“I’m going to pay the tab. Meet you in the lobby,” she kissed me on the forehead which let me know that those gins she had drank in almost a shot were going to her head, just a little. I also knew that meant I would be waiting for a full five to ten minutes, if not longer, because she would also be going to the bathroom, again, to reapply her makeup. This girl was a perfectionist and the complete opposite of me.
Downing the last of my beer and sliding out of my seat, I cast one last glance over at the assholes table. He really was pretty to look at, and his companion wasn’t an eyesore either. As if he knew I was looking at him, the big guy, with his black hair and dimples, looked up and smiled right at me.
Oh shit, I just got caught staring.
Excellent.
Turning away, my feet moved quickly towards the elevator to leave, escape. A heat was blooming on my face.
Why did I always have to turn into a walking and talking idiot every damn time I was embarrassed?
Pressing the button for the elevator, I waited, my left foot nervously tapping. Tap, Tap, Tap.
A sudden shift in the air made me aware of another presence as someone came to a stop beside me. Instinctively my eyes glanced up and over to see who it was. Trying hard not to groan out loud, I quickly looked away again, the asshole. Brilliant.
Just my luck that I’d end up being stuck sharing the elevator with him. Maybe I would end up kicking him in his junk as my best friend had predicted if he dared to say anything to me as he had to her. No, Allie was this blond bombshell, and I was the quirky girl who had a different hair color every other month, lived in skinny jeans, vintage band tees, and owned every color of Chuck Taylors ever made. This guy would not look twice at a girl like me.
A ding signaled the elevator and as the doors opened, a couple holding hands exited with smiles on their faces, as though they had been up to no good before the doors had opened.
“After you,” the asshole spoke. I needed to stop referring to him like that in my head before I said it out loud. His voice was rough and all man, but it also had a twang of something other than American in his accent. Almost British or Australian, maybe?
“Thanks” was all I could say as my chucks squeaked on the marble tiles beneath them.
As he pressed the button for the ground floor, my eyes watched his movements. Unable to move myself to push the button for the lobby, I found myself cringing as we started to descend. I would either have to walk back to the lobby from the underground parking garage or embarrass myself further and press the button when he gets out to go back up, just one lonely floor.
The guy that he had been sitting with at the bar, the one with the dimples, had not joined him. It was just the two of us, alone in the elevator together, me and the asshole.
“Hey,” his voice made me almost jump. I looked over, having not expected for him to speak to me. Oh, for the love of God. This was not fair. How could any man be this good looking? He had lips I kind of wanted to destroy and eyes. Jesus, he had these gray eyes that looked like a storm cloud, but with this hint of blue. Like the sky was trying to breakthrough. He was genuinely breathtaking.
Unable to speak apparently, I just smiled up at him. He was easily over six feet tall and towered over my five foot five frame.
“I’m Noah,” he turned his body fully to me and stepped forwards, making me press even closer to the elevator's wall. He was almost caging me in like I was some kind of wild animal.
“Val,” offering my name to him, I couldn’t make my eyes disconnect from his. It was as though they were in some kind of a trance in the sea of gray and blue.
“Val?” His nose twitched as his mouth pulled to one side as if he had just tasted something terrible, “Really?”
“Yeah, as in Valentina,” my voice came out like acid at his apparent distaste of my name. Oh god, Allie was right. This guy really was an asshole. Give me an average Joe any day. A guy with this kind of personality was enough to make me want to put my fist through his face, let alone my foot in his junk.
“Feisty,” his beauty was outshone by the asshole inside of him, and the more he spoke, the more I wanted to hit him. “I like it,” winking he continued to look at me as if he was undressing me with his eyes.
“Is there something wrong with my name,” asshole.
“Meh” was all he said in response, shrugging just one shoulder. "Your name is not really important for this conversation.”
What.The.Actual.Fuck.
“You, you’re a fucking dick,” my voice sounded louder than I would have liked as the fists curled at my sides. Do not hit him, Valentina, there are probably cameras in here. The last thing you need right now is a lawsuit. His lawyers would wipe the floor with you. Deep breaths calm down.
“And you don’t even know me yet,” the blue beneath the gray in his eyes sparkled. Almost like he was challenging me. Who the hell was this guy?
“I don’t want to know you” again, the confidence in my voice was a lie. He was confusing every fiber of my being. How could someone who looks so good be so ugly when he spoke? I was a mix of being turned on and wanting to commit assault.
“Now, now. I bet those little sneakers would look great on my floor beside my bed.”
“They are converses, Chuck Taylors,” the correction only spurred him on, though. The air around us was thickening. Do not hit him, Valentina.
“Calm down, Sneaks,” Sneaks?
“Excuse you?” What the hell did he just call me?
