DAVIS

I used to think I was a good guy.

Okay.

I used to think I wasn’t reprehensible. Yet as I slow my car to creep up my driveway, I know I am. I live on the outskirts of Hartsburg, where most of the homes are more land than house. Mine has a one-story layout, but it sits on three to four acres.

From Hayley’s point of view, I’ve taken her to the boondocks where no one can hear her scream. I can only assume this because Hayley’s tugged her pointer finger the whole way here, her anxiety rising with each mile. She’s probably thought of all the ways she’s about to die and I haven’t told her otherwise. I don’t plan to until I know the truth. I watched her in the library. She was so damn good. Anyone not looking would believe she picked up books at random. The life I lived could only see the dishonesty.

I don’t know what the paper had on it—the one she slipped into the books, but I need to know. My neck depends on it. I pull in front of the garage and spare her a glance. Her shoulders are high and tight. Her eyes wide. My instinct is to reach over, cup her cheek and tell her everything is okay.

But the world I’m living in everyone is a potential enemy. I can’t drop my guard, not with her, not again. This whole time I’ve been weaving fantasies around the sweetish maid who makes me laugh and makes sure I eat the best food for lunch.

This whole time she’s been picking through my trash, finding out all my dirt and telling someone about it. In short, she’s been fucking me over without the courtesy of lube.

No matter my feelings about her, I can’t go soft now. “Get out,” I tell her.

“I don’t know where you’ve brought me, but if you let me go, I won’t tell anyone.”

There’s a tremor in her voice I can’t ignore. It digs in. “Too late for that, Hayley.”

Her chin trembles, and I don’t allow myself to react. She nods then steps out of the car. I wait a few seconds to follow her before taking the lead. Her footsteps sound behind me once inside. Those ugly ass shoes squeak against my wooden floors. I go for the kitchen to pick up glasses and the strongest liquor I have on tap in the cabinets. I’m sure she’s shocked that I have a house, and how clean it is. My place is mostly wood and dark hues, but it’s mine. I force myself to walk out to the patio and not check to see if she approves. She follows me. Her movements become stiff when she sees the backyard is endless. Meaning, no easy escape route.

I put down the liquor and glasses on a small patio table then sprawl on the porch chair, kicking my feet up. My life is all about what looks good on paper. Right now, I’m showing her I don’t care about what happens next. The truth is I don’t want my world to eat her alive. I’m still hoping she’s not a part of it.

When I notice she hasn’t taken a seat, I say, “Sit down. Pour yourself something to drink.”

“I don’t—” She clamps her mouth shut then makes us both drinks. I don’t take mine. She might need both of them.

“What did the note say?”

Her gaze shifts to the left. “I—”

“Don’t lie. This will go faster if you tell the truth.”

She glares at me. “How will you know?”

“If you’re telling the truth?” I fold my hands behind my head. “That’s the question for the ages. How can I tell when a woman is lying to me? Me? A man who is paid to know a woman’s every desire. Let me think.”

Her glare doesn’t lessen, and that alone lets me know Hayley is as smart as I guessed. She knows what I do at the hotel. “I used to admire your arrogance.”

My brows flick up. That’s surprising. “Why?” I ask, honestly confused.

She purses her lips like she has to think about the answer. “You have a panty-melting smirk. Most guys look like douchebags when they have all-knowing smiles. You…”

“What?”

“You look vulnerable.”

I hiss out a breath. That answer is why I hate what I’m doing right now. Hayley knows what it means to fight, and she’s fighting right now. She can see I’m waffling on the hard parts. She’s digging her fingers into me to squeeze any soft spots.

I laugh. It sounds sour. “Touché. What was on the paper?”

“What does it matter to you?”

“If it was nothing, you would have told me.”

Something like defeat flashes across her expression. Fuck me. I soften more. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I tell her, hoping the sincerity rings through. “I just need to know what you wrote.”

Her teeth scrape along her bottom lip. “Information.”

That could mean anything and as long as that information includes the debutante or her father, I’m fucked. “What kind of information? Was it something you found on the phone?”

“Yes.”

I sit up and scrub a hand down my face. “To the first or last question?”

Her mouth quirks. “Yes.”

My ass is on the line and I can’t help but like her more for that answer. “Hayley, just tell me.”

She strolls to the chair farthest from me then sits down with her drink clutched in her hand. “Three months ago, I started to give information to a hacker I know.”

I try to see the end goal from that, and I can’t. Maybe it’s because I can’t get past the fact it’s her. The Hayley I’ve imagined wouldn’t know anyone on the dark web, much less feed them secrets. Yes, the dark web because that’s the only place people are recruiting those who are willing to leak ugly truths. “The kind of information that’s used for blackmail?”

“Never blackmail. It’s… People who are not a good fit for certain positions in our local government are given the option to decline any job offers. When I look around us, and the things that impact us, it all starts locally. Corruption starts at the grassroots.”

I stretch my shoulders to see how that confession settles on me. It’s not a comfortable fit, but do I blame her? A few years ago, I might have. Now I can’t. “Sounds like blackmail to me.”

