Cursed

by Nicole Camden

  An older woman with crystal-covered clothing had suggested that owning the store had just gotten too dangerous.

  “There’s been two break-ins this year,” she’d informed Lille, as if Lille were somehow unaware of this fact.

  After their visitors had left, Lille looked around the bar. “Why are the women glaring at me?” Lille wanted to know.

  Mary put a finger to her lips and drawled, “Hmm . . . let me think.” Mary was well on her way to being a little drunk. Lille always thought Mary was pretty funny when she drank—she was even more honest and extremely silly.

  “Are you suggesting that I’ve done something wrong?” Lille ventured.

  “No.” Mary gave an exaggerated shake of her head. “You’re just too pretty, you’re kinda famous, and Max likes you.” She waved at the bar to where Max was closing out a few tabs and nearly hit John in the face.

  “Hmmm.” Lille wasn’t so sure Max liked her. She thought he could like her, if she let him. She glanced at him again.

  “Is he planning on coming over here?”

  John leaned back, putting one arm around Mary. It looked affectionate, but she thought he was probably holding Mary upright. “Oh, I’d pretty much guarantee it.”

  Lille shifted in her seat and crossed her legs. She wanted him, wanted a distraction, but she was torn over whether or not it was wise. Using him for sex didn’t work; he’d snuck in under her defenses and had made her like him, damn it.

  When Max finally joined them, he was wearing his typical jeans and a black polo with the name of the pub embroidered above his heart. His thick hair was a little mussed, as if he’d been running his hands through it, and he was carrying a Guinness. He motioned with his head for her to scoot over and she did, letting him slide in beside her.

  He looked at her as if she were the only person in the room, his blue eyes drifting over her face. He still seemed annoyed, but not as pissed off as he had been.

  “Lille.” He nodded to her and then turned his attention to John and Mary. “So how’re things over at the Box? Have you sold out of naughty Halloween costumes, then?”

  Lille didn’t know why he hadn’t asked her that question. She pouted; she was the one managing most everything. Still, she wasn’t in the mood to fight; the warm, hard length of him was pressing along her left side, and every time he moved his shoulder, elbow, or knee, he brushed against her.

  She was tempted to slide her hand up his leg and cup him through his jeans, but when she put her hand on his knee, he stopped her, sliding his fingers in between hers until he was holding her hand.

  He was holding her hand.

  Lille’s first impulse was to shake him off, just as she’d done the first time they’d had sex at his house, but his grip tightened, so she let it remain. Paul had tried to hold her hand on occasion, but she’d never allowed it. Now she was torn, her heart beating way too fast for such a simple gesture. What did it mean, this holding of hands? Was she committing to something? If she let it continue, was she saying she wanted a relationship? She wasn’t built for relationships.

  Someone had turned on the jukebox now that the game had ended and “Lay Lady Lay” was playing while a beefy guy with a beard was setting up the stage for something.

  Lille squeezed Max’s fingers to get his attention. “What’s going on there?”

  He followed her gaze to the stage and gave a rueful grimace. “Kyle talked me into starting karaoke on Sunday nights.”

  “Karaoke?” Lille grinned.

  Max rolled his eyes. “And here I thought surely you were an elegant woman who wouldn’t be caught dead wailing to ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.’”

  Lille sniffed and lifted her chin. “Mary and I don’t wail.” She looked over at Mary and grinned. “Do we, darling?”

  Mary shook her head. “Nope.”

  “God help me,” Max commiserated with John. “This used to be a men’s bar.”

  Lille sniffed and tugged on her hand, but he wouldn’t let her go. Granted, she wasn’t trying very hard. “Now we have to do it, just to annoy you.”

  Max raised an eyebrow. “It’ll annoy me, so you have to do it. Is that the way of it, then?”

  Lille curled her lip at him, enjoying herself immensely. “It is.”

  He chuckled and ran his thumb over her knuckles. “Well, now, that’s fine.”

  Lille glanced up over John’s head and saw Kim, standing on the booth next to them and filming Lille and Max over the top of it.

