But I still missed that humidity.
I wondered if my friends had given up searching for me. I wondered if NYU had pulled my name out for semester and replaced me with someone else. I wondered if the police had given up their search and I was just another cold case. I’d been gone for two and a half months. That was a long time for a person to be missing. Everyone probably thought I was chopped up into tiny pieces in the harbor.
“I found a squirrel,” I explained to her. “I was just watching him.” I didn’t owe her an explanation, but I didn’t want her to think I was trying to slip away. I already did that once before, and I got my ass whooped. The sensation was difficult to understand because I both liked it and hated it. I loved how aroused Crewe was. I loved how he ate me out with a mouth that knew exactly what it was doing. But I hated the marks on my ass the next day. After applying ointment for a week, the marks finally faded away.
“I don’t give a damn what you were doing,” she said harshly. “Don’t cross me.” She looked up from her tablet and gave me a cold stare with her blue eyes. The black frames sitting on her nose made her look more intimidating than she already was. “I shouldn’t be out here on toddler duty.” She pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head. “With all the shit I do for that man, I can’t believe he would lower me to such a pitiful task.”
How did Crewe work with this woman all day, every day? She was absolutely horrendous. I’d never seen her crack a smile or make a joke. While Crewe was intense, he had a sense of humor. He smiled at some of the things I said. “In his defense, I said I didn’t trust his men, so he sent you.”
She sighed in pure frustration. “I think you should trust me even less.”
“You don’t look interested in women, so I think I’m okay.”
“There are worse things than being raped,” she said coldly. “I’m sure you know that by now. But then again, you’ve never been raped.”
The relationship I had with Crewe was wrong, but I didn’t necessarily see him as a bad person. When I said I didn’t want to sleep with him, he respected my wishes. Every time we were together, it was mutual. I admit I was here against my will, that I had to obey him even though I didn’t want to, but the sex was something I actually enjoyed. Being trapped here is the part I despised. “You hate me, right?”
“Absolutely.” She turned her gaze back to her tablet. “You’re just a distraction for Crewe. He has more important things to do than keep a pet all day.”
“Well…why don’t you just turn a blind eye and let me go?” She wouldn’t have to deal with me ever again. She wouldn’t have to look at my face or hear my voice. Crewe could go back to working at his full potential. “We both win.”
She looked up again, her eyes piercing through the lenses. “As much as I would love to do that, I’m very loyal to my employer. I’ll tell him to his face that he needs to either kill you or let you go. But I won’t go against his wishes behind his back. I respect that man a great deal.”
“Yet, you treat me like shit,” I pointed out.
She lowered the tablet in her lap, obviously finished with whatever she was doing. “I’ve made my feelings for you very clear. But Crewe defends your honor every time. He can be a gentleman in the most unexpected ways.”
For some reason, that meant a lot to me. Crewe had my back when I wasn’t even in the room. When one of his men grabbed me, he was there to protect me. When Ariel insulted me, he defended me. “He doesn’t make any sense. He has so many soft spots, but he can be so hard at the same time.”
“Crewe is a very complicated man. He’s compassionate because he’s suffered more than most. But he’s unsympathetic to people who don’t take control of their fate the way he did.”
I wanted to know more about Crewe and his past. This was the second time this had come up. “What happened to him?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. If he wants to tell you, he will.”
I was the only one in the dark. “Does Crewe still sleep with his regulars?” Crewe wouldn’t answer my question even though I’d asked him several times, but I still wanted an answer.
She narrowed her eyes, nearly offended. “Why are you asking me that?”
“You know everything about him, right?”
“I try to stay out of his sex life,” she said coldly. “None of my business.”