Sloth (Sinful Secrets #1) (23 page)

God, my awkwardness is so obvious. I glance around the room, and when I’m brave enough to look at Kellan, he’s smirking. This one is curved upward at the corners, as if he thinks I’m funny but has something against the act of smiling.

“Truman’s not allowed in here. He knows it.”

“Aw, that’s kind of sad.”

Again, that smirk—but this time it seems pained. “You like him.”

“I’ve always been obsessed with hounds, and Truman is like... a proto-hound.”

Kellan laughs. At least it should have been a laugh. He turns it into a weird, low laugh-cough thing, covering his mouth with his hand and shaking his head.

“Bow wow WOW.” I lift my brows coyly and get a real laugh. It’s just a raspy huff of air, but it’s a laugh for sure. I beam proudly.

As the smile slips from his face, he sticks his hands in his pockets. His eyes move over me. They’re deep and blue, round and serious, and just as quickly as they move down me, they shift away. He looks to the floor, although there’s nothing there. It’s as if he
needs
to get his eyes off me.

I’m scrambling for a way to draw him out again when he turns and starts walking down the cement aisle.

My stomach flips, and all the giddiness I felt comes crashing down.

Did I do something wrong?

I stare at his back, and all I can think about is rushing after him.

I’m not insane, right? That
was
weird.

Yes, of course it was weird. Twenty-one years of being female lets me know why, too. I shake my head. If Kellan Walsh didn’t just now get scared off because he felt too close to me, then I’m a monkey’s auntie.

My stomach clenches as I remember what his friend said—Manning. About how Kellan doesn’t trust people.

I watch him moving down the cement aisle between the plants. He’s probably thirty feet away by now. The angle of the lighting has him looking slightly shadowed: a lone figure defined mostly by big shoulders and a broad back. I watch him stop, pull some leaves into his hand and bring his nose down to them. I watch him as he crouches down to touch the soil.

If I stare hard enough, will he look back at me?

A less confident Cleo would start feeling insecure now. Like she’d overstepped some invisible bounds. Like she’d been too obviously
trying
. I take a deep, slow breath and tell myself this Cleo is beyond that.

I walk slowly, at a steady pace, toward Kellan. I tell myself that I’ll be patient. Wait him out. I’ll be living with him, so I can watch him. I’ll find out what makes him tick. Why laughing at my stupid joke made him clam up like he’d just confessed some deep, dark secret.

I notice my hands are in fists. I loosen them and flex my fingers. I need to take this thing with him one moment at a time. I can do that. If anyone knows the tenets of mindful living, it should be Cleo Whatley, future art therapist.

I practice as I move. Listening to the sounds of the room: fan blades spinning, and their echo through the large space. The smell of the plants: bitter yet sweet, like fresh-cut garden weeds mixed with some kind of citrus fruit. The warm, heavy air on my cheeks and arms. I redirect my mind from Kellan by looking at the plants. Noting which ones are tall, and which ones smaller. I note the names of various strains of marijuana as I pass the plant-filled platforms.

VIOLET VIPER. KILLER CROCK. APPLE ASTEROID. By the time I reach GRAVE YARD DAISY, I’m feeling calm again. I pass THE BIG SLEEP and am pretty sure I’ve found a pattern in the plant names. I nod to myself as I remember SILENT STALKER. All the names are morbid.

Curiosity slings through me. I thought marijuana was a happy thing.

By the time I catch up to Kellan, he’s at the front left corner of the room, just a few feet from the door through which we entered. To the right of the door is a slab of corkboard countertop, stretched under a row of cedar cabinets. His luscious back stretches as he reaches into one of them.

I stand behind him as he fiddles with something inside the cabinet.

“Hey,” I murmur.

He turns to look at me, lifting his brows in acknowledgment. His mouth is twisted, like he’s irritated by whatever he’s trying to do.

“Having trouble?”

He shifts his weight, leaning over the counter as his muscular arm fishes deeper inside the cabinet. “This is one of our water tanks,” he says over his shoulder. “There’s a hose that runs off through this wall,” he says, pointing, “pumping fertilizer. One of our newer strains didn’t like the cocktail we were using, so I changed it up. But the new shit’s clogging all the tubing.”