Rage was building up inside of me. I wanted to hit him. No, I needed to hit him, hard.
Freaking ‘Sneaks’? Absolutely not.
God, I was leaving a bar, but I think I needed another drink after this altercation. Shots sounded about right. Yes, lots of shots. I wonder if Allie would be up for a tequila and pizza night? We could banish Corey to his PlayStation or whatever it was he was playing these days.
“What is it, do you think you’re god’s gift to women or something?” The scoff in my voice made his brow raise, not in annoyance, no this bastard liked it.
“Oh, Sneaks, I know I am,” oh, please.
“Fucking hell” My breath almost hitched in my throat as he smoldered, looking down at me. “You are the fucking Devil, Diablo.” Sorry, but I’m renaming him, Allie. He will no longer be known as merely ‘asshole’ but now Diablo, the fucking Devil.
“Been called worse, to be fair,” why was that not a shock?
Pressing a hand against the elevator wall right by the side of my head, he dipped his own lower, leaving mere inches between us. Our lips were in touching distance. Even if he was an asshole, I bet his kisses could make your toes curl. All I would have to do is move my head less than an inch and I could find out just how good they felt.
Sexual tension rolled off him in waves and I was falling further into its depths. Until he opened his mouth that is and the feeling of cold water being poured over me from the words that spilled from between those lips brought me right back to reality, with one hell of a bang.
“Tell me, Sneaks,” his warm breath fanned my face, the smell of mint and vodka intoxicated me, “On a scale of one to ten, how much do you want me to screw you six ways of Sunday against this elevator wall right now?”
My face must have been flushing a brighter red than it ever had before “Ze…zer….zero” my speech was stuttered.
Was this guy for real?
There was no way he was serious right now. Maybe he had drunk too much in the bar?
Was I on Punked or something?
Was Allie pranking me? It was something I wouldn’t put past her.
He was just smirking down at me, and I bet women dropped their panties for him when he put on this little performance all of the time.
“Liar,” he smirked and for the first time, I realized that he too had dimples, just like the guy he had been sat with at the bar. Were they related or something, or did they only hand them out to good looking people? It’s a fact that dimples make an already hot perso
n ten times hotter.
The doors to the elevator opened with the same ding as when it had arrived at the top floor and as he pushed away from the wall, putting some welcomed distance between us, he motioned for me to follow him.
“Come with me,” he sounded, so god damned confident and cocky.
“No” was my answer while I calculated how likely I was to actually kick him in the nuts as he took steps backward into the underground parking garage, leaving me standing in the elevator. All I had to do was push the button for the lobby, and I would never have to see this Diablo ever again.
“Come on,” he beckoned me with his hands again, biting his bottom lip. Jesus Christ.
“Absolutely not,” there had to be something wrong with him. A mental issue, or maybe he had taken one too many bangs to his head. This was not normal behavior. Only my feet began to move on their own accord, right towards him.
“You know you want too,” cocky bastard. Throwing that smirk my way as he clocked that although my mouth was refusing to follow him, my feet had done so anyway.
I was about to answer him, and not with words that he would be happy with either. The words were on the tip of my tongue when suddenly, three guys stepped into my vision, meaning I was unable to get them out.
Subconsciously I had stepped all of the way out of the elevator as we had been conversing, and the door had shut long ago without me even realizing it.
These three men, well, I am assuming they were men because they all had these creepy ass clown masks on and were dressed entirely in black. Oh god, the one in the middle was he, yes, he was holding a gun. Shit.
Panic seared through me, and I didn’t know what to do.
What was even happening right now?
It was as though everything went into slow motion. My eyes were darting from the three masked men to the Devil I had been just about to curse out and probably kick. I hadn’t decided on that yet.
What was this?
What the hell had we walked in on from the elevator?
My eyes roamed the room, expecting to see someone else.
Within a second, all hell broke loose around us, and the room went from slow motion to fast forward. Noah took one look at them and grabbed my arm, roughly tugging me as he ran, but they seemed to be even faster. As we dived behind a black van, my feet began to skid at how quickly he was pulling me.
“Come on, Sneaks,” his voice didn’t sound as panicked as I am sure mine would have if I dared to speak. All I could hear apart from our hurried steps was my heart pumping loudly in my ears.
Why were they chasing us?
Suddenly a loud bang echoed around us, a solo shot from the gun, making the both of us freeze. Daring a look backward, towards where the masked men stood. My eyes homed in on the one with the weapon which was currently aimed at the car next to us, that now had a very flat tire after a bullet had ripped through it.
Someone must have heard that surely, they would be coming to help us?
The cops would be on their way in no time, right?
Weren’t there cameras in places like these?
Someone was must be seeing or hearing what the hell was going on right now, right?
