“Really. Never during the day?”
Wordlessly, he shook his head. I locked myself away from the daylight so I wouldn’t run the risk of colliding with the past, until one day darkness was the only thing that felt natural. What would she say to that? How would she react knowing he’d been outside during the day only a handful of times since moving into the building? This sunny girl was on a date with a borderline hermit who didn’t know the first thing about repairing post-break up pride—he had zero delusions he could salvage her heart—but was utterly compelled to try.
“I only go out at night,” he offered, at a loss for how to explain. “I don’t usually bring other people along.”
“So you’re saying I’m lucky?”
“God, no.” He adjusted his cutlery, aligning the fork and knife at an exact distance, top to bottom. “Those weeks I spent wrapping up my uncle’s projects, I got used to being in the quiet. Working under the single light. And I didn’t see any reason to change my routine once I finally found a way of living that I liked.”
“Until tonight, apparently. No pressure or anything.” Autumn’s gaze skated away and came back. “Wait. I knew you managed the building, but you…own the building, too?”
Blake’s silence served as his answer.
Autumn blinked. “Looks like I’m ordering dessert.”
“I was going to make you order it, anyway.” Beneath the table, his palm slid over her knee and squeezed, noting the jump of her muscles, the arch of her back. “We want that mouth extra sweet when I taste the inside of it later, don’t we?”
Pulse fluttering at the base of her neck, she nodded. “That’s one w-way to change the subject.”
“Just needed to get my fucking hands on you, Fun-Size.” His hand journeyed higher, stopping at the hem of her dress, rubbing the material between his thumb and forefinger, barely resisting the urge to drag her around the table and onto his lap. “You’re too far away from me over there. I need some of your skin on mine.”
“If you’ll recall,” she said in a husky whisper. “I was totally willing to give you some back at my place.”
“You should expect more.” Blake didn’t intend his pronouncement to come out sounding so harsh, but it was. Autumn jolted and he cursed, taking his hand back. “Christ. I’m not good at this.”
He could feel her watching him curiously, but didn’t meet her gaze. Not until she said, “You’re…really worried about blowing this date, aren’t you?”
What could he say to that? Yes, fine. He was worried. For months, he’d been fantasizing about the beautiful girl upstairs and now she was giving him the green light. Not only to fuck her, but to act out things that—until now—had been relegated to the darkest corners of his imagination. Maybe he should have just taken the offer and ran with it. She could be tied to his headboard right now, screaming into a gag while he rode her sexy little body. Instead of instant gratification, he’d decided to try and give her…more. A reason to believe she was incredible. Incredible enough to tackle this filthy city on her own. It should have been an easy task, because Autumn was incredible, but proving that to her might really be outside of his wheelhouse.
“Blake.”
“Hmmm?”
She twined their fingers together under the table, all the while watching him as though he might actually be moron enough to pull away. And all the while, he’d forgotten to breathe. “You asked me if I’ve been watching you.”
Her lips pressed and rolled, more of that delicious color filling her cheeks. “I have. And sometimes I feel you watching me through the peep hole and I like it. On those days when you spy on me, I barely make it in the door before my hands are—”
“Enough, Autumn.” His fingers tightened around hers and she gasped—but it was with excitement, not fear.
“Why did you tell me that here?” he demanded.
“Because you said only idiots wouldn’t like my face and you’re worried about screwing up this date with me. And no one has ever done either of those things.”
Blake’s heart rammed into his Adam’s apple. Such an alarming physical reaction, he grasped for a way to regain control. “I’ll be the one who doles out rewards.” Slowly, he pressed his thumb into her wrist, deeper, deeper, until it felt like her pulse was beating inside his own body. “Are you asking me to watch you more often?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her throat moving with an audible swallow. “Do more than that, Blake.” Her eyes closed, the pulse in her wrist kicking into a faster pace. “I-I think I want you to stalk me.”
If his cock got any harder, it was going to elevate the table. “Very well, Ms. Reynolds,” he rasped, just as their entrees arrived. “Eat your dinner.”
