by Sofia Belle
“Room service!” Layla's voice rang loud and clear from the opposite side of the room on the opposite side of the hotel door. She pounded a few times. “Room service. Open up!”
Mystery Man looked at me. “Is that...?”
I held a finger to my lips. “You wanted those two out, right?”
The two figures inside the room froze. One of them murmured to the other, but I couldn't understand what they were saying. A few shakes of their head, and they pressed themselves against the wall.
“Room service,” Layla called again. “Open up. This filet mignon isn't gonna eat itself, ya know.”
“She is a demanding room service attendant.” Mystery Man gave a wry smile, his teeth glinting in the reflection of moonlight. “I'm impressed.”
“She's demanding at a lot of things,” I said. “Hence the reason I'm dressed like this—I tried to convince her it wasn’t necessary, but...”
“Oh, it's very necessary,” Mystery Man said. “It’s perfect.”
“Yo, whoever ordered this filet mignon better open up now, or else I'm eating it out here and charging it to your credit card,” Layla called out. “I'm not messing around. In fact, I'm going to go downstairs right now and get my boss. If you're not out here in three minutes, we'll be back. We don't just whip up these steaks for fun, ya know!”
Footsteps followed. Layla normally walked loudly, strutting her entrances and exits like a catwalk, but today she overexaggerated her footsteps so hard the entire floor shook. I took one step toward the entrance to the doorway, but hands clutched at my waist, and Mystery Man whispered in my ear. “Not so fast. Give them time to leave.”
I held my breath and stood still, but even so, his hands didn’t let up. Tiny sparks of electricity leapt from Mystery Man’s fingers to my skin, igniting my pulse and causing adrenaline to fire through my veins.
“Okay, now you can go.” He released his grip around my waist, but his fingers lingered a second longer than necessary on my lower back.
When I stepped forward, I felt the absence of his hands so vividly it was as if someone had switched off an electric blanket wrapped around my body. I glanced over my shoulder, my mouth opening in surprise. I wondered if he’d felt it, too.
He gave nothing away with his expression except for a mischievous grin, one that could’ve meant any number of things. I tried not to read too much into it, instead following the tilt of his chin as he nodded for me to move forward.
I reached a hand for the door, letting my fingers grasp the handle. Then, I slid open noiselessly. Layla must have scared the two men away.
Mystery Man stayed close behind me as I stepped into the room, cautiously at first, then more boldly when it became clear the room was empty.
I flinched when Mystery Man suddenly laid a hand on my arm.
“Hey,” he said, his voice soft as I turned to face him. A cloudiness covered his eyes, an almost sorrowful expression wiping away the playful gleam. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I almost told him that I believed him, but my brain interfered first.
“How do I know?” A brief glimpse of pain flashed through his eyes before he stiffened. I shook my head, continuing even as I knew my words were biting and harsh. “I don’t know you. Maybe you killed Linda. You just about pushed me off the railing out there.”
Those baby blues of his darkened again, foggy with concern. But that only lasted for a second before they cleared and an icy coolness took over. “Fine, if that’s the way this is going to be.”
“How else is this supposed to be?” My voice came out a little higher. “You can’t kidnap me, send my friends away, and then expect me to be happy about it.”
“Did you ever think I was sent to keep you safe?” Mystery Man reached out and clasped my wrist in his hand. He pulled me close, so close our lips hovered just beyond our whispered words. “Think about it. If I hadn’t yanked you up off that ledge, you’d have been hanging there in plain sight. And I can tell you that the men hunting around in here weren’t the good guys.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you’re a good guy?”
His eyebrow rose in an amused quirk. “I didn’t say that, either.”
“Then what are you? Good or bad?”
“Not all things are black or white, good or bad, and it’s not my place to tell you what conclusions to make.” He hooked an arm through mine. “For now, though, we are going to get out of here. And you are my ticket out that front door.”
“I don’t understand. What’s preventing you from just waltzing out that front door right now?” I glanced at his suit. “You look nice—” I coughed. “I mean, you don’t look out of place; this is a nice hotel, and you’re dressed for the occasion.”
“I’m glad you think I look nice, pumpkin.”
“I’m not your pumpkin.”
“You are for right now, and until we get out those front doors.”
“Why can’t you just walk out yourself? Leave me alone with my friends.”
“Leave you alone to dig around this room? Leave you alone when there are two intruders also interested in Linda’s belongings?” He blinked. “I’m doing you a favor.”
“What’s the catch?”
“You don’t think I’d do you a favor out of the kindness of my heart?”
“Nope.”
He laughed. “Look at it this way: if I walk out alone dressed like this, people assume I’m looking for a friend. People talk to single folks, and I don’t feel like getting stopped. I’m not in a chatty mood.”
“Girls.”
“Excuse me?”
I looked up. Then I gave another embarrassed cough. “You mean girls. Girls come up to you. I doubt guys would be stopping you on your way out the door.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m a one-girl kinda guy, and tonight, you are my one girl.”
“How romantic.” I left my arm hooked through his, mostly because he had a point. There had been two men around here—possibly dangerous—looking into Linda’s room. I didn’t want to run into them in a dark hallway, especially now that they’d been scared out of the room. And I definitely didn’t want to wait here in case they returned for round two. “Can I take a quick look around?”
