I scowled. “Didn’t you just come in the bathroom?”
He shrugged. “I can go all night.”
But I couldn’t. What was I thinking? Why did I believe I could satisfy him? He would be gone soon enough, just like he’d left years ago.
I shook my head. “You see, this is what I don’t understand, Ari. I don’t get it. How can you sit there so nonchalantly after what we did?”
“I said a prayer for him,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s more than the son of a bitch deserved.”
I yanked on my shorts. No way was I going to have this conversation with him naked. “Would it kill you to have a little remorse?” I lowered my voice. As if the walls would hear our conversation and report it to the police. “You took somebody’s life, Ari. Doesn’t that bother you in the least?”
“Not if he deserves it.”
“And you were made the judge, jury, and executioner of whether or not he deserved to die?”
He shrugged, and the sheet fell down one creamy — naked — shoulder. He rubbed that shoulder while looking up at me from beneath his lashes. The minx was toying with me, trying to have his way when I already made it clear I wouldn’t sleep with him tonight. Maybe not ever after all this.
Such a fucking pity. His body was made for pleasure.
“I gave him a chance to live, but he blew it.”
“You better start talking, Ari. What the hell happened?” If he wasn’t going to let it rest for the night, then he owed me trying to make me understand.
He dropped his gaze but remained silent.
“What happened last night?” I said as the incident popped into my head. “Rich insisted you were lying, that you invited him to-to have his way with you. Then you tried to make it look like an assault. Is that true?” He glanced up at me, his eyes too dark to read. “And for what you’ve gotten me engaged in, Ari, don’t you dare think about lying to me!”
His cheeks turned red. “Will you do that again?”
“Do what?”
“Use your shouty voice at me. It makes me feel good.”
What the…? I blinked at him several times. Sweet Jesus, he was getting aroused at me shouting at him.
“Did you lie about what happened last night? That’s the last time I’m asking you, Ari.”
He heaved a sigh as if I was bothering him with my questions. “Yes, I did, but only for payback.”
“Payback? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Rich doesn’t like to take no for an answer. I lured him home with the promise of sex. He wanted to fuck me so hard, tried to get me to do it with him in the back seat of his car, but I wanted you to hear us.”
“You set him up?”
He nodded. “Don’t look so repulsed by the idea. He deserved it.”
“You keep saying that, but I have no idea what it means.”
“It means that I wanted you to hear him not taking no for an answer so you could beat the shit out of him for touching me back in high school.”
I lost a bit of steam. “Rich touched you in high school? What’d he do?”
He hung his head, pulling his knees up to his chin. “It was after PE class. I hated being in the locker room with the others, so I always waited until they left before I changed and freshened up. When I walked out of the shower, Rich was there, his zipper down. He told me to suck his cock. He took a picture of me doing it and used it to blackmail me. PE class became torture. He would always be lingering after, demanding a blow job, and there was nothing I could do about it.”
The son of a bitch. Ambivalence weighed like lead in my stomach. What Rich did to him was despicable. No one deserved to be violated like that. And sure as hell not my little angel.
“I didn’t tell anyone.” He wiped tears from his eyes. “And when I went out last night, I saw him, and he acted like I should be grateful he let me suck his cock during high school. He hadn’t changed one bit, so I decided to teach him a lesson.”