  “So sweet,” Kim chirped, and Lille snatched her hand away from Max, straightening her spine.

  Max looked at her as if she’d just grown snakes out of the top of her head. She felt bad—briefly—for making him think she was shutting him out, but she was trying to protect him, really. He didn’t want the attention that being filmed with her would bring.

  Lille ignored him and held her hand out to Mary. “Come on, Mary, let’s show them.”

  Mary took her hand and they both looked at the boys, who reluctantly moved out of the bench seats to give the women room to scoot out.

  They did, making their way over to the tables in front of the stage, where the karaoke “master,” as he liked to be called, had placed three or four thick binders full of songs. Several women and a couple of die-hard men were paging through them. Kim followed behind, recording the whole time.

  Max took a sip of his beer while admiring Lille’s ass as she bent over the table in her dress. A curl of her hair fell over her face, and she brushed it aside absently, tapping her toe as if she already heard music in her head.

  “I think you’re going to regret letting Kyle talk you into karaoke.”

  Max grunted and pulled his eyes away from Lille. “I’ve regretted it for two weeks. Ev’ry Sunday, women wailing like banshees and men belting out Frank Sinatra. It’s enough to drive a man to drink.”

  “Good thing we’re in a bar, then.”

  Max nodded, his eyes drifting back to Lille, who was pointing to a song and laughing with Mary over some memory the two of them shared. The girl, Kim, was zooming in on them, though the women barely seemed to notice.

  “Doesn’t she get tired of it, that camera following her everywhere?” he wondered out loud, but he didn’t particularly expect John to answer.

  “I know I get tired of it,” John supplied, and took a sip of water.

  Max nodded and deliberately looked away from Lille, letting his gaze float around the room. He noticed that Keisha was efficiently wiping down tables when she wasn’t getting drinks for customers, and she didn’t seem to mind the inevitable flirting from Charlie and the boys. He saw that Kyle was texting behind the bar, or doing something on his phone. He glanced down the hall toward the exit, saw the door to the pub open, and watched a tall, blond man make his way inside. He was wearing a button-down shirt and a sweater, both of which made him look like a twat in South Florida.

  “Check your man out.” He tilted his head toward the exit, indicating the man to John, who chuckled a little, understanding why Max had pointed him out.

  “Clearly, he’s not from around here,” John said.

  “I’ll say.”

  The two of them watched as the man took a seat at a corner table. Keisha went over, put a coaster on it, and took the man’s drink order. After a few minutes she left, then came back with a Hefeweizen.

  Max’s attention had begun to drift back to Lille when he noticed that the man’s gaze had gone there as well. He was staring at Lille’s ass, his face hungry. Annoyance made Max’s hands twitch on his glass.

  “I bet that’s one of the fuckers who watches those Fetish Box videos and jacks off.” He scowled, thinking of the man who had broken into Lille’s office. “That man who broke in today—he’s in jail, yes?”

  “They carted him off. Be easy, Max. If you beat up all those tools, you’ll end up in jail, too.”<
br />
  But then the man did something that sucked the air from the room. Max’s gaze sharpened on the man’s hand as he reached into the pocket of his sweater and pulled out a small, snub-nosed revolver.

  CHAPTER Twenty-one

  “What the fuck?” Max stood up, John immediately following, and headed toward the corner table, but the man had already picked up the gun and was standing, too, walking toward Lille and Mary, his face intent, as if he saw nothing but the two women.

  Someone screamed, Max didn’t know who, and then it was as if everything slowed down, as if the air thickened and stopped and he could see every strand of Lille’s hair as she turned her head to look at who was approaching her from behind.

  Recognition widened her eyes, but she didn’t have time to say anything. The man grabbed her hair and held the gun under her chin.

  Max and John, who’d shoved several tables and patrons out of the way, skidded to a halt a few feet away. Kim, while continuing to record, put one skinny arm on Mary’s elbow and tugged her off to the side, pulling her to the edge of the stage, where amplifiers and drums blocked the man’s line of fire.

