by J. R. Ward
For a moment, she entertained a fantasy where she told him that all she did was hang out in one of those cages, showing off some moves, being nothing but eye candy. She could guess what he would do. He’d take a deep breath of relief and start relating to her as if she were just any other woman who’d caught his eye. No complications, no implications, nothing but some flirting between two people that might lead to bed.
Her silence made him take a breath, and it wasn’t the oh-good kind. As he exhaled, the muscles that ran up his neck tightened into stark cords, like he had to fight back a wince.
This was the thing: She was never again going to have a normal get-to-know-you with a man. She had a dark secret, the kind that you had to gauge how many dates could pass before you had to reveal it—otherwise you were a liar by omission.
“How bad are your hands?” she said to fill the void.
When he held them out, she inspected his knuckles. The right ones were bruised and bleeding, and as she put the washcloth to use on them, she asked, “Do you come to the rescue of women a lot?”
“No, I really don’t. You’re missing an earring, by the way.”
She touched her lobe. “Yeah, I know. I meant to put another pair on today. But…”
“I’m Vin, by the way.” He put his palm out and waited. “Nice to meet you.”
Under other circumstances, she would have smiled at him. Ten years and a lifetime ago, she would have had to smile as she put her palm in his and they shook. Now, she just felt sadness.
“Nice to meet you, too. Vin.”
“Your name?”
She took her hand from his and ducked her head to concentrate on his knuckles. “Marie-Terese. My name…is Marie-Terese.”
She had such lovely eyes.
Marie-Terese of the lovely French name had absolutely lovely eyes. And she was gentle with her hands, carefully cleaning him up with that warm washcloth as if his nicks and scratches were something important.
Shit, he wanted to get into another fight just so she could nurse him again.
“You should probably go to the doctor,” she said, patting the little towel across his cracked knuckles.
Absently, he noted that the terry cloth had started off white but now was pink from his blood, and he was glad that she’d put on the latex—not because he was HIV positive, but because he hoped the gesture generalized and meant she protected herself in what she did for a living.
He’d hoped all she did was dance. He really had.
She rinsed out the washcloth. “I said, you should see your doctor.”
“I’ll be fine.” But would she? What would have happened if he and Jim hadn’t come along?
God, there were so many questions he had all of a sudden. He wanted to know why someone like her was in this line of work. He wanted to know what harshness had brought her to the place she was at. He wanted to know…what he could do to help, not just tonight, but tomorrow and the day after that.
Except none of that was any of his business. More to the point, he had a feeling that if he pressed her for details, she would close up on him.
“Can I ask you something?” he said, because he couldn’t help it.
She paused with the cloth. “Okay.”
He knew he shouldn’t do what he was about to, but he could not fight the overwhelming draw of her. It had nothing to do with his mind and everything to do with his…okay, heart was too stinkin’ melodramatic. But whatever was driving him came from the center of his chest.
So fine, maybe his sternum was really into her.
“Will you have dinner with me?”
The door to the locker room swung wide, and the flame-haired prostitute who’d triggered Devina’s exit strode in.
“Oh! Excuse me…I didn’t know anyone was in here.” As she stared at Vin, her bright red lips widened into a false smile that suggested she’d known exactly who was in the locker room.
Marie-Terese moved away from him, taking her warm cloth and her bowl of water and her soft hands with her. “We were just leaving, Gina.”
Vin took the cue and stood up. As he cursed the redhead’s interruption, he caught an eyeball full of all the makeup on the counter and reminded himself that she had more of a right to be here than he did.
Marie-Terese went into the bathroom, and he imagined her cleaning out the bowl and rinsing the washcloth off, then snapping free the gloves. She was going to come out of there and he was going to say good-bye and…she was going to take off that fleece and go back into the crowd.
Staring at the door she’d gone through, while the prostitute next to him chattered away, the strangest feeling came over Vin. It was like a fog had gathered on the floor and sent tendrils up his legs and over his chest and all the way to his brain. He was suddenly hot on the outside and cold on the inside….
Shit, he knew what this was. He knew exactly what was happening. It had been years, but he knew where this constellation of sensation went.
Vin grabbed onto the stool and let his ass fall back upon it. Breathe. Just breathe, you big dumb bastard. Breathe…
“So I saw your girlfriend left,” the redhead was saying as she sidled up to him. “You want some company?”
Hands with blood-colored nails as long as talons reached out and drifted up his stained lapel.
He brushed her off him with a sloppy palm. “Stop it….”
“You sure?”
Oh, God, he was even hotter on the outside, even colder on the inside. He had to stop this…because he didn’t want to know the message that was coming to him. He didn’t want the vision, the communication, the look-see into the future, but he was the telegraph who was powerless to deny receipt of the letters sent to him.
First the man in the elevator, then the two outside…now this.
He’d exorcised the dark side from himself years ago. Why was it back now?
The redhead rubbed herself against his arm and leaned into his ear. “Let me take care of you—”
“Gina, give it a rest, would you?”