“Ugh. That sounds annoying.”

I think I see him nod, but I can’t tell. His attention is definitely on his task.

I look down at my boots, but who am I kidding? My eyes are starving for him, and with his back turned, I’m free to gawk without consequence. The first place my pervy gaze goes is his ass, but I don’t want to be a freak, so as soon as I eyeball-hug his taut buns, I drag my eyes up his back. I watch his muscles shift under his shirt. My fingers drift to my cell phone, tucked into the waist of my leggings. I smile, wondering if he would notice me nabbing a little .gif footage for the Smuffins group.

I roll my eyes at myself. We’re in a grow house—
hello
, Cleo.

As I admire the cords of muscle in his neck, the golden hair that blows a little in the light breeze of the fans, I wonder why a rich boy like him would turn to dealing drugs. Does he like the risk? Or was he even a rich boy at all before he started dealing? Maybe he’s like me—but I don’t think so. He seems... well-bred. I’d bet my lumpy little nest egg that a guy like Kellan Walsh knows when to use the two-pronged mini fork.

When my brain finally tires of imagining Kellan in a tux, his long fingers clutching a teeny tiny spoon, I let my breath out and decide to risk interrupting him.

“Soooo, these are your strains?” I ask. “Like...
yours
yours?”

“Some are,” he says, still yanking on the tube. I admire his strong jaw-line, evident because he’s clenching his teeth. He pulls his arm out of the cabinet and turns to face me, shocking me again with his beauty. He leans his hips against the counter. I have to force my eyes to stay on his.

“Most of our strains started in California. But we’ve been cross-breeding long enough that we do have our own stuff now.” He shuts the cabinet door and nods at the one leading back into the hall. “Come this way.”

I follow him back into the hall, marveling that such an amazing grow room is attached to such a normal-looking house. He steps over to a door on the other side of the hall, then pauses to fish his phone out of his pocket.

He hunches over it, his face bathed in blue light.

“Just a second,” he says tightly.

“What’s the matter?”

A few long seconds later, he stuffs the phone back into his pocket and pushes this new door open without meeting my eyes. “Dealer drama.”

HE STEPS INTO THE ROOM,
and I follow, so close I can feel his body heat. I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I let it out. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I’m relieved to find this room looks much like a stock room—and it’s empty, save us.

Floor-to-ceiling plywood shelves line all four walls, and another row of shelving splits the room in half. The shelves are stacked with large, blue plastic bins. Two cement aisles running long ways down the room are dotted with tables and weird-looking iron machines. For chopping up the crop and weighing it and stuff?

I look at Kellan, who’s still clutching his phone.

“This is the stock room. Pretty straightforward,” he says, without looking up.

When it seems he isn’t going to say more, I turn away from him, drifting slowly down the aisle.

He seemed so solicitous before we got here, but since we walked into the house, he’s been acting “off.” So maybe his mood took a turn. So what? What’s bothering me? I try to think, but all I can come up with is the gnawing feeling that I don’t really know what he wants. Yes, he wants to get rid of the competition—if I could even be called that. Yes, he seems to want my body. Those things, I understand. But I’m still not sure why he wants me to live with him. Why he wanted it enough to offer to pay me so exorbitantly. His reticence about the dealer drama underscores what truly bothers me about Kellan: his secrets.

The double life he’s living is... really double. He’s Chattahoochee College’s golden boy, but he runs dealers and was able to lift a gun off me. Why
is
he paying me to live with him? He said it was so we could learn to work together, then later acted like it was more for sex. But is it really? Why pay me so much? Why, why, why? What am I missing here?

I fold my arms and inhale deeply. Exhale slowly. I imagine I can feel his eyes burning my back. I stand there another moment, trying to decide if I should mention my concerns and ultimately deciding not to. I do need to stay with him for at least a night or two, after all. Until I can see if Milasy will cool down about the brick. And so I have a little time to try to figure Kellan out.

