by K. M. Scott
He shifted into third gear and hit the gas, pushing me back against the seat. "Guess you should have been paying attention instead of hiding behind your hands."
Fear raced through my body. Was he serious? "Are you kidnapping me? I mean, this feels a little bit like kidnapping since you obviously aren't taking me home."
That I sounded ridiculous and a man like him probably didn't have to kidnap women didn't occur to me in my fear. Women likely pleaded with him to take them anywhere.
"I don't think they'd call this kidnapping," he teased. "Maybe if you were tied up or at least had a gag in your mouth."
"Please take me home, Tristan. We're nowhere near my house and you're scaring me."
My hands began to get sweaty at the real fear that I had made a terrible mistake. I didn't know this man, and no matter how infatuated I'd been with him just hours before, he had total control of me at that moment, something very frightening.
Still speeding toward God knows where, he took his hands off the steering wheel and held them up in front of him. "If you want to go home, take the wheel and turn the car around."
I frantically grabbed the wheel and the car jerked to the right, racing off to the side of the road. I panicked, turned it to the left, overcompensating, and screamed in terror as we began to spin out. Then everything before my eyes went black.
The car rolled to a stop on the shoulder and I heard him say my name in a soft voice. "Nina. Nina, it's okay. We're okay."
I looked around at the car and him and saw he was telling the truth. We hadn't crashed and I was still alive. Adrenaline coursed through my body, and my hands began to shake uncontrollably. Suddenly, I was overcome with emotion and lashed out at him as tears began to roll down my cheeks. "You're crazy! You're fucking crazy! You could have killed me!"
My crying startled him, and for just a moment he didn't possess that cool exterior he'd worn since the first moment I'd seen him. His brows knitted, as if he were in pain, and he leaned in toward me to press his forehead to mine. He cradled my face in his hands, instantly exciting me. Closing my eyes to mask my discomfort, I heard him say, "We only know how precious life is when he come close to death, Nina."
He sat back in his seat, and I turned to look at him, my emotions all a jumble. "Why did you want me to come with you tonight? Why did you come find me? I'm not like those women who were around you at the show. Why me?"
"Those women don't interest me. If they did, I could have any one of dozens right now."
Oddly, that made me jealous. I didn't even know this man, but the idea of him with anyone else bothered me.
Fighting back my insecurities, I said, "Maybe they like it when you nearly kill them, but I don't. Most ordinary women like me don't."
He stared straight ahead into the night and started the car again. "Don't underestimate yourself, Nina. You're anything but ordinary."
In truth, I didn't think I was ordinary, but it was nice to hear from someone other than yourself sometimes. My cheeks warmed at his compliment, making me happy the inside of the car was dim. He didn't need to think I was as infatuated with him as I already was.
Full of fake bravado, I said, "You have no idea what I am. And where the hell are we going?"
"I want to show you something. This is going to take a few, so why don't you enlighten me as to what you are," he said with a smile that made an ache form in the pit of my stomach.
"Isn't it a little presumptuous of you to think I have no plans? It is a Saturday night."
He didn't seem bothered by the idea that I had plans or even had a boyfriend. I had neither, but he couldn't know that.
Turning his head to face me, he looked at me with those soulful brown eyes. "Do you have plans?" he asked with an innocence that made me smile.
I didn't want to admit that I, a young, available, attractive New York woman, had no plans whatsoever on a Saturday night. I mean, I could have had plans. There were men interested in me. Just not anyone I was interested in being interested in me.
But he didn't need to know that.
"I did have things planned, if you need to know," I lied with enough attitude to hopefully hide my fib.
He chuckled and pushed down on the gas, again throwing me back in my leather seat. He never asked what my plans were and obviously didn't care. Talk about ego! As if I had nothing better to do than speed up the Taconic.
We traveled in silence with the ghostly outline of the trees and the white line on the side of the highway rushing by making me dizzy. The mood felt awkward, but I didn't know what to say. Here I was racing toward some unknown place with a man I barely knew in a car I'd only seen in ads in magazines and movies.
I only hoped I would be alive at the end of whatever this was.
As if he read my mind, he said, "Nina, relax. I don't plan to kill you and leave bits and pieces of you along the side of the road."
Terror raced through my body. I turned in my seat to face him, tugging the seatbelt away from my neck. "Who says that kind of thing? Jesus! Now I'm worried you're actually going to do that. And how do you know what I'm thinking?"
Once again, he laughed at what I said. "Tell me about what you do when you aren't hosting art shows."
Slumping back in my seat, I tried to calm myself. "I guess that's supposed to make me relax?"
He turned to look at me for a moment and then turned back to face the road. "No. It's supposed to tell me what you do when you're not hosting art shows."
"I like to read, hang out with my friends, and paint."
And there it was. The truth of my life in one short sentence. I sounded like some lame teenage girl who really spent her Saturday nights crocheting booties for her cat.
"What do you paint?"
"Whatever I'm feeling."
"Are you a good artist?"
"That's usually in the eye of the beholder."
He arched one dark eyebrow and looked over at me. "Then I'll have to judge your work for myself sometime."
