"Tell me Dom wasn't in court today," I whispered, my heart in my throat, my hands wringing as I clasped them in my lap.
Drew lifted his eyes slowly up to mine, and I knew the answer from the dread and utter fear gracing that soft grey.
A sob tore from my lips, my body shuddering with the force and depth of emotion attached to it.
"No," I cried, managing somehow to keep the plea quiet, to instinctively maintain a volume that wouldn't be overheard.
Dear God, no. Not Dominic, not Gen's man. Not the groom she was meant to marry this weekend. Not the father of her unborn child. Not my friend.
No.
I gave in to the emotion as Drew's arms banded around me. Crushing my face into his chest, I wept. Offering up another prayer to a God I still wasn't certain existed, but knowing right now He was my only chance.
Please, please, let Dom be OK. Please, let us all get out of this alive.
My words lifted on the ether, wending their way up high. I put everything into sending them where they needed to go, lacing them in the colours of the rainbow, because they were my most precious possession; the knowledge that the world wasn't all black.
I just hoped it was a worthy offering.
But only time would tell in the end.
Chapter 19
Thank You For The Rainbow
It had been almost an hour since armed men stormed the District Court House. Drew had made a circuit of the cloakroom we were locked inside, making sure there were no hidden exits or useful hard wired telephones to dial an outside line. There weren't. Just an air vent that we could squeeze ourselves through if we were desperate, and although desperation was a flavour on the air right now, we hadn't quite hit the level that would make us slither through an air conditioning duct to find a way outside.
I kept hoping the Police, and in particular the AOS, would storm the building and find us first. Ferret us out under heavy guard to safety, then go back inside and rescue Dom. It was a fantasy of course. Real life didn't behave like the movies. And if it did, I was thinking this would be more like a Bruce Willis film and we were in for a couple more death defying explosions before we could all scream, "Yippee ki-yay, mother-fucker!" at the top of our lungs.
At some stage Drew pulled most of the coats off the racks and piled them up to make a bed of sorts for us to sit on, so our butts wouldn't break off lying on the cold, tiled floor. At first I argued the wisdom, thinking the armed bad guys could come back and check the room again. But after forty minutes or so of butt numbing, or senseless pacing to wear the numbing off, I realised if they came back at all, it would be because they already knew we were here.
So in the meantime we might as well sit on something more comfortable than ceramic or stone or whatever the fuck these tiles were.
Drew took his time checking each pocket on each coat for God knows what, maybe a cellphone that actually worked. He found several snack bars, pens and paper, the odd coin, and a chocolate bar. He offered me the chocolate without saying a word. I ate it. I'm a sucker for chocolate, what can I say.
Finally, having exhausted our limited resources he settled himself down on the pile of coats beside me and opened a muesli bar, taking a bite while he stared off into space. He hadn't said much, after our initial assessment of what had happened and how safe - or not - we actually were. He'd set about checking our environment, familiarising himself with our small prison, and once that was done, making our new home more comfortable than it was.
It took him close to one hour. Now we had an indeterminate amount of time stretching out before us, locked in this room, while God knows what was going down upstairs with 'the boss'.
"Any ideas on who could be doing this?" I asked, breaking off another piece of chocolate.
Drew's face slowly turned to look at me. He seemed surprised that I'd spoken at all. Maybe he thought I was shutting down, putting up walls to protect my delicate psyche from what was going on outside of our physical ones.
He took a somewhat deep breath and said, "I've been thinking about that. My bet is it has something to do with that unscheduled court case."
"The one that pushed your cases back today?"
"Yeah," he said with a nod of his head. "I've been trying to remember if anyone mentioned what it was about. But most of those cases are classified, their details under legal suppression, only those involved are aware of what's going on."
"Does it happen often?"
"No, definitely not. But it does happen. Not that they usually have a siege attached to them though."
Siege. That's what you called what had happened. I'd never had cause to use the word before today.
"Maybe they're negotiating with the Police right now," I suggested hopefully.
"Maybe," Drew agreed, then ruined it by adding, "But what exactly do they want?"
I thought about that for a moment, not really wanting to think too deeply, but doing it anyway because, fuck, knowing might just keep us alive.
"Whatever it is they were prepared to kill for it," Drew pointed out, before I'd managed to come to any conclusions myself. "There's a lot of blood and dead bodies out there in the foyer."
I'm not sure he'd intended to say that last sentence, because as soon as he did his whole body jerked and his eyes shot up to mine, contrition and worry spread across his face.
I sucked in a breath to settle my nerves and whispered, "I'm sorry you had to see that."
"Sternchen," he murmured in reply. "I'm sorry you got caught up in all of this. An hour later and you wouldn't have got near the place at all."
I shook my head. "And you would be up there with the bad guys and I don't want to even contemplate what that actually means. At least this way, you're down here in a locked cloakroom, not facing the business end of a gun."
Drew's lips twitched, the mirth not quite reaching his eyes. I don't think either of us could crack a smile right now and mean it.
