Page 12 of Hitch
Hunt?
My hands moisten. I wipe them against my thighs. “Excuse me?”
“The chase. The challenge. I enjoy forcing my way between a woman’s legs. Making her take me, even when she fights it.”
My stomach clenches, and I suck down that desire, pretending it doesn’t exist.
“It doesn’t explain what I saw,” I whisper.
“What you saw was a trick of lighting,” he says, a slight smirk on his lips. But it’s a lie, and we both know it.
“What was it, then?” I ask.
“Halloween prop. My housemate likes to go all out on these things.”
The corpse’s lifeless eyes taking in the starry sky fill my mind. It was like she was trying to warn me that I was going to be next if I didn’t do something about it.
And I didn’t do anything.
I glance down at Duane’s holster, wondering if he’d notice me stealing his gun this time.
But maybe the bodywasa prop. Maybe that’s why I let Duane fuck me—because I knew it wasn’t real. Because my gut instinct held onto the fact that Duane wanted to fuck memorethan he wanted to kill me. That in some strange way, he was protecting me.
The song changes, and though I should dance—that’s why Duane is technically paying me—I don’t move. There’s a knot inside of me that is frozen in place, too wound up to move.
Because this is a trap, and I don’t know how to get out.
“Needs,” I say, repeating his words, straightening my fingers at my sides. “So you want a sex worker?”
“Something like that,” he says. “Though I prefer to call it what it is. A beneficial arrangement for both of us.”
There’s a gleam in his eyes that unsettles me, like he can smell my pussy getting wet already, and that he knows it’s all for him. And I hate that he’s right. I hate that Ilikedevery depraved thing he did to me. How my shorts strained against my skin as he thrust inside of me. How his eyes rolled into the back of his head, like he wasn’t sure if he was about to come or about to die. How he needed me in a feral way, like no man has ever wanted me.
I swallow down that self-hatred, knowing that it’s for a good cause. If he’s here now, then there’s a reason, and I’m going to make money from it.
But still, I can’t help the nerves from bubbling up, like I’m missing some other piece to the puzzle.
“You don’t have a girlfriend?” I ask. “I’m sure there’s someone who likes to fight, just like you like to conquer.”
“I’m looking at her.”
My knees loosen, every part of my body weak. Our eyes meet again, and I rub the back of my neck, trying to stay calm. He thinks I want to be conquered?
No… HeknowsI do.
Why does he undo me like this?
“I don’t have time for a romantic relationship,” Duane says, breaking through my thoughts. “Love is an emotion. It’s not real.”
I can agree with him on that. Some people argue that love is an action that you commit to doing for someone else, but when your dad walks out on you and your mom, leaving you with nothing, you learn that most people don’t care what love is. Once it fades, it’s gone.
Which is part of why I was a sugar baby for so long. Real love was never in the cards for me. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to Duane in the first place. In the back of his truck, we saw each other for what we were—bodies to be used, nothing more.
“So, sex is a transaction, then,” I say.
“And that’s what we want. Sex,” he says. “I want to be honest with you, Hitch. I’ve got money, and you can either split it with the house here,oryou can take the profits for yourself. I’m sure you’ve got something you want to pay for.”
My mom’s car broke down a week ago, and I’ve been paying for her rental while it gets fixed. She thinks I’m a real estate agent.
