by Angel Payne
“Of course. Wait.” There’s shuffling from her end. Her breaths are hollow, as if she’s cupped a hand over her phone. “Are you still with him now?”
“No.” Not a lie in the least. I still have no idea what this place is or how I got here. Hell, I don’t know if I’m a guest or a hostage—though when I hear a door open somewhere nearby, I sense that answer is near. With heartbeats attacking my throat, I mutter, “Call you back soon,” and disconnect the line.
I scramble out of the bed, following the noise despite my uneasiness. Gingerly, I walk toward the sounds.
“Whoa.”
I definitely didn’t expect…this.
First, there’s a built-to-fit architectural island constructed out of custom-hewn rocks and curved insets of dark wood. It houses crescent-shaped bookshelves that arch over a curved, see-through fireplace. On either side of the fireplace, narrow steps lead to a sunken reading area with plush couches. A second bookshelf brackets the other side of the area, but instead of a fireplace there’s a spirits cabinet.
In short, my idea of heaven on earth.
Sealing the deal? My own angel comes with the package.
He stands in the doorway off to my left, leading to what looks like a bathroom as oversized as the bed. Steam billows around the lean muscles of his towel-wrapped hips, as if he’s really just emerged from heaven and the clouds don’t want to let go. Can they be blamed? He’s glorious, from the bold cut of his abdominal V to the rippled plateaus of his proud shoulders.
And every damp, defined striation in between…
No. No.
I don’t want this. I don’t want him. I can’t want him.
Because he’s not my angel.
Because somehow, in some strange twist of fate, I’ve ended up here with him—wherever here is—and now must deal with looking at him like this. Knowing the shirt he pulled off to get like this had cufflinks with it. Those cufflinks…
We were caught up in a…discussion…
“You’re awake,” Reece states.
I push one foot back. Another. “Yeah.” Finally, I’m able to step away from him. “In a lot more ways than one.”
“Velvet—”
“Do. Not.” The point is worth halting for. I stand my ground, my gaze on fire from the inside out, one finger stabbing at him. “You don’t get to ‘velvet’ me anymore. Or ‘bunny’ or ‘foo foo’ or whatever the hell else you’ve cooked into that Kool-Aid.” I let the finger fall. “I’m not drinking it anymore, Mr. Richards.”
“I’m not asking you to drink.” He should be given points for not budging from the doorway. “I should have never even asked you to take a sip.”
I pivot from him. I know I should let him have that as the last word, accepting accountability for layering more meaning on our fling than he ever should have, but my legs are locked in place. My heart is intractable, clinging to its need for logic. So stupid. There’s no logic here. Not with a player like him, who enjoys the big boys’ version of chess. Shifting real-life people as his pieces. Playing with their hearts.
No. Not my heart. You don’t get that part, damn it. “Is that why you had him bring me here?” I peer around again. I don’t want to—resisting the interior-design lusties all over again—but I can’t help it. “And where is here?”
A humorless chuff. “You think I live at the Brocade twenty-four seven?”
I don’t answer. Of course that’s what I think, especially now. In the space at the hotel, it’s simple to slot him into one role. Arrogant, breath-robbing boss man. Here, he’s more reachable. More real. He does stuff like read, sleep…take showers.
“And who, exactly, did I have bring you here?”
“You know who.” I stab him with a glare as vicious as my tone. “That…person. Or whatever he is. Bolt. You know him somehow, don’t you? So you contacted him after I passed out. Or maybe you had him knock me out somehow…” Which is a disturbing thought, so I don’t finish it.
“Why would you think I know him?”
I ignore the subtle scalpel in his tone too. I don’t want to be nicked by whatever has sharpened it. Apprehension? Tension? Do I care?
I shouldn’t. I can’t.
“Don’t you know all the special people, Mr. Richards?” I finish it off with pure snark before descending the stairs to the sunken reading heaven. I shouldn’t be doing this, purposely closing the gap to such incredible temptation, but I refuse to keep talking to him anywhere near the bed. “People like Angelique La Salle?”
