That wasn’t real.
Still, I was so distracted that when my phone rang, I picked it up without thinking.
“Hello?”
“Lily.”
Chris’s voice. I froze, fingers clenching around the phone. I couldn’t seem to make my voice work, which was just as well, as I had no idea what I would say to him.
“Lily,” he said again. His voice was a bit desperate—and, I noted, a bit slurred.
“What?” I managed to get the word out.
“Lily, you know I would never have done this if…” His voice trailed off as if he were hoping for me to interrupt him. When I said nothing, his voice gained strength. “You haven’t been around a lot, you know. And you changed in Shanghai.”
“Bullshit.” The word came out of me without any forethought, shocking us both.
“What?” Chris sounded like he couldn’t believe what he’d heard.
“I said bullshit.” I couldn’t believe myself, either, but I was warming to the theme. “How long had you been sleeping with Sarah?”
“That’s not what this is about, and you know it.”
“It’s not?” That was news to me.
“It’s about you being cold, driving me away.”
“Oh, bullshit.” I was really beginning to like that word.
“Would you stop saying that?” His voice was fraying with anger. “You know this is about how you’ve been. I’d never have done it if—” He broke off.
“Chris?” It was so sudden that I was thrown off guard.
“Is there someone else?”
“What?”
“You’ve been cheating on me.” His voice was quiet, but full of growing rage. He’d been angry lately. Actually, he’d always been a bit like that.
I’d never really noticed. It was the sort of thing you tried not to notice, I thought now. I swallowed.
“I knew it.” The rage was twisting even the slur into something uglier. “Who is it?
“I haven’t. There isn’t anyone.” Other than an exceptionally realistic fantasy in the hallway of a Chinese restaurant, but I didn’t see any reason to bring that up.
“You think I’m going to believe that? You’ve been all distant, all stuck up. If you’ve been cheating on me, I’m going to find out about it.”
“I haven’t been,” I said, exasperated. “Jesus, Chris. You’re the one who cheated.”
“I had to! I needed someone to—”
I hung up, and then stared down at the phone, wide-eyed. I’d never done something like that before. For a moment, I couldn’t tell if I was feeling pride or shame. I was a little ashamed of being so proud of myself, I decided finally. Hanging up on the cheating ex wasn’t quite as witty as the female leads in rom-coms managed, but it wasn’t bad.
And Chris was my ex. I drained my tea and set it down decisively. All I had to remember was the feeling of relief when I saw him with Sarah, and the fear every time I wasn’t with him. I had known he wasn’t to be trusted, and I just hadn’t had the courage to ask myself a more important question: whether I wanted to be with him at all. I’d made myself crazy trying to keep a boyfriend I didn’t even like all that much.
God, I’d been an idiot.
But I was done with that now. I pulled out money for a tip and made for the door with a wave and a farewell to the waitress, who smiled at my mostly-passable Shanghainese. I stole one glance at the back hallway before I pushed my way out onto the street, hesitating foolishly in the doorway. It had been a kiss completely unlike anything I’d felt before, setting my whole body on fire, and the look in his eyes had filled me with something that wasn’t quite fear and wasn’t quite shamelessness, but some combination of the two that made me want to—
It wasn’t real. Things like that didn’t happen to me. I shook my head and made my way to the sidewalk.
It was empty and dark, and there wasn’t a taxi in sight. I looked around myself quickly, worry spiking through me. Alone, in the dark, in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Great.
I almost didn’t see the man lingering in the shadows on the other side of the street, and when I caught sight of him, I jumped. He was Chinese, but unusually tall and wearing a fine suit. I could usually see at a glance if someone had grown up here or in China, but with this man, I couldn’t tell at all. All I knew was that he exuded the sort of threat I associated with mafia movies. As I stared at him, feeling like a rabbit caught in a snare, he nodded his head to me and disappeared into an alleyway, a smile on his lips.
I stood there for a moment, actually shaking with adrenaline, before I realized how stupid it was. This was ridiculous, I told myself firmly. It was a man in a suit, not a member of the Chinese mafia. There probably wasn’t even a Chinese mafia. I was alone in the dark and I was jumping at shadows, that was all. The man had been perfectly nice to me.
I set off for the main streets at a brisk walk, trying to hold my head up and look like the back of my neck wasn’t prickling. I was perfectly safe, I told myself. Perfectly safe. Chinatown wasn’t violent. I was safe. Safe. I could feel my pace speeding up, and forced myself to slow down.
An alley between the buildings showed me a clear path to a brightly lit street with cars passing by, and I hesitated only a moment before detouring down it. It was the quickest way out, and if anyone was really lurking in the shadows, waiting to mug tourists, they were probably doing it at the entrance to Chinatown. I skirted puddles and cast one fearful look over my shoulder. I saw nothing. Of course I saw nothing. I was perfectly safe.
