by Alex Lucian
The smile fell just as fast as my stomach when I saw who was on the other side of the door. In fact, I was in such tremendous shock from it that I couldn’t form a single word.
“Ruby,” Nicholas said, stepping into the room uninvited.
I had already been stepping aside, automatically, when I’d thought it was Elias on the other side of the door. But seeing Nicholas instead made my heels feel like I was walking on toothpicks, and I nearly stumbled as he brushed right on past me.
My blood ran cold at seeing him step into the hotel room and crane his neck around the space. He was taller than me, that much I’d remembered after so long away from him. He still looked the same, with his blonde hair slicked back and eyes piercing as he looked into the bathroom.
Finally, I found my voice. “What are you doing here? How did you know I was here?”
“I’m resourceful.” He gave me a once-over before stepping fully into the bathroom. With legs that felt like they were made of cement, I stepped around the corner and watched him go through the items on the sink before he picked up a bag I’d packed especially for that night. I’d rarely brought it around, but tonight had felt special. I’d packed some of my favorite toys, oils, and lubes, with every intention of catering to Elias.
It was as if I was having an out-of-body experience, watching him as I stood frozen, unable to stop him from tearing apart my life all over again.
It was the thought of Elias that made me speak. “No,” I said, firmly, my backbone shoring up for a confrontation. “Get out, don’t touch my stuff.” I was so shell shocked by his presence that I knew my voice sounded weak. “I’m serious, Nicholas.”
He ignored me, unzipping the bag and up-ending it onto the counter. Glass bottles of lube clattered across the marble countertop and a feather boa fell to the floor.
“What the fuck is this, Ruby?”
I realized in that moment just how crippling running into him was. Because I found myself formulating excuses, instantly, as if I’d become conditioned to his presence again, and his unwavering requirement for me to explain myself. “I…” I started, but didn’t continue. He made me powerless, a feeling I had abhorred so tremendously that I’d sought out the job I was in—something that gave me control. And I just stood there, while he ripped through my things like he had every right.
He plucked the bullet I’d kept in my bag of sex toys and held it up, pinched between two fingers. When he looked at me, his mouth was curved down and his eyes were full of disgust. “And this?”
I pressed my palm to the wall to steady myself. Already, I felt myself crumbling before him. He’d never hit me, but his words had still had an effect, reducing me to a pile of woman who was ashamed for being exactly who she was. “Get out, Nicholas,” I said, forcing steel into my gaze. “I don’t want you here.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked, swiping my sexual paraphernalia off of the counter so that it clattered to the floor. I shook from the sound of everything crashing onto tile and backed up from the door as he strode toward me.
“Get out,” I said, not actually afraid he’d hurt me. But the effect of his presence was doing a number on my resolve. I had never felt weaker than when I was facing off against Nicholas.
Just then, my phone rang and I knew, because of the ringtone, that Elias was calling me.
Nicholas glanced at the table where my cell phone was, and picked up my phone. “Who’s Elias?”
I kept my mouth shut, because no matter how I tried to reason with him, nothing would help him. When I stood there, doing nothing, Nicholas spun around.
“Who are you waiting for?” he asked, and for the first time, his voice sounded almost shrill. The phone stopped ringing and I watched him, helpless, as he tapped my code to unlock the phone—my birthday—and then reached for it when he opened up my text messages.
“Give me my phone and get out of here. I don’t want to say it again.” I tried to take the phone from him, but he held his arms up and gave me a look, all wild-eyed and crazed that I pulled my hand back in fear.
“Look at you,” he spat, lifting his head at me. “Dressed like a slut. Who are you spreading your legs for, Ruby?”
His words can’t touch me, I chanted. “What do you want? We’ve been over for two years.”
“Oh, so you can answer—” he paused and squinted “—Elias’ texts, but you can’t reply to mine.”
