Lies & Lullabies Read Online Free Page B

the door, and found the guard standing in front of it, blocking my exit.  
    I closed the door in the guard’s face and slammed my back against it. My body reminded me of the stitch in my ankle and made me wince. “I’m not looking for a job. I work for myself, and it’ll always be that way.”
    A disbelieving dark brow raised his forehead. “Do you have an aversion to authority, or do you think I mean to impede on your sense of free will?”
    I hesitated and broke my act for a second, despite wishing I could continue pretending to be a tough girl. It mattered little what spilled out of my mouth shortly after.  
    He knew he’d guessed correctly and it was written in the smugness etched into his smile. “If I’m correct about your concerns, you’ll only have one boss: me. You’ll be protected, and you won’t have to resort to doing this”—he gestured toward the door— “to get the excitement you’ve been seeking.”
    “Maybe I do this for shits and giggles? Maybe I don’t need it.”
    “Everyone needs something, Sugar.” Gleaming with a ferocious and almost tangible focus, his eyes locked me in place. “You didn’t hear me correctly. What I said is you’re resorting to it, and it’s not due to your need of it.”
    “What makes you think I don’t need it?” I asked, playing a game of circles with words.
    The man never released the intensity, even when he smiled. “How many matches have you had?”
    “Five.”
    He nodded, digesting the information. “I can tell a lot about you from the way you presented yourself in the ring. I can tell you don’t belong and you’re putting your life unnecessarily at risk. Consider me an invested party who wants to get you off the streets and keep you off them.”
    I snorted, wondering if this guy was serious. The golden ticket had to lead to hell; it wouldn’t have looked this enticing if it didn’t. The devil was cloaked in beauty to entice the sinner, and he was birthed from a pool of the devil’s temptations. “And what do you want me to do for you?”
    “It’s not necessarily what you can do for me, but what I can do for you. One of those many things doesn’t include an arena.”
    My gaze skirted over the dents and peaks shown through his T-shirt and jeans. “I get it. A lot of the guys get turned on by watching the girls fight. Some guys want their fantasy fulfilled because they’re all hot and bothered after the fight is over. Some of the arena girls are into that for the extra cash. I’m not.”
    The muscle wrapping around the prominent jawline twitched. The drapes of disapproval came down across his eyes. He obviously didn’t like the word no, exactly like someone else I knew and could’ve gone to my deathbed having never met.  
    “If I wanted to fuck you,” he began, dipping fully into the quiet but cruel, “I wouldn’t pay for it, and I wouldn’t need to arrange a private meeting with you in order to have it. I could’ve easily fucked you inside my car shortly after we met. It’s not what I want. The beginning of our relationship will be of a less…” He paused for a second. A smile soaked in deviance contorted his mouth. “…Sexual nature.”
    Less sexual but not completely platonic? Mr. VIP’s way of dancing with his words made my head throb. “Yeah. Okay. Not buying what you’re selling.” I pointed over my shoulder to the door with my thumb. “Can you tell your muscle to move when I open the door? I need to get the fuck out of here.”
    He brushed past me. The crisp scent of his cologne swarmed my senses with a soothing warmth. I inhaled it and closed my eyes to appreciate the decadence of his scent. The kind of scent that made a woman sink her nose into his pillow after a night of sweaty, animalistic sex.
    The door was no longer obstructed by a mass of muscle. I made a start for the exit only to be stopped by Mr. VIP extending his hand across the doorframe.
    “When you change your mind…contact me.” He moved his