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“This is weird,” I blurted out.

“What is?”

“This.” I gestured at the door, which was ridiculous, because he couldn’t see that either.

“This is the first normal conversation we have ever had.” I reminded him of a fact he must have known for himself.

“What can I say. I find myself in a talkative mood,” he said, and I wondered if he had shrugged his large shoulders before it.

“Any particular reason?”

“It may possibly have something to do with the best orgasm of my life.” I made an unattractive choking sound at that, struggling to swallow my own saliva.

“Oh, please,” I replied wryly, rolling my eyes.

“You don’t believe me.” He actually sounded surprised.

“I bet you say that to all of them.” I don’t know why I said that, as it sounded suspiciously like jealousy.

“Mm.” He took a pause, and I could hear him enjoying himself before he even said it.

“I believe you are still wearing the evidence of how much I meant it on your pretty skin, little bird.” I went scarlet in an empty corridor, because I was.

“I have had a considerable number of women,” he said, and the way he said it strangely didn’t sound boastful in the slightest. In fact, he almost sounded detached from the fact.

“And I’m not going to insult you by pretending otherwise, as I imagine you would know if I tried. But not one of them has ever been anything other than a way to pass an evening. I don’t…” He paused and this time it sounded strangely as if he was searching for the words, which I didn’t expect.

“I don’t do this. I have never once wanted to sit on the floor of a locked room afterward and ask somebody about their favorite anything, let alone want to actually know the answer.” And there it was. The thing that was going to finish me.

Not the threats, not the hands, not any of the four times. A question about a movie, asked by a man who genuinely wanted to hear what I said next…

Fuck, but I was in trouble here.

35

THE MAN WHO ASKS

ANNA

Okay, time to remind him of the situation and with it, myself.

“So, you want a relationship with me. Is that what you are telling me?” I asked in a dry tone, trying anything to mask how he had actually made me feel, because that had sounded awfully like a confession.

“If that is the word you want to use for spending my time with you, then yes. I suppose I do.” My mouth actually dropped at this before I decided now it was my turn to deflect,

“Or you just want an excuse to keep fucking me.”

He tsked.

He actually tsked, through a steel door, like a man disappointed in his pupil.

“I know exactly what you are doing,” he said, and I tried to take a steady breath, because now it was his turn to call me out on my bullshit.

“What am I doing?”

“You are trying to cheapen it. Because a man who only wants to use you is a man you understand, and you have a great deal of practice at that, I can imagine. Because that box is easier to put me in than the one called trust, and a great deal less frightening.”

Fuck! But I couldn’t breathe for a second. Damn him for seeing right through me.