“You changed afterward.”
“We both did,” I said. “But the dreams and stuff. The paranoia? That’s all Rolf. It’s got nothing to do with you. Please believe me.”
She crossed her arms over her chest.
I turned away and kept going up the steps.
* * *
Griffin stood up at the end of the table, lifting his glass. Everyone got quiet.
We were all at the rehearsal dinner before the wedding. Everyone who was part of the wedding party was sitting at a big table at Oliverio’s, an Italian restaurant in town. The wine had been flowing freely, and everyone seemed loose and relaxed.
I’d managed to let down my guard. I guessed I was just drunk enough. I wasn’t looking for Rolf in every corner or around every bend. Possibly because it was the night before the wedding, I felt like Griffin and Leigh had stopped being so icy towards me. At the rehearsal beforehand, we’d all had to practice the order we’d enter and walk out during the ceremony, and everyone had been in a good mood, laughing and joking.
Right at that moment, I felt like the anxiety I’d had over Rolf was miles away. I felt free and loose.
“I want to propose a toast,” Griffin was saying, grinning widely. “To my beautiful bride.”
Leigh blushed beside him. She grabbed his elbow. “Stop it. Sit down.”
He pulled away from her. “No, no. I want to do this.”
“I didn’t make up a toast for you,” she protested, her face getting even redder.
“You don’t have to do that.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I love you.”
A collective “Awww” rippled over the table. Everyone was laughing and smiling. I had to admit that it was nice to see them happy like this. If the relationship thing really worked for them, then I wasn’t about to stand in their way.
“Anyway.” Griffin straightened.
We all laughed.
“To Leigh Thorn,” he said, holding his glass aloft. “The most beautiful, most understanding, most amazing woman on earth. I wouldn’t make it without her. She’s everything I need.”
More romantic sighing from the girls.
We all raised our glasses.
“To Leigh,” Griffin said again.
“To Leigh,” we all repeated.
We clinked our glasses. We drank.
More smiles. More laughter.
I felt like I was in a big, bright bubble of happiness..
Or maybe I’d just had too much wine.
I wasn’t sure.
Leigh stood up. “Wait, wait, wait. I have to toast to you too.”
“Doll,” he laughed, “I just said that you didn’t.”
“No, I want to,” she said, looking down at him.
He gazed up at her in adoration.
I had to look away. The look was so nakedly full of love and desire that it made me uncomfortable. I didn’t think I’d ever witnessed that emotion, much less experienced it.
“To Griffin Fawkes,” she said. “The strongest, bravest man in the world. He’s saved my life more than once. In so many different ways. He makes me better.”
The romantic sighs were even more poignant. Hell, I was tempted to give in and sigh with them.
She raised her glass. “To Griffin.”
We raised our glasses too. We echoed her. “To Griffin.”
More glass clinking. More drinking. More laughter.
Sloane let out an audible sigh. “They’re so happy.” Then, without warning, she punched me in the arm.
“Ow,” I said. “What have I told you about that hitting thing? Why’d you even do that?”
“You have to stop scaring away any guy that comes within two feet of me,” she said. “How else am I ever going to get married?”
“You wanna get married?” I guess part of me had thought that Sloane and I would spend the rest of our lives living together in that house. How else was I supposed to make sure she was okay?
“Someday,” she said. “And, deep down, you do too.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t. It’s like no one listens to a word I say.”
* * *
After the rehearsal dinner, I decided to go out. Sloane got on my case about it, saying that I was going to be hungover tomorrow for the wedding and that I was being a jackass, but I told her to shove it.
I was losing my touch here. I hadn’t slept with a single girl since I’d been with Christa. And I didn’t even remember that. Christa wasn’t interested in me. She pushed me away when I’d tried to kiss her. I was turning into Griffin mooning over her. That wasn’t me. I wasn’t the kind of guy that freaked out about a girl.
There were lots of girls out there. Christa didn’t want me? Fine. Time to get back on the horse.
I hit up a bar that almost never carded. It was a rundown sort of place in a permanent double wide on the edge of town. The girls that showed up at this place were either trashy, rednecky kind of chicks with bad dye jobs and cigarette breath or co-eds too young to drink legally, who’d heard about the place by reputation.
I decided that I could really go either way that night. Trashy, rednecky girls sometimes had their charm, after all.
I spent my first few drinks scoping out the bar, trying to decide who I should go after. I flirted with the bartender, a redhead, and managed to worm my way into a game of darts with some guys wearing worn baseball caps.
As luck would have it, I didn’t end up having to pick, because a girl came to me.
She sidled over to us to watch the dart game and said she’d like to play.
We agreed, because she was cute. She had light brown curly hair and a nice rack. She was chewing gum, and she giggled a lot. But I saw her checking me out, and I knew that she would be an easy mark.
And I didn’t really need something too complicated tonight, after all. I was recovering from whatever craziness had seized me when it came to Christa, and I needed a girl who’d fall onto her back with minimal effort from me.
She was really bad at darts, and she giggled about that too. “You should help me aim,” she said, winking at me.
Right.