“Blackmail works if you promise the information will never get out. This information does. It doesn’t look good, and whatever happens happens.”

I’m no lawyer, but that didn’t sound exactly legal. Yet she’s doing it. A maid at a hotel with everything to lose, but also with everything to gain if her community is better for it. I don’t find it surprising she sits there with her chin lifted in defiance, waiting for me to judge her for it.

This woman isn’t a fantasy I’ve conjured up to keep me tethered to myself. She’s her own person and suddenly I’m dying to know more. “Why is that important to you?”

Her expression blatantly asks me if I’m kidding. I laugh. “I’ll give you that,” I say. “Shit has gone tits up this year, but why didn’t you just take the phone?”

“You came out of the bathroom naked.”

Ah. “My anatomy is not that impressive?”

This expression says the same as earlier—are you shitting me? My ego feels thoroughly petted. She takes a tentative sip of her drink, and hums. The sound brushes along my senses.

Her shoulders lower then she sighs. “Why do you care about the note?”

“That’s a question.” I frown at her. My gut tells me she’s telling the truth and I can trust her. Her plans can fuck up mine, but not on purpose. I can’t condemn her for wanting to help other people. “If it has anything to do with my client, that note cannot leave that library.”

“It’s too late. I leave a note in a book. That book is a few feet away from a camera’s dead spot, and once I leave, the note is picked up.”

When will I stop being optimistic? At some point I’m going to have to accept fate is always against me. I pinch the bridge of my nose and let out a curse. “What did the note say?”

“I copied her last text to her father verbatim.”

The her didn’t need to be mentioned. I dig into my pocket to pull out the phone. My client sent a text to her father, and after reading up thread it’s not good. It’s the kind of text you read in a newspaper and think why are people so damn stupid?

I nix the Wi-Fi on the phone then turn it off. Thirty minutes have passed and that might be more than enough to fuck me in the ass with a sand paper condom.

She says, “You look like you’re headed to the gallows.”

Shit. Maybe. “I made a deal with the devil. You might have fucked my get-out-of-jail-free card.”

Her mouth forms into an ‘O.’ “Being an escort?” she guesses.

That’s close to the truth and so far from it. “What I tell you next is a hypothetical.”

She smiles. “Oh, sure. A guy I know, who fucks women for money, offers a hypothetical that’s probably filled with illegal shit he’s done.”

Does that ding my pride? Fuck, yeah. “Being an escort isn’t illegal.”

She rolls her eyes, because escort is a nice way of saying I fuck for money but on the sly.

“Hypothetically,” I say with a smile, “a man used to work for a company that hired out erotic dancers.”

She lifts her hands then says, “Dancers,” with air quotes.

I could be stupid with how much I like her. “This was at the height of a certain movie that I won’t name.”

“Magic Mike,” she mumbles.

“And certain women wanted the full fantasy. Some of us were willing to give it. Some were willing to give it for a price. One guy in particular.”

Her brows slash down. “Then what happened?”

“We, as a group, went our separate ways.” I laugh thinking about Nathan Ellis. I haven’t checked in with him in a while but I have no doubt he has a story to tell in his own Southern way. “We were an interesting group, but one of those men kept getting paid for off the book…dancing.” I wait to see what she says to that. Nothing. “No judgment?”

“Confusion. You’re not exactly a troll under a bridge.”

My ego was getting a pretty big head. “Imagine a college kid who knows what it means to be hungry. He gets an offer to fuck a woman who he would have pinned against the nearest flat surface for a kiss on the lips. That woman wants to fuck him for four figures. He could take some of that money and head to therapy for putting a price on his dick if he has sleepless nights afterward.”

I hadn’t known how much I’d end up paying in return. I’m not talking the threat of jail which is bad enough, but the loss of true intimacy. I didn’t think I’d ever miss that. I was still getting my dick wet, right? I was still being fueled by the way a woman moans, the curve of her hips, her mouth being stretched by my cock. I hadn’t thought about the shit women don’t pay for and I still needed. It’s why a woman just doing her job and finding me attractive made me soft like a damn marshmallow.

“Long story short,” I say, “he got found out. Not for pandering but tax evasion.”

“You get hit with a RICO case…” She worries her lip for a second “…unless you what? I can’t imagine what happens after that.”

She still believed the government, for the most part, wouldn’t, couldn’t do unsavory things for the right reasons. The things I could tell her. “My dad served. He was exposed to some nasty chemicals. The kind of shit that can do horrible things to your intestines over time. He needed to get at least half cut out just to stay alive.” I shrug off the bitterness. “Just take a stroll in a VA and let some of those men talk about what they’ve done for their government. What’s been done to them for their government. Now ask the average Joe how they get their freedom, and they won’t know. They can’t fantom it.”

That last is why I’ve been in it for me for a long time, but I see her take those words in, her eyes darkening. I swallow the rest down. “Anyway,” I say, “this man might have agreed to inform on a client to keep his ass out of jail.”

“And in this mythical circumstance, taking this woman and her father down by other means screws him over?”

“That’s the gist. If anyone thinks this person is leaking information to outside sources, he is fucked.”

