My chest tightened as I replied, “But that’s not for you to decide.”

He studied me for a few moments, taking in every inch of me. My manicured nails, my straightened smooth blonde hair, my expensive dress and perfectly applied make-up. I suddenly felt like I should have dressed down. Truth was, I went all out to impress him, and now I felt like I was doing the opposite.

He glanced around us, and when he caught my car on the side of the road, he frowned.

“Not a good place to park a car like that,” he mumbled.

“I wasn’t thinking,” I replied, stupidly. “I know I should have. I guess I’ve been a little impulsive.”

And stupid.

“Let me show you something,” he then told me, turning back to me.

“Okay.”

He took my hand, which was a good sign in my books, and led me up to his apartment. All the while he appeared conflicted, his brow furrowed, his face solemn. When we got there, he dropped my hand and unlocked his door.

“Come in,” he told me, and I followed him into the apartment.

I was confused when he began gaining distance.

“Take a look around,” he said. “I’ve been in here six months, and this is what I am.”

I did as he asked and glanced around his apartment. My heels were loud against the floorboards as I took in the living room and the couch he’d given me the best sexual experience on. It had certainly seen better days. Actually, the entire room was filled with crappy furniture and a bubbly box for a television I hadn’t personally seen in over a decade.

“Go to my bedroom,” he continued, noticing my hesitation. “Go on, beautiful. Take a good look.”

I did.

His bedroom had a double bed, unmade, and a small light brown desk stacked with crap. The kitchen had dishes piled up in the sink, and even the cupboards had yellowed from age. I began to understand what he was trying to do.

“So you’re broke,” I muttered, turning back to him, light-heartedly adding, “And you’re a little messy.”

He had his arms crossed and he was leaning back against the front door, staring at me intently. He was waiting for more, and I sighed. “Do you do drugs too? Is that where the money is going? I thought dealers were flushed with cash, or something.”

“I don’t make a lot of money,” he responded. “I deal for some dangerous people, and they take a huge chunk out of it.”

“Do you like doing it?”

“No. I hate it.”

I shrugged. “So quit.”

“Quit?” He chuckled lightly. “You don’t know my world, beautiful. I didn’t grow up with the same opportunities you did. I grew up around this poison, and I had to make do with what I had. This job, it’s fucked up and it’s bad, but it’s giving me more money than I’d get out there, working some 9-5 job earning pennies. This is what the world is like on this end. You barely survive, so you gotta work. You fight, and you fight hard until the day you die. There’s no easy way out. No help around the corner, no parent to pick up the pieces of your mistakes, and it’s simple why that is. Nobody gives a shit about you here. It’s you against the world, and that’s my life, Kate. It’s fucking ugly, and I’m not going to colour your perfect world with that ugly.”

I considered that for several moments. Continuing to look around his apartment, I understood him perfectly, but I wasn’t really caring about it either. I liked Marcus, and the rest was background noise.

“You won’t colour my world with ugly,” I then told him, looking back at him. “We have a good connection. You made me feel things I never felt before, and I want to have fun with you. I want you to touch me the way you did that night. That’s all I want. It’s all I wanted when I gave you my number. It doesn’t have to be serious. I’m not looking to involve myself in everything you do, in all that ugliness.”

He looked away, a fleeting look of disappointment on his face. “So you want me for sexual purposes.”

“Until you can give me more, yes,” I replied, hopeful.

In all honesty, I wanted more right from the start, but I also knew already that he was a mess. I couldn’t accept all his bad just yet. It wouldn’t work that way. I wouldn’t last. I wanted the good parts of him, and I knew now that it was another reason I wasn’t the one for him. He needed a woman that took the good with the bad. A woman that fought for him to change, to be a better man, even if it meant working a shit job, so long as he was clean and living a legal life, that was all that mattered. I was too scared to do all that. I was being selfish, and I could later justify it was because I was young and trying to prolong that thrill. But to be honest, I was just a selfish person period when it came to him.

I could tell he was cracking, especially when his eyes travelled the length of me. Soon, this addiction would run both ways. He would hunger for me all the time, try to give me more, and I would push it away, unready to accept all sides of him.

Setting my purse down, I moved to him. He watched me cautiously as I went, with this vulnerable look in his eyes. I stopped in front of him, and my hands roamed up his hard chest. His arms dropped to his sides as I did so, and he closed his eyes momentarily, as if savouring my touch. He wanted to be cared for, I could feel that so strongly in him. Whatever trauma he’d endured as a child left him secretly needy, begging to be loved as he carried on his tough façade. Maybe within the soul of a roughened young man, there was an untouched pocket of affection waiting to be shown. It was sort of tragic to think how many people closed themselves off from the world because of a shitty upbringing they had no control over.

It made me want Marcus all the more.

“Say yes,” I whispered to him, shutting out that trembling timid side of me. I wanted to be confident with him. I needed to be to make this work.

He opened his eyes and looked down at me, giving me butterflies with that look. “Yeah,” he whispered back. “I fucking want you. I’ve wanted you the second I saw you, but I’m also not a fantasist. I just want to make sure you know what you’re doing. That’s all.”

My chest tightened. I smiled at him and stroked the side of his face. “I’m sure,” I told him.

It wasn’t a second later before he crashed his mouth to mine. His lips were made for me, I swear it. I felt on fire, longing for more of his touch.