His anger was palpable, a presence itself in the room. I knew I needed to keep my voice calm and even, so that I didn’t incite more rage. “Honestly, I thought you’d see my lack of response and drop it.” I should’ve known better, I told myself. Nicholas was like a dog with a bone. He’d never have let up. It was inevitable that he’d turn up.
“What the fuck?” he asked, holding the phone for me to see. “Who is he, Ruby? Who? He must be someone important, for you to dress like a five-dollar whore.” He flung a hand toward the bathroom. “For you to bring all that garbage with you. What? He’s not good enough that you need toys to get you off?”
I wouldn’t entertain his diatribe. I reached for my phone again but he stepped toward me with eyes so cold, I stepped back until I was up against the bed. For the first time, I felt true fear. I’d seen Nicholas controlling, I’d experienced his manipulation. But I’d never seen him out of control—not like this.
“You know,” he said, waving my phone in the air, “I heard a rumor about you. Through the grapevine. Is it true? Are you a prostitute?”
I wouldn’t dignify his assumptions, either. It didn’t matter if I told him I was an escort. If nothing else, it would only be gasoline to the fire already burning within him.
“You are, aren’t you?” He laughed, but he didn’t sound like he was enjoying himself. “You’re paid to fuck dirty old men in rooms like this.” He looked around the room, his hair coming undone from the slicked back look he’d sported when he’d walked into the room. “Because that’s really all you’re good for, isn’t it?” He stepped toward me and I backed up so far that the back of my knees hit the bed and, ungracefully, I sat on the edge. “I remember. You used to blow me really good.” As if he was lost in that memory, he brushed a hand down the front of his pants. “Do you remember?”
I didn’t want to. “Get out, Nicholas.” Oh, how I wanted to sound strong. Powerful. But I was reduced to who he’d sculpted me into when we’d dated.
My phone rang again in his hand and he stared at it. I wished I could will him to answer it, somehow. Elias would know something was wrong right away.
“You were really great at giving head,” he said again, and stopped his advance toward me to tap on his chin. “Where could you have learned that?”
It was one of the arguments we had often, and the first time I’d given him a blowjob, he’d accused me of cheating before I’d been able to even clean myself up afterwards.
“You used to cheat on me all the time, that’s how you learned how to be like a fucking gymnast when we had sex, right?”
He was reducing me, smaller and smaller, as he tore at me. I’d never cheated on him. But I’d endured a year and a half of questioning before I’d finally had the courage to walk away. I needed to find the courage again.
Nicholas picked up my clutch and dumped it, picking through its contents. I felt trapped, unable to walk away without him coming after me. And because I was on the fourteenth floor, I knew I was a long, long way from help.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the hotel room phone. If I could get to it, I could call down to reception. I waited until Nicholas was distracted by my cell phone ringing again when I dove for the hotel room phone.
His hand closed on my ankle just as my fingers closed on the receiver. And when he yanked, the phone ripped off the nightstand and clattered to the floor. My fear amplified when he stepped around the bed to rip the phone completely away from the wall.
I was afraid to look at Nicholas’ face, because I knew I’d see someone who terrified me to my bones.
Elias, I though
t. He was the only thing I wanted in that moment.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Another drink, sir?” The bartender asked me in an obviously flirty tone, leaning her elbows on the slick black bar top so that her cleavage was obvious in the tasteful uniform she was wearing.
“No, thank you.” My polite tone and apologetic smile was the best I could do, instead of saying, fuck no, you’re not brunette enough, with dark enough eyes, or with the right kind of smile to interest me. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“I’ll check back when they get here.”
I rolled the glass around, listening to the sharp clink of the ice cubes against the glass before taking another look at my watch. Ruby was late, which was unlike her. Over my shoulder, I looked around the hotel bar again, just in case she was sitting somewhere with her back toward me.
Sad how I now viewed women under a different light, a different framework, comparing them all to Ruby. It wasn’t just her looks, her stunning body, or the raw sex appeal that she exuded just by walking into a room. There was a spark in her brain, so bright and quick, and it called to me in the same way that her body did. Her lips and legs and breasts held the same demand that her wit and her humor, her voracious need for knowledge did.