“But in this hypothetical isn’t everyone kind of corrupt?”

That’s a question that had kept me up nights. “He’s by no means a good guy. He’s more like a cliché. He stripped to pay for college. Women aren’t the only ones who do. He had hopes and dreams, and it’s safe to say he got sidetracked along the way.”

I had a father who saw shadows where there were none that left him unable to work more often than not. I had a mother who did her best, but that never translated to always getting dinner on the table. People always say education is your way of getting out. I was determined to make that true.

Hayley’s eyes are wide and they feel forgiving. “What were his hopes and dreams?”

“Not this kind of life, Hayley. I can say that much.”

I glance at the house behind me. It’s not something one would expect from a gigolo. It’s picturesque to the white paint and black shutters. From the actual white picket fence surrounding the land. It’s three bedrooms and two full baths. After walking around it once I paid for half upfront in cash. It’s how I got caught, funnily enough.

Before then whatever I made, I kept some and sent the rest to my parents. I lived well beneath my actual means. Ill-gotten gains as my handler liked to throw at me whenever I stepped out of line.

“But don’t feel sorry for me,” I add because I could see her gaze softening. “My father signed up to give his life for this country, and now at least he never has to worry about where his next meal will come from. My mother doesn’t have to work as hard anymore. Nothing could make me feel guilt for that.”

“You mean the man in this hypothetical?”

So. Stupid. With how much I like her. “Yeah, Hayley. That man. He finds that explicit consent makes his dick hard. Finds using woman distasteful, and it’s much more fun to have an open, honest discussion about all the things he can do to get a woman off.”

She scoffs. “You’re no saint.”

“Never said I was.”

She lifts the glass to her lips and drains it. Hayley looks at me and shakes her head. “You scared me.”

“For that, I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” her voice is hard. She puts up her hand as though my answer doesn’t matter. “I can understand the position you’re in. I do. Yet if the shoe were on the other foot, I wouldn’t have let you think you were about to die. So… I hope to never see you again.”

Does she have every right to be pissed? Yes. Still I grab her wrist before she can waltz by me. “Hayley,” I say, my voice low.

Her chuckle sounds raw, and sharp. “You scare me half to death and now you think it’s okay to touch me? To use that voice of yours like you’re promising sex?”

I tug until her hip rests against my chest. “I’m sorry. I mean those words.” I let that settle on the air before adding, “For the record, I’m not trying to make my voice promise anything.”

She lifts one brow, leans forward until her face is inches away. She smells like lemons and fresh laundry. I would have not considered that sexy until now. And it is as Hayley is a lip lick away from my mouth. I hold still. She hasn’t given me the go ahead.

Her gaze narrows. “As for the question you asked me in the hotel?”

Every part of me wants to close those inches, take her mouth, turn this moment into something heated until our bodies are slick. Hayley’s making a point, and given how I treated her I’m going to let her. “What question?”

“Did I like what I saw?”

That had been a rhetorical question. Her gaze, her flushed cheeks told me she had. I ask, “Is it too much to hope we’re about to do something sweaty and primal?”

She closes that inch and bites my lower lip. The banked need I’ve been holding back explodes inside my chest, and there’s shrapnel in it. Those sharp edges cut into me. I ball my hands to keep from cupping the back of her head and turning that nip into a kiss. She tastes of scotch and pissed-off woman. I fight to keep from delving my tongue into her mouth to get the full taste of her.

Hayley swipes her tongue over the indents I’m sure she’s left behind, and my heartbeat thuds in my cock. Images of us naked, greedy for each other fill my mind.

Her mouth lifts into a smile as though she can see exactly what I’m thinking. “Never,” she murmurs then pulls away. “You’ll never fuck me now.”

She straightens and I follow the movement like I’m a puppet on a string until I’m standing. Her glare is the only thing that keeps me from fisting her shirt and bringing her mouth back to mine.

“Don’t walk away.” My tone is hard, and I’m panting. I’m not sure if it’s from anger or need. Both emotions have stiffened my limbs.

“Or what?” The question is a challenge. “I’ll regret it?”

“I’m not threatening you.”

“Now.”

My lips continue to buzz from the brief contact of her mouth on mine. I’d like to believe it’s because she’s the first woman to touch me intimately when no money has exchanged hands. But Hayley has been an anomaly in my life since she walked into it.

“Let me drive you home, at least.”

“I’ll walk. You’ve done enough for the day.”

She’s right. There are no excuses or explanations good enough to overshadow how I made her feel. So I watch her disappear through my glass sliding doors. An ache burrows into my gut. I tell myself it’s because she’s the only person who knows the truth about me. I haven’t told a soul about the deal I have with the government. That’s kind of the terms. I tell myself it’s because I haven’t had sex that wasn’t paid for in…shit long enough I might consider myself celibate.

The only truth is I watch Hayley leave, and I don’t want her to go.

But I’m in no place to talk her into coming back, or staying or talking to me ever again. I pull out my phone. It’s time I call old friends and ask them about their cutthroat attorney connections, because if I’ve learned nothing else in the last six months, it’s that you’ve got to make your own luck.