CHAPTER 5
It’s complicated. First dates didn’t require social media updates—at least as far as Autumn was concerned—but if they did, she’d have made her status ‘it’s complicated.’ Maybe accompany it with a picture of her braised chicken oysters or pineapple rum cake. Actually, no, that implied the restaurant was the source of her complication, and that wasn’t true. The food had been unfathomably delicious, the décor glamorous, the service wonderful, the ambiance lovely. Ten out of ten to Eleven Madison Park, not that one of the best restaurants in the world needed her fucking endorsement.
No, the complication came from the man who’d sat opposite her, alternatively glowering and looking as though he wanted to put her on the end of his fork and swallow her. She’d been hoping to come away from her date with Blake Munroe understanding him better, or in possession of wicked sex bruises. So far, she’d accomplished neither, she’d just eaten what amounted to half her rent check and told a near-stranger she fantasized about being stalked and taken against her will.
As she and Blake walked down the brightly lit Manhattan streets back to their building, Autumn couldn’t help but turn her idiocy around and around in her head. She couldn’t blame blurting out her twisted fantasy on the wine, she’d only been a few sips in. Maybe she’d said it because she’d been blindsided by the date as a whole—Blake’s gorgeous suit, the eighty-dollar poultry, the fact that old mate was rich as hell—and it had all come as a bit of a shock.
She had only ever told one person about her fantasies; Ian, and she hadn’t so much ‘told him’ as he’d ‘caught her reading a fan fiction novel about Hermione being held hostage by a sexy lumberjack and guessed it was why she wanted to be tied up all the time.’ It had all been a bit embarrassing, especially when he wrinkled his brow and said, “But you’re such a bra-burner, why the fuck would you want me to abduct and/or rape you?”
A fair question, Autie supposed. She was a feminist, she wanted same pay for same work and to take back the night and have gender inequality recognized and corrected. Fantasizing about being a man’s sex slave was a bit off brand, she supposed.
But…
But…
But she wanted it, all the same.
She wasn’t deluded, she knew forced seduction fantasies weren’t an endorsement for fuckwits to stalk and abuse women, but there was something distasteful about wanting to role play things that had caused such harm. At least in her own mind. Ian felt the same way. For someone so committed to being an actor he once spent a week putting on a Cambridge accent, he did not take kindly to the role of ‘consensual pretend lady kidnapper.’ They only tried it once, and the whole time he kept swatting her ass and telling her she was a naughty girl. It had just been so, urgh. She was not a naughty girl. She was a grown woman who wanted to do some weird shit in bed. Was that so much to ask?
Well you did ask, she reminded herself. You asked Blake. And he said ‘very well.’
Autumn shivered and looked over at her massive, real estate-owning companion. He’d suggested they take a different route home, presumably because the scenery was nicer, which it was, but he hadn’t taken her hand and he wasn’t saying a word. He’d been crazy quiet through dinner, too, asking questions and listening intently to the answers while waving aside the sa
me ‘getting to know you’ small talk she directed at him. By the time they’d ordered dessert, she’d decided he either hated using language or had something to hide.
Complicated. It was all very complicated.
She shot another glance at him as they swerved to avoid a young couple walking hand-in-hand. He was so objectively handsome, it was hard to remember she’d ever questioned her attraction to him, but he felt like more of a stranger now than when he skulked around their building in baggy shirts and a scowl. That such a hot, rich guy was single was strange. That he might be interested in her was downright confusing. She’d have thought he was in it for the easy pussy, but he hadn’t needed to take her to a five star restaurant to get that, he could have just done her against her bedroom wall.
As they wove around a card table loaded with knockoff sunglasses, Autumn wondered if New York wasn’t done fucking with her—maybe it had sent her Blake to really round out the job.
