“Come,” he pulls me along with him.
I follow.
The staircase is dark, but he seems to deftly feel his way along the wall with one hand. The music blaring from Delilah’s stereo vibrates through him and into my palm. As we ascend to the landing I can hear noises emanating from one of the rooms to our right. Thank god he cannot see my face in the darkness. From the heat in my cheeks, the blush must be back and beacon-like.
He directs me instead down the left passageway and opens the first door, neglecting to flick the light switch.
The shadow wraps itself around me as the click of the door signals an end. To my hesitation? To my reputation?
I can’t begin to try and fathom the amount of gossip most likely flooding the mouths of individuals whose opinions I hold dear, