His hair is a deep brown and tousled. He wears it slightly longer than is generally acceptable for the CEO and owner of basically half Manhattan, and he has just the perfect amount of stubble, with the slightest hint of silver tossed in for good measure.
I can’t help but recall my fantasy from the night before and wonder what that stubble would feel like as it brushes over my inner thighs.
It is the electricity that is surging through my body at his innocent touch that keeps me most captivated. It is—well—it is incredible. Heat courses through my veins from where his fingers still hold my chin, straight down to my fricking clit. Which I swear I can feel throbbing. How is that even possible?
I take a step back before I make an even bigger fool of myself by tossing my arms around him and begging him to take me on his desk.
I hold up my hand, wanting to touch my chin where his fingers were. Instead, I merely wave him off. “I don’t need your help. But thank you anyway.”
When I reach for my cell that is sitting on his desk, his large hand comes down and covers mine. “Maitlin, please.” His voice is low and husky, practically sending a shiver down my spine. “I’m honestly concerned about your safety in light of everything that’s happened today.”
I sincerely hope he can’t hear my heart about to beat out of my chest at the feel of his hand on mine. I am also glad he can’t feel my sweaty palms under his large hands. I gather all the courage I can and try to speak through my now dry mouth. “What do the two detectives want with you? I would think they would have spoken to Leif or someone else, not you.”
He steps back, and I immediately miss his touch. “Let’s sit back down and talk for a few minutes more.”
My curiosity at what the detectives needed with Jaxon gets the best of me. After all, I am already seriously late for my shift upstairs. What will a few more minutes matter at this point? Especially since I’m talking with the owner of the bar, and he’s encouraging me to stay. At least, that’s what I tell myself. “So, what did the detectives need with you?”
I watch as he leans back and swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Is it even possible for an Adam’s apple to be sexy? So much time passes, I’m not sure he is going to bother answering my question.
“They were concerned that the gentlemen found murdered outside your apartment visited my bar a few nights ago. Why hadn’t you mentioned an unusual patron to anyone?”
Was he honestly chastising me for not having reported a creepy customer? “If I took the time to report every unusual guy who comes into Rise, wouldn't I be sitting in HR instead of here?”
I can’t help but call him out on his asinine behavior from the night before. He morphed from the flirtatious playboy to the stick-up-his-ass boss quicker than I can blink. I watch as his eyes devour me while I sit in front of him, and a devilish grin spreads across his lips before he lets out a light-hearted laugh.
“Touché. I guess I deserve that. I wasn’t…”
I look on as he abruptly stops speaking and waves off my statement as well as his answer. He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. He doesn’t bother to look at me as he speaks. “Tell me more about your ex-fiancé, Neil.”
I give him a sideways glance. The kind that says what the fuck without words. It’s one thing to ask me about Neil when the discussion is about his inappropriate behavior calling my job. It is entirely another to want to talk about relationships when it has nothing to do with anything we have just discussed.
“Look, my relationship with Neil—or rather my lack of a relationship with him—has nothing to do with anything that happened today. He will not call here again, I’m sure. And if you don’t want to tell me what you spoke to the detectives about that’s your prerogative.”
I get up to leave. This conversation isn’t going anywhere, and I have a job I need to get my ass to. I don’t have the luxury of being a multi-billionaire, and if I am honest with myself, I need to put distance between Jaxon Krieger and myself before I do something stupid.
I look down at him, sitting with his gaze firmly on the floor. I’m sure he is unaccustomed to having anyone, much less a lowly bartender, put him in his place. “Look, if you need any other information on—whatever—you know where I work.”
I’m at the door, ready to leave when he speaks again. He is behind me faster than I think is humanly possible, his voice a whisper in my ear.
“Have dinner with me.”
His breath is hot against my neck, and I swear an erotic chill runs through my body. I barely have enough room to turn around and verbally bitch slap him for asking such an inappropriate question. Actually, he didn’t pose it as a question at all; it’s more of a demand.
I stand there for a moment with my mouth agape, wondering just what the hell he is thinking. Can he possibly be serious, or maybe he’s just delusional? “I’m sorry, what?” I ask, because there is no way I heard him correctly.
He repeats his previous statement. “Have dinner with me.”
“Are you fucking out of your mind?” I hold up my hand to stop him from answering. “You know what, don’t answer that. You seem to think… actually, I don’t even know what you’re thinking.”
I turn around and storm out of his office. I don’t make it three steps out his door before a hand grabs my arm and stops my mad dash for the elevator.
“Maitlin, wait.”
My eyes shoot down to where his hand grips my arm. He didn’t have a very tight grasp, and I know he means no ill intent by grabbing me. But I am still seething from his demand for dinner. He likely has a momentary sense of reasoning and releases his hold as if my skin is on fire.
“Do you honestly think that just because you look like you do and you own … well, everything that the entire population of women is just going to throw themselves at your feet?” The expression on his face says it all. He does. “Well, let me enlighten you—we’re not.”
Of course, where this man is concerned, I am probably in the wrong. He most likely does have women throwing themselves at his feet daily. After all, the woman I saw last night storming through the lobby at an ungodly hour said she was on her knees… Clearly at his feet, so my point is valid.
“Maitlin, please.” His voice lacks the commanding timbre it had previously. “I’m sorry, that was completely out of line. It’s been a long time since I asked a woman out on a date.”
What an ass.
Images of the beautiful brunette woman from last night flash through my mind. And, of course, her unequivocal statement regarding being on her knees.
I let out a laugh at the audacity of his apology. “Yeah.” I shake my head and roll my eyes. “Not since what… last night? That’s like forever in player years, isn’t it?”
Spinning on my heels, I don’t even bother letting him answer before I am power walking down the corridor towards the bank of elevators, which I bypass for the stairwell, giving me a much more dramatic exit with the accompanying door slam. Of course the door slam needed to be accomplished by pushing it closed with both hands and all my weight behind it. I’m sure my point was evident, even if the click of the door closing was a bit anticlimactic.
Initially, I decide to go up one flight of stairs and catch the elevator one floor up. After all, the stairs are just a means to a dramatic exit. But by the time I reach the landing, disappointment is coursing through me. Jaxon didn’t even bother to follow me. Aggravation that I even care keeps me surging upward.
Three flights up, I ditch the shoes.
Six flights up and I stop to rummage through my bag for something to tie up my hair.
At ten flights, I question my sanity.
By the time I reach the rooftop bar, I am sweating like a hooker in church, and my legs are shaking like they were made of Jell-O. I seriously need to reevaluate my need for a gym membership.
I duck into the ladies' room outside of Rise to freshen up before I join Leif behind the bar, and when I look into the mirror, I wince at my reflectio
n. I look like I just ran a marathon instead of having walked up a few flights of stairs. Actually, it was fifteen and I counted and cursed Jaxon each step of the way.
My hair is a tangled mess, my makeup is running off my sweaty face, and the sweat rings under my armpits do nothing to enhance my overall appearance.
“Well, aren’t I a sight for sore eyes.”
With limited options, I do what any other sane woman would do. I take off my shirt and stand there in my black lace bra and smart pencil skirt, holding my blouse under the hand dryer until it looks semi-presentable. Several women come and go, most giving me the “been there” look. All but the one woman who asks if I need a few bucks.
By the time I get myself pulled together enough to face the public, it is nearly eleven, and I am officially two hours late for my shift.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Leif asks as I come behind the bar, which is a tight squeeze considering Emily, the mid-shift bartender, is still slinging drinks next to him.
“Ahhhh, I work here. Sorry I’m late. The meeting with Jaxon ra—”
Leif cuts me off mid-sentence. “Kap called up about eight, said that you wouldn’t be in tonight because of what happened outside your apartment this morning. That’s some fucked up shit.”
Anger courses through me at Leif’s declaration. I can feel the anger boiling up within me as I clench my fists so tightly my nails draw blood. “That fucker!”
Everyone knows of the shot heard ’round the world. Well, this is the profanity heard ’round Rise.
Patrons on the other side of the bar stop their conversations mid-sentence, drinks held mid-air halfway to mouths, and I can swear I hear the screech of a tire as the sounds of the city fall silent while everyone waits with bated breath for me to burst into a murderous rampage.
I take a deep, cleansing breath in, something I learned from the one yoga class I took half a million years ago. And I’ll be damned, it does…nothing. Abso-fucking-lutly nothing. I still want to tear Jaxon Kreiger limb from fucking limb.
But lucky for me, I know something that will calm me down enough to stop contemplating murdering one of the richest, most handsome men on the planet. And if Jaxon is giving me the night off, fuck it, I’m taking it…paid.
I dig my phone out of my bag and shoot a text over to Shellie.
Me: I need tequila, and I need it now.
I watch as the little dots jump around, her response almost immediate.
Shellie: Where and when, baby??
Me: Meet me in the lobby ASAP. Bring me a change of clothes, something… slutty.
Shelli: So you want to borrow something of mine?
Me: Well, duh!
Her next text is a gif of some chick twerking while holding a full bottle of tequila. With any luck, that will be me… well, except for the twerking. My butt doesn’t do that.
Thirty minutes later, Shellie and I are heading out of the hotel into the New York night.
JAXON
I watch as Maitlin stomps her way down the hall to the elevators. Everything in me wants to follow her, grab her, and kiss that sassy mouth of hers until she finally comes to her senses and has dinner with me.
Okay, maybe that is a bit over the top and far more caveman than I am willing to go, but at very least I’d get to kiss those lips that haven’t left my thoughts since I met her yesterday.
Fuck, has it only been one day? No wonder she looks at me as if I am certifiable—because I am. Somehow this woman has caught my attention like no woman has, not since… Fuck, even after all this time, it still pains my heart to say Marra’s name, even to myself.
I don’t bother following her, not this time, not physically anyway. Video surveillance, on the other hand, well, no one can blame a guy for wanting to make sure she is safe. And what kind of creepy stalker am I if I don’t follow her?
It only takes me a moment to find the cameras located in the stairwell and my little spitfire stomping her way up. There isn’t any sound, but I can see her mouth moving and her hands flailing about. She is having one hell of an argument… with absolutely no one.
