He turned his face to her and the urge to kiss her hit him again. Instead he nodded, grabbing her beer bottle, to feel it was close to empty.
“Want another?” he asked, standing.
She shrugged a shoulder. “Yes, please, seeing as I don’t have to work tonight.”
Fuck. He knew better than to assume she worked every night. Would he be able to stay away from her all night?
He slid the beer across the island to her.
“I can’t recount all the ways a man can clean me out, but in the case of Wycliffe—”
He scoffed. “His name was ‘Wycliffe,’ same as the rapper?”
Her hazel eyes glittered at him. “Yes. And as Suzy already pointed out, repeatedly, that should’ve been my first clue. Especially since he was white.”
He chuckled. “Sorry to interrupt. Please, carry on.”
“In his case, he started off slow. Pilfering cash from my wallet. Not that I often carried cash, which was why I didn’t always notice it going missing.”
“Run that by me again?”
“I’d grab my wallet thinking there should be a ten in it, but there’d be a one-dollar bill. I’d chalk it up to not remembering the last time I spent any cash, you know?”
“Not really, but I’ll go with it for now.”
“Yeah, then my debit card was gone.”
“You didn’t report it stolen?”
Her lips flattened and he knew she wanted to stop talking about it. Yet, she kept on.
“No. He offered to look through my purse for me, one last time, just to be sure.”
“That’s a red flag, woman.”
She gave him a sidelong look. “Thank you, Suzy junior. He would come up with my card and tell me it was buried at the bottom of the bag or slipped into a side pocket.”
Har nodded.
“Yeah, so turns out he’d gotten my PIN and would drain my account every so often.”
“How did you not know this shit? Don’t you keep up with your balance?”
“We were living together. He was ‘balancing the books,’” she said, raising her hands to do air quotes.
He turned his head so she wouldn’t see his outraged expression.
“Yeah, I know that was yet another red flag. Believe me, in hindsight the flags and signs were so prevalent I could’ve directed traffic.”
His head twisted back to her. “No. Were you in love with him? I mean, you wouldn’t let just any man balance your books, right? You loved him?”
Her face fell and she turned away. “Yeah. That’s what makes it so fucking awful.”
He reached out to turn her head back to him, but he stopped himself and put his hand on her shoulder. “No. It’s what makes that asshole a fucking scumbag.”
She looked at him. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, but thank you.”
“So, he skimmed your money, bit by bit?”
“Yeah, but he also took out lines of credit in my name.”
His eyes widened. “How the fuck did he do that?”
Her eyes closed as she shook her head for a moment. “He got my social security card. Even now, I have no idea how the fuck he pulled that shit off. But, what’s done is done. So, I got debt to pay off and that brings me to your fine city. I’d have moved to Vegas, but I thought I’d see if I do well here before heading further west.”
She’s not moving west.
Where did that thought come from, and why? Where she lived shouldn’t matter to him, but it did.
“Why didn’t the cops or the credit card companies wipe it clean? If you didn’t actually take out the cards or charge the shit, I thought they protected people against that?”
“I got most of the credit card debit cleared. When things went south, I had issues making rent and the landlord wasn’t lenient about that. If you’ve never fallen behind, you have no idea how hard it is to get back to even. Getting ahead seems like a mirage or some myth to people like me.”
“He fucked you two ways,” he muttered.
Her hazel eyes widened at him as she stared at him. “Seriously, Michael Walcott?”
“Am I wrong?”
She sighed. “No, but that’s not the point.”
Every word out of her mouth did something to him. Other women shared their sad stories and it was just another woman’s story. Hearing what this asshole did, he wanted to hunt the fucker down and make him pay her back.
He couldn’t get wrapped up in her problems.
Why couldn’t she be like other women he’d been around?
Any other woman, he could fuck her until the sun came up, making sure they both got off. Then he’d just send her on her way.
The idea of sending Stephie on her way left a sour taste in his mouth.
“Don’t you want to know the point?” she asked, jarring him.
That sounded like a trick question. He’d learned that lesson from both his mother and his sister. “Sure. What’s the point?”
“The point is, I’ve learned to never, ever trust another damn man in my life. I’m gonna conquer that mountain of debt, and I’ll do it on my own.”
He gave a curt nod because he didn’t trust himself. None of that sounded good to him. She shouldn’t have to conquer jack-shit that fucker laid at her doorstep.
He grabbed their plates and put them in the dishwasher. “There’s a recycling bin in the garage. You mind taking the dead soldiers out there? I’m gonna grab a quick shower and head to the clubhouse.”
She nodded and he went to his bathroom. His dick had been hard from the moment she called him by his first and last names, and that was when knew he needed to get off. The shower would cover part one of his plan, and with any luck there would be fresh pussy at the clubhouse to take care of part two of his plan.
Maybe fucking someone else would help him work her out of his system.
Chapter 7 Always Pay the Price
Stephanie
FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS, I had been staying with Har. Brute
