The Enigma: Unlawful Men Book 2

by Malpas, Jodi Ellen

  I can’t look at him. His eyes are too astute, his lazy gaze potent. I feel like he’s tapping in on my thoughts. “I called, but you obviously couldn’t hear me.” Because you were lost in some pretty intense-looking kink. “I would have left”—I motion back to the elevator— “but I don’t have a keycard or a code.”

  He points to the button above the slot for the card. “You don’t need a card or a code to leave, just to enter.”

  “Oh.” I inwardly shake my head to myself. I could have left? I could have spared us both this embarrassment? Yet, as I look at him, he doesn’t look very embarrassed. He just looks inconvenienced. “You know, if now’s not a good time, I could come back.”

  “Now’s fine.” He turns on his bare feet and heads to the open kitchen on the other side of the room. “Would you like a drink?”

  “I’m good, thanks.” I follow him, glancing around again. More glass. “Nice place.”

  “Thanks.” He opens a tall glass-fronted fridge and pulls out a beer, twisting the cap off and resting back on the countertop as he takes a slug.

  I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t look him in the eye, so I take another pointless peek around his apartment.

  “Do you struggle with eye contact?” he asks, and I dart my stare back to his. He regards me as he takes another swig of his beer. “Or is it just me?”

  I laugh on the inside. Only when I’ve unexpectedly stumbled upon your orgy, and then have to pretend I’ve not seen your gloriously naked body pounding relentlessly into a woman.

  Holding his eyes, if only to make a point, I scratch through my mind for what to say. This guy is dark. How dark is yet to be determined, but my intuition tells me very dark. I’ve been submerged in enough darkness in my time to recognize a damaged soul. To sense someone’s anger. To feel their pain. I’m a walking, talking example.

  What’s his story?

  It’s like he’s purposely trying to make me feel uncomfortable, and I hate him for succeeding. What I was faced with before isn’t helping, of course, but he doesn’t know I saw.

  Or does he?

  He cocks his head, and I cock mine right back as he watches me. “You know, I think I will have that drink.” Give me all the alcohol, for the love of God.

  He nods mildly, pulling the fridge open, eyes still on me. “Beer?”

  He’s goading me, and that pisses me off. “Please.” I’ll feel like I’ve failed if I look away, so, like a stubborn fool, I maintain our eye contact, refusing to let him win. I will not give him that power.

  He sets his bottle aside to unscrew the cap of mine and then hands it to me. It’s all I can do not to scowl as I accept it and take a sip.

  Eyes. Still. On. Me.

  I’m beginning to think he knows I saw what was going on upstairs. The way he’s being, this staring shit. He really is trying to make me feel uncomfortable. Why? I am Jaz Hayley’s daughter. I absolutely will not break, and as if he’s read my mind, I see the tiniest of smirks crack the straightness of his lips. And then he looks away, running a hand through his messy, sexed-up waves.

  “Let me show you my office.” He pushes himself off the countertop and heads for the stairs, and I stare at his wide shoulders as he goes.

  “Your office?” I call, and he stops, his foot on the first step, looking back.

  “You’re here to paint, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but you mentioned your bedroom.” Why the hell would I point that out? I don’t want to step foot in his bedroom.

  “I did?” he questions. “I meant my office.”

  “But all I’ve seen is glass.”

  His eyebrows lazily rise, and I die on the inside, looking away. “But you’ve not seen upstairs.”

  Oh God, Beau, just leave. Go. Put yourself out of this misery. But I don’t. Instead, I say nothing and follow, kicking my flip-flops off again at the bottom of the stairs before climbing them, my eyes nailed to the backs of his thighs.

  We round the corner at the top and, naturally, my focus lands on the door into his dungeon. “Do you live alone?” I ask, making idle chitchat in an attempt to break the ice. I’ve never met a man so cold.

  He passes the first door, the door, and looks back at me. “Yes.”

  “Are you always this hospitable?” It just falls out, my mind all over the place, no matter how hard I’m trying to convince him otherwise. My job as a police officer taught me how to be calm in the face of seriously fraught situations. How to maintain my cool. It’s all lost on me now.

