CHAPTER THREE
For the rest of the drive, Drex stayed silent.
I didn’t know where we were going and almost didn’t care. At least I wasn’t on foot anymore. I wasn’t walking down the street in my underwear. And I wasn’t alone.
But every time I snuck a look at the side of his face, I wished I were.
I had to stay sharp. I couldn’t get distracted and lose the one thing that had kept me going. My determination.
I didn’t like how I reacted to him. The second he glanced my way, everything inside me started to get stupid, and I couldn’t afford stupid. Not until I’d figured out what was happening to me, and why.
To keep from looking at him, I pinned my eyes to the scenery outside my window. It wasn’t much to look at – run-down buildings and houses with barred windows and dirt front yards. We left the city behind, then the suburbs, and roared down an unpaved road with nothing around but cacti and a sagging barbed-wire fence.
If he wanted to kill me and leave my body in a ditch, this was the perfect setting for it.
Twilight fell, and the sky turned dark purple. After a few miles of bouncing over rocks and ruts, I spotted lights in the distance. As we got closer, I saw a modern, single-story stucco house surrounded by lush gardens and tall cottonwood trees.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“I’m staying here for the time being,” Drex said, pulling down a driveway lined with short, thick palm trees. “It’s more private than a hotel in town.”
I felt a stab of anxiety. “It’s pretty isolated.”
“Yeah, well, isolated is as close as you get to a vacation house around here.”
He parked and got out. His boots crunched gravel as he walked around the truck. Out here, anything could happen and I’d have no defense. I was completely dependent on a stranger, and I didn’t like it a bit.
“Come on,” he said, opening my door. “We’re the only ones here.”
“That’s the problem,” I muttered.
Though the sun had just slipped below the horizon, the crickets were already singing. There wasn’t another sound. Cursing myself for getting in Drex’s truck in the first place, I got out and followed him up a stone path. The ground was covered by succulent plants bursting with pink and white blooms.
“Things grow out here?” I asked to break the awkward silence.
He shrugged. “Throw enough water at them, they do.”
As soon as we reached the front door, a broad, mottled face appeared at the window to the right. A mangy, wild, barking dog. Half-Pitbull, half-demon.
“That’s Diesel,” Drex said. “I’d say her bark is worse than her bite, but I don’t know yet.”
“How can you not know?” I asked, stepping behind him on instinct.
“She was stray until a couple of days ago. We’re still getting to know each other. Good news is, she hasn’t taken a chunk out of me yet.”
He opened the door, nudged the dog back inside with his knee, and turned off the alarm. “Come on, girl,” he said, taking her by the collar. “Let’s get you fed. Then you can go rip the yard apart for a while.”
Stepping inside behind him, I felt the cool draft of an air-conditioned oasis. In front of me was a floor-to-ceiling wall of glass overlooking an infinity pool, a long stretch of moonlit desert, and the lights of the distant city. I gasped from surprise. It was the first truly beautiful sight I could remember. Considering where I’d started this morning, I could hardly believe it was real.
“Make yourself at home,” Drex said, shutting the door and switching on recessed lights. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Okay. Thanks.” At home? What did those words mean in a home like this?
While he hauled the dog down a hallway, I stood looking around, amazed at my luck. Not only was I off the streets, but I was here, in what felt like a palace.
The room was vast and open, with a river rock fireplace at each end and rough-hewn wood beams overhead. The rugs were dark red, the sofas copper-brown leather with gold rivets. The walls had been painted with traditional Mayan-style murals of kings on horseback and elaborate stone temples. I bent over to run my fingers across the travertine floor. It was cool and glossy, amazingly smooth.
But how did I know what travertine was? How did I know to be impressed by this house? How could I know these things, but I didn’t know my name?