I was just beginning to actually believe that when door slammed open in front of me and two men staggered out, carrying a body. It was wrapped in a black bag, but there was no way at all to mistake what it was. There was nowhere to go, not even a dumpster to hide behind, and there was just enough time for dread to set in before one of the men looked up, straight at me.
We both froze, and I made a strangled sort of noise.
And that was when I said, hands down, the stupidest thing I had ever said in my life: “Donovan?”
Both men froze, staring at me in horror, and I had a luxuriously long moment to realize just what an idiot I’d been. Unfortunately, I wasted most of it on a very different realization: that it had actually happened. He’d actually kissed me in the hallway.
It was then that we all heard the sound of running feet—quite a few people, if I could believe my ears—coming down the main street. The men exchanged one whispered word, and the other man took the body himself and started to stagger off with it.
Before I could react, before I could run, Donovan grabbed my hand and yanked me back into the building he’d just come out of.
Chapter 3
Donovan
I dragged the door shut behind us and flipped the lock, and I had her under the stairwell with my hand over her mouth before I gave myself time to do anything other than react. She struggled against me, surprisingly strong for how slender she was, and I grabbed both of her wrists with my free hand, forcing her back against the wall with my body. I felt my breath come short as she fought with all her strength, and I was rock hard in a second. Would she fight like this against rope? Would her hips twist like this when I was inside her, pressing her down onto my bed, my desk, up against the door of my study?
The terror in her eyes called me back. I took a deep breath, steadying myself, and bent my head to hers, hesitating with my lips almost touching her ear. I could feel her breath against my palm.
“I won’t hurt you.”
Where the hell had that come from? I wasn’t a man who reassured people—they either figured things out, or they didn’t. But I didn’t want her to be afraid of me.
Some distant part of me knew I should take that as a bad sign, but all I could see was her, staring up at me. Her breath was coming shallow, her pulse racing. Under my hand, she bit her lip, trying to keep back the sound of a whimper.
“I won’t hurt you,” I repeated, breathing the words in her ear, and I felt her shudder. It nearl
y undid me. Was it desire? Something told me she didn’t understand the first thing about desire, and for a moment, I couldn’t think of a single thing except teaching her, listening to her scream my name, watching her writhe on my cock.
So this was why people corrupted innocents.
A shout sounded outside, and there was the sound of running feet again, and she tried to yank herself off the wall. I slammed her back up against it, harder than I’d meant to, and saw her wince.
“There are men out there that will hurt you if they find you.” My whisper was harsh in her ear. “They will kill you, do you understand?”
Her eyes flew to mine.
“I won’t hurt you,” I told her again, quietly. “But you have to be quiet. They cannot find us.”
Her eyes searched mine in the darkened alcove, and I saw the conflict tumbling inside her. She didn’t know whether to trust me, and when I considered what she saw…
I could never let her know what she’d really seen. No one could know.
“Lily.” I locked eyes with her. “When they—”
That was as far as I got before the door slammed open behind us. There was shouting in Chinese, and men pounded up the stairs as others streamed past us onto the first floor. There were screams upstairs as they kicked in the doors of apartments, and I heard orders—and a gunshot. I’d yanked Lily’s head down, keeping the tell-tale pale gleam of her skin hidden behind my black suit as three more of them pounded past, but who knew if they would miss us again?
I grabbed her hand and yanked her after me, slipping out the door and running as quietly as I could for the street. She didn’t speak, didn’t cry out, but her breath was coming in gasps by the time we reached the lights and the bustle of the city.
I didn’t let myself stop until I’d shoved her into a cab and gotten in after her, and then I tipped my head back against the dirty headrest and let my breath out slowly. She was almost crying as she dragged breath into her lungs, and the cab driver gave a worried look over his shoulder.
I gave him my address, staring him down until he looked away, and only then did I let myself look at her.
“Lily.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
“You’re safe,” I told her. I could feel the cab driver watching us, but I ignored him. “No one knows you were there. No one saw you.”
“The man in the suit saw me.” Her voice was toneless. She had wrapped her arms around herself and leaned her head against the window, and she was watching the world go past with dull eyes.
“Hayden won’t—”
“Not him.”
I felt a chill. “Who saw you?”
“He was tall. Chinese. Wearing a suit and a hat.”
Sheng-li. I felt my fingers clench.
“Where did he see you?”
“Outside the restaurant. He looked at me and then he tipped his hat and went into one of the alleyways.”
She looked at me at last, and I tried not to let my face show anything. It could mean anything, I told myself. He could have been having a smoke outside.
Or he could have been waiting for a tall girl in a miniskirt, who Hayden might just have mentioned when he went back into the VIP room.
“I’m taking you home.”
“Thank you,” she said with automatic politeness. It was jarring just now, after everything that had happened. “I live at—”
“My home.” My mind was racing. “It’ll be safer than yours.”
“You just said—”
“That was before you told me about Sh—about the man.”
“Who is he?” She was staring at me fiercely now. “He wouldn’t know who I am, would he?”
“Not yet.” But how long would it take him? A few days? A week?
“Then wouldn’t my place be safer than yours?”