"You're my lucky star," he whispered, reaching up and stroking the edge of my jaw.
"Some lucky star," I muttered. "If I had any true magic our cellphones would work."
He managed a small chuckle. "Stuff the phones, I'd take your kind of magic any day."
That warranted a comeback, but I couldn't rise to the occasion, my mind frequently returning to thoughts of Dom.
"Come here," Drew murmured, picking up on my mood.
It wasn't exactly a black mood. Well, not the kind of black mood I'd been suffering from on and off over the past fifteen years. This one was just shadowed in potential black, threatening ebony clouds rolling in from the horizon. If they reached us, it would be black. For now, I'd use the rainbow of Drew's embrace to fight it. Praying it would be enough.
I moved closer to his body and let him wrap me up and lay us down on our sides on our coat bed. He stroked a hand through my hair, playing with the curls like he so often did, as though we weren't hiding in a small room, hoping to survive an armed siege of the building we were in. I let my body slowly relax under the tender caresses of his hand. It was by no means sexual, simply companionable. Not quite reaching the content feeling I experienced just that morning, but coming close in its own special way.
In the middle of a catastrophe, in the centre of a burgeoning storm, Drew Kline managed to give me a measure of peace.
The minutes ticked by as he held me, ran his fingers through my hair, wrapped his heated frame around my body, and breathed steadily against the soft skin behind my ear. Another hour, as I dozed on and off, feeling safe in Drew's arms, when I had no right to feel safe at all.
God alone knew what was happening upstairs and why. No one was aware we were here, which was good and bad. Good, because we didn't want the bad guys holding guns to find us. Bad, because if they had stormed the building and got the rest of the hostages out, the good guys holding guns could overlook us. And it could be hours before the building was cleared.
We didn't have any control over this, both Drew and I struggling to come to terms with that
fact, I think. Ironic, that two dominant personalities were locked in a room unable to command a fucking thing.
"The first time I saw you," Drew suddenly whispered in my ear, breaking another long stretch of silence, which could have been an hour or more. "I forgot where I was, what day of the week it was. It was like looking at an angel." I sniggered. "All right, a fallen angel," Drew corrected, playing along. "Still unearthly beautiful, dazzling like a radiant sun, shining like the brightest star in the galaxy.
"You know, I never believed that saying," he added. "The one that goes, 'took my breath away'. But you did, you literally stole all the air from the room, grabbed a hold of my heart and squeezed it tight. Dominic actually punched me in the arm, trying to make me snap out of it. He teased me for a full week, after that. Told me I didn't stand a chance, you were well out of my league."
"He did not," I whispered, miffed. I'd have to have words with Dom.
Drew chuckled, it was delightful, his chest rumbling, his arms shaking around my frame. If we had been anywhere else it would have been perfect, an image to treasure for the rest of my life. Because we were here, in this mess that was not of our making, I took it for what it was. A rainbow moment. A chance to beat back the black.
"I like challenges," Drew murmured, nuzzling his nose into my hair at my nape. "Dominic probably did it on purpose. Fuck, he probably placed a bet with Finn on how long it would take me to get you into bed."
"He would not," I whispered again. Amused, not angry this time.
"Oh, yes he would. ADK wagers are very well known. Nothing short of half a grand, I should think."
"You guys bet five hundred dollars on ridiculous wagers like that?"
"Absolutely. I won a handful when he first met Gen."
I giggled. "You must have picked a quick time frame for them to get together."
"Days not weeks," he confirmed.
"So, what do you think Dom picked for us?"
I could feel him shaking his head. "Whatever it was, he doesn't know the actual time frame. He doesn't know I fucked you against the wall in his house only days after we met."
Drew liked reminding me of that, it was clearly something that turned him on.
Stupidly my mouth engaged before my brain and I asked, "Had you ever done anything like that before then?"
I slowly closed my eyes and mentally cursed myself. I'd sounded like an inexperienced teenager. I was well past the age where you should be digging for information on your boyfriend's sexual history.
"Little star," he whispered, in English his term of endearment for me was simply beautiful. "I have never, ever met anyone like you."
It wasn't a straight answer, but then it wasn't a fair question either.
"I've told you before," Drew continued, "you bring out the adventurer in me. No one has succeeded in doing that before."
Well, that was kind of an answer.
"The most adventurous I've been in the past is leaving the light on," he admitted with a squeeze of his arms around my waist.
"The light on," I queried incredulously. I did not believe him for a second.
"Told you," he quipped, "dazzled me completely, I suddenly wanted to experience everything I possible could whilst basking in your glow."
"Whatever," I said with a roll of my eyes.
I felt him chuckle behind me, then start to really let go. And I realised, for both of us, we somehow managed to forget our surroundings, overlook the dangers, and just live in the moment when in each other's arms.
Maybe he was exaggerating, and maybe there was an element of truth to what he'd said. I couldn’t believe a man like Drew Kline hadn't experienced raunchy and debauched before. But maybe it hadn't been quite the same. Because for me it certainly hadn't come close, the adventures I'd had in the past. With Drew it had been taken to a whole other level, no longer earth bound, but dancing with the stars.