“Sure,” I said, grinning. I eased up behind her, pressing myself against her back. I took one of her arms in mine. “So,” I whispered in her ear, “what you want to do is hold the dart so that it’s at a ninety degree angle with the dart board.”
“What?” She wriggled her ass against my crotch. “I don’t understand.”
“Just hold it flat.” I grabbed her hip, yanking her closer.
She smiled over her shoulder at me. “Well, this is getting fun.”
“Looks like fun,” said a female voice. “You gonna teach me how to throw darts next, Silas?”
I whipped my head around. Who was here that knew my name?
Christa had her arms folded over her chest. “Hey.”
I pushed the girl with curly hair away from me. “What are you doing here?”
Christa laughed. “Hanging out. Drinking. Maybe playing some darts. What are you doing here?”
The girl with curly hair chewed on her lip, looking a little worried. “Is that your girlfriend or something?”
“I don’t do girlfriends,” I said. To Christa, “You’re going to be hungover for the wedding.”
“Oh, heavens, no,” said Christa in a mocking tone. “Not a hangover.”
“Someone’s getting married?” said the girl with curly hair.
“You’re not even supposed to be in here,” I told Christa. “You’re underage.”
She glared at me. “I think you’ll get a little more volume if you speak from the diaphragm.”
The girl with curly hair looked nervous. “Are you done helping me with darts?”
I turned back to her. “I, uh…”
She looked down at her toes. She was hurt. Dammit. I’d hurt that stupid girl’s feelings. Well, I guessed it was better to have it done it now than after I’d fucked her.
I handed her back the dart I was holding. “Sorr
y.”
“Oh, you’re ditching her for me?” said Christa. “I’m flattered, Silas, but really, I thought I made it clear to you—”
“I’ll buy you a drink.” I took Christa by the arm and steered her to the other side of the room, where there were a few arcade games and a jukebox.
“Um, generally, people buy drinks at the bar,” she said. “Which is over there.” She pointed.
Right. Okay. Why did she make me so damned flustered? “Stay here.”
I went to the bar and bought two beers. When I got back to her, she was putting money in the jukebox.
I handed her the beer.
“Thanks.” She took it. “You think I should spend the credits and play this song first?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Why was she asking me this?
She pressed something on the screen.
A song started to pulse over the speakers, something upbeat and guitar heavy. I recognized it, I thought. I’d heard it on the radio before. It was one of those chick singers. The chorus was something about not needing a guy or something. I didn’t know.
Christa started to sway her hips. “You wanna dance with me Silas?”
“No one else is dancing,” I said.
“So?” she said.
“So, if you’re illegally drinking in a bar, maybe it’s not wise to call attention to yourself.”
She giggled. She eased her way over to me, undulating her hips.
My jaw twitched. I had to admit she looked good. She was wearing a pair of skin-tight leggings and a tank top that settled around her hips.
She slid against me, pressing her breasts into my chest.
They were soft. I shut my eyes. “I didn’t think you were into me.”
“I’m not,” she said, turning around, pressing her ass into my groin, writhing against me.
Immediately, I was hard. Fuck her for that.
She felt it. She giggled, her hand traveling up my leg and reaching for my crotch.
I seized her wrist. “Stop.”
She turned to face me, giving me a sultry smile. “There you go grabbing onto me again. Let go of me.”
I did.
Fuck this. If she wanted to play games like that, she could count me out. I started to walk away.
“What? Too much for you to handle?” she called after me.
I stopped. I turned back around. “What’s your deal, Christa?”
She was still dancing to the song, moving her hips in slow circles. She tangled one of her hands in her hair. “I’m just trying to have fun, Silas. That’s all.”
I strode over to her. “I’m not the kind of guy you want to work up for fun.”
She laughed. “Oooh. You’re so scary. You bench press a lot, and you think it actually means you’re dangerous?”
It was my turn to laugh. “You have no idea.”
She licked her lips. “What are you going to do to me?”
My hard-on throbbed. Fuck her for doing that. I sucked in breath. “Nothing. If you don’t want me to do anything, then I’m not going to do anything. That was why I was walking away.”
“Why?” she said. “Because I was ‘working you up’?” Her voice got breathy on the last words. She threw her head back. “Do you want me, Silas? Do you want to touch me?” She ran her own finger over her neck and chest, sliding over the outside wall of her breast.
I couldn’t help but let my gaze follow her hand as it traveled over her body. My voice was strained. “You know I do.”
She smiled. “You want to kiss me?” She raised her eyebrows. “You want to run your hands all over me?”
“Fuck you.” I squeezed my eyes shut. I was going to walk away. I was going to do it now.
She pressed close again. “If you want to do it, then you can.”
“What?” I pulled away.
“You can fuck me if you want to,” she said. “I’ve decided I don’t care.”
I furrowed my brow. “You know, I think I’d prefer it if you did care.”
She slugged her beer. “Whatever, Silas. Limited time offer. Take me to bed or lose me forever.”
I wasn’t sure about this. I didn’t move. She was acting kind of strange, wasn’t she? She was kind of hostile about the entire thing. That couldn’t be good, could it?
