Page 9 of Dirty Beasts: Chance

“So then what do you have to lose?”

“What is it you’re asking me to do, exactly?”

“Just stay.”

“Stay,” I repeat. “Just stay here, in this secret nightclub lair with you and your gang of over-testosteroned beefcakes?”

He snorts at that. “You’re funny.” His thumb slides over my lips. “Yes. I mean you, stay here, in my secret nightclub lair with my gang of over-testosteroned beefcakes, and our two kind, amazing, welcoming women.”

“Ourwomen, huh? You share them?”

He growls. “No.Ourin the sense that we’re protective of them, even if they aren’t actuallyoursin that sense.” He shakes his head. “You have a way of twisting shit, Annika, you know that?”

No one has ever been protective of me. Wonder how that feels.

“And then what?” I ask. “I stay here, and then what? Or that’s it, I just live here in this underground prison and I never leave?”

“And then we sort your shit out.”

“We. Meaning you and me?”

“We meaning whoever it takes.”

I shake my head. “Sort my shit out. Just like that? Just fix all my problems?”

He shrugs, nods. “Sure. All problems can be solved.”

“Not all.” I look away from him. “Not mine.”

“All.” He gets closer yet, towering over me, gazing softly down at me, like he sees something when he looks at me—something other than what I am. “Even yours. No matter what they are.”

“Fuck you,” I whisper. “You don’t know the first fucking thing about meormy problems.”

He reaches up and curls a springy tendril of my hair around his forefinger—for reasons I’m not entirely certain of, I seem to allow it. “I know you’re a fighter—a survivor. I know you’re an athlete. Or, you were. I know that vile little shit you came with has you by the balls, metaphorically speaking. I know you know it’s only a matter of time before he starts demanding shit you clearly refuse to give.” He’s not done. “I know you’re fucking gorgeous—you took my breath away, literally, the first time I saw you. I know you’re scared out of your goddamn mind but too stubborn and too proud to ever admit it, to yourself let alone me.”

“Joke’s on you—I’m fucking terrified.”

“Of what?”

“Alvin.” I shake my head. “Not even really him, but what he represents. Who he is and what he does.” I swallow hard. “And what my debt to him says about me.”

“Addiction,” he murmurs. “You’re an addict.”

I flinch as if struck—because it feels like being struck. “Like I said—not all problems can be solved.”

“Look at me, Annika.”

I shake my head, stubbornly refusing to do so. “Save your breath, Chance. I’m not looking for some hero to fucking swoop in and fix me.”

“Well, that’s a good news bad news situation,” he says. “Good news is, I’m not trying to be a hero who swoops in and fixes you. Bad news is, I can’t fix you. No one can fix you but you.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be fixed,” I lie through my teeth.

He just laughs. “Never bullshit a bullshitter, Annika.”

“So you’re a bullshitter, then.”

“Absolutely. I’m a bullshit artist of the highest caliber.” He smirks. “I’m not bullshitting you, now, though.”