Perfect words for reinforcing my resolve. The man may be only wearing a towel now, but less than twenty-four hours ago he was in the backseat of that woman’s car—letting her take off his cufflinks. And the logical things that came after that.
Reece doesn’t follow me down the stairs. He remains on the higher level, arms folded, feet braced, once more in misplaced pharaoh mode. If the towel were tucked differently and he had one of those fancy gold pharaoh turbans, then yeah. But that would mean covering his hair…
“You think Angelique La Salle is ‘special’ to me?”
I fold my arms too and push out a confused huff. The question isn’t rhetorical, but it sure as hell isn’t compassionate. He wants—demands—an answer.
“You going to tell me she’s not?”
He hauls in a long breath. While letting it out, he steps down to my level, though little else changes. He’s still in his Ruler of the Nile stance. His gaze is the color of armor in the rain.
“She used to be…a good friend,” he finally murmurs. “She was in town. I met her so I could return some things to her.”
“Like a pair of cufflinks?”
His next inhalation is sharper. “Yes. Among other things.”
I glower carefully. “Good friends.” I tell myself not to finish it…but what other choice is there? Bleed out slowly or just rip the damn bandage off? “How good?”
“We were…involved. About a year and a half ago.”
I back up by a step. Swallow hard. It’s the blood I asked for, just not the pain I expected. “Involved.” And as long as I’m hemorrhaging… “Like lovers?”
His posture tightens. The sight of it is both exquisite and excruciating. The man isn’t built like a tank, but the creator spared no detail on his lean, beautiful body. His muscles are carefully carved, utterly decadent.
“No,” he states at last. “Not like lovers.”
“So you didn’t fuck her?”
“Oh, I fucked her a lot. But she was not my lover.” He drills his gaze into me, intense as lightning. “She let you believe something differently, didn’t she? When she came to the hotel. When she tried to bring back those goddamned cufflinks.”
“But how did…” I shake my head, answering my own question. “The security cams. The same way you knew I’d left the hotel, right?”
“Yeah.” He draws out the word, making room for a strange subtext in his tone. I’d usually call it tension, but not the same kind I’ve seen in him before. This stress is different. It doesn’t make him scary anymore. It makes him vulnerable. “Something like that.”
“Something like that.” Damn it, I want to ignore that tenderness—to pretend that side of him isn’t speaking out at the wrong, wrong, wrong damn time—but I can’t. “How?”
His composure tightens. “What did Angelique say to you?” he counters. “You two talked. She was at the desk for a while.”
I turn from him again, for a couple of different reasons. One, it’s hard to remember my own name with him in that towel, let alone what his bombshell of an ex dropped on me in the conversation last night. I go ahead and voice number two out loud. “Why should I answer your question when you won’t acknowledge mine?”
“Because your answer is going to help me keep you safe.”
“Safe?” I practically laugh out the word. If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry—and hell if I’ll let him see that. “That’s a funny term to me right now, buddy.”
“I am aware of that, Emma.”
>
“Are you?” Now it’s time to get delirious. And pissed. And outraged. And scared. I think “scared” might be the newest word in my permanent vocabulary. “Are you really aware, Mr. Richards, of my ‘safety’ when it comes to your crafty ex?”
His hands coil. His jaw squares. He jerks his head, raining drops from his hair over the taut slabs of his chest and the chiseled dessert tray of his abs—but dessert isn’t an option as he slowly steps closer, brandishing hard eyes and flaring nostrils.
“Crafty?” He growls the word but punctuates with a harsh chuff. “Crafty. Well, there’s a piece of funny.”
“Excuse the hell out of me?”