Fuck me. Maitlin is sexy when she’s mad. Her anger is just as intoxicating as her smile, and is it wrong of me to want more of both?
Watching a furious Maitlin stomp her way up flight after flight takes my attention so much that I don’t even notice when Zach walks into my office like he owns the place. He doesn’t so much as give me a sly hello before he sinks into one of my leather chairs opposite my desk. The same one Maitlin occupied earlier. Except where she was courteous, he sits back and plops his booted feet on my desk.
“By all means, make yourself at home,” I say while pushing his boots off my custom mahogany desk.
“Man, you need to get laid, ‘cause I know you don’t need blood.”
The smirk on his face tells me everything I need to know, and he’s about to give me a load of shit about the body left outside Maitlin’s apartment this morning. I can’t blame him. After all, it was a stupid, hasty decision on my part.
Rules about leaving drained bodies are in place for the protection of our entire species. Guidelines that the two of us had a hand in making, practices that also apply to me. So I’ll take his verbal chastising for my indiscretion.
I wave him on. “Well, go on, give me the load of shit I know you’re here to deliver.” I may be talking to him, but my attention lies squarely on the screen in front of me, watching the woman who now seems to be yelling obscenities at no one in particular. That is, until she looks directly into the camera and flips it off.
How the fuck does she know I’m watching her, or does she just suspect? I can’t hold back the grin that spreads across my face, nor the chuckle I let out. Of course, all that does is give away the fact that I haven’t been paying attention to anything Zach was rambling on about.
“What are you watching, fucking cat videos?” Before I can stop him or change the feed, he’s staring over my shoulder at Maitlin as she storms out of Rise. “Well, look at that. I was right, you are watching pussy.”
I slam the screen down hard enough to hear it crack.
“Well, I guess the drained body outside her townhouse is no coincidence.” He stands back with his arms crossed over his chest. Smug asshole. “Although, I am curious as to what you were doing there. You’re not one to go out on a hunt, so who was this guy? Her boyfriend?”
I don’t even let him finish that line of thinking. Yes, I drained him. Yes, he was outside her apartment. And yes, I enjoyed it. But for him to think I would take out a guy for no other reason than dating her… He might have a point, but that’s not why I killed him. That’s why I’ll kill that fucktard, Neil.
With a deep sigh, I reluctantly explain the situation to him. After all, two bloodthirsty predators on the hunt are better than one. If I ever questioned how deep our friendship went, all doubts diminish with his reaction to Maitlin’s safety.
“Fuck man, why is this Neil still breathing?”
He may look like a rock star, act like a rock star, and probably fucks like one, but there is no mistake, within each of the original seven is a warrior who at one time has sworn an oath to protect — not something any of us can ever deny.
“The only reason he’s still walking this earth is that I’m not a hundred percent sure who the fucker is. I have Cole working the problem, and of course, Mason and Ridge have a pulse on the situation. But I don’t think this Neil is who Maitlin believes him to be.”
I reach for my laptop. The moment it opens, the feed from Rise prominently plays across my cracked screen. There is no Maitlin, not in Rise or any of the other surrounding feeds. I don’t even hesitate to dial down to security. Not knowing where she is in my building doesn’t sit right with me. Cole answers after only one ring.
“Get me a visual on Maitlin Addams.” My leg bounces impatiently as I wait a few seconds for Cole to reply, and when he does, my heart sinks.
“Sir, it looks as if she and Kap’s niece left the building
about ten minutes ago. I’m forwarding the last visual we have in the building.”
The video of Maitlin and Kap’s niece, Shellie, pops into view on my cracked screen. She no longer looks like a pissed-off bartender. Her sexy as hell uniform is replaced by a tight black dress that barely covers her ass and has a neckline that leaves little to the imagination of what she hides underneath.
“Fuck, man, what are we doing here? She looks like she’s ready to have a good time, and you're sitting here.”
He is right, not that I will ever give him the satisfaction of me saying so. But Maitlin is heading out into the city, blissfully unaware that there is a target on her back. I am not going to sit back and let Neil find her.
I look at the time stamp of the video, and they only have about a ten-minute head start on us. Even still, they can be anywhere.
Zach and I continue to study the video for a few minutes and watch as Shellie speaks to the front-end concierge moments before they leave. I can only hope that she inquired about possible destinations.
I switch the feed to live and see the same steward standing behind the desk, and I call downstairs.
“This is Mister Krieger.” I watch on the monitor as he straightens up and looks around as if I am watching him, which is precisely what is happening. “About ten minutes ago, you put two women into a car. Where did you send them?”
His answer is immediate, and not what I am expecting. “Yes, sir. They asked about The Black Door club, and I called a car to take them.”
I thank him and hang up. “Fuck.”
The Black Door club is owned by a Blood Angel and a good friend of mine, Asher, and it’s an exclusive vampire club, one of many he owns.
The only humans permitted inside are those from the protector families who are looking for a little adventure. Shellie, being from one such family, will be well aware of the rules of the club, and therefore she knows Maitlin will not be granted entrance. But I fear, like everything, where there's a will there's away.
Jaxon (Blood Angel Chronicles Book 1) Page 8