How the fuck did that happen?
Thirty-four years old, and I was feeling fucking butterflies for an escort. Someone I’d hired to screw me senseless.
I snorted. I was senseless, all right. Completely without my faculties for feeling nervous about seeing her again. For wondering if she was planning something special for us, with the hotel and the meet-up in the bar, like our first night.
The ticking hands on my watch were mocking me with each slight movement. Slight, they may have been, but by the time the ice had melted in my glass, I was really starting to get worried. Ruby would never keep me waiting for twenty minutes without responding to my call.
I tried again, holding the phone up to my ear and frowning when it went right to her voicemail. Instead of leaving a message, I pulled up my text screen to Ruby.
You standing me up, beautiful?
Even though I was smiling when I sent it, I wasn’t feeling all that amused. The text didn’t show that it was delivered, like it always did. Ruby told me once that she always kept that phone on. Always. That Lenore didn’t like it when she couldn’t get in touch with the girls.
I drummed my hands on the bar and felt the pit in my stomach grow. She’d never been late, not by a minute. And she never turned off the phone.
Without thinking too much about it, I pulled up the number that I had for Lenore.
She answered smoothly, and I barely let a single word get out. “Lenore, it’s Elias, and I’m worried about Ruby.”
“What’s wrong?” she snapped, her tone shifting from polite to fucking army general in an instant.
“She’s twenty minutes late for meeting me, and her phone is off.”
“Fucking hell,” she whispered, and the sound of clicking computer keys filled the background. “Dave and Taylor are about ten minutes out. Another girl just checked in safe, so they can head to you.”
“I don’t want to wait that long.” I tapped my fist on the bar top. “Come on, what name would she keep the reservation under? I can’t get a key unless I know the name, and she didn’t tell me the room number because we were supposed to meet in the bar.”
“I never give out that information to clients.”
“Cut the shit, Lenore,” I barked at her, and drew a surprised look from the bartender. I stood and fished a twenty out of my wallet before tossing it onto the bar for my drink. “I’m worried, and you know she’d want you to give me the information.”
“No need to get testy,” she said in a cool voice, still typing away. “Fine. It’s under the name Stevenson, in room Fourteen-Twenty.”
“Thank you,” I told her meaningfully, and hung up so I could head to the front desk. A young woman in a sleek black jacket stood behind the perfectly appointed granite. I gave her the most charming smile I could manage. “Hi, I lost my key. Last name is Stevenson. I’m in room Fourteen-Twenty.”
“Of course, sir,” she said with a small smile, flicking her eyes over my face before pulling up the reservation. “Here it is.”
I winked, even though my body was vibrating with the need to go check on Ruby. “Much appreciated.”
When she slid me the key, I tapped the counter in thanks and tried my best not to sprint to the elevator. It was empty when the shining doors slid open and I jabbed at the button for the fourteenth floor.
“Come on, come on, come on,” I whispered at the painfully slow ascent of the sleek elevator. You’d think if a hotel would spring for modern décor, they could have put one in that moved at more than two miles per fucking hour. At this rate, I could’ve rappelled up the elevator shaft faster. With a pleasant ding, the doors opened on the fourteenth floor and I jogged down the hall in the direction of the room. When I reached it, I took a second to pull in a deep breath, so I could calmly listen at the door. There was a crash and a curse.
A male voice.
Calm got thrown right out the fucking window. As quietly as I could, I slipped the key into the slot on the door and waited for the light to turn green. The voice got louder, and I heard a few words that made a murderous red haze cover my eyes.
Whore. Bitch. Slut.
Quiet got thrown right out the fucking window. I was in the room, door slamming up against the wall in my next breath. Ruby was huddled on the floor up against the bed, her face white and her eyes terrified. The hotel phone was ripped off the nightstand. That fucking psycho—Ruby’s ex—turned with wide eyes when I charged at him. I grabbed him by the shirt with both hands, shoving him against the wall with a roar.