“Jesus, haven’t you ever seen Top Gun?”
“What?”
“I was quoting the most awesome ‘80s movie of the entire decade, and you still have super-serious face.”
I took her by the arm again. “Let’s go.”
“You gonna fuck me silly?”
“Let’s just get out of here.” I began to walk, pulling her along with me.
She came willingly enough. “Silas, don’t tell me that you suddenly don’t want to screw me sideways. You haven’t stopped trying since I met you.”
I propelled her out of the bar. We weaved through other drunk people to the door. Outside, the spring air was chilly. “It’s only that I’m a little confused. You just said you weren’t into me.”
She started walking down the ramp outside the bar. “I don’t need to be into you for us to fuck.”
I went after her. “Well, it kind of helps, don’t you think?”
She laughed, and it came out bitter. “I don’t think it makes a difference one way or the other, actually.”
I caught up and peered into the parking lot. “How’d you get here? Did you drive?”
She shook her head. “I called a cab.” She wound an arm around my neck. “You drove, right? You can take me back to your place?”
Her body was soft and warm against me. She was acting like she wanted me. She was saying that she did.
So why did I feel—
A sharp pain in my neck.
My hand went there.
Christa backed away from me, wrinkling her brow. “There’s something on your neck.”
I pulled it out. It was a dart. A tranquilizer dart. The kind you’d use to take down animals. Dewhurst-McFarland made a dart just like this.
Shit.
I stumbled.
Christa cried out.
A dart was in her shoulder. She grasped at it, yanking on it.
My vision was blurring, going hazy…
No. I needed to—
I fumbled for my cell phone. If I could… call…
I couldn’t stand up anymore. It was so hard to see.
Sloane. I… needed…
CHAPTER SEVEN
I woke up to the sensation of movement. I was in a moving vehicle of some kind. I opened my eyes to see that I was in the back of a van. My hands and legs were tied. Christa was lying in a heap next to me. She was tied up too.
Derek Rolf crouched next to me. He was smiling. “Hello again, Drake.”
I tested my bonds, trying to see how strong they were.
They didn’t give much.
“It’s amazing that you’re awake so quickly,” he said. “That tranquilizer dart is pretty heavy duty. But then, you are extraordinary, aren’t you? You can jump out a three-story window with a gunshot wound in your gut and recover as if nothing happened.”
What was I supposed to say? So, he’d figured out my secret. “How did you know I was still alive? Have you been following me, waiting to pick me up?”
He laughed. “No, it was simply dumb luck. Someone saw you in that bar we picked you up from. He called me. I came to get you.”
Good. That meant Sloane was still safe. He didn’t know about her. He didn’t know where I lived.
“I know that someone helped you escape from that hotel. I can only assume that was this little thing here.” Rolf got up and went to Christa. He nudged her with his foot.
“Don’t touch her,” I said. On the one hand, I was glad that he thought that Christa was the person who’d been helping me, because it meant that Sloane was out of it entirely. On the other hand, it wasn’t fair that he was going to take out his anger on Christa. She was innocent. I had to protect her from Rolf. I had to do whatever I
could.
Rolf turned back to me, his grin wider than ever. “Oh, you’re protective, are you? Well, judging from the way she was ‘dancing’ with you at that bar, she’s quite a little spitfire, isn’t she?” He knelt next to her.
I made an attempt to get up. I lost my balance and fell over. “Leave her out of this. She’s got nothing to do with this.”
“Really?” he said. “That’s funny, if you’d asked me what I thought about you running your mouth to Sylvia, I might have told you the same thing.”
“You killed Sylvia.”
“Because I had to,” said Rolf. “Because you ruined her. You tainted her. I couldn’t look at her the same way after I knew she’d been spreading her legs for you.”
“That’s not a reason to kill her,” I said.
“You don’t know how it feels.” He put his face next to Christa’s.
I struggled again, trying to right myself. “She doesn’t know anything about any of this. Let her go.”
Rolf licked her face, starting at the bottom of her chin and going up to her eyebrow.
I felt a tight burst of rage run through me, hot and flaming. I lunged for him.
But I was tied up, and I didn’t make it very far.
My cheek slapped against the floor of the van.
Rolf laughed. “You don’t know how it feels. Not yet.” He slid a searching hand inside her shirt.
“Stop it.”
More laughter. “But you will know.” His hand closed over one of her breasts.
The rage shot through me again, settling in my belly, growing into a blaze.
He pulled his hand out. “Not yet, though. I wouldn’t want to break her too quickly. If she doesn’t have any fight, she’ll be no fun to chase.”
Chase?
Just like that, the fire in my belly went out, extinguished by icy fear. He was going to hunt us. He was going to hunt Christa. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to do something about it.
I tried to think. There must be some way to save her, to get her out of this situation.
This was my fault. She had nothing to do with any of it.
“So, first, Drake, I’ll chase her. And then I’ll catch her. And I’ll have her every way I can think of having her. Every way you had my wife.” He was next to me, his mouth close to my ear.
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