit into and like a new toy. One that I could play with all weekend long. I couldn’t let her go.

“What about you spending the weekend with me?”

Her face went from being serious to being sad, “I’m not sure. I should be working…but you bought all these clothes for me. I don’t know how I’m going to repay you.”

I nearly choked at the idea of her thinking she’s going to have to repay me. There’s no way she can afford such a thing on minimum wage and I didn’t do it as a catch. I didn’t spend the money thinking that she’ll have to repay me in money. In-kind perhaps, but not cash.

“This is why you should spend the weekend with me.”

She laughs. “Being in my company. Seeing me in clothes that are nearly my whole year’s salary, I think that it’s the least I can do.”

She winks at me, and I start to wonder who’s taking who for a ride.

“I just need to call my roommate,” she says as she pulls out her phone. A couple of times she tried to do it, but then shoved it back in her purse. I don’t even see how she sees anything on it. The screen’s broken, and it seems to flash as soon as she took it out of her purse. Some part of me feels sorry for her walking around town with a broken cell. One thing about New Yorkers is that everything’s about appearances, and so far, she’s not looking the part, but I’m about to fix that. I want her to feel she’s worthy of being a part of my world, for the weekend.

“Do you want me to give you privacy?” I ask as the limo stops, but I already know the answer to my question, because what she hasn’t realized is that we’re parked in front of her apartment block. “I can wait here while you go talk to her?”

“What?” she blurts out and then she looks out of the window and then the realization of the fact we’re sitting outside her building hits home as she whispers, “I’ll be out in a minute.”

I nod, as the driver opens the door on cue. She looks back at me, but I pretend not to notice as I start making a phone call. One that involves making sure that everything’s ready for what I have in mind for us to do this weekend. If she thinks that shopping was a treat, she has no idea that was nothing compared to what I plan to do with her Saturday and Sunday. I smile to myself as the driver walks with her. Her newly acquired shopping in his hands. She won’t be needing that on the weekend. The only thing she’ll need to do is make sure her pussy is ready for the most action it’s ever seen in its life.