When I stood up, a slight chill of awareness rippled over my skin. I stood frozen in place with my arms at my sides. If Drex was behind me -- and I knew he was -- he’d seen me bend over. I’d almost gotten used to wearing so little, but now I felt self-conscious and flustered. The t-shirt covered only half my backside. The one bit of good luck was that the panties weren’t sheer, though they sure didn’t cover much.
“Chimayo doesn’t look so bad from a distance, does it?” he said, coming up beside me.
I turned my face so he wouldn’t see me flushing. “The lights are beautiful.”
“They’re even better with nothing in front of them.”
He pressed a button on the wall and the glass slid open, letting in the warm evening air. The breeze felt like velvet against my scraped and aching legs. Drawn to the view, I walked toward the terrace, careful not to touch the furniture with my dirty fingers.
“What’s a house like this doing out here?” I asked, stepping onto the patio.
“It belongs to an old friend of mine,” Drex said, following me outside. “There are eighteen gun shops in Chimayo and he owns all but two of them. In this part of the country, that’s a damn good living.”
“You don’t mind being so far away from the city?”
“I like it. There’s no phone, TV, or internet. It forces me to relax, which is hard to do in this town.”
No TV and no internet. How was I going to find out who I was when I was cut off from the world in the middle of the desert?
“The security could be better,” he continued. “This is a pretty lawless area, if you haven’t noticed. That’s why I got out of my truck when I saw you. I could tell you weren’t a local.”
“It must have been the tourist outfit,” I said.
One corner of his mouth turned up. “Yeah. Dead giveaway.”
I felt his eyes on me, examining my face and dirty bare skin. I shivered as if he’d touched me with cold hands. Why hadn’t I asked him for something to wear as soon as I walked in the door?
“You must be hungry,” he said. “When’s the last time you ate?”
My stomach ached at the thought of food. For three days I’d tried to master the art of ignoring hunger pangs, but had failed every time. “This morning,” I said.
“How did you eat if you had no money?”
“Drex…” It was the first time I’d said his name, and it felt sensual and forbidden on my tongue.
He gave me a warning glare. “Spit it out,” he said. “As long as you’re here, you’re going to be straight with me.”
I was too proud to tell him, but too exhausted to lie. “I stole a muffin from a convenience store, all right?” I said with a sigh. “Is that straight enough for you?”
He stared at me before giving me a smile that made his eyes crinkle. “Now that we’ve established you’re not a hardened criminal, I feel safe letting you stay the night.”
A filched muffin was just the start of the story, but there was a warm bed hanging in the balance. “You won’t regret it,” I said.
“I hope not,” he said. “Ready to see your room?”
My room. I’d never heard two more wonderful words. “Yes, thank you.”
After the last hour in Drex’s company – or was it custody? – I desperately needed time alone. If I didn’t look at him for a little while, maybe I could gather my wits again.
“While you rest and take a bath, I’ll make you a real meal. We’ll get you some clothes tomorrow. Tonight, you can make do with some of mine.”
I followed him down a long hallway lined with windows on one side and ab
stract art on the other. The house was so quiet after days on the road, I could hear a hum in my ears.
“Here we are,” he said, stopping at an open door.
When I stepped into the guest room after him, all of the tears I’d suppressed swelled into my throat. I forced them down and put on the widest smile I could.
I’d gone from shoplifting to splendor in twelve short hours. There was a big four-poster bed piled high with thick pillows and draped with filmy white netting. In front of the kiva fireplace was a sitting area furnished with an olive-green velvet sofa and chair. Outside the French doors was a lovely rock garden filled with big ceramic pots of flowering cacti, and beyond that, the gleaming lights of the city.
“It’s very nice. Actually, better than nice. It’s perfect.”
“Are you sure?” Drex asked. “There’s a larger room but it doesn’t have a view.”
“Okay?” I almost laughed. If he knew what I’d done, where I’d slept, the kind of person I was, he wouldn’t have let me in the front door.
“It couldn’t be better,” I said. “Really.”