Vin’s eyes moved toward Marie-Terese’s voice and he opened his mouth to try and speak. Nothing came out. Worse, as he stared at her, she became a vortex into which his sight was sucked, everything but her going blurry. He braced himself for what was coming next—and sure enough, the trembling started at his feet, just as the fog had, and moved up his body, taking over his knees and his stomach and his shoulders….
“Whatever, I don’t need to beg,” Gina said as she headed for the door. “Have fun with him—he looks too strung out to party anyway.”
“Vin?” Marie-Terese came over. “Vin, can you hear me? Are you all right—”
The words bubbled up out of him, the voice not his own, the possession overcoming everything such that he knew not what he spoke because the message was not for him, but for the one he was addressing.
His ears heard only nonsense: “Theio th lskow…Theio th lskow…”
She blanched and stepped back, hand lifting up to her throat. “Who.”
“Theio…th…lskow…
Vin’s voice was deep and dark and senseless to him, even as he tried to hear the syllables correctly, tried to unscramble in his head what he was telling her: This was the very worst part of his curse—he could do nothing to affect the future, because he didn’t know what he foretold.
Marie-Terese backed away from him until she smacked against the door, her face pale and her eyes popping wide. With shaking hands, she fumbled to open the thing and then burst out of the locker room, desperate to get away from him.
Her absence was what brought Vin back to reality, snapping the hold that had been clamped onto him, breaking the strings that had turned him into the puppet of…he didn’t know what. He’d never known what. From the very first time he’d been taken over, he’d been clueless as to what it was or what he spoke of or why, of all the people on the planet, it had to be him who chose to bear this terrible burden.
Good God, what was he going to do? He couldn’t fun
ction in his business or his life with intrusions like this. And he didn’t want to go back to his years as a young kid when people thought he was crazy.
Besides, this shouldn’t be happening. He’d taken care of this.
Planting his palms onto his knees, his let his head sag on his shoulders, his breathing shallow, his locked elbows all that held him upright.
That was how Jim found him.
“Vin? What’s doing, big man? You got a concussion?”
If only that were the case. He’d so choose a brain hemorrhage over the speaking-in-tongues thing.
Vin forced his eyes over to the other man. And because his mouth evidently wasn’t through with its independent streak, he heard himself say, “Do you believe in demons, Jim?”
The guy frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Demons…”
There was a long pause; then Jim said, “How ’bout we get you home? You don’t look right.”
Jim’s pointed pass on the question was a reminder of the polite way people dealt with the freaky in life. There were a lot of other reactions, though, from Marie-Terese’s taking off at a dead run to outright cruelty—which was what he’d gotten as a kid.
And Jim was right. Home was exactly where he needed to go, but damned if he didn’t want to find Marie-Terese and tell her…what? That between the ages of eleven and seventeen he’d had these “spells” happen to him regularly? That they’d made him lose friends and gotten him labeled a freak and forced him to learn how to fight? That he was sorry she’d gotten scared twice tonight?
More to the point, that she needed to take whatever he’d spoken as the gospel truth and protect herself? Because he was never wrong. Fuck him to hell and back…but whatever he said always happened.
Which was how he knew it was never good news. Later, someone on the periphery, or maybe the person him- or herself, would tell him what he’d said and what it meant. God, how the aftermath of the truth had horrified him. When he’d been young and had scared easier, he would go to his bedroom and shut the door and huddle under the covers, a shaky mess.
Just like he saw dead people, he foretold the future. The bad, bloody, destructive kind.
So what kind of trouble was Marie-Terese in?
“Come on, Vin. Let’s go.”
Vin looked toward the locker room door. Probably the kindest thing he could do for the woman was leave quietly—all that explaining was only going to draw her in deeper and frighten her more. But that wasn’t what was going to help her avoid whatever trouble was coming her way.
“Vin…let me take you out of here.”
“She’s in danger.”
“Vin, look at me.” The guy pointed to both of his own eyes. “Look at me. You are going home now. You got your head knocked around in that hall, and apparently you just gave passing out some serious consideration. I get the no-doctor bit, fine. But you’re talking out your ass if you think I’m going to let this shit go on any longer. Come with me—now.”
Damn it, this fuzzy aftermath, with the disorientation and confusion, with his fear about what he’d said and his feeling out of control—shit, even the WTF expression on Jim’s face…he remembered all of this. So many times…Vin had been through this so many times, and he hated it.
“You’re right,” he said, trying to let it all go. “You’re absolutely right.”
He could always come back and talk to her later, when things weren’t so fresh. Like tomorrow. He’d come back tomorrow as soon as the club opened. It was the best he could do.
Getting off the stool carefully, he went over to where she’d left his business card on the makeup counter. Taking his pen out, he wrote two words on the back and then looked at all the bags. He knew exactly which duffel was hers. Out of the pink-and-purple Ed Hardys and the Gucci and the two identical Harajuku Lovers…there was a plain black one with not so much as a Nike logo on it.
After tucking the card inside that one, he strode for the door, his shoulders aching, his right hand starting to pound, his ribs sending him a sharp shooter every time he took a breath. The real shitkicker, though, was the headache between his temples that had nothing to do with the fight. He always had one after…whatever the hell that was.
Out in the hall, he looked both ways and saw no sign of Marie-Terese.