“Why are you interested, anyway?”
“I’m the wedding planner for the Monroe wedding. Linda was a bridesmaid.”
“I’m aware of who you are and what you do, but that doesn’t answer my question.” His blue eyes turned an eerily piercing stare on mine. “Shouldn’t you be planning the wedding and not hanging off of balconies?”
I swallowed. “I could ask you the same thing. Minus the wedding planning.”
“Well, I’m not going to answer.”
“Me neither.” I tilted my nose upward, trying for confidence. “Hang on a second. How do you know who I am?”
Mystery Man took a long moment scanning the tips of my hair, bound back in a sleek ponytail, swishing against my neck, then dragged his gaze down past my attire until my stomach warmed. When he finished, a lazy, happy expression on his face, he looked up and smiled. “You’re hard to miss.”
My cheeks burned under his gaze, and I dropped my own eyes to focus on my toes. Even so, I could sense the heat on top of my head; he was taller than me by a good half a foot, which gave him the perfect view of my ponytail. “Let’s go.”
“I hoped you’d agree.”
In reality, I didn’t agree with him. I was just too flustered to come up with an appropriate response. What could be the harm in walking down a public, crowded hallway into the bar? My friends knew I was up here; surely they’d be waiting and watching for me in the lobby. Any signs of funny business, and they’d be in a good position to whip out their magic and help—public venue or not.
The Council approved certain uses of public magic, mostly in self-defense cases with few to no eye witnesses. It wasn’t difficult to erase the memories of two to three innocent human bystanders, but much more than that and the process became a long,
arduous one. Mostly it wasn’t worth the paperwork to use magic in public.
Mystery Man opened the door to Linda’s hotel room with extreme caution. If it weren’t for him hanging around, I could’ve used the Translucency spell again to see through the wood, but for now, I couldn’t risk it.
Normally, I had a pretty good guess whether someone had magical tendencies. For example, Jo over at Bubbles & Broomsticks—I’d stake my life on the fact that she was a witch. However, something was interfering with my ability to read Mystery Man.
His fingers set sparks against my skin, and his breath raised the hairs on my neck. His scent could’ve been a love potion in and of itself, yet still, I couldn’t be sure of anything. This was a whole other sort of magic, one I wasn’t used to being around. And quite frankly, it was annoying. I didn’t like uncertainty, and that’s all I got from Mystery Man. A ball of questions and secrets shrouded by a handsome face and a black fedora, twisted so that the cameras couldn’t glimpse his face.
“I know why you’re wearing the hat,” I said. “Security cameras?”
“I thought it made me look handsome.”
I snorted a laugh as we walked down the hallway, hand in hand. There was no sign of anyone on this floor, and Mystery Man had closed and locked Linda’s door without anyone noticing, so far as I could tell.
“Good, keep laughing. It makes us look like a couple,” he said, patting my hand and plastering a “doting boyfriend” expression on his face. Which made me laugh even harder, because Mystery Man was many things—handsome, suave, charming—only, I couldn’t imagine him as the doting boyfriend type.
Then his eyes crinkled into a real smile, and my laughter faded into silence. It almost felt like we were on a date, which made butterflies pop in my stomach. I straightened my shoulders and fought back against the sensations. I’d been single all my life, and it looked like I’d be that way forever. I could handle myself, and no man could change that.
Until...he did.
With a kiss.
Not an innocent peck-on-the-cheek sort, either. When Mystery Man kissed, it was with everything he had to offer. The most gut-wrenching, soul-twisting kiss I’d ever experienced. To anyone watching, this was not the sort of kiss that said “thanks for a pleasant date night.” This was the type of kiss that said we’d better get to a room and get there quickly.
I gasped, sucking in a small breath of air while Mystery Man took a moment to run his lips along my neck and whisper in my ear. “Play along. They’re watching.”
I wanted to ask who, but the need never arose because I couldn’t see anything. Mystery Man leaned forward, his warm lips pressing against mine as he dipped me low, low to the floor. One of his hands held the sweet spot on my lower back while another crept up my leg, past my knee, and midway up my thigh, where it stopped.
I lost a breath as his arms cinched tighter for a second, his lips still crushed to mine. Then just as quickly, he stood me back up, gave my rear end a tiny pat, almost as if saying “thank you,” and set me free.
I rested a hand against the wall, balancing, while my chest rose and fell with deep inhalations. Somehow, I felt as if I hadn’t breathed oxygen for weeks. Each breath was labored, delicious, and full, and I couldn’t seem to get enough of the stuff. I wished that my reaction to his kiss wasn’t so obvious, but I couldn’t help it. He’d not only taken me by surprise, but he’d just given me the best kiss of my life.
I had kissed a few men before him, most of them frogs—not literal toads, just duds in the dating world—and none of them had turned into a relationship. I’d never cared, to be honest. Then again, none of them had kissed me with half the amount of passion as Mystery Man, and none of them had made my heart stutter with a taste of their lips.
