“You might want to text her,” he said, but I realized I didn’t have my phone. I’d tossed it on my bedroom floor in my hurry to see Lucah.
“Use mine,” he said when he realized I didn’t have mine. I texted Sloane that it was me using Lucah’s phone and that we were busy making up. She just texted back a bunch of really suggestive emoticons. I deleted the text before giving the phone back to Lucah.
We’d made up, we were on the same page about wanting to be together, but now the question was how the hell that was going to work.
“So are you done with what you needed to do now?” We’d avoided this topic for the most part. I also hadn’t asked him if my Dad knew. I just couldn’t go there yet.
“Yes, I am. So that means I’m supposed to sever all ties, get rid of my cell phone and disappear without a trace.” My heart jumped into my throat for a second.
“But that’s not what you’re going to do. Is it?”
He looked at me as if I had lost my mind.
“Did I not just spend the entire night telling you that I was never leaving you again? You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried. You’re stuck with me.” He was still inside me, so technically this was true at the moment.
“But what about your job? Your corporate spy job?” I liked thinking of it that way.
“I’m not a corporate spy. I’m a freelance corporate investigator,” he said and finally pulled out.
“But what about it? How . . . how is that going to work?”
“Well, it’ll work because I’m going to quit. I’ve been tired of doing it for a while, but the money was too good and I didn’t have a reason to stop. Now I do. You.” He tweaked my nose and I willed myself to believe it was true.
“Really?”
“Really with extra really on top.” It couldn’t be that easy. He’d done so much to hide this from me and it was all working out too easily.
“You’re just going to give up your job? Just like that?”
He nodded and snapped his fingers.
“Just like that.”
“So you’re going to give up your job and stay here in Boston with me.”
“If you want me to.”
Well of course I wanted him to. I wanted to move in with him and then someday get married and make ginger babies. I saw it flash in my mind and I could picture it for the first time in my entire life. When I’d thought about my future when I was younger, I’d always pictured myself in an office with a beautiful desk. I’d never dreamed of wearing a wedding dress. Not that I didn’t imagine getting married, but the pictures were always blurry and hazy, and there was never a guy.
Love made you picture your wedding with the man you were lying in bed with, and it felt right.
“So it sounds like you need a job, Mr. Blythe,” I said, moving some of his hair out of his face. It was all over the place and f**ked to perfection. Mine was probably pretty spectacular as well, but it didn’t matter in the slightest.
“I do need a job, Miss Clarke.”
“Well, I don’t know of any place where there are any available jobs, so I can’t help you out with that,” I said with a completely serious face. “So I guess you’re shit out of luck, Lucah Blythe.”
“I guess I am. Maybe I’ll become a gentleman of leisure. That would be quite pleasant.” That brought up another question.
“Do you have a lot of money?”
“Sunshine, don’t you know you’re not supposed to ask people that?”
I didn’t answer and just waited for him to confirm or deny. His apartment was better than mine, and he had the very best tailored suits and his watch was definitely not cheap. Nothing about Lucah was cheap.
“Yes. I have a lot of money. Probably not as much as you do, but yes. I have a lot for someone my age. I could do without a job for a while and still maintain my lifestyle. But I’d rather work for my money. I was born with nothing, so everything I have, I worked for.”
I suddenly felt cold. I didn’t think he meant to imply that I’d had everything handed to me, but in the back of my mind, a little voice told me he did.
My face must have fallen.
“Oh, Sunshine, I didn’t mean you. You’ve worked hard to get where you are. Yes, you have had advantages other people haven’t, but it would have been so easy to just rest on your laurels and coast. You didn’t.”
“What does that mean? Is a laurel a plant? Why would that be a good place to rest?” I said, completely derailing what he was trying to say.
“I have no idea, but did you hear the rest of what I said?”
“Yes, I did. Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“You’re welcome.”
It was officially morning and it was officially time for me to get my butt to work.
“I have to go to work. So I’m guessing you’re not going to be there with me?”
“I can’t. It would raise too many questions. Until arrests have been made, which should happen in a week or so, I have to vanish. My desk will be cleared out and there will be no trace of me. So. I will be here waiting for you when you get back.”
I started to pull away from him, but he wouldn’t let me go.
“Um, I need to go to work. You have to let me go.” His arms didn’t budge.
“One last kiss.” I let him kiss me, but then his hands were going in places that weren’t going to allow me to leave the bed, so I pinched his nipple and twisted and he yelped while I made my escape, diving for the shower before he could catch me.
I jumped in and a second later he joined me.
“You’re not going to let me go to work, are you?”
“No, I will. I just want to savor my last few minutes with you, and I’d like to savor your body and those sounds that you make when I touch you,” he said, using his hands to follow his words.
“I’m terrible at saying no to you,” I said, bracing myself on him as he pushed a finger and then another inside me, and used his thumb against my piercing. The water wasn’t the right temperature, but I couldn’t adjust it. I also needed to wash my hair, but, whatever. My brain shut down and I just thought with my body.
“Come for me, Sunshine.” Oh, well, if you insist.
I came apart around his hand and he laughed.
“You’re not letting me go, are you?”
“Never.”
34
I was late, but I did make it to work. Before I’d left, Lucah had coached me on what to tell people when they asked why he wasn’t there. The story was that he had called me and quit. No reason, no notice. I was to tell everyone that he was gone and not coming back and I didn’t have any other details than that. It seemed simple enough, but lying almost never was. I was also going to have to see Dad and figure out if he knew, and if he didn’t, how I was going to lie to him about it.