  John was tense beside him, his hand twitching as if he wanted to reach for the Glock he always carried concealed, but even Max knew that pulling a weapon didn’t always diffuse the situation; sometimes it made it worse.

  The man was murmuring something, his face pressed to Lille’s temple. Her face had gone white, but she seemed shockingly calm.

  “Lille. Lille. Lille,” the man chanted. “How’ve you been, baby? I’ve missed you. Did you miss me?”

  Lille gasped. Paul was the last person she’d ever expect to do something like this. Mild-mannered, dull Paul, who’d let her leave with his convertible after she broke off their engagement, who’d hugged her when she told him she was starting a new life in Florida.

  “Paul, what are you doing, honey?”

  Lille had never tried to dominate Paul. She’d charmed him, kept her distance, never let him see the dark currents that drove her. That’s why she’d left. She’d had enough of pretending she wasn’t a little dark, a little twisted.

  When she didn’t say anything else, he slid the gun up the side of her face and pressed it hard into her cheek.

  “Did you miss me?” he repeated.

  Lille had been hit before, when she was raped and also by a couple of her mother’s boyfriends, but she’d never had a gun pressed against her skin—she hadn’t even known that Paul possessed a gun. The pressure of it pushed the inside of her cheek against her teeth. She could taste blood in her mouth. “Of course I’ve missed you, Paul,” she spat, looking around wildly for help.

  “I’ve seen you online.” He sounded as if he were crying. He petted her hair with the gun. “I thought maybe you’d change your mind, come back to me, but then you were on those videos.” He gave a hiccupping little gasp and spun her around, tapping her between the eyes with the gun. A trickle of blood dripped from her mouth onto her dress.

  He was wailing, fluid dripping from his eyes, his face red. “You lied to me. You are a liar.” He pointed the gun at Max, but he kept his attention on Lille’s face. “You’ve been fucking him, that tattooed freak, haven’t you?”

  Lille wasn’t sure what the truth would gain her in this case. Clearly, Paul had been hiding his real self from her as well.

  “I’m sorry, Paul. I shouldn’t have agreed to marry you.”

  “I thought you were different. I thought you were so beautiful.” He waved the gun at her. “You were supposed to come back to me, but now you’re fucking him.”

  Lille clenched her jaw and tossed her head. “Yes, I am.”

  Her declaration seemed to enrage the man; his face purpled and his eyes bugged out of his head. “You let him touch you. That uneducated Irish scum.” He shoved her to her knees and gripped the back of her head.

  “What if I shoot him?” Paul waved the gun in Max’s direction.

  Lille glanced at Max. He looked infuriated, the muscles in his neck corded and his tattoos vivid. John had pulled his own gun out. A woman somewhere near the bar was crying. Lille never would have thought Paul would do something like this—she’d barely heard from him since she’d left over six weeks ago. She’d thought it was done, but here Paul was, clearly over the edge, and she’d never even known he was capable of this type of behavior. But then, he’d never known her, either, not really.

  “You’re being ridiculous, Paul.” Lille put one foot underneath her, ignoring the gun.

  “Stop.” Paul pressed the gun deeper into her skin.

  “No.” Lille put her other leg under her.

  “Lille, don’t,” Max said, and cursed.

  Lille didn’t look at him—she kept her attention focused on Paul’s face. This man was submissive, he was weak, and he would do as she said.

  “Paul, give me that gun and then we’ll go home. You’re being ridiculous.” Lille stood up and held out her hand.

  Paul looked confused. “Home.”

  “That’s right.” Lille pouted. “Now that you’ve shown me how much you really want me, I’ll go home with you.”

  “You will?”

  Lille used all of her willpower and imagined she was looking at Max, letting the desire flood her face. “Of course. I just needed to be shown how powerful you are.”

  Lille lifted one hand and pressed the gun downward, then moved closer, tilting her face upward for a kiss.