None of those boys had held me in their arms as if I belonged to them, one hand on my back and the other dipping me so low my hair brushed the ground. I suddenly wondered if I’d been missing out my entire life.
The scariest part? I wanted more.
Wanting more was not only crazy, it was dangerous. So I did the only thing I knew how to do: I pushed him away, and I pushed hard. I raised a hand to slap him across the cheek, but I wasn’t fast enough. His hand came up and gripped my wrist tight, catching my fingers just before they struck his face.
I wriggled, but I couldn’t get out of his grasp. So I stomped my foot. Childish, but it felt good. “How dare you?!”
“How dare I?” He stepped forward. “How dare I what, save your life?”
“Save my life?” I laughed then, and I laughed hard. So hard that my shoulders shook and I doubled in half, all except for my hand, which was still clutched in his fingers. “You haven’t saved my life. I wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for you in the first place.”
“You got yourself to the hotel in the first place.”
I stood up, my hair swinging back and forth. “Yes. And after that, you took the reins.”
“There were two men at the end of the hallway. Three guns between the two of them. They were casing out the floor, armed, and looking for trouble.” He gave a half shake of his head. “I wear this hat to keep my face out of the cameras, but what about you? Where’s your hat? If those men saw your face and they suspected you knew something...”
A shiver trembled across my body. “How did you know they were bad men?”
Mystery Man grabbed my arm and led me past the elevators, down the staircase. “Three guns between two men isn’t enough to convince you?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“I’m trained to notice these things.”
“Are you police?”
“No.”
“Special police?”
He looked at me. “Special police?”
“You know, FBI, Special Forces, whatever.”
“No.”
“Well, what are you?”
“I won’t tell you my name, so what makes you think I’ll tell you my job description?”
“If you won’t tell me your name, then I’ll keep calling you Mystery Man, because that’s what’s in my head.”
He gave a bark of laughter as we passed another floor and headed toward level ten. “I like that. Mystery Man.”
“Mister Mystery Man, if we’re being formal.”
The smile lingered, a twinkle in his eyes as he glanced my way. “Aren’t we past formal?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Look at you, answering my question with one of your own. Are you sure you’re not the special police?”
I grinned, but shyly. “I’m serious. Can I ask you something?”
Mystery Man glanced up and down the staircase before turning to face me, his hands brushing against my hips as we stood nose to nose in the stairwell. “What is so urgent that you want to stop in the middle of a staircase while two armed men are wandering the hotel?”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “Well, I feel like you’re the type of guy who might disappear at any second.”
“I won’t disagree with you.”
“It’s urgent.”
“Are you going to ask your question, or would you like me to guess?” He crossed his arms.
I swallowed. I toed the ground. And then I looked up. “Is it always like that for you?”
“Is what like what?”
My face flamed, and I was sure my ears nearly lit on fire under his curious stare. I couldn’t believe I was asking him, but I needed to know. That kiss, it had been something else. What I needed to know was if the sizzle of heat and the sparks lighting up and down my skin were magical remnants from the curse, or if they were...something else entirely. “The kiss. Is it always so…”
“Incredible?” The word was soft, hardly audible between his lips.
I hesitated then nodded. “Yeah.”
Mystery Man cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry, stupid question. I don’t know where that came from. Let’s just move on.”
“Belinda—”
“How do you know my name?”
“I told you, it’s my job to know these things.”
“Just forget about it, okay? How do we get out of here?”
Mystery Man opened his mouth as if he wanted to speak. I didn’t want to admit it, I hated to admit it, but a part of me wanted him to speak up. More than anything in my life, I wished that he would tell me that kiss had been something else—that it wasn’t magic, curses, hexes, or any number of things. I wanted him to tell me that maybe, just maybe, I’d be capable of falling in love.
“Bel, you need to understand something.” He leaned back. “I’m not the type of guy that—”
“Let’s go,” I said, interrupting him. “I should never have asked that. I don’t know what got into me.”
“Hey, that’s not what I meant.” He looked at the floor. “That kiss was…”
I never did get to find out what that kiss meant because at that moment, two loud bangs echoed in the hallway. Gunshots.
Before the scream could make it past my lips, Mystery Man had grabbed me by the arm and half dragged me down the stairs to the next level. Outside of a door labeled with the number 10, he stopped, raised a finger to his lips, and quietly as a breeze opened it. The two of us slipped inside the hallway two floors down. Voices bounced off the walls of the stairwell, but neither of us stopped to hear what they were saying.
“How do we get down?” I whispered. “Elevator?”
“No, there are two of them.” Mystery Man’s mouth set in a grim line. “If they are at all smart, they’ll have one person get to the ground as quickly as possible via the elevator. The other will try to force us out through the stairwell.”
My heart leapt into my throat, though I tried my best to remain cool, calm, and collected. It didn’t work. My voice rose a few octaves. “That doesn’t leave us many good options.”
“No, but it does leave us one option.”
My eyebrows furrowed as Mystery Man began striding down the hall, counting quietly to himself as he passed each doorway. When he got to one particular doorway, he stopped. “This one. Hurry. They’ll come looking for us if they don’t find us in the stairwell.”