  “I’m very hospitable,” he replies, and I laugh under my breath without thought as he comes to a stop at another door, looking back at me. Good grief, his eyes are like bottomless pits of sinfulness. Magnets. He takes the handle, but he doesn’t open it. “Are you sensing a bit of tension between us?” he asks huskily.

  “Yes.” I don’t lie. I’m too old to play games.

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “Are you usually so awkward?”

  “No. Never.” I’m really not, and I just unwittingly admitted that I’m feeling uncomfortable.

  “So, it really is just me?”

  “Yes, it’s you.” I give him a sarcastic smile. “Does that make you happy?” I sense it does.

  “No, it makes me curious.”

  “Why?”

  His eyes fall down my body, and he takes his time taking me in. “It makes me curious,” he whispers, returning his eyes to mine. I’m immediately hypnotized by him. Spellbound. “Because I can’t figure out if you dislike me.” A beat. A blatant beat for impact. “Or want to fuck me.”

  My lips part, a little in shock, and, God help me, a lot with desire. “And I can’t figure out if you’re purposely trying to make me feel uncomfortable, or whether you’re a natural asshole.”

  He smiles. That’s wicked too. “A bit of both.”

  I cock my head, entranced, as he opens the door and gestures me inside. I force my feet to move, passing him, feeling his shrewd stare follow me into the room. More floor-to-ceiling glass, though only on one wall. The couch could seat eight people with ease. The small kitchen in the corner is equipped with a glass fridge, a Nespresso machine, and glass-fronted cupboards with matching glass cups and saucers. His desk is more a conference table—again, glass—and his chair sits between that and the window. One of the three walls is covered in dozens of TVs. You could live in his office, and it tells me all I need to know about James Kelly. He’s a workaholic. It’s no wonder he’s fairly anti-social. I bet he’s holed up in here most of the time when he’s not at work. Or performing an extraordinary fuck for some man to watch.

  I take in the two plastered walls—large walls—and look to the ceiling. It’s scattered with dozens of tiny spotlights. I grimace. That’ll be a bitch to paint.

  “What’s the verdict?” he asks, cocking a leg and sitting on the conference table.

  “It’s a week’s work.” I wander over to one of the walls and run my palm across the paint. Smooth. Only a couple of holes to fill from where picture hooks have been. “The ceiling will be a pain with all those lights to cut in around.” I look up, as does he. “A thousand.”

  “No, I think there’s only two hundred,” he replies, his eyes dancing across the spotlights.

  I smile to myself, admiring his throat. “Dollars,” I clarify. “Excluding paint.”

  His head drops. “A thousand? To paint two walls and a ceiling?”

  “They’re big walls and a very annoying ceiling.” I’ll have a seriously bad neck by the time I’m done intricately cutting in around all those lights. One hundred dollars will probably be spent on a chiropractor. Plus, my inner mind is probably trying to put him off. Trying to lose the job. I shouldn’t spend any more time here than I have to, and I don’t need to spend a minute. Then why are you still here?

  Clearly because I’m too fucking curious. Or bored.

  James shakes his head. “You’re ripping me off. I could do
it myself on a weekend.”

  I take a sip of my beer and hold it out to him. He takes it, if a little tentatively. “Then enjoy,” I say, turning on my bare feet and leaving his office, feeling the pressure of his presence lifting from my shoulders the farther I walk away from him. I take the stairs, slipping my flip-flops on as I hit the bottom. I don’t think I could spend another minute in this glass box with that glass man, let alone a whole week. He’s sharp. Cutting.

  Transparent?

  I wander into the elevator when the doors open and turn, slowly lifting my eyes. He’s made it to the bottom of the stairs.

  And he just stares at me.

  And despite wanting to look away, his eyes refuse to release me from their hold. His teeth latch on to his bottom lip. His hands go to the hem of his T-shirt. And he turns, pulling it up as he pads on bare feet to the kitchen.

  I swallow and rest my weight on a hand against the mirror, my eyes darting across the vast expanse of his sharp back.

  And the angry, deep, monstrous scar that blankets every inch of it.

  7

  JAMES

  What the fuck am I thinking? I slump down on the couch, my eyes rooted on the elevator, my beer discarded and replaced with something hard. I neck the straight vodka and gasp. I knew what I was doing. When I arranged for some company prior to Beau Hayley arriving, I knew exactly what I was doing.

