The Token 8: Kiki: A Billionaire Dark Romantic Suspense by Marata Eros

That his tube of love did those things to me... seems inconceivable, but Chet has the moves. Boy, does he.
    He strides around my small condo, picking up trousers, socks, underwear, and the cufflinks he'd left behind.
    “Ah,” he says when he plucks them off the entrance table. “I wondered where they'd gone off to.” He lifts them with his fingers then loosely closes his fist around them.
    “You put them there when we were christening the wall,” I say, my voice as droll as they come.
    My cell dings between us on the kitchen table. I don't move to answer, but Chet does.
    I go to intercept, but I’m too late.
    Chet scoops it up, frowning at whatever he sees on the screen.
    Shit.
    But why should I feel bad? I mean, he's got Chloe for shit's sake. And Ax and I—we're nothing.
    Though it could be something.
    I bite my lip, and Chet's eyes zero in on my mauling of the soft flesh. I let it plop out.
    “Who is Ax?”
    I lift a naked shoulder, my boob jiggling a little from the motion. Chet's eyes flick to my breast then back to my eyes.
    “A guy.”
    His eyebrow cocks. “Clearly.”
    The silence has words.
    “He's a guy I was friends with in the projects,” I say.
    Chet pulls a face. “Projects?”
    Right, rich boy doesn't know the term. “Yʼknow, slums.” I sound a little more harsh than I mean to. Try as I might, I can't wash the dirt off the word.
    “I see.” Chet's gaze doesn't hold the condemnation I think it will. It's neutral.
    I try not to be defensive about my past. I can't help my birthing circumstance, my old hood, my stripping to pay for school at Udub—none of it. It's my past. But knowing all that shit doesn't make me feel any less self-conscious.
    I inhale deeply, poised to speak, but Chet holds up a hand. “I'm not interested in an explanation of your background.”
    I see red, literally. He gets a load of my pissed off expression, no doubt.
    Chet rakes his longish hair back from his forehead. “What I mean is that I do want to know you, were you come from. However, I don't want you to feel you're lesser for it.”
    I don't cry, but my throat feels as if a fist is crammed inside it. Something tells me I've misunderstood Chet. Not that he's the easiest dude to get a bead on.
    “There are a hundred Chloes, but only one Kandace.”
    Still. I have to pick at it. Like a scab. “We don't match.” My insecurity of being with a trust fund billionaire doesn't want to go away, even though he's the first man I've ever chosen.
    “No, we don't,” he agrees.
    My lungs feel tight, my heart slowing. Vertigo sinks its claws into me.
    “That is why we fit,” Chet says.
    I suck in a starved breath.
    “I'm not some whore to screw.”
    I'm falling for Chet Sinclair. I'm so full of fear at the revelation that I'm trying to relearn how to breathe.
    Chet stands wearing his trousers and one sock, cufflinks fisted in his left hand. My eyes steal over his broad shoulders, delectable pecs, flat stomach so cut it's ice cubes of muscle under a coat of skin. I swallow.
    “I don't want a whore.”
    I gulp again, gathering myself. “Then what do you want?”
    His hand falls to his side, balled around the glittering accessories. “I don't know.”
    I cross my arms. “I don't know if that's enough.”
    Chet sits on the couch. He puts on his other sock, his shoes, and ties them mechanically.
    He stands, looking perfectly put together except for his naked chest. He picks up his cell phone, and his fingers fly over the screen. After a single tap, he slides the cell in his front pocket.
    “It's what I have right now.”
    “That's what I'm afraid of, that you're like ʻwhateverʼ and I want more.”
    Chet smiles, striding to me. I haven't bothered to get dressed. I stand before him nude, my hair drying in, I'm sure, a frizzy ʼfro, towel in a damp pile at my feet.
    “Listen to me, Kandace. I will say it only once.” He cups my chin, stroking his thumb down my throat.
    I swallow convulsively underneath his sensuous