Page 20 of Ruthless Sinner
Johnson nodded. “I understand your frustration, Lancaster, I really do. But I want you to understand this isn’t coming from me, this is coming from somewhere and someone much higher up than I am. I’ll do what I can but I need you to really get me something, something solid, and soon. Understood?”
“Of course, sir.”
Johnson finally sat down on the couch. “All right. I’m here, I paid for the whole damn night, you might as well tell me everything personally.”
“It’s mostly all in my reports, sir, but sure.” I sat down as well, struck a casual, chit-chat kind of pose just in case we were being watched—because all some men want was “someone to talk to”—and explained.
I sure as hell didn’t tell him about how good the sex was, though. Or how there was a deep personal meaning behind each of Marco’s mouthwatering tattoos. Or how fun and playful he was, how he made me laugh and seemed eager to respect me, to prove to me that he was as smart as I thought he was.
Those facts I kept to myself.
Maybe that’s when I should’ve realized what was happening to my heart. But of course I didn’t. I was too blind to see it. And even if I had… what could I have done differently?
Absolutely nothing.
CHAPTER9
Marco
When I showed up that night, I was ready to go. I was all set to pay for Kennedy, and I figured we’d have some fun in the Swan Room before I took her for a ride on my motorcycle. She’d never outright said anything about it but I’d seen the way her eyes gleamed whenever she caught sight of my bike, and I had some plans for her involving it.
Someveryfun plans.
But when I got there and asked to pay for Jewel for the night, the bartender shook her head. “A big spender came in and paid for her. She’s with him right now in the Peacock Room.”
My throat went dry. “She’s what?”
The bartender shrugged. “She’s gotta pay her bills, man. You don’t own her.”
Few people could get away with talking to me like that, but the person who made my cocktails was one of them. “I know that,” I growled, irritated. “I just… never mind.”
My stomach twisted with heat, and my heart clenched. I’d never felt like this before. I’d never been the jealous type. Why would I care who else a woman slept with? Usually I was finished with her by that point anyway.
But I wasn’t finished with Kennedy. And I didn’t want her to be with anyone else, even if it was just for money, I wanted her to be only with me.
I sat there, staring at the girls dancing on stage but not seeing them. The other men in the club gave me a wide berth, no doubt noticing my dark mood. I didn’t know what to do with this.
What could I do?
After an hour of waiting, I went home. Fuck.Fuck. This wasn’t good. I couldn’t fall for someone, could I? That wasn’t the kind of guy I was. I loved ‘em and left ‘em.
Except…
When I got home I pulled out my phone—what Vincent called my dating phone, the one I used for women and social shit, not the phone I used for family business. I had a folder on it that was just dating apps, over two dozen of them. I hadn’t logged into them once since sleeping with Kennedy.
I scrolled through my contact list. Dozens of women, all of them with gorgeous photos as their icons—photos I’d taken of them when they were in my bed and I asked them to pose for me.
I didn’t want them. Any of them. I didn’t want to find someone else, whether it was at a bar or a strip club or a party or an app or, hell, a damn coffee shop. There was only one woman I wanted, and I didn’t even have her number.
I wanted Kennedy.
Somewhere, without knowing why, Vincent was laughing at me. I’d given him a real hard time about his girl Marla, making jokes when Vincent had insisted he was in love with her and wanted to marry her for who she was. Vincent wasn’t sentimental and he wasn’t soft, what the hell was he doing marrying Marla Preston for? There had to be some ulterior motive, even as he insisted there wasn’t.
Now the shoe was on the other foot and I was sitting here in my fancy apartment, for the first time in my life pissed that a woman was with someone else.
Selfishly, I hoped he was ugly and bad in bed. I hoped he was a two-pump chump. The idea that she could like another man more than she liked me, even if that man was just a customer, filled me with dread. I knew I was being childish and ridiculous, but I also couldn’t make it stop.
Thank fuck that Toby, Vincent’s right-hand man, gave me a call before I could do something stupid like give myself alcohol poisoning from my personal bar.
