you,” I tell him dismissively, rolling my eyes. His grip tightens in my hair as he tilts my head back.
“Men like me? Tell me, sweetheart, what do you know about men like me?” he purrs with an edge of violence in his tone that licks over my skin and makes me tremble, only it’s not from fear. There is something inside me that reacts to his dominance on a base level. The thought makes me want to both run and purr against him like a cat in heat.
“Men like you like to play with little girls like they are dolls, and when they break, and they always break, they get thrown aside for men like your friend last night to finish off.” Shit, I knew I had said too much the second it was out, but it’s too late now. His eyes sharpen at my words, his eyes on my mouth.
“So you do know what happened to Jimmy?”
I don’t answer, so he yanks my head back hard.
“I have zero interest in little girls, sweetheart.” He grins, pressing himself against me, letting me feel the evidence of his lie against my stomach.
“Yeah? So then tell me why your dick’s hard for a fifteen-year-old.”
He lets go of me so abruptly, I stumble. Dragging his eyes over me, he assesses me. I know what he sees, even starving to the point of malnutrition I have the body of a woman well beyond my years. Large firm breasts, flared hips, and a curvy ass all packed tightly on a five-foot-four frame.
“There is no way you’re fifteen, not with a body like that,” he argues. I just stare at him, with my hands on my hips. Which naturally draws his attention to them.
When he realizes I’m serious, he drops the cocky, seductive angle he was working and slips back into cold foot soldier mode.
“The boss wants to talk to you.” He crosses his muscular arms over his chest.
“And if I refuse?” But I suspect I know the answer already.
“It’s not a request. Besides, if by some sheer luck, you manage to slip away, I’ll just hunt down your little not friend, and she can take your place,” he taunts.
I twist my head, clicking my neck before nodding. “Okay, let’s go.”
My hands are cold and clammy, I’m still trembling, and I can feel sweat on my top lip, all signs that I’m scared, but it’s like my body knows something my brain doesn’t. I’m smart enough to know I should be experiencing a wave of terror, but it’s as if my mind just can’t tune in to that frequency. Maybe Clyde did break me after all, only in a way neither of us could have anticipated.
“I don’t know if you’re brave or stupid,” the guy mutters. I think at this point it’s safe to say I’m neither, yet both.
He walks beside me, his arm occasionally brushing against mine as he leads us out of the litter-strewn alley and down Acorn Drive to what looks like a bar of some kind.
There’s no sign above the door, just a green-painted banner with a four-leaf clover above the scratched dark wooden door. The windows are frosted, letting me know that the lights are on inside but beyond that nothing.
He pulls the door open and nudges me inside the dimly lit room.
It’s empty, which given how early it is, I’m not surprised. It seems strange, to me at least, that the door was unlocked. Unless, of course, someone’s expecting us or the person who owns this place is a deterrent all of his own.
We walk around the dark mahogany bar, down a short corridor housing the restrooms, toward what’s likely supposed to be a stock room. When the door is pushed open to show a large windowless room with row upon row of shelves filled with bar apparel, I know I had assumed correctly. It’s all neat and tidy, the only thing out of place is a massive wooden desk in the back of the room and the people behind it watching us enter.
A large fat man with small beady eyes sits in the chair behind the desk, which creaks under his weight as he moves. Wearing a green suede jacket and a pair of thick black glasses, he looks like a mean leprechaun, but I keep that information to myself. Flanking him is a tall thin man wearing a poorly fitted tan suit that’s too short in the leg and too wide in the shoulders and another man in