Why was he talking like we were a couple or moving toward being that? We'd spent all of an hour together and now he was making plans to see my artwork. Yet he hadn't made any effort to even hold my hand or kiss me.
What was with this guy?
"Are we almost there?" I asked, uneasy about this entire thing.
"Almost."
As if my question had been a cue, he took the next exit and in minutes we were in the middle of pitch black nowhere. If I was worried before, now I was almost terrified. Scenes from every horror movie I'd ever seen flashed through my mind, all leading to the same ending. Me murdered and in pieces along an isolated country road and my sister devastated because I had forgotten the one thing she'd always told me not to do—get into cars with strangers. Ever since her house was broken into and ransacked, she'd been nearly paranoid about strangers, which I'd thought was a bit of an overreaction, but now I was thinking she had the right idea.
"Can I ask a question and have you answer with more than one word or one sentence that really says nothing?"
He stopped the car at a stop sign and turned to face me with a devastatingly sexy grin on his face. "Yes."
I couldn't help roll my eyes. He was either the most insufferable person I'd ever met or one of the funniest. I couldn't decide which. "Where are we going and can you promise me you're not going to do anything awful to me?"
"That's two questions, Nina."
The car began to roll again, and I let out a heavy sigh, hoping his dry humor was an indication that I wasn't going to be killed anytime soon. "Okay, can I ask you two questions and get straight answers?"
"Of course. You can ask whatever you want and I'll answer."
"I'd like straight answers."
His mouth hitched up at the corners into a sly smile. "As straight as you want."
"Where are we going?"
"To see a house I'm planning to buy."
"Really?"
He turned his head to look at me. "Do you want that to count as your second q
uestion?"
And after being scared shitless and almost killed, then confused and finally frustrated by his vague answers, I had to laugh. "No."
"Then what's your second question?"
"Are you going to do something awful to me out here in the middle of nowhere?"
Without a word, he stopped the car and put it into park. Then he leaned over, nearly touching my cheek with his lips, and pointed out my window. "That's the house, and I have no plans to do anything you wouldn't like or even love. What do you think of it?"
He was so close and smelled so delicious that I couldn't think clearly. I turned my head slightly and his lips brushed my skin, sending a jolt of electricity straight to between my legs. Pressing my thighs together, I turned toward the window and pretended to look up at the house on the hill.
"It's nice."
"It's twelve million dollars."
Holy shit! In my mind, I counted the number of zeroes on a check for twelve million dollars. Then I imagined what I could buy for twelve million dollars. And even all that probably wouldn't fill the house I was looking at.
His breath drifted over my neck, and I leaned back slightly, wanting so much for him to kiss me or touch me with his hand. He did neither, though, even as he remained there so close.
In my ear, he whispered in a voice that hit me somewhere deep inside, "See? Nothing bad."
Just when I was sure he would do something, he sat back in his seat and began driving back toward the city. My mind and senses were reeling. Never before had I wanted to feel the touch of a man's lips on me so badly, but he never made a move. The experience left my emotions raw, and I feared saying anything more as I was sure I would embarrass myself, so I sat silently as he drove toward Sunset Park, speaking only when he asked me where I lived.
When he finally pulled the car up to in front of my building, my feelings were all a mishmash. I felt happy about the fact that he hadn't killed me, but it seemed that he never had any plans to do that or anything else, including anything sexual. I couldn't be sure, but it seemed like he just wanted company. I guess I had been that, but my infatuation had secretly made me want so much more.
"Thank you for coming to see the house, Nina."
"Okay. Thank you for not killing me out in the middle of nowhere, I guess," I said with a smile, sad our time together was over, likely forever.
"I'll watch you get in."
"Thanks."
I waited a long moment just in case he wanted to lean in and kiss me, but he simply smiled and stared into my eyes, making me feel intensely insecure. Finally, I blurted out, "Goodbye," and got out.
Crossing in front of the car, I forced myself not to look inside at him. Whatever this had been, it was over, and I needed to get over it. I felt his stare on my back as I stepped onto the sidewalk, but I told myself to not turn around.
Then from behind me I heard the car window lower and he said my name. Turning around, I was struck by how lonely he looked in that car all by himself. I waved and smiled, and he said quietly, "Nina, be careful getting in cars with strange men. You could get hurt, and I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you."
He drove off, leaving me more confused than before. Frustrated and baffled by my time with Tristan Stone, I hurried into my building.
Chapter Two
Sundays were always the best day of the week, as far as I was concerned. My father had never been a very religious man after my mother died, so my sister and I had never done the Sunday church thing. For us, the last day of the weekend meant sleeping in and then a late breakfast of pancakes and waffles smothered in butter and maple syrup and lovingly made by my father.
I'd continued this tradition as often as possible, even while I was in college, and now that I was out on my own, I loved Sundays even more. Granted, there were no pancakes or waffles usually, but there was sleeping in.
Beautiful, luxurious sleeping in.
