I understood why he wanted to take it slow and that was sweet.

But this wasn’t slow.

This was alarming.

Because, see, shit like this messed with a girl’s head.

A man doesn’t want down her pants, that speaks volumes.

Or, more to the point, it makes a girl ask a lot of questions that might not seem logical to some, but to a girl, they were as logical as it could get.

For me, these questions were two in particular.

The first, was I the damsel in distress in place of the sister he’d wished he could save? And part B of that question, was he in denial about that, thinking he was doing the right thing when he was not?

Or second, was I a kind of employee he was looking after to keep safe while they kept looking for the guy who did what he’d done to me?

And no one had said anything, so I reckoned he was still out there. Detective Jimmy Marker had called at least ten times to share that he was disappointed with the progress of the case, but he had no intention of giving up so they were still looking.

Sure, the illogical part in all of this was that it had been way more than five weeks where Marcus had been sweet to me, kind, thoughtful, attentive, gentlemanly, generous, and even sexy. That should speak volumes too.

But, I mean, in my life, one of the many things I’d learned was that if a guy wants it, it’s offered, he takes it. Especially if it’s offered repeatedly.

So Marcus not taking it had to mean he didn’t want it.

Now he’d seen me doing my thing on the stage and he’d seen it a lot. He was sweet as usual when I got in his limo with him after work. Complimentary. Touchy. Kissy. Nice. He hadn’t acted, not once, like watching me do my gig made him think I was skeevy. Not even close.

In fact, it was the opposite.

It could not be said when he first started coming to the club it didn’t make me feel all kinds of special, not only that he’d come, but that his eyes never left me when I was onstage, like he was transfixed, spellbound.

And not just in the beginning, that kept right on going, in actions and words, he gave me the sense he was proud of me. Proud that, at the end of the night, the woman he was watching onstage was going to be escorted to his limousine and she’d be spending the night in his bed (even if they didn’t do much there).

But he was total class. He had a penthouse. He belonged to a country club (one he had not taken me to, by the way). He worked a lot and said things into his phone like “dividends” and “shift those investments around” and “the rate of return on that is not what I’d hoped, let’s consider alternatives.”

And I was, well, a stripper.

I had a Porsche but I didn’t have a limo or a penthouse, and even though I raked it in (with him paying me, but I could have done it my own damned self if he hadn’t taken off a set, a song on each set, and the lap dances), I’d never have that. I’d never belong to a country club. I’d never tame my hair, ease up on the eyeliner, and trade my platforms for Valentino’s Rockstud in order to fit in with that set.

So maybe in the throes of the situation he’d gotten himself into a spot—being a gentleman and being the kind of gentleman Marcus Sloan was—a spot he couldn’t get out of, dumping the chick who’d recently been raped after realizing she didn’t quite fit at his side.

I didn’t need that shit.

I needed to start looking for houses, dining room tables, and checking out china patterns.

And I didn’t need to do it with a broken heart (though, I wasn’t letting myself go there, but I had a strong feeling that ship had sailed).

Because even without the good stuff, everything else was good stuff with Marcus Sloan. And I was not talking about the fancy restaurants, the penthouse, the limo.

I was talking about his sweet. His attention that, even the times he was on the phone, he still made it clear if I was in his sphere, it was always on me. His touchy. His kissy. His arms around me while I slept. His warm, hard body the perfection it was to cuddle into. The easy way that came often that I could make him laugh. The beautiful way he looked at me every time he gave me the same.

So I’d let my heart get in it. He’d put that effort in but everyone had to take responsibility for their lives and I’d let him in when I knew I shouldn’t. I knew he was too good for me. I knew it just wasn’t my lot to get my something special.

And although most of his behavior indicated he wanted to be in, there was that one important way it did not. The intimacy we would share to make all the rest of it concrete in my head. To understand irrevocably that he wanted all of me. Not to save me. Not to take care of me. Not to go that extra mile because he was the man he was to look after an employee, or just some woman that occupied a fringe of his life, who had the worst done to her that could happen.

No, not any of that.

To have me.

Daisy.

“Woman?”

I focused on Smithie to see he was very focused on me.

“You good?” he asked.

I nodded, throwing him a dazzling smile.

He wasn’t dazzled.

His eyes narrowed.

“Everything good with Sloan?” he pressed.

“Peachy,” I lied.

It was good. It was just that everything wasn’t good.

“You need me, I’m here,” he stated and my heart that had started to go cold again warmed up a bit. “And if you gotta talk about guy stuff, LaTeesha is there.”

I giggled a little bit and that made some of the concern drift out of Smithie’s face.