Page 10 of A Ruthless Bargain
His jaw tightened. “Except then you checked up on me. And followed me tonight. So maybe not end of story, after all.” He dropped his hands to his sides, flexing them several times. If he was going for intimidating, it worked.
I stepped back again, hitting the wall behind me. The grit felt rough even through my shirt.
“Now I have to wonder again if you are working with my fugitive. Maybe this morning he did not give you the object I seek. But, perhaps, you are working with him.”
“No, no, I’m not,” I babbled, my hands flat against the wall, trying to guess if I pushed off and launched toward him, could I catch him off guard enough to escape? I certainly couldn’t fight him off. The tingle in my pussy made me question if I wanted to.
“I need you to tell me the truth. If you tell me where he is, then this ends here,” he offered.
“I don’t know who he is. I don’t know your fugitive. I don’t know what any of this is about,” I yelled, reaching my boiling point. Somehow, I’d stumbled into a nightmare today and it wasn’t ready to be done with me yet, but I’d had enough.
“I do not believe you.”
“You do not believe me?” My voice held a note of hysteria mixed with anger and disbelief.
“No.” He reached out a massive hand to tug on a lock of hair curling around my jawline. I gasped at the intimate gesture. “Perhaps I still need to take you down to the station for a proper interrogation.”
“No, that’s not necessary.” It was obvious where this was going, and conflicting thoughts of want and disgust churned in my mind. But like this morning, there was no way in hell I was risking my potential new job. He almost certainly wasn’t a federal agent of any kind, but since he had enough connections to know I’d called the US Marshal’s office, he could still cause me trouble. All I needed was for something to pop during my background check. Without income, I’d be homeless and defaulting on my student loans in no time. The worst-case scenario swirled around in my mind. I swallowed down bile and tried to ignore the memory of his firm but carnal touch. “Do you need to search me again?”
“Would you be so stupid as to have the item on your person while following me?”
“No, of course not,” I objected to the insinuation.
“You need to show that you are on my side another way. Show loyalty.”
Show loyalty how? By having sex in the alley? Fuck me. “Did you hear the words that came out of your mouth?”
“Yes.”
“After what I said before about abuse of power?”
“Yes. I fail to understand why you keep insisting that. We bartered. You cooperated—”
“Whatever,” I interrupted, waving my hand dismissively. I’d always had a big mouth, but this was pushing it. When they found my dead body, I’d be sure to leave enough clues so Sherry could track this shithead down. “I cooperated only because you didn’t give me a choice.”
“You always have a choice. This morning, you did. Now, you do.”
“Not really,” I said. Had this man never taken a sexual harassment seminar for work?
“It is simple,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “If you want to come down to the station.”
“You’re gonna take me down to the station?” If I was going to sass this mother fucker, then I’d go all in. “Which station would that be?”
His jaw tightening was the only physical reaction I saw.
“Which station, Marshal Smith?” I taunted.
He withdrew a cellphone from his inner suit pocket.
“No!” I threw a hand out as if to stop him, but kept space between us. He’d successfully called my bluff.
“Well, then?”
“Well, I’m not having sex with you in an alleyway,” I retorted.
My phone buzzed with an incoming text.
“Ignore it,” he commanded.