DEBT (14 page)

It wasn't my mattress.

I knew how my comforter felt, my sheets, the softness.

The comforter was too slippery. The sheets were too soft. The mattress just slightly firmer.

My eyes snapped open and confirmed my suspicion. I wasn't in my room or my bed; I was in Byron's room and bed.

"Relax, I'm not gonna fuck you," he said, his voice soft enough to take the edge out of that statement. He was standing off the side of the bed, shrugging out of his jacket then working the buttons to his shirt.

"I..."

"Need to sleep," he broke in, discarding his shirt on the floor and reaching for the belt at his waist, making my eyes dart away almost guiltily for having watched for as long as I had.

"I have a bed."

He didn't dispute that as he moved across the room and back into my line of vision. His pants slid down his legs, giving me a glorious, stunning view of his mostly-naked body from the side as he reached inside his closet. His boxer briefs did nothing to hide his firm ass, strong thighs, and the bulge of his cock. Half-hard, he had said earlier, and there the proof was half a room across from me. He pulled a pair of dark blue sleep pants out and slipped them on, covering up his lower half. But that didn't mean there still wasn't plenty to see. Byron's body was a testament to male perfection: long torso with cut muscles of his abs and obliques that led into the sharp cut V of his Adonis belt that disappeared into the low slung waistband of his pants. His chest was wide and strong, his shoulders and arms coiled. Every inch of him was proof that the man cared about his body the way he cared about his house, about his business, about everything. Meaning with an intense attention to detail and a fair bit of pride.

"True," he finally answered my former comment as he moved to the other side of the bed, pulling up the comforter and sheets and slipping under. "But tonight you're in mine."

"Why?" I asked, watching as he settled down low on his pillows, bringing one arm up to cock underneath his head. He turned on the pillow to look at me, his dark eyes a fathomless kind of deep that I felt myself almost pulled into.

"He's all you have."

"My dad?"

"Yeah, Mack. He's all you got in the world. You told me yourself. Tonight you drove a wedge there that's never been there before. Doesn't take a genius to see it gutted you, babe. You feel like you lost him. And in losing him, you lost everything. Figured maybe you shouldn't be alone tonight."

The words landed like a small bomb in my stomach, hitting, then detonating, exploding and rocking me to my very marrow. Because that wasn't who I was trying to believe he was. He wasn't a good guy. He didn't have a heart. He was cold, cruel, calculated, cocky, and manipulative. He was
selfish.

But right then, right there in his own bed, his dark eyes on mine, he wasn't that man. He wasn't the Byron St. James I had come to accept, and maybe even respect in a sick sort of way. He was giving, good, and kind. Not warm. A man like him could never be called that. He was cold. He was dark.

If my father was the sun and I was the moon, then Byron St. James was a complete lunar eclipse.

And as I lay there, I got a horrible, haunting realization: he was dark enough to make me seem like I shined.

And that was absolutely terrifying.

"I know I'm a fuck, Prue," he said, surprising me. "But I have my moments. Don't question it, but don't start expecting it either, yeah?"

I felt my head nod as I swallowed, already pretty sure it was too late.

See, the thing was, we women, we didn't need much. We could be five and a half feet deep in your filth, in your dark, and catch sight of the tiniest sliver of light that we could cling to. And then we did, with everything in us, clutching it to our chests and polishing it with the ends of our skirts, sure we could make it brighter, could expose more of it. Even though, deep down, we knew that the sliver was all there really was, that the rest was just more dark and filth and heartache. But that sliver was there. The sliver was proof of the potential.

And, women, well, we were always suckers for potential.

As I climbed under the sheets and curled up on my side, hands in prayer position under my face in Byron's direction, his eyes already closed, I was pretty sure I was just a big a sucker as the rest of them.

Because I wanted to see if I could make him shine.

It was pathetic.

It was not like me.

But as his chest started to rise and fall steadily, his face softer in sleep, I was sure the sliver wasn't just a sliver.

There was more.

If only I could find it.

ELEVEN

Prue

I woke up the next morning to the sound of a dresser drawer slamming closed. I didn't wake up disoriented, unsure of my surroundings. No, I woke up with absolute, soul-deep clarity. I was in Byron's bed because he had put me there because he thought I shouldn't be alone. Because underneath it all, there was a decent man.

And that decent man was standing in front of a dresser with a towel slung low on his hips, beads of water still clinging to his chest and abs from his shower.

Then he wasn't in anything at all.

He whipped off the towel, giving me a view of every last inch of male perfection.

And, yeah, well, let's just say a part of me really liked what I was looking at. But that part of me needed to keep her panties on because I was being a total creep. I shut my eyes, feeling my cheeks warm slightly.

"Go ahead and look, babe," Byron's voice said, casually distant, like it didn't bother him in the least that he caught me watching him change. I guess when you had a body like that, what did it matter? "You're gonna be getting intimately acquainted with my cock so you might as well get an eye full now."

"You seem pretty sure of yourself," I said, forcing my eyes to open despite my embarrassment, and pushing myself up in bed, clutching the sheets to my chest. He was still standing near the dresser, black boxer briefs in his hand, but still stark naked, watching me. At my words, his lips tipped up the barest bit as he moved across the room, skirting the bed to come up on my side. It was always intimate to see a man naked in the throws of it all, when hormones and feelings and want and need were coursing through your system. It was almost a whole other kind of intimate to see someone fully naked, confidently moving toward you, unashamed, not insecure. Like you had been seeing each other naked for years.

