Page 98 of Ruthless Creatures

“Oh, I care about it. I just don’t want to feel like you gave me a ten-million-dollar payment for services rendered.”

After a moment, he starts to chuckle. Short, silent chuckles that shake his chest. “What if I said it was only a fifty-dollar payment, and the rest was a tip?”

“If my wrists weren’t tied together, I’d smack you a good one, you jerk.”

He rolls me over and presses me against the mattress, smiling down at me, so handsome it hurts.

“Then I guess I’ll have to keep you tied up for good.”

“You have to let me go sometime. I still need to clean up that shoulder of yours.”

His warm eyes flare even warmer, until they’re smoldering hot. “I have a better idea. Let’s get cleaned up together. In the shower.”

Without waiting for a response, he rolls off the bed, picks me up, and carries me into the bathroom.

TWENTY-THREE

NAT

I always pictured the reality of shower sex being less like it is in the movies—glamorous, sensual—and more like two baby elephants rolling around awkwardly in a tiny kiddie pool as they’re sprayed with garden hoses: trunks flying, legs tangling, everything a chaotic, weird-looking mess.

Kage simplifies things by pressing me against the shower wall, pinning my arms behind my back, and fucking me standing up.

When the echoing cries of our pleasure have faded, he drops his forehead to my shoulder and exhales.

“I wish I’d met you years ago,” he murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to my wet skin. “You make me want to be a different man.”

The sadness in his voice tightens something inside my chest. “I like the man you are.”

“Only because you don’t know me well enough.”

He withdraws from my body, then turns me toward the warm spray. Standing behind me, he squirts a dollop of shampoo into his hand and massages it into my hair.

It feels so good, I’m almost distracted by what he just said.

Almost, but not quite.

“So start talking, then. What is it I should know?”

The sound of the water can’t drown out his sigh. “What do you want to know?”

I think for a moment. “Where were you born?”

“Hell’s Kitchen.”

Never having been to Manhattan, I don’t know much about its different neighborhoods. But I do know that Hell’s Kitchen isn’t considered high-end. “And you went to school there?”

His strong fingers massage my scalp, working the shampoo through my hair. “Yes. Until I was fifteen and my parents were killed.”

I freeze in horror. “Killed? By who?”

His voice gains a hard, hateful edge. “The Irish. Their gangs were the deadliest in New York then. The biggest and best organized. My parents were shot in cold blood in front of their butcher shop on Thirty-Ninth Street.”

“Why?”

“They missed a protection payment. One.” His tone turns deadly. “And for that, they were murdered.”

I turn around. Wrapping my arms around his waist, I search his face. It’s hard, closed off, and a little scary. I whisper, “You were there, weren’t you? You saw it happen.”