  Paul, his face a twisted combination of hope and despair, bent to meet her lips, and that was when Lille stomped on his instep with the sharp point of her heel. When Paul reeled back, she screamed and punched him in the Adam’s apple, then stepped back and delivered a fierce kick to his balls.

  “I am done,” she spat at Paul. “No one is fucking with me again.”

  She whirled around, and John took the opportunity to tackle Paul and secure him.

  Max grabbed Lille, wrapping her in his strong arms and pulling her away from the threat.

  When they were in the far corner next to the bar, Lille shoved him away, trying to see through the tears.

  “I’m fine. Get me a towel.”

  Max grimaced but did as she asked, fetching a clean bar towel and bringing it back to her.

  As soon as John had Paul on the floor with a gun to his head, Kyle came out from behind the bar. “The police are on the way.” He held up his cell phone.

  Max wrapped Lille in his arms again, ignoring her when she struggled to get free, and kissed the top of her head. Now he knew how John had felt last year when Mary had been taken, and it fucking sucked.

  “I’m fine, Max.” She pushed at his chest. “Let me fucking go.”

  He didn’t want to, but after what had just unfolded, he didn’t want to hold her against her will, either, so he released her, watching her carefully for any signs that she might faint or something.

  “Someone get me something so I can tie this asshole up,” John muttered. He had his knee on the guy’s back and his arms pulled behind him.

  “I have something,” Lille said, eerily calm again, and walked back toward the booth where she’d left her purse. She pulled out a set of restraints, the serious kind, not the kind with plastic latches and pink cuffs. This was the type of shite a navy SEAL would use to restrain someone. Max was impressed. He hoped she’d planned to use them on him.

  “Here.” She handed the restraints to John, who made quick work of cuffing the fucker.

  “This is good.” Kim came around for a close-up, zooming in on Paul. “The Web site fans will love this.”

  “Ah, Kim, I’m pretty sure the cops are going to take the video away from you,” Mary explained tentatively.

  Kim pulled the camera away from her face, appalled. Her gaze fastened on Kyle like a basilisk’s on its prey. “Hey, white boy.”

  Kyle, who’d been approaching them,
cell phone in hand as he talked to the police, looked a little bemused at the appellation.

  “Yes, he’s restrained. We’re just waiting for you. Okay. We won’t move.” He hung up and frowned at Kim. “What?”

  “You have a high-speed Internet connection here?”

  Kyle looked very confused. “Yes, but—”

  “Take me to the computer,” Kim said, stalking over and grabbing his hand.

  “But—” He sent a wild-eyed look Max’s way.

  Max shrugged. He didn’t give a shit. In fact, he wanted the damn video posted. He wanted all those pervy shites online to know that Lille could handle herself. Maybe any other unstable goat-fuckers would take heed. He tossed the keys to his office to Kyle, who caught them with his free hand.

  “Hurry,” Kim urged, pulling him toward the back.

  Lille resisted the urge to let Max comfort her. She couldn’t let him get too close, couldn’t let herself lean on him. Instead, she stared at Paul, who was fitfully testing the cuffs.

  “Lille, why did you do that? I just love you, baby. I just love you.”

  Lille gripped herself with her arms and turned away, meeting Max’s gaze. “He loves me.” She threw the words out like a gauntlet. “You hear that?”

  “I heard it,” he bit off, “but that’s not love.”

  Lille shook her head, rejecting his words, rejecting the idea of him as he stood there willing to comfort her. There was no comfort in anyone’s arms. She had to rely on herself.

  They could hear sirens getting closer as the police raced down Dania Beach Boulevard toward the pub. It wasn’t long before the place was swarming with cops, their guns drawn. Everyone dutifully put their hands in the air, and John laid his gun on the floor out of Paul’s reach and put his hands over his head. The cops secured Paul, lifting him to his feet. He was still looking at Lille, his face tormented and confused.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he pleaded. “She’s my fiancée.”

  They started searching him, feeling through his clothing.

  One officer, middle-aged, thick-chested with a gray beard, seemed to recognize Mary, which Lille thought was strange, until he said, “Miss Deupree, what kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?”