He breathes in through his nostrils and exhales with vicious force. “I think you don’t know shit about ‘crafty,’ Emmalina—and that scares me most of all.” He leans over, skewing the towel sideways, exposing the strain of his extended hip—not that I get more than a glance as his ire blatantly grows. “‘Crafty’ is a word for your shoe-eating dog, your scrapbooking neighbor, or the grandma who makes Christmas wreaths out of used soda cans. It’s not the word for my lunatic bitch of an ex-girlfriend.” He closes the gap between us and opens one of those fists to grab my shoulder. “Do I make myself fucking clear?”
My breath wads at the back of my throat, congeals, and turns into a boulder before crashing into my gut. Forget considering his vulnerable side. What he reveals now isn’t even a run-of-the-mill soft side. This is him, genuinely spooked by the idea of Angelique even talking to me last night.
Angelique. His “lunatic bitch of an ex.”
A claim that should mean something—more than what it means now. But every time it seems like the man rips a mask off for me, another is swept into its place and glued firmly on. I know he’s telling me the truth—just not all of it.
Not the biggest part of it.
“Reece? What the hell?” I let him hear every note of my desperate confusion. Let him feel the force of my searching stare. But if I make a dent in his ire, it’s impossible to tell. His features remain the texture of solid, inscrutable granite.
“I said,” he finally growls, “do I make myself clear?”
I huff out a sigh. “Yes.” I wrench my arm away—or try to. “Now let me go.” When he’s as responsive as a ninja gripping a katana, I resort to yelling. “Reece.”
When he jerks his stare up, his eyes are glazed.
“Let me go or tell me what the hell is going on. Do I make that fucking clear?”
REECE
My hand slips from her shoulder.
Let me go…
A breath slowly flows from her body.
Or tell me what the hell is going on…
With equal sadness, she takes a step back. Then another.
Only in that moment, in the dip of her head and the stiffness of her shoulders, am I bulldozed by an awful recognition.
Warning her away from Angelique, I’ve done nothing to protect her—and everything to alienate her.
She’s just as fucking serious as I’ve been. Letting her go…means letting her go.
No. No, damn it. Not an option.
Which means I have to consider unveiling what’s behind door number two.
“Emmalina.”
She stops, one foot angled on the corner of a stair. She waits, hands at her sides with fingernails jabbing into her palms. I watch her wrists shake from the effort—knowing I’m the cause of her pain. Hating myself for it.
Goddamnit.
Hating myself for every dumbass, douchebag move I’ve ever pulled, from sticking my dick in the crazy of Angelique to landing myself right here, right now—wondering how the hell I’m going to break this to the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.
There’s no instruction manual for this.
Isn’t there supposed to be an instruction manual somewhere? Congratulations! You’re a super hero! Quick and easy FAQs, including how to talk to your doctor, your dry cleaner, and your girlfriend.
And during my dumbass sulk, she’s moved on, turned away, and cleared the stairs.
“Emmalina.”
This time, she doesn’t stop. She leans over the bed to scoop up her phone, derailing every damn thought in my mind again with a peek of her ass, perfectly cupped by her pale-pink panties…
Christ. There needs to be a chapter in the manual about dealing with panties too.
“Please. Shit. Emma. Damn it!”
She stops and straightens but doesn’t turn back. “Reece… I…” The nightstand light throws golden light across the side of her face and the cloud of her hair, transforming her into a vision of innocence and illicitness in one breath-stealing second. “Look, I want to…” She sets down her phone and pushes out a soft tsk, as if admonishing herself for this tension between us. “I just want to say thank you, all right? Whatever this is, or was, between us…it was really awesome, but—”
“Goddamnit.” I stomp up the stairs. “No way. We’re not a ‘was.’ We’re not—”
“Reece.” She grabs one of my hands with both of hers and lifts a wistful smile. “We’re not even a ‘we,’ and that’s okay. It’s not good or bad or wrong or right. It just is. You have a lot going on. I mean, you’re…you…and—”
“Fuck.” I yank my hand back and drag it through my hair. Punch out a wry laugh. “No, Emma. I’m not me. I mean, I’m not him. That guy you think I am. That prick—”
“You’re not a prick.”
“Not anymore.”
