“Please…please get off me,” I whispered.

“You bring Tia with you, I’ll keep her safe too.”

Oh God.

“You can’t, he won’t let her go,” I replied.

“Babe, he’ll have to get through me and all of my boys to get to you or her.”

“And all I have to do is sleep with you?” I asked.

“Well, no,” he answered.

“Does Tia have to sleep with you too?” I pushed, and his body went stone solid again.

Except maybe more stone solid, something I wouldn’t think was possible.

But it was.

“Babe,” he growled.

A warning.

Definitely.

I’d gone too far.

I also didn’t care.

“Okay, so then does Tia have to sleep with one, or, say, all of your boys?”

“Don’t do that shit. You know that’s not what I’m talkin’ about.”

“So maybe you’ll explain what you’re talking about.”

“I would, you shut your trap.”

I shut my trap and stared at his shadowed head.

He stared at mine.

Then he muttered, “Christ, need my head examined.”

“You could get off me,” I reminded him.

“Is this shuttin’ your trap?”

I shut my trap again.

“You take of care my house and my business as well as me.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means you move outta your apartment before they kick your ass out. You move into my house. You keep it clean. You keep me fed, that is, when I’m not feedin’ you, and I like to cook, so mostly, I’ll be feedin’ you. You come to work with me and take care of the office, and you go home with me.”

Wow.

Was he serious?

That sounded like…it sounded like…

My God, it didn’t sound like a sex-for-safety arrangement.

It sounded like a relationship.

“What?” I whispered.

“The office work, I pay you for,” he went on.

He’d pay me for it?

As in, a job?

“What?” I repeated.

“And give you a car since the repo men, babe, just gotta say, they’ll get yours before you get a chance to sort that shit out.”

Good God.

He knew everything about me.

“Do you know everything about me?”

“Everything from your master’s degree up. That foster care shit, no. We didn’t have the chance to dig that deep.”

“Why did you dig at all?”

“Toots, I knew he was gonna send you and you don’t go up against an enemy you don’t know. Word about you was all over the street. Anything on radar that may touch my Club, I find out about it.”

That made sense and it was thorough and protective. It kind of made me wish I had a club. Then again, I’d always kind of wished I’d had a club.

Buck kept talking.

“Clara, listen to me, I’m offerin’ you a home, a car, a job, protection for you and your girl and the opportunity to stay clean. Are you seriously gonna turn that down?”

Something occurred to me.

“Did you know that you’d…that you’d try…that we’d—?”

“Saw pictures of you, babe, lots of ’em. Can’t say they didn’t catch my interest but in the flesh…” He tugged my hair, let that finalize his point and moved on. “So no. I didn’t know you’d be where you are right now and I didn’t know I’d make that offer because I didn’t know the offer needed to be made. Though, considered an offer after our abbreviated twenty questions and definitely was movin’ toward it after you got smashed, chatty and seriously fuckin’ cute.”

I missed the last part, which was too bad, but it was because I was stuck on what he said earlier.

“So this is pity?” I asked, my voice rising again, and I watched him arch his neck back and listened to him sigh.

Once he’d done that, I listened to him mutter, “Fuckin’ hell.”

“Well?” I demanded.

It was then I watched him tip his head down and felt his eyes burning into me.

“Let me sum up,” he stated with unhidden, barely restrained patience. “You…are…fucked. You haven’t worked in nearly a year. You’ve come to the end of the money you had in your own account, as well as the end of the money you got when you hocked anything they left you with that had value. You haven’t paid on your car in six months. You’re three months out on rent. You were six, but the money you earned from Esposito caught you up, just not enough. You were served an eviction notice a week ago. Your three credit cards are maxed. You haven’t paid on them in six months either. They’re with collection agencies who are at your door so much, they could move in.”

Okay.

One could say he’d really, really looked into me.

And he wasn’t done.

“Your girl is unsafe and the only way to keep her safe is to accept death-defying errands for a sociopath. That is, until he gets tired of watchin’ you charm your way through badass bikers and psychopathic filth by wearin’ tight skirts, high heels and bein’ cute, and he decides to loan you out too.”

This, I had to admit, was a concern I’d had as well.

And…

Buck still wasn’t finished.

“Client one, my guess, Imran Babić, who hasn’t made public his reasons for lettin’ you strut away from him unharmed, but who I know likes blondes, tight asses and long legs. Client two, Breaker Walinksi’s boy, Bug, who was there when you strutted in and strutted out and has made public his interest in Esposito’s new piece of tail.”

Fabulous.

Buck kept talking

“Like I said, you need to start makin’ the right allies. Now, this is just my guess, but you walk outta Ace’s Dive without my protection, three things can happen. Esposito keeps usin’ you until he uses you up one way or another. Babić picks you up and has his fun with you. And babe, you’re cute, you may be able to get him to be your shield, but Babić does not like brown skin and Tia won’t be along for that ride. Or last, Breaker pulls you in for his boy, and Walinskis, they know and appreciate a fine woman. So they pull you in, babe, they like you, and they will, you ain’t ever gettin’ out.”

At long last, he finally stopped talking.

But I didn’t know what to say.

There was a lot there and none of it was good.

And regrettably, I had a feeling with all of it, he was right.

When I didn’t speak, Buck did.

“Or you pick smart. You pick me. You make the right ally. You work an honest job, you get honest pay. You get a ride you don’t have to hide from the repo man. You get your girl safe. And you and me, we enjoy what we gave each other four times before we had this chat and we keep enjoyin’ it until it isn’t so much fun anymore.”

It had to be said, I did enjoy what he gave me four times before we had this chat. I enjoyed it a lot. What made it more enjoyable was that he could give it to me four times. He wasn’t exactly sixteen. In fact, even Rogan, who was legendary, could only manage twice.

Definitely a point to ponder.

Just one to ponder when I wasn’t still inebriated.