A young nanny stopped Blake and asked him for directions to some shop Autumn had never heard of. She also eyed him up like he was the last water bottle on the road to hell, flipping her hair and giggling and making sure he knew the crying stroller full of babies weren’t hers. Autumn felt a hot flick of jealousy, which would have been a thousand times worse if Blake had flirted back. His expression as he talked to the pretty nanny hadn’t change an iota. He still looked like a Persian cat that had just received an injection and could see the needle coming back for more.
He and Ian could not have been more different, she realized. Ian talked a mile a minute and could flirt with on-hold music. He was extroverted and highly aware of how hot he was. Autumn couldn’t blame him for that, he’d been daily informed of his hotness since he was thirteen, but there had been a lot of parties when she’d felt invisible, a lot of double takes and ‘really? She’s your girlfriend?’s. He’d also never paid for her dinner. They’d either split the bill or she’d picked up the whole thing, what with him being a broke-ass performer and all.
What’s more romantic, she thought. Being treated to dinner by a silent, confusing giant or paying for a charismatic cheater’s salmon?
Complicated.
Autumn didn’t want to think about Ian, but it was inevitable, given her lack of dating experience. Lack of sexual experience, too. She’d banged a whopping six men, if you could consider her high school boyfriends and a couple of one-night stands ‘men.’
She cast another glance at Blake. He was a man, a fully grown man with money and multiple jobs and contacts to fancy as fuck restaurant owners. He said he hadn’t been on a date in a decade, but she bet he was knee-deep in hookups. He probably had crazy high sex standards.
What did men even like in bed? Stripping? That thing where you pulled down their underwear with your teeth?
I know I shouldn’t have gone on this stupid date, I should have stayed in with the pigeons and learned how to play Strangers on the harmonica—really give the neighbors something to bitch about.
She was considering faking a headache when she caught sight of a neon pink sign that drove all thoughts of sex from her brain. It was The Natch, a stand-up comedy club famous for hosting Amy Schumer and Bo Burnham during their early days on the New York scene. For the hundred millionth time, Autumn imagined herself on the cramped stage saying the jokes she’d only heard inside her head, hearing the laughter of an approving crowd—
“You thinking about him?” Blake said.
She glanced up and was immediately side-swiped by the beauty of his light brown eyes. So bright…
“Autumn?”
“Huh?”
“Your ex. You see the comedy place and start thinking about him?”
Remembering her internal debate of the last ten minutes, Autumn fought back a laugh. The one time she wasn’t thinking about her dumb ex. “Nah, Ian doesn’t do stand-up. He does improv comedy; you know, pretending to be a monkey catching the bus or a waiter who just found out he has ten minutes to live.”
One of Blake’s eyebrows lifted.
“Yeah, it’s exactly as painful as it sounds. I mean, sometimes the shows were funny but they were definitely more miss than hit. I used to bring two flasks of bourbon just so I didn’t cringe myself out of existence.”
“Why’d you go at all?”
‘I was being a supportive girlfriend’ was the appropriate answer, but just like with her stalking fantasy and her sex-comic, something compelled her to tell Blake the truth. “I never had anything else to do. It felt more productive than sitting at home in New York and watching TV.”
“Right.”
Worried the conversation was about to wither, Autumn added, “I think I was wrong, though. There were times I’d watch Ian pretend to be a robot lawyer and I swear I could feel my eggs dying.”
The corners of Blake’s mouth quirked up. “You’re funny.”
“I…thanks.” Autumn frowned. “Wait, you mean in a good way, right? Not like I’m a weird cunt?”
Blake shot her a startled look.
“Fuck, sorry for saying the c-word! It’s an Australian thing. I don’t mean like ‘cunt-cunt’, I mean like ‘mate-cunt.’ Jesus, I need to stop saying cunt. Oh my God, I just said it again.”
Blake reached over and put a hand on her mouth. “I don’t care about you saying any word you want to say. You ever thought about doing stand-up?”
He released her mouth, leaving her free to gape at him. “Why do you ask?”
“I already said you were funny.”
