Page 6 of Glorious Sinner

And I sure as hell wasn’t taking about love.

Love made you blind, led you to places you were never meant to go. I knew, because that happened to me and I’d paid the price, was still paying for it.

Tomas had saved me, and he’d never asked for anything in return. But the first time he came in to Stilettos and tried to give me money—money I’d desperately needed back then—my pride that I’d been working so damn hard to get back wouldn’t allow it. I insisted on giving him something in return, and the only thing I had to give was me.

He’d agreed, even though I’d seen on his face that he didn’t want to. But he’d agreed all the same, because he’d pitied me. The shattered creature he’d rescued. And I hated that most.

Now I danced for him whenever he came in.

Tomas came in a lot.

I just knew I didn’t want to see the pity anymore, and every time I danced for him I hoped that day would be the day he’d see me as a woman and not the broken shell he found on that bathroom floor.

It hadn’t happened yet, and deep down I knew it wouldn’t happen, because I was an obligation to him. Nothing more.

I didn’t want to name what he was to me.

I leaned against the glossy black and chrome bar. He’d never made a move on me, not once. He didn’t want me that way. I knew that for a fact. It was hard to miss his lack of interest.

I should have been happy about that. Tomas was most definitely a destination I needed to avoid. I’d never make myself vulnerable like that again, but I had the horrible feeling that being with him, just once, was the only way I’d ever feel alive again.

Brent put a glass down on the bar in front of me, smiling when I jumped, jolted out of my thoughts. “All right, Steph?”

I forced a smile. “Yeah, of course.”

He slid the glass closer and tilted his head in Tomas’s direction. “You may as well take this over with you.”

As tempting as it was, turning and walking out wasn’t an option, and not just because I owed Tomas my life. No, it was because dancing for him made me feel human again.

And I needed that so damn much.

Curling my fingers around the glass, I braced and made myself turn. Tomas sat in one of the deep red leather chairs in his usual spot in the corner, and his eyes lifted to me as I strode toward him. I won’t lie—I put some extra sway in my hips as I got closer. Trying like I always did to break him, to break that controlled exterior. To get him to lose the pity I saw when he looked at me.

But Tomas Mendoza never lost control.

His dark gaze dropped, moving over my body, and I allowed myself the illusion, just for a moment, that he wasn’t just making sure I was okay, that the look in his eyes wasn’t simply one of concern.

That I was the one in control.

I walked right up and placed his drink on the table in front of him.

“Stephanie,” he said in that rough velvet voice.

God, when he said my full name like that my belly quivered.

I didn’t reply and moved in closer, in between his solid thighs. He was wearing black suit pants and a black shirt, the sleeves rolled up revealing his inked hands and forearms. His hands rested on his thighs, like they did whenever I danced. He had big hands, long fingers, scarred knuckles. I’d had dreams about those hands on me, those hands that had done terrible things, hands that had punished, and beaten, and tortured men who had stupidly tried to get in his way.

Hands that had saved me.

I slid my fingers over his broad shoulders and started moving my hips to the music, feeling the muscles under my hands bunch and shift.

I didn’t look into his eyes, I couldn’t. I spun away when I felt his gaze try to lock on mine, and bent forward doing my usual moves, flipping my hair, giving him everything I had, doing my best to poke the bear, to shake that iron control.

I danced the entire song for him, and as it was coming to an end I dropped lower, my ass grazing his groin…

Oh God.

I stilled, shocked.