For a moment, the compulsion to find her struck strong and hot, but when Jim took his arm, he put his faith in the other man’s rationality and allowed himself to be led over to the rear exit of the club.
“Wait here.”
Jim knocked on the manager’s door, and when the guy came out, there was another round of thank-yous and then Vin found himself breathing cold, clear air.
Christ…what a night.
CHAPTER
15
In the club’s parking lot, Vin walked through rows of cars, but he wasn’t tracking much…at least not until he caught sight of the guy with the mustache and glasses who’d witnessed the fight from the head of the corridor. Fortunately, as they all passed each other, the man ducked his eyes like he didn’t want any trouble and continued pulling on his parka, like he’d gone out to a car to get the thing.
When they got to the truck, Vin slid into the passenger seat and carefully rubbed his aching face.
Letting his head fall back, he despised the spinning, twirling tangle of pain that was making his skull scream. And the headache got even worse as it dawned on him that whereas he was headed back home, Marie-Terese had returned to work. Which meant she was with other men at this very moment, giving them—
He had to stop going there before he went totally mad.
Looking out the window, he watched streetlights flare and fade as Jim took lefts and rights and stopped at intersections on the way to the Commodore.
When they rolled to a halt in front of the high-rise, Vin released the seat belt and popped the door open. He had no idea whether Devina was going to be at the duplex or whether she’d have headed over to the place she still kept in the old meatpacking district of Caldie.
As he hoped she wasn’t in his bed, he felt like a bastard.
“Thanks,” he said to Jim as he stepped out. Before he shut the door, he leaned in. “Life is too frickin’ crazy sometimes, it really is…. You never know what’s going to happen, do you.”
“You got that right.” The guy ran his rough hand through his hair. “Listen, go be with your woman. Make up with her, okay?”
Vin frowned as something dawned on him. “Is this it? For you and me? Are we done now?”
Jim exhaled like he was disappointed his relationship advice was being ignored. “No, not hardly.”
“Why won’t you just tell me what you want?”
Jim just braced his forearm on the top of his steering wheel and stared across the seat. In the silence, his pale blue eyes seemed ancient. “I told you why I’m here. Go be nice to Devina and then get some sleep before you fall on your ass.”
Vin shook his head. “Drive safe.”
“I will.”
The truck took off and Vin went up the graduated steps to the Commodore’s lobby entrance. With the swipe of a pass card, he opened one of the doors and walked into the marble lobby. Over at the sign-in desk, the older, overnight security guard glanced up, caught a look at Vin’s puss, and dropped the pen he was holding.
Guess the swelling was kicking in. Which would explain why one of Vin’s eyes was having trouble blinking.
“Mr. diPietro…are you—”
“Hope you have a quiet night,” Vin said as he strode to the elevator doors.
“Thank…you.”
On the way up the building, Vin got a good gander at what the security guard had gone penless over. In the darkened mirrors of the elevator, he stared at his busted nose and the scratch on his cheek and the beginnings of the shiner he was going to have in the morning—
All at once, his face started to pound with the beat of his heart. Which made him wonder if he hadn’t seen his reflection whether it would have stayed quiet.<
br />
Up on the twenty-eighth floor, he stepped out into the hall and got his key ready. While he worked the lock, he had the sense that his life had taken a beating tonight along with that college kid. Everything felt off. Dislocated.
He hoped it wasn’t the start of a trend.
Vin opened his door, took a listen, and got hit with a whole lot of exhaustion. There was no security alarm to deactivate, and from the second floor, he could hear the television mumbling: She was home. Waiting for him.
Shutting himself in, he turned the lock, engaged the alarm, and eased back against the wall. When he could stand it, he looked up the marble staircase and watched the blue flicker of whatever show was on.
It sounded like an old movie, some kind of Ginger Rogers–Fred Astaire flying-hoof special.
Guess he had to go up and face the music, so to speak.
As forties-era standards rippled out of the bedroom, he pictured Devina propped up on the Frette pillowcases, wearing one of her wispy chiffon nightgowns. When he walked in, she would be shocked at his face and would try to nurse him—and she’d want to apologize for bailing from the club in the same way she’d made up for being unreachable the night before.
Or she would try to. He didn’t feel like having sex tonight.
At least…not with her.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Damn him to hell, but he wanted to drive right back to that club, but not to try to rehab Marie-Terese’s opinion of him. He wanted to pull out five hundred dollars and buy some time with her. He wanted to kiss her and pull her against his body and run his hands up the insides of her thighs. He wanted his tongue in her mouth and his chest against her breasts and he wanted her gasping and wet. He wanted her to let him take her.
The fantasy got him instantly hard—but it didn’t last, neither the hot images nor the erection.
What killed the fantasy was the memory of her in that fleece. She’d been so small. So…fragile. Not an object to be bought, but a woman in a brutal business, leveraging her body for cash.
No, he didn’t want to be with her like that.
As the raw mechanics of the way she earned her money tackled him, Vin thought, of course she was in danger. Look at what had happened tonight. Men couldn’t be trusted when their cocks were involved, and he himself was guilty of that kind of penile thinking. Just now, for example.