“That doesn’t mean I should do stand-up comedy. It’s a really specific skill. You wouldn’t ask an amateur choir singer to perform at the big sporty thing you Americans like so much.”
“It’s the superbowl.”
“Right. Sure. You’re into the superbowl, are you? I mean you are enormous. Did you play in a superbowl?”
“Don’t change the subject, Fun-Size. You were staring at that sign longer than it took to read the headliner and you had the same look on your face that you got when the waiter brought out the other table’s dessert.”
“And that look is?”
Blake squinted at her, his eyes bright with obvious amusement. “If I had to go with one word, I’d say ‘longing.’ Have you thought about trying it out? Stand-up, I mean, since I already made you order dessert.”
Autumn, completely unnerved by his observation, kept silent. Forget the weird abduction fantasies, no one had ever known her stand-up secret. Not Ian, not anyone. The Landlord had her number and she had no idea how to feel about that.
“You gonna answer my question or not?” Blake’s voice was rougher, but Autumn guessed self-consciousness, not irritation, was rubbing it raw.
“What question?”
“Have you ever thought about doing stand-up?”
Autumn licked her dry lips. “I’ve…written a twenty-minute set. It’s about being a vet and it has music in it. I play a Casio keyboard. Pretty sexy, huh?”
Blake’s expression didn’t change one iota. “What’s your show called?”
“I Know Your Dog Ate Your Weed: The Musical.”
He smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkling, and Autumn’s heart gave an unhealthy lurch. “You think that’s a dumb name?”
“No, I think it’s funny. Why are you so defensive?”
“I guess…” Autumn swallowed again. “I guess I’m used to men who think women aren’t funny. You said I was funny like it was nothing.”
Blake said nothing. They walked another block in silence and just as Autumn braced herself to blurt out her headache excuse, he said, “I like Kate McKinnon.”
Autumn stared at him. “What?”
“I like Kate McKinnon. From SNL, I think she’s funny. You remind me of her.”
She stopped dead in her tracks. “You…did you seriously just compare me to Kate McKinnon?”
That got her a smile, a real one. She thought she might have even seen a flash of teeth. Then as quickly as it had come, it faded, and Blake strode on. “Yes, I co
mpared you to Kate McKinnon. Keep moving, Fun-Size, you’re blocking the footpath.”
Autumn ran to catch up with him once more. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me.”
“That’s fucking sad.” Blake looked at her, his expression unreadable. “Why don’t you sign up for an amateur night or something?”
Again, Autumn saw herself on stage, laughter and applause ringing out as she took a bow. This time, Blake watched approvingly from the sidelines, a big bunch of roses in his hands. For a moment she reveled in the fantasy, then her rational brain shut it down. “I don’t have time for that. I’m crazy busy with work.”
“You might have more time if you stopped bringing sick pigeons home.”
“I’m not doing that anymore! Besides, that’s the least of your worries, Landlord-wise. I think Ernie on floor seven is making parmesan in his sink again and the smell is fucking horri—”
“You’re changing the subject,” Blake interrupted.
Autumn threw up her hands like a helpless mime. “I told you. I don’t have the time to perform my show. Or enough money for the sign-up fee. It’s usually like, a hundred bucks unless you bring ten friends, and as I’ve already said—no American mates. Unless I train some pigeons to wear hats and trench coats and speak with human voices. You think that’ll work?”
Blake didn’t smile. “I’ll pay your entrance fee.”
“That would make me feel weird.”
“I just bought you a two-hundred-dollar dessert.”
Autumn let out a howl of misery. “There were no prices on the specials board and I didn’t know it had gold leaf on it! Why are posh people always trying to eat gold, anyway? It’s like, one step away from using it to wipe your—”
“Autumn.” Blake’s heavy jaw was set, his brow a series of deep furrows. He resembled a bear that had been forcibly turned human and stuffed into a suit.
“Yes, sir?” She wanted to sound jokey, but her voice came out all nervous. Blake seized her arm and dragged her into the enclave of an abandoned Chinese restaurant.
Captivated Page 7