“I will fucking end you, asshole,” I ground out, using all my strength to hold him up so that his feet couldn’t touch the floor. His arms swung ineffectually at me, glancing hits that didn’t even register. I pulled one arm back and rammed it into his stomach. Again, but harder, and I felt something break under my hands.
“Stop! I didn’t touch her!”
I slammed him against the wall again, then pressed my forearm against his throat. When he squirmed, I pressed harder. My face turned briefly to Ruby, who had unfolded herself and was staring at me with an expression that was half misery and half awe.
“Did he?” I asked her. “Did he fucking touch you?”
“Ruby, tell him,” Psycho wheezed. “Tell him I didn’t touch you.”
“Shut up,” I roared at him. When I narrowed my eyes and leaned in so close that our noses almost touched, the whites of his eyes doubled in size. “If you can still manage to talk, then I’m not going my job.”
“My ankle,” she whispered and I snapped my head to her.
“What?”
Ruby lifted her chin and leveled a glare at Nicholas. “He grabbed my ankle and yanked me down when I tried to run for the phone.”
Nicholas flipped out when I turned my eyes back to him. Maybe he saw the switch, maybe he saw that I was imagining all the ways I could make his body disappear. There were so many demons that I battled on a regular basis. And the things that I knew I was capable of, but hadn’t done in so many years, resurfaced in a rush.
I grabbed his throat with both hands and squeezed, relishing the way his eyes popped and he clawed at my hands while I towered over him. “You fucking touched her? Huh? God, you don’t even know what I could do to you, do you, fucker?”
“Elias,” Ruby said, standing up and touching my shoulder. One touch and something settled inside of me. Something quieted, something steadied. “Don’t kill him.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I’d rather not have to visit you in jail.” Her voice was shaking, and I pinched my eyes shut, because that slight tremor was enough to make me want to rip his head off with my bare hands. Mine, mine, mine, I wanted to say to him when I did it. He touched what was mine. Hurt her. Scared her. Made her fold
herself up to be smaller, to be less of a target. Made her want to be less than what she is.
My fingers tightened and he wheezed. Then I let go, and he slumped onto the floor, rubbing at his neck and struggling for breath. I turned and folded Ruby in my arms, and she let out a few shaky exhales.
“Asshole,” Nicholas rasped out.
I pulled my head back and looked at Ruby briefly, then turned so I could pull my leg back and kick him in the ribs. He groaned and rolled into a ball on the floor, when there was a knock on the door. Ruby’s eyes widened in fear until someone spoke.
“Ruby? It’s Dave and Taylor.”
Her shoulders slumped in relief and she hurried to open the door. Two massive guys in suits walked in. No necks, wide shoulders, and no hair. Nondescript faces. Cold eyes.
They were the perfect goons.
The one on the right gave Nicholas a chilling look before turning to me. “You do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you,” he said, and lifted his chin at the other one, who nodded and walked over to Nicholas. “You okay, Ruby?”
She smiled, but it was shaky. “Yeah. Thanks for getting here so fast, Dave. Who called you?”
“He called Lenore,” he said, pointing at me. “Said she’d chop our dicks off if we weren’t here within five minutes.”
Ruby looked at me with gratefulness in her eyes and reached for my hand, weaved her fingers in between mine. They were ice cold. Dave noticed her gesture, but didn’t say anything. Taylor hefted Nicholas up, who groaned, clutching at his ribs.
“What are you going to do with him?” I asked. Both men looked at me, but didn’t say anything. “Got it. I’d rather not know anyway.”
“How are you going to get him out of here without anybody noticing?” Ruby asked from beside me, looking at Nicholas without a single ounce of compassion. Actually, she looked just about as bloodthirsty as I felt.
“You let us worry about that, sweetheart,” Taylor said with a heavy Jersey accent.