“Not ever.” She pushes forward, lifting her hands to bracket my jaw. Her immense gaze pulls me in, the aqua light mesmerizing every neuron in my body. “It took you a little while to free the good man hiding underneath that other one, but he’s there. I see him, I believe in him, and he’s beautiful. Now you just have to believe too.”
My snarl is guttural and deep—and angry. I jerk my head in vicious defiance, setting my face into a don’t-cross-me expression. “You have no damn idea what you’re talking about.”
The woman actually hurls back her own growl. The defiance is so breathtaking, I’m reduced to a stunned stare as she pushes on. “Oh yeah? Who came down from the spire, rolled up his sleeves, and helped us turn the rooms for the tour group during that crunch?”
“And snagged a nice fringe benefit from the deal?” I jab a knowing smirk.
“Okay, then. Who’s the guy who keeps insisting on paying Zalkon every day just to haul my backside to and from work?”
“You mean when you’ll keep your backside at work?”
“I think my backside gets an excuse note after last night.”
“I think it deserves a number of notes on any night.”
She whacks my shoulders. “You’re ignoring the point.”
“Which was what again?” Not that I’ve forgotten. More like I hope she’s forgotten—since I’m beginning to. Fast. Discussing any part of this woman’s anatomy, much less the hot temptation of her backside, derails my senses, consumes my will, blazes every drop of my blood. For the first time in my life, I really know the meaning of obsession—in the best and worst ways.
“That I’m not going to let you get away with the ‘just a dick’ excuse?” Despite her sassy tone, her hands haven’t moved off my shoulders. I watch them now, as she starts exploring my collarbones with her fingertips. It feels so fucking good. I clench back a savoring moan.
Just a dick. Oh, Velvet. If you knew exactly how much I could validate that…
To turn her explorations into my seduction. To chisel her point down to craving my point. To make her forget everything except the one thing I can do better than anyone else.
Which will do what?
Delay the inevitable, that’s what.
Tell her—or let her go.
“You’re still not convinced, are you?”
Her prod makes me chuckle. “That I’m a dick?”
“Ugggghhh.” She bats at me again. Though I attempt another laugh, she refuses to join in. “Fine. As long as we’re talking about my lame move
from last night, who was the ‘dick’ who tracked me down to the train station and then came and got me—after I passed out in another guy’s arms?”
I almost laugh again. It’s the way I roll when fate opens a door so hard, the wood knocks me between the eyes. But I’m not spinning so hard that I don’t see the gaping break she’s handed over.
It’s time to jump through.
No matter how black the abyss on the other side.
“Yeah…uh…about that ‘other guy’…”
EMMA
Weird.
It was the word Neeta, Wade, and Fershan whispered that first night I’d met Reece. The word I’d been irked about, much less couldn’t understand. The word that’s lingered at the back of my mind this whole week, mostly because it still hasn’t made any damn sense when it comes to him…
Until now.
Now, he’s weird. Not even that. His vibe is something I just don’t get. Enigmatic? Cryptic?
Scary?
The descriptor fits better than the others, but I don’t want it to. But something about how he takes both my hands and guides me to sit on the bed sears my spine with nothing but scared. The apprehension worsens when he releases me to take a measured step back. He breathes in, as if preparing to peel back his lips and reveal gleaming fangs.
I sit up straighter. “Okaaayyy,” I finally utter. “Reece? What is it?” I manage to grab one of his hands again, tightening my hold around his stiff fingers. “That other guy? What are you…” A frown sets in. “You mean Bolt?” Another slice of fear, though he reaches for the nightstand drawer as if he’s just searching for a tissue. “What happened with him? Shit. What did he do?” I shove furious air through my nostrils. “Did he hurt you? Because, I swear to God, if he tried to—”
I freeze as he turns, trailing something from the drawer between two of his long fingers.
Not a tissue. A mask.
A sleek, black, Maserati mask.
“What…the…”
He lets the molded leather fall to my lap. I look at it like he’s dropped a killer spider.