I hated to admit it, but she had at least one good point: Sheng-li would be waiting for me to go home. Which meant—
“Turn here,” I told the cab driver. There was a back entrance, used by the staff. Sheng-li would know by now that I always, always traveled in my own car, and went in the front door.
I’d made a point of becoming as predictable as possible since I began working with his bosses for this very reason. I was both pleased and disturbed that it was proving to be useful. I shoved a forty at the cab driver and locked eyes with him.
“You never saw us.”
The man bobbed his head nervously, though I was fairly sure his concern was more for Lily than for me.
I could work with that. I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the cab, ushering her into the darkness of the back hallways. The owners of the building hadn’t wanted to give me a key for this door, but Colton was a resourceful assistant, and it hadn’t taken much to bribe one of the cleaning staff. I now had every one of them on my payroll.
I could feel resistance flowing through her like a current, and the turmoil behind her eyes told me that she was planning how to tell me to go to hell and get out, but all of that disappeared in pure shock when we stepped into the apartment.
For a moment, I didn’t understand. I looked around myself, searching for a threat, and then back to her open mouth and wide eyes.
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. I was used to the look of calculation in women’s eyes when they saw this place, but I had never seen such pure amazement. Her eyes were taking in the hardwood floors, the gigantic television on one wall, the marble countertops in the kitchen. She ran her fingertips lightly over a side table, a carved piece that had been a gift from Sheng-li’s bosses, and she looked around herself at the leather couches, the floor-to-ceiling windows, the view of the city. She looked completely overawed.
“Do you want a drink?”
I wished I hadn’t spoken. My voice reminded her where she was and who she was with, and the guarded expression came back to her. She watched me like a caged animal, completely silent.
After a moment, I walked to the sideboard and poured her a scotch, carried it back.
“It’ll be good for the shock.”
She swallowed. Her arms were wrapped around herself and she was looking at me like she half-expected me to shoot her right there. She looked at the glass in my hand, and then back to my face, and I saw her come to a decision. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin.
“I saw what you were carrying in the alleyway.”
Chapter 4
Lily
I really didn’t know when to shut up. Now he was going to kill me. What was I even trying to prove, anyway? That no matter how shell-shocked I was, I wasn’t as stupid as whoever he had killed earlier tonight?
Well, I was doing a great job of proving that, wasn’t I? Telling him I knew about it was strike one, and—
Actually, coming back with him to his apartment was strike one.
What the hell had I been thinking?
But I knew exactly what I’d been thinking: that it didn’t feel like he was going to kill me. And that only made the night more confusing. I’d seen him with a body, that guy in the street had terrified me and clearly made even Donovan uncomfortable, people were searching for him that he’d sworn would kill me if they found me—and for some weird reason, I believed him on that one, too. Still, the reason people got killed was that they didn’t see it coming, right? I couldn’t trust my instincts on this one.
I watched with terrified clarity as Donovan set the glass down on the table. He considered me, eyes traveling over my face and body as he stripped off his coat and laid it on the arm of the couch. Then he perched on the back and smiled at me, like he was amused by my idiotic tendency to speak up when I shouldn’t.
“Aren’t you going to say something?”
Great, Lily. Way to make it better.
“What would you like me to say?” His smile deepened.
That caught me up short. What did I want him to say? I swallowed.
“I want you to admit what you did
. I want you to say you know you did a bad thing and you know you’re going to pay for it.”
“I’ve done a lot of bad things.”
My knees went weak. His voice was sliding over my skin like a caress now, and I knew he wasn’t talking about tonight at all. He got up and strolled toward me, and it took everything I had not to turn and run right then. There was a different challenged in his eyes now and I wanted to match it even when I knew I should walk away right now.
He circled me, so I could feel the heat of him. One finger brushed over the place where the pulse was pounding in my throat and he stopped behind me, waiting, not even an inch from me. When I swayed back toward him, he laughed low in his throat.
“Do you know what you want?”
“I—” I bit off the words before I could say too much. I did know; I could see it all so vividly that it made my breath come short. I wanted him to do what he’d done in the restaurant, put his hands on me and undo me completely. I wanted him to make me forget everything but the way he felt against me. The second he’d touched me, I had become…
Someone else. A slut, an unkind voice whispered in my head, and to my horror, that only made me bite my lip against a whimper. I wanted to be a slut for him. If his kiss could undo me so completely, I wanted him to touch me all over. I wanted to do anything I had to, to have his fingers inside me, have him fuck me—
When he had started kissing me, I wasn’t sure, but his tongue was thrusting into my mouth and I was so weak at the knees that only his arm around my waist was keeping me upright. With an oath, he had me up against the door in a second, and he hauled my legs up to wrap around his waist as I moaned, tipping my head back for his kiss. I was tall, but he was still far taller than I was, making me feel as dainty and delicate as the women whose petite frames I envied. With how easily he held me, I felt like nothing in his arms.
Dark Lust: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (Books 1-5) Page 2