I reached out to touch his arm but retracted my hand at the last instant. Tension sparked between us, a connection like crossed wires in a lightning storm. God, I was pathetic. Pathetic and apparently, very deprived of human contact.
“Good,” he said. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
“Wait, Drex?” Drawing a breath, I forced confidence into my voice. “I hope you meant what you said about a housekeeper. I’ll earn everything you’re doing for me.” Down and out though I was, I could not – would not – take charity. I had nothing left but my pride, and I wasn’t about to give it up.
“I meant it,” he said. “In fact, I saw a uniform hanging in the maid’s quarters. I think it’ll fit you perfectly.”
There was no sign that he was joking, only his gleaming eyes burning into my mine. The humiliation of the last three days was about to get worse, and a lot more personal.
“A maid’s uniform,” I repeated, trying very hard to be humble.
“Yes. You’ll need something to wear while you’re cooking and cleaning, won’t you?”
I bit back a retort. Hungry girls without pants could not be choosers. “I guess I will.”
Uneasiness shivered through me at his smile, along with a sizzling heat that settled between my legs.
Who was this guy? One minute he was kind and considerate, the next he was an arrogant ass. My physical response made no sense, unless I took into account how lost and alone I felt. It didn’t hurt that he was the sexiest man I’d seen in seventy-two hours, and probably a lot longer than that.
“I’ll leave a shirt and running shorts outside the door,” he said. “They’re the only things that won’t fall off you, and they probably will anyway. You’re so slim, and…tiny.”
I couldn’t look away. We stared at each other as if he’d said something forbidden he could never take back.
“Thank you,” I managed to say. “For everything.”
“Enjoy your bath,” he said, turning suddenly as if he couldn’t wait to leave. “If you need anything, just ask.”
He walked out and shut the door behind him.
I stood in the middle of the room, torn by relief and the deepest loneliness I could imagine. As soon as his footsteps faded away, I sat on the bed and cried for what felt like the first time.
CHAPTER FOUR
I’d thought I was done making huge, irreversible mistakes. Clearly, I was just saving all of my fuck-ups for one day. Today.
It was bad enough that I’d shown up at The Dead End after five years and been recognized. Maybe the guy was so drunk my face wouldn’t stick in what was left of his feeble brain. Or maybe, with a little digging, he’d figure out the stunning number of people I’d relieved of their savings before reinventing myself half the state away. The gambling addicts I’d ruined, the college boys I’d trounced without a second thought.
Life savings – gone. Pension fund – ditto. I’d been a one-man Wall Street, marauding my way through every pool hall in the state. Too cocky to fail.
The scary thing was how easy it had been. A few years of bar brawls and lucky breaks and I’d funded an empire, mostly on the backs of fools who couldn’t afford it. And all because I was competitive as hell and knew how to use a cue. It wasn’t the drug runners or parolees that bothered me, it was the ordinary guys, the single dads.
There was one in particular who still popped into my mind when I couldn’t sleep. Poor bastard.
That’s what rescuing Diesel had been about. I didn’t need a psychiatrist to spell it out. I was proving to myself that I still had a heart. I’d had a Malamute with one eye until a few months ago, when he’d crushed my heart by dying after eight years by my side.
Yeah, adopting a down-and-out dog usually made me feel better, until it didn’t anymore. But rescuing a dog was one thing. A woman was a mistake of monumental proportions.
As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, and enough trouble keeping myself in line. Maid’s uniform. Jesus Christ. I’d meant it, too. It had been a fantasy of mine for years, and now the uniform and the perfect woman just happened to be in the same very remote house. Serendipity. Or stupidity. Probably both.
I stood outside her door and listened as she ran a bath. Right about now she was peeling off that ragged t-shirt and stepping out of her panties. Maybe she was standing in front of the full-length mirror, looking at what I’d give my entire bank account to lay eyes on.
When it got quiet I kept listening, imagining the water covering her naked curves, flowing between her legs, over her breasts, getting her ready for me.