  I was creating an obstacle. Making sure she hates me because she should. But with each update Goldie sends me on Beau Hayley, my intrigue grows. And those calls? Her voice? Something inside of me kicked, and I was fucked if I could ignore it.

  Damaged.

  Broken.

  Hopeless.

  Everything I once was is emblazoned over every inch of that woman. And my attraction? That caught me off guard. Her clear, fair complexion. Her messy blonde waves. Her dark, dark eyes. She moves with grace and purpose, and yet I’ve never seen someone look so obviously heavy and lost before. Contempt for life. I’ve never seen demons displayed so clearly on someone’s skin.

  Except when I look in the mirror.

  “Fuck me,” I murmur, rubbing at my forehead. I pull my mobile out and wake up the screen. Beau Hayley’s face fills it.

  Beautifully toxic.

  She doesn’t want to be here anymore.

  And I can make that happen.

  Do us both a favor.

  8

  BEAU

  “I feel like I’m sleeping in a bottle of Pepto-Bismol,” Dexter mutters as he drops his holster on the chaise that’s adorned with regal peacocks.

  I dunk my brush in the can and load it with more paint, balancing on top of my ladder to reach the corner. “She loves it.”

  “Of course she does. It looks like Barbie puked up all over it. Don’t let her see you playing gymnastics like that.”

  “I’m as safe as houses.” I swipe my brush with accuracy along the wall where it meets the ceiling, getting as perfect a line as I can with my new brush. “Terrible,” I mutter, pulling back and inspecting.

  “Looks perfect to me.”

  “All done,” I declare, jumping down and setting my can on the drop cloth. Perfect. What the fuck is perfect, anyway? “They’ve discontinued my favorite brush.” I’ve searched Google and come up with nothing. I curl my lip at my substitute brush as I toss it in the can of paint. “Where is she?” I ask, just as Aunt Zinnea bursts through the door looking harassed, her body encased in a floor-length red velvet gown.

  “My wig,” she cries. “Has anyone seen my wig?”

  Both Dexter and I cast our eyes around their bedroom, across all of the drop cloths and decorating equipment. “I’ll tidy up.” I start transferring my tools into my box and wrap my brush and roller ready to wash.

  “Beau, sweetheart?”

  I glance up. Aunt Zinnea seems to have lost her panic and is now looking at me in that way she does. With concern.

  “Why don’t you come to my show this evening?”

  I don’t answer, just look at her in the way I do, and continue with my task of clearing their bedroom. A dark cavern of a club downtown on a Saturday night that’s packed to the rafters with excited, loud fans is my worst kind of hell. She knows it. And yet each time she asks, I see new hope in her eyes.

  “You look lovely,” Dexter says, moving in for a swift change of subject, anything to get Aunt Zinnea off my back.

  “Why, thank you.” She reaches for her hair to twiddle at a lock coyly. Her smile drops. “My wig.” And she’s off around the bedroom like a whirlwind again, pulling sheets off furniture as she goes.

  “You’ll get paint on your dress.” Dexter sighs. “Go wait in the kitchen. I’ll find it.” He claims Zinnea and leads her from the room, and I start to collect up all of the sheets and fold them away. “She’s not okay,” Zinnea mutters, not for the first time this week.

  “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “I can hear you, you know,” I call tiredly, and they both stop at the door, looking back. “Uncle Lawrence is much quieter than Aunt Zinnea. If you’re going to talk about me, do it when you’re Lawrence.”

  Dexter chuckles lightly, and Zinnea shrugs off his hold with an air of indignance, throwing him a dirty look before returning her attention to me. “Let’s meditate,” she suggests, breezing across the room to me, holding up her dress.

  I look to Dexter for help. He shrugs. “I don’t need to meditate.”

  “You do. You haven’t been yourself all week.”

  “Surely that’s a good thing,” I say over a laugh, getting my very own filthy look from Zinnea.

  “I mean your fake self.”

  I get my amusement under control quickly, looking away from her probing eyes. She’s right. I’ve been so wrapped up in controlling my wandering mind and stopping it from steering in a direction I know is totally the wrong way, I’ve neglected to remember to force my smiles. To make sure everyone thinks I’m okay. I even missed my therapy session. Distracted.