"I let you sabotage my dates," I admitted softly, interrupting his continued chuckles and mirth.
He stilled. Sucked in a slow breath, and then said, "What was that?"
"I said, I let you sabotage my dates."
"Sabotage?" he asked, voice low.
"You turned up at every date I had and stole me from them, making the night yours," I explained.
Silence for a beat.
"You think I did that." Not a question, a statement.
"I know you did, but I let you."
"You let me," he repeated.
I forged on despite the repetitive answers I was getting.
"But I'd been sabotaging my life for longer than that," I whispered, something I had not as yet said aloud before.
"What makes you say that?" he asked, making me relax a little, with a question instead of a repeat of my words.
"Since my father left us," I murmured, licking my lips for courage, "I've always wondered if it was because we weren't good enough. We didn't give him what he needed, that we failed. For years I searched for an answer. Every boy I met when at school was a test to see if he behaved the same way. But even then, I had to make sure I protected myself. Even then I controlled the result for fear of the truth."
"What do you mean, sternchen?" Drew asked when I paused for breath.
"I've only just realised what I was doing. It's taken fifteen years and meeting you to finally discover some hidden truths. It's complicated," I explained. "That's why I couldn't figure it out for myself. There was no straight answer, no single reason. There were, in fact, three."
"Three, sweetheart?"
"Yeah," I said with a nod of my head, lost in my thoughts, lost to the truth I'd only recently managed to unearth. "Three, I think."
I rolled suddenly onto my side to face Drew. He accommodated the motion immediately, shifting back slightly, and then wrapping an arm around my waist, up into my hair once I'd completed the move. His breath coasted over my lips, his heat warmed my heart, gave me strength.
"You once said," I started, "that there's a reason why I did this. Why I had a stable of men, and flitted from one to the other."
His flinch was almost imperceptible, but I felt it. I felt it deep within my heart.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "You don't want to hear this."
"No, Kelly," he said quickly, shaking his head to make his point. His hand came up and cupped my chin, lifting my face to his. "I want to know everything. I want to know all of it. Every little bit."
"Why?" I whispered, belatedly regretting the path this conversation had taken.
"Because you're my shining star, and I never want to see you dim like you did this past week. I want to make sure I know how to keep you shining bright. To do that, you have to let me in."
I'd already let Drew in, I'd let him in further than I had let any other man before in my life.
"You know more about me than any other person," I pointed out softly.
"And yet I still crave to know it all."
"There's not much more to tell," I argued quietly.
"Oh, my little star, that's where you're wrong. And I will have it, all of you. Every inch of your body and every inch of your mind. And once I have those, I'll not stop there. I'll storm your heart and claim every inch of that organ as mine."
I stared at him, his eyes determined, but still so softly grey.
"Tell me," he urged in that tone he'd used before. Part plea, part request, part command. All tenderness laced with care.
"Tell me," he repeated, leaning forward and laying a soft kiss on one eyelid and then following that up with the other.
"Tell me." A murmur of heartfelt words.
I swallowed, blinked and sucked in a breath of air.
Then I told him.
"I wanted to understand why Dad left. So I set about testing each man I took to my heart." He didn't flinch, but his body stiffened.
And what did that say about me? That I would search for that answer so diligently. That I would seek out that remembered hurt, that I would punish myself. Maybe that explained Kane. I wanted to feel
, I wanted to know; was that pain my father inflicted real?
"I didn't love them, but I did care for them," I explained. I may have sought pain for myself, but seeing Drew stiffen and knowing the reason why, I hurried to alleviate his. "And to do that, you give a small part of your heart. The part you can spare."
He nodded, accepting my description and I think, why I gave it.
"So, I dated, waiting to see if they behaved the same way as my father, but I couldn't let them so far in that it would actually hurt. So, I dated more than one, making sure none of them had any more of my heart than the other. So, if one confirmed my worst fears, that Dad left because of something I'd done, I'd have a couple more to console me, to wipe the ache away, to mend any breaks in my heart."
Drew breathed deeply for a moment, his hand slowly rubbing across my shoulder and down my arm. For him or me? I'm unsure.
"So," I went on. "Two reasons. To test my theory and also to make sure I was never left alone again."
"And the third?" he asked whisper quiet, heart, I think, in his throat.
"The third is what threw me for so long. It was easy to pretend it was just because of this last reason and nothing else. I ignored the pain of my past even as I kept searching for an answer. I told myself I was in charge. I was Kelly Quayle, the tigress, the one who called the shots. That was my reasoning, and that alone. Because I sure as damn hell was not going to end up like my mother, dependent on a man for my happiness, placing all of my cards on the table, exposing myself to that degree.
"And yet here I am. With one man, giving him more than just the part of my heart that I can spare. It took a while, maybe not as long as I had thought it would, but I've had to dig deep to understand it. And I found the answer today."
Sweet Seduction Sabotage Page 19