I mean, I hardly came down to parking garages. This was New York, after all. I took the subway like any average New Yorker. It was only the rich showoffs that bothered to drive in this city.
Pushing me behind his body, Noah stepped in front, completely blocking my view of the three masked men, but we both continued to back away from them without communicating it, instinct, I suppose.
Craning my head around him, I could see that the gun was now aimed right at us, and my blood ran cold. I felt like someone had put an intravenous drip full of ice water straight into a vein.
They had us cornered in behind a silver Tesla. We had nowhere else to go. One of the masked men came up on each side of us while the one with the gun just stood static, gun aimed right at us still, unmoving. If I could see his face, I bet he wouldn’t even be blinking.
Oh god, this is it, because of freaking Diablo, I was going to be murdered. Only twenty-eight years old and my life was going to end in an underground parking garage. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Why hadn’t I just pressed the button for the lobby when I had first stepped into the elevator? If I had, I would not be here right now. Damn it.
“Who are you?” Noah's voice sounded clear and controlled. Still standing protectively in front of me, all broad shoulders and tall. No sign of fear in his voice, “what do you want?”
Ignoring Noah's questions, the one holding the firearm gave us his own demand. “Get on your knees” the voice was all distorted like you hear in bad horror movies, robotic almost as if they were using some kind of distorter “both of you, now.”
“Shit,” Noah turned to look at me as if he had forgotten I was there for a second. “Look, if this is Jack’s idea, just let the girl go, she doesn’t need to be involved in this stupid shit.”
Who the hell was Jack?
And what stupid shit?
I was so confused right now with what was happening. Did he know who was doing this and why?
If this was a prank, I was suing for the years of therapy I was about to need. He looked like he was good for it.
My cell phone began to vibrate in my purse. No doubt it would be Allie wondering where I was as she would no doubt be waiting for me in the lobby by now.
“Knees, now, both of you.” The same guy repeated.
“Come on, Sneaks,” Noah's voice had turned quiet as he waited for me to move before, he did. “It will be okay, I promise.”
He promises? This guy, this man, he was the most incorrigible asshole I had ever met. If there were ever a real-life devil, he would be it, or at least his right-hand man. How could he expect me to believe that it was going to be okay? Promise? Jesus.
“Hands-on your head,” the same robotic voice came from another one of them. They were both so tall, definitely over six feet. Taller than the Diablo even.
The feel of all of the blood draining from my body, purely from fear, made me feel light-headed. All three of them came to stand in front of us now. We had nowhere to go. A cold, leather-clad hand grabbed ahold of my wrists, and before I knew what was happening, they were secured with what sounded and felt like a cable tie behind my back. No room for movement. It was so tight, cutting into my skin like a knife through butter. I think I’m going to be sick.
Next, a dirty rag was pulled out and tied tightly around my eyes, leaving me in nothing but darkness. This was almost worse than just being tied up by my wrists. Now that I couldn’t see, I began to really panic. Tears began to fill my eyes and dampen the fabric restricting my ability to see anything around me.
As my cell phone began to vibrate again, the purse was ripped from my body, and from the sound that followed, it had been thrown on the ground somewhere in the distance.
“Hey, get off me, my cell phone is in my jacket pocket, asshole.” Noah's angry voice echoed around us.
“Please,” begging as a hand grabbed me around my elbow, pulling me upwards to stand. My feet unable to move, and with my vision blocked, I felt like I was stumbling around like Bambi taking its first steps. Tripping over my own feet, one of them groaned at my lack of coordination but continued to drag me along.
“I don’t…. please let me go.” All I wanted to do was go to the lobby. How was I in this situation?
“Sneaks, Val, just stay quiet,” Noah's voice came from behind me, and before I knew it I was being hoisted up, off the ground and thrown down onto my back in what I assumed was either a trunk of a car or the back of a van. It was cold and smelt like trash.
Sobs began to fill my chest. I was never going to see my best friend again, oh god Allie. She was only one floor above me, but it was too far. My parents, I would never have to fake love the horrendous pasta dishes my Mom attempted to make every Sunday for family dinner nights. She may have married an Italian boy, but that woman could not cook to save her
life. It was a miracle we had survived as children.
“Will you stop crying” Diablos annoyed voice reached my ears just as an engine started almost as soon as the sound of doors slamming, securing us in. We must have been in a van because we weren’t touching, so we could not be in the trunk of a car.
“Look, Sneaks, this is probably my brother's sick idea of a prank, he has done this twice before its best just to go with it, and when it is over, we can get back to what was about to happen.”
“Nothing was about to happen!” I shrieked at him. God, maybe he was as crazy as Allie was. Perhaps it was me. Perhaps I attracted craziness to me. That had to be it.
Peaches: MC Romance (The Unholy Confessions Book 1) Page 23