No, Drex. Not for you.
That was the kind of thinking that helped me churn through dozens of women every year. Now that I was done plundering bank accounts, I was blowing through beds. One would think I’d be satisfied with all the money and pussy I’d acquired, but I wasn’t. Not even close. It was like throwing aspirin at an incurable disease and expecting a cure. The wrong medicine for the wrong man.
And tonight I was worse off than ever. It didn’t help that I was out in the middle of to-hell-and-gone with a woman who was a very beautiful clean slate.
Of course, she might be married, though that had never stopped me before. It didn’t matter who the woman was. If I wanted her I took her, morality be damned.
And there was something about this woman I wanted. Bad. She had a combination of defiance and vulnerability that nailed me where it counted. This was a woman who could walk around half-naked, casually start a conversation with drunk bikers, and then go all modest on me when I looked at her too long.
Not just unheard of for Chimayo. Unheard of period. Anywhere on the planet.
I went out to the fenced garden and called Diesel. Either she didn’t know her name yet or she didn’t care that I was calling her. She was too busy tearing up flowers and tossing the dirt onto a nice new patch of sod.
But that was okay. Kurt would understand. He had two little kids who turned my apartment into a natural disaster whenever they came to visit.
“Time to get in your kennel,” I said, taking Diesel firmly by the collar.
She growled and dug in her heels, but I’d made an awfully inviting bed out of thick wool blankets that eventually lured her in. “We’re making progress,” I said, latching the door. “Good girl.”
I listened for Blue Eyes, but all was quiet on the bath front. I wouldn’t think about what part of that sunbaked body she was scrubbing now.
I went to the kitchen and dunked some raw chicken in mustard and olive oil. I could throw fresh spinach into a pan and sauté it, maybe grill some corn on the cob. Hopefully Blue Eyes would be too hungry to notice that I wasn’t exactly a Michelin-starred chef. That was why I had somebody cook for me whenever I was home in Houston.
I poured a whiskey and went onto the terrace to wait for her. I hoped to God the shirt and shorts disguised those boner-inducing curves. I drank and paced, but a
nother whisky later, she still hadn’t come out of her room.
Damn. What was taking her so long? I shouldn’t have let her take a bath behind closed doors, not knowing what might be wrong with her.
Leaving the glass in the kitchen, I went down the hall to the guest suite. All I heard was the wind blowing in off the desert. More than an hour had passed since I’d left her alone.
I rapped lightly on the door. No answer. I knocked again and waited. After a minute I tried the door, hoping she hadn’t locked it. It opened without a sound.
Though the room was dark, the garden lights glowed through the windows. I saw the end of the bed, and on the floor, her rumpled shirt and panties. My stomach muscles clenched and my cock stiffened. The response was pure impulse.
She had no idea. I looked like a savior but I was nothing but danger. The kind of man her mother had warned her about.
“Hey,” I said softly. I even sounded like a savior, a nice, regular guy who just wanted to make sure she was still breathing.
There was no reply. “Can I come in?” I asked, and opened the door wider.
The hall light poured over the Mexican rug and illuminated the bed. She was stretched out on the duvet, asleep.
Naked. And so fucking beautiful.
Something twisted like hot steel in my chest. She was facing me, her long, damp hair fanned out across a pillow. Her knees were slightly bent, one tucked behind the other. Between her legs was a narrow strip of pale brown hair, soft and sweet. One arm covered all but the lower curve of her breasts. Her hand dangled off the mattress, as if she’d been reaching for something when she fell asleep.
Her eyelids trembled and her fingers twitched as if trying to make a fist. A brief frown knitted her brows, and her lips parted to draw in a quick breath. She was dreaming.
I wanted to leave, but I was paralyzed.
Whatever I felt, it was more than arousal. Of course I was rock-hard for her, but this was something else. I was edgy and on the verge of losing control. And I wasn’t okay with it.
Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 3) Page 3