  I let Zinnea take my hand and pull me out onto the bohemian-inspired balcony. A gigantic daybed is nestled under the canopy, the sheets adorned in elephants of every color of the rainbow, a few dozen cushions in clashing patterns scattered across it. Wind chimes ding, dreamcatchers sway, candles flicker. It really is a sweet sanctuary, but I’d enjoy it far more if I wasn’t always here under duress. “You mustn’t be late for your show,” I say, knowing I’m fighting a losing battle.

  She positions me on the end of a vivid striped woven rug. “Sit.”

  I do as I’m bid and rest my bum on my heels, and Zinnea mirrors me, though with more difficulty in her velvet gown. “Now,” she says, her eyes like questioning probes on me. “What’s on your mind?”

  James Kelly.

  “Nothing.” Damn me, I look away, breaking the ultimate rule. I hear Zinnea hum, as my mind once again tortures me with a re-run of my encounter with him on Monday. So many words dance on my lips, waiting for me to speak them, to get Zinnea’s thoughts. There’s no question, she’s liberal enough to take it. She won’t gasp in horror or judge. So why don’t I tell her? Why don’t I share?

  I finally admit to myself that my reluctance is more to do with what she’ll conclude about me rather than a man she doesn’t know. Why can’t I get him off my mind? What is this curiosity? Why am I thinking about him all the damn time? He was artic cold. Unfriendly.

  Spellbinding.

  Darkness entices darkness.

  Zinnea must see my mind reeling, because she turns her hands so her palms are facing the sky. She closes her eyes. I follow. She breathes in. So do I. She starts to talk softly, words I’ve heard time and again, words meant to soothe me, to settle me, to chase away the demons.

  Is James Kelly a demon?

  My eyes squeeze tighter, and Paradise Circus invades my hearing, along with grunts and moans, all mixing and blending, a montage of bodies slipping against each other, limbs entwining, hands drifting. I feel my shoulders drop. My heart slows. My breathing becomes shall
ow. I mustn’t think about him. I mustn’t see him again.

  And then sirens screech, and I snap my eyes open, blinking into the darkness.

  Fire.

  Darkness.

  Sirens.

  Heat.

  My hands start grappling at the floor beside me, searching for an anchor, anything to hold on to, anything to pull me up.

  It’s too hot.

  I can’t touch a thing.

  It’s all too hot.

  Mom!

  “Oh no,” Zinnea breathes. “Dexter!”

  I start to choke, the smoke overwhelming me. “I can’t breathe,” I wheeze, my mind now an abyss of unbearable memories, my throat feeling like it’s clogged with smoke.

  Screams.

  Cries.

  Panic.

  Fear.

  Pain of unbearable levels.

  “Beau, sweetheart, take it. Breathe into it.” I feel the crumpling of paper around my mouth, and I inhale deeply, drinking in the clean air. Clean. So clean. No smoke.

  I gasp, my hand clenching the bag like the lifeline it is. My mind empties. My heart settles.

  I’m alive.

  But Mom is not.

  I blink, finding Zinnea and Dexter before me, their faces a picture of worry. I can’t bear it. I shake my head mildly, my way of telling them not to worry, that I’m fine. They won’t buy it. I know that. “It’s been awhile,” Zinnea says, her body relaxing a smidge. “Are you still going to tell me you’re fine?”

  “Lawrence,” Dexter warns gently, and this time Aunt Zinnea doesn’t fly into a hissy fit. She simply sighs, defeated.

  I give Dexter an appreciative smile. “You still keep these?” I say, handing him back the paper bag once I know I’ve got a handle on my attack.

  “I still pick up one or two when I’m at Trader Joes.” He shrugs. “Habit.”

  Habit. I’ve heard somewhere—I can’t remember where—that you have to do something for an average of sixty-six days for it to become a habit. Dexter was collecting paper bags from Trader Joes for a lot longer than sixty-six days. And I used them all.

  I look down at the decking, noticing I’ve pushed myself into a corner. I mustn’t see him again. I blow out my cheeks and get to my feet, while Zinnea and Dexter remain on the floor, looking up at me. The cop and the drag queen. The most wonderful pair.