He shocked me when he reached down, snagged the sheets I was holding to my chest, and yanked them violently down, exposing me completely. The reason I was holding up the sheet? Yeah, because I went to bed fully dressed and I knew I was a wreck from sleep. Meaning my boobs were half out of their bra and spilling slightly over the top of the bodice and my skirt had hiked almost completely upward, exposing not only my thigh-highs and garters, but the lower portion of my panties as well. His eyes left my face, doing a slow enough inspection that every inch of me that he lingered on warmed at the heat in his gaze.

Then, without giving any sign of his intention, he was on the bed, his fists planted on either side of my hips, his body pressing between my legs, but holding his weight up off me. His eyes found mine, pinning them into place as he sat back on his heels, his hands grabbing my hips and yanking my body down so I was lying flat again. And, well, he wasn't just naked anymore. He was naked and hard. Then, suddenly, he was over me, his chest pressed to mine, his hips pinning me. And his cock slid to rest against the heat of me, making me buck up into him on a loud gasp at the unexpected contact. His eyes stayed focused on mine, watching every nuance for a long moment before rocking himself against me, the head of his cock hitting my clit with delicious precision, making my arms fly up and dig into his shoulders as I moaned.

"Yeah, I'm pretty fucking sure of myself, Prue," he said, knifing up off me and moving to stand beside the bed, his cock hard and straining upward, a bead of pre-cum at the tip and I actually felt an irrational, ridiculous, filthy urge to sit up off the side of the bed and lick it off. But before I could make a complete slutty idiot of myself, he moved away, giving me a view of his muscled ass as he walked back toward his closet, grabbed his suit for the day, and disappeared inside the bathroom.

Alone, I frantically shoved my boobs back into my bra and yanked my skirt down, doing my best to ignore the frantic throbbing between my legs. By the time all was set to rights, the door to the bathroom flew open again to reveal a fully dressed Byron who was just as attractive completely covered as he was fully naked. And, well, that was just unfair.

"Sheets, Miss. Marlow," he commanded, tucking in his cufflinks as he walked to the door.

With that, I was left alone in his room, in his bed, both turned on and confused. And maybe the tiniest bit offended. I mean... what the hell was that?

Honestly, I had just been teasing him.

If there was one thing I had realized over the events of the night before, it was that whatever was between me and Byron was inevitable. It was like an ocean. You could move away from the water and pretend it didn't exist. But that didn't stop the tide from crashing the shores every night. It was useless to deny or fight it. My body wanted him in a way I had never wanted a man before. More than that, there was a part of me, albeit a very stupid, very masochistic part of me, that knew it was starting to be more than that.

Maybe it was the way he saw through me when I would swear even if my exes came equipped with x-ray vision, they could never have seen beneath my shields. He called bullshit on things that I didn't even realize were bullshit until he brought it up. He showed me sides of myself I hadn't been aware of possessing.

All that and I barely knew him.

We didn't sit at night and bare our souls over cups of coffee.

We didn't have histories like old friends.

He could just look at me, just listen to a few words I said, and he got me better than anyone else I had ever known.

I thought my father was the best listener I had ever come across, but I was starting to see that I was wrong. Byron St. James was the best listener. Not necessarily because he listened to everything I said. Hell, half the time he cut me off. But because he
heard.

So... yeah.

That was where my head was as I stripped his bed then walked to my room to shower and change. The fact that I took an extra long time to make sure everything was perfectly shaved, well, yeah, that was my inner slut preparing for the inevitable.

I threw the laundry in and grabbed his coffee, going into the room with maybe a little bit more swing in my step than I usually had, prepared for his eyes to find me, to rake over me like they often did. But when I walked in, I found him on the phone, completely avoiding looking at me. With a shrug and only a small knock to my self-esteem, I dropped off his coffee and moved to take up my guard outside his door.

"Prue?" a male voice said from my side, making me jump. No one addressed me. I hadn't exactly gone out of my way to make friends with the other staff members. One, because I was sure I was out of there soon. Two, because making friends had just never been a strength of mine. So no one ever really spoke to me save for Byron and Ella when I happened into her kitchen. And, on an occasion or two, a guard but only because I had addressed them first.

I turned my head to see one of the guards, one I hadn't ever spoken to before, standing there in a suit looking at me. He was good looking. I swear everyone in his employ was attractive in their own kind of way. Even Ella, who was deep into middle age, was a looker with her long, curly brown hair, and huge doe-eyes. This guard was tall and wide with a former football player body, chestnut hair that he kept a little on the long side, giving him the look of perpetually needing a trim, and soft gray eyes. "Yeah?" I asked after a long second.

"You're with me today," he informed me, not bothering to make it sound like something he was pleased about. I didn't even get the slightest curve of a smile.

"Um. I'm sorry, what?" I asked, shaking my head slightly like I misheard him.

"Byron said he wants you out of his hair today. So you're with me."

Out of his hair?

Out of his hair?

After that little display up in his bedroom?

Oh, the bastard.

I exhaled hard enough for it to be considered a sigh, chastising myself for ever believing he could ever be anything but that. There was a nagging, annoying, clueless little voice in the back of my head that suggested that maybe Byron had a good reason for brushing me off onto one of his guards. But I told that voice to shut the hell up because, really, he had warned me the night before to not get my hopes up about him. And there I was- hoping like a fool again.

"What's your name?" I asked his back because he had totally just turned away from me and expected me to follow like a puppy. And, well, maybe I did that for his boss, but he and I were were on (almost) equal footing. I'd be damned if I just fell into line because he expected me to.

He turned back, looking annoyed at the question. "Matt."