After that, if I still feel like there’s too much I don’t know, I’ll figure out a new solution to my homelessness. If there’s any way I can feel okay—or even good—about this weird thing between him and me, I’ll stay. Because I’d really like that money, and if I’m being honest with myself, I’d like to find out more about him, too.

“Cleo.” He touches my shoulder. “You’re jumpy.” His fingers squeeze as his blue eyes search the waters of my own. “Tell me why.”

I bite my lip. Because you make me feel unsteady. Because I don’t know if I can trust you. Because I want to find out all your secrets. I say the first thing that pops into my head. “Do you hide weed in teddy bears?”

He gives a raspy laugh. His lips twitch, like he wants to smile—but by now I know he won’t. “Is that what’s bothering you, Cleo?”

Sensation tingles under his hand, trickling hotly through my torso like the first wave of anesthesia. I take a small step back and try to pin down my racing thoughts.

Ah, hell. “What’s bothering me is... I don’t know why you trusted me with this. Enough to bring me here.” It’s not all that’s bothering me, but it’s something tangible I can lob at him.

He tilts his head, not blinking as he looks at me.

I press my lips together, mirroring him. “I guess I just don’t understand. Why get this involved with me at all? Don’t get me wrong,” I add, “I’ll deal your stuff, but I don’t see why you need me to know so much about your business. Or to live with you. Like, why you want me to.”

He blinks, owlish and unreadable.

“You’re paying me so much...” I exhale. “It can’t just be for sex. I guess I just... feel weird about it. I don’t get it.”

I let my breath out.

“I don’t either,” he says, low. “I don’t think I
should
, but I’m going to anyway. Do you know why?” He lifts his brows.

I shake my head.

“I don’t either. If I dismissed you now, and you never stayed at my house, would you keep this place a secret, Cleo?”

“Of course,” I nod. “I don’t want to get you busted.”

“Why?” His voice is sharp.

I glare at him, because he’s dodging my questions... leading me down bunny trails. I can feel it. “Why wouldn’t I tell? Because I’m not an asshole. Are you?”

“I’m not that kind of asshole. Come here, Cleo. Let me show you something.” He walks to a thick steel door beside the place where the wall seems to fold or lift up to accommodate a hook up to an 18-wheeler. He pushes the door open.

I can see the pines sprawl out behind him as I step closer.

“See that?” His left hand touches down on my back as his right points at the woods. I notice two lines of red dirt snaking through the pine straw: tire tracks. I nod. “It leads back to some hunting land off Highway 231. That’s a big truck. Dump truck. You know what’s in the truck?”

I shake my head.

“Fertilizer. Real black market shit, just what we need to grow our stuff. Comes up all the way from South America. Dude who brings it—he works for some bad guys.” His eyes meet mine. “Do you know why I told you?”

“No.”

“I’m telling you, Cleo, because I choose to trust you. If you really want in, I’ll tell you more. But I need to know that first. I don’t think
you
know that yet. That’s why I brought you here. I want you to see it—so you can know what you’re maybe getting into if you decide to do more than just deal my stuff.”

“More than deal?”

He nods. “You’ll make your mind up and if you want in, then we’ll talk some more. I think we could work together. Really work together.”

My stomach flutters. I want to ask what that means, but I’m too nervous. “Will there be an initiation?” I ask. I’m mostly teasing, trying to shift the tone of things a little—but he must not hear the light tone in my voice.

His eyes harden and his voice yawns down an octave. “Do you want to be hazed?”

I press my lips together. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“No,” I whisper.

“Don’t tell me that.”

“Okay...” My voice trembles. “I take it back.”

He drops his head down like he’s going to kiss my mouth, but he diverts his lips to my jaw. He kisses me so tenderly my stomach flutters. His mouth crawls, warm and moist, beneath my chin—and then he bites my neck. It’s sharp and sudden, predatory. His teeth tear at my throat until my heart is pounding and I want to pull away. And then the pain is gone. His warm, soft mouth strokes me; his tongue soothes my stinging skin.