“Only B3.”

“Where you keep your stock.”

He kissed my shoulder. “Yes. Has Cade tried staying at your apartment again?”

I blinked at the swift change of subject. “You have an obsession with Cade.”

He squeezed my hip. “Answer the question, baby.”

I was tempted to be evasive about it, but it didn’t seem worth it. “No, he hasn’t.”

“And what will you do if he does?”

I sighed. “I already agreed that I’d either drive him home or call him a cab.”

He kissed me. “That’s my good girl.”

Abruptly, I was rolled onto my back. I frowned. “What are you doing?”

He hovered over me and then slid down my body. “Rewarding you.”

The first swipe of his tongue between my slick folds made my eyes fall closed. Damn, the guy was good.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It seemed that Blake truly had heard me loud and clear about the importance of real advanced notice, because he contacted me on the following Thursday morning to arrange a meeting for the next evening. Again, he’d booked a themed room. This one, to my utter surprise, was set up like a small gym. As he fucked me hard on the weight bench, he’d told me—no, complained to me—that I kept popping into his mind whenever he was doing a workout.

We also met up on the Saturday evening, and I laughed my tits off when he ushered me into a room that was set up like a private hospital room. But I soon stopped laughing when he started playing doctor and demonstrated just how well he knew my body.

Although it had been yet another fun weekend, I hadn’t been able to fully relax. Ricky Tate still hadn’t resurfaced, and that made me nervous rather than relieved. Part of me always seemed to be holding my metaphorical breath, waiting for him to reappear. By the time Friday once again came around, he still hadn’t reappeared.

I met with Blake in the basement on Friday, but he had “business to sort out” on Saturday evening. Bastien was also busy that night, so Sarah had her evening free. She and I still went to the Vault and spent most of our night on the main floor, though we did go up to the burlesque floor for a little while. It just didn’t seem worth going to another club when none beat the Vault.

By the end of the night—or by two in the morning, I should say—Sarah was absolutely shitfaced. That might have been what inspired her to call Bastien and tell him how awesome she thought he was. He was so worried that she was too drunk to get home safely that he had Greg—the guy who escorted Laurel out of the club—to take us home. Sweet, right? Well, I’d thought so … right up until Bastien told me that he’d be informing Blake how we drank ourselves into such a state. What were we, fourteen?

I’d been geared up to tell Blake that I was a grown woman thankyouverymuch … but he hadn’t called. Not that night; not at any point over the weekend. Yeah, I’ll admit, it did bother me that he didn’t seem to care the way Bastien had. And it bothered me that it bothered me. It forced me to face something I’d been happily ignoring. I liked Blake Mercier. Liked him, liked him. A fuck of a lot.

It didn’t make sense to me. How could you like someone so much when you didn’t really know them? Maybe it was simply the case that it was easy to like someone when you hadn’t seen every side of them. Whatever. I didn’t know for sure.

In any case, I wasn’t at all comfortable with the realization that I liked him so much. Especially since it meant that it was only a matter of time before our arrangement didn’t … fulfil me as much due to it being, well, an arrangement. It wouldn’t be enough for me. And bitterness could then creep in, spoiling what little we had. Blake didn’t want emotional attachments, and I couldn’t be mad at him for that because he’d been clear about it from the very beginning.

All things considered, I had two choices: end our arrangement to save us both any later drama, or stick around in the hope that something might change on his part.

I knew what I wanted. I wanted to know more about him. Wanted to fill in the blanks. Not give up and walk away without at least trying to work out whether it was him I liked or just a fantasy I had of him.

But what I wanted and what was best for me weren’t always the same thing, which meant I had a whole lot of thinking to do. And I did, in fact, do a lot of thinking as the days went on.

When Wednesday came around, I went to visit Clear at work. She’d asked me to stop by on my way to the bar just to check in with her. I knew she was nervous about the Ricky Tate issue, even if he did seem to have done a disappearing act. She wanted to believe that he was genuinely gone—after all, his first period of harassment had been short and sweet, and it had ended rather abruptly.

“He probably got bored of trying to scare you when he realized it wasn’t working,” Clear said quietly as we stood in the computer suite of the library. The only other sounds were fingers tapping at keyboards, the whir of the printer, and the hushed talk coming from the group of students. “Or maybe he just couldn’t be bothered trying to get around your security.”

I highly doubted that either of those scenarios were true. No, I figured he was keeping a low profile in the hope that I’d think he’d backed off and I’d then drop my guard. But as I took in her pale face, restless fingers, and the skin bunched around her eyes, I said, “Maybe.”

She gave me a pleased smile, and a little of the tension left her. “I talked with your dad about it on Saturday. He agrees with me.”

No, he didn’t. But he’d told her what he knew she needed to hear, just like I had. I’d received a letter from Michael a few days ago, advising me to be vigilant and not to underestimate Ricky. “Tate might be rash and immature,” Michael had written, “but that doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous.”

He was probably right on that. “I have to leave or I’ll be late for work,” I told Clear.

“Okay.” She pulled me into a hug. “Love you, sweetheart.”

“Love you, too.”

As I walked out of the library and down the steps to the parking lot, the scents of books, dust, and leather were replaced by exhaust, wet pavement, and mowed grass.

“Miss Lyons!”

I tensed, recognizing the voice. Shit. Ignoring Linton, I kept on walking toward my car. Hearing the thump of heels on the pavement, I groaned. He’d obviously been sitting out here, intending to leap on Clear when she finished work.

“Miss Lyons!”

I glanced over my shoulder in time to see him almost bump into a handicap parking signpost. “Don’t waste any more of our time, Linton.”

Catching up to me, he said, “I was hoping you’d have coffee with me.”

I sighed. “You may have so much time on your hands that you can afford to sit outside a library and watch the minutes tick by, but I don’t.”

“I’m not a bad guy, you know. I’m doing my job; that’s all.”

“Good for you.” Nearing my car, I swore under my breath as I saw how close someone had parked theirs to mine.

“I suppose you’re used to dealing with people like me, wanting to know about Michael Bale and your relationship with him.”

I snatched the flyer that had been stuck under my windshield and crumpled it up. “The others were smarter than you, if I’m honest.”

“Smarter?”