Jordan thankfully shared my love of Sunday mornings, so our apartment was like a tomb often until early afternoon. The former best friend of my college roommate, she had been the opposite of Alyssa, who acted like weekends were her own personal version of boot camp. Jordan had joined with me to refuse to rise and shine at the crack of dawn one snowy February Sunday in freshman year, and we'd been friends ever since. We liked to say that it had been in our rebellion against the dawn and Alyssa that we'd become friends.
She hadn't been home when I returned from my bizarre time with Tristan, so I was eager to tell her about it all and get her opinion. But even crazy guy stories didn't warrant waking up before noon on a Sunday.
I rolled over and saw on my alarm clock that it was just about that time, so it was fair game to head down the hall and hope she was awake. Dressed in my usual shorts and a t-shirt I liked to sleep in, I padded barefoot toward her room only to find it empty. She had been getting more serious with Justin lately, so I assumed she'd spent the night at his place. Disappointed, I shuffled back to my room and flopped down on my bed once again.
The discussion of Tristan Stone and his sexiness would have to wait.
That didn't mean he was leaving my mind anytime soon. Even if we hadn't spent any time together, he'd still be rambling around the corners of my brain. I was infatuated, so the memory of his gorgeous face would stick with me for a while.
Clicking on the television, I stared at the show on the screen while I daydreamed about the events of the previous night. Why had he come to find me if all he wanted was someone to drive upstate with? He had many friends, I imagined, so why seek out a stranger who was so unlike him?
Just admitting to myself that I wasn't of his social level made me wince. I hadn't grown up around money, but my father had always made sure my sister and I were taken care of, so money was never a real issue. We weren't wealthy, but we weren't poor. The idea that someone's income would make them better than someone else was foreign to me, but in my time living in New York, it had become very clear that my feelings on money weren't everyone's.
Tristan Stone was very wealthy and far above my place in the world, even if I still counted myself as the middle class person I'd always been before living on my own. This made his actions the night before even less understandable.
I scrubbed my hands over my face in frustration. I wanted him to like me as much as I liked him. I wanted him to be lying in bed thinking of me. Even better would be him lying in bed alone thinking of me. But just thinking of me would be nice.
Who was I kidding? He was likely in bed with the brunette or the group of women he'd attended the show with. A stab of jealousy pinched at me as I imagined what he looked like out of that grey suit and naked in bed...with other women.
Get over it, Nina. It was some kind of game he was playing and it's over.
I silently repeated that a few times trying to convince myself to forget him and the time we'd spent together. I knew I should.
I just couldn't.
He filled my mind, and I loved it. Inhaling deeply, I still could smell his cologne, either as a wonderful memory or because of some fragment remaining inside my olfactory system. Masculine and powerful, it would forever remind me of him. I closed my eyes to imagine his face. The deep brown eyes that spoke volumes even when he didn't. The perfectly shaped mouth and the lips that had lightly brushed my cheek for just a moment, sending my body into overdrive. The masculine jaw of a man who looked like a man, not a boy.
What did he look like when he was just lying around on an early Sunday afternoon? Did he wear boxers or boxer briefs? Or did he sleep naked? I wanted to know what he looked like under his clothes. He had stood at least half a foot taller than I, probably more if I wasn't in those ridiculous three-inch heels Sheila made me wear to shows. He had appeared imposing, but I couldn't say if he was a big man or lean.
All I knew is that I wanted to know.
I let my mind drift back to the house he'd shown me. I fantasized about how he'd look standing in the doorway of one of its enormous rooms dressed in a suit muc
h like the one he'd worn on our ride. In my mind's eye, he looked perfect. He wore a midnight blue shirt and matching tie that he fussed with. I saw myself there with him, straightening that tie as I stood in front of him admiring how truly stunning he was.
The sound of the front door slamming yanked me out of my daydream, and I heard Jordan yell, "Nina! Even I don't think you should be sleeping this late on this gorgeous day!"
Before I could get out of bed, she was standing in my doorway, all smiles. "Good morning, sleepyhead. What are you still doing in bed?"
Her happiness was catching, and I smiled. "Just hanging out. Where were you? Justin's?"
Her smile grew even bigger. "Yes. He and I have moved to me staying over, so you get to have the apartment all to yourself on nights like last night. Tell me you took advantage of that and didn't just come home after slaving away for Shitty Sheila and her crappy art show."
I didn't say anything, but my cheeks grew hot and my blush signaled that I had something to tell her. "Well, there was something. It's probably nothing, but..."
Jordan squealed. "Ooooh! I'm going to get a drink and you need to meet me in the living room to tell me everything. Get up and start talking!"
I loved that she was willing to listen to my silly ramblings about what would likely amount to nothing. Some friends only wanted someone to listen to them but weren't there for you when you had some juicy details, or in this case, wishful juicy details. But that wasn't Jordan.
By the time I made it out to the living room, she was planted in her favorite comfy chair with a glass of diet soda in front of her. "I'm ready, so hit me with the details."
I took a seat across from her and folded my legs under me. For a second, embarrassment rushed through my body. I was twenty-four years old and no stranger to dating. It's not like I was a virgin either. Suddenly, I felt silly about making a big deal out of my time with Tristan.
"Well?" Jordan asked impatiently.
"I met someone, sort of," I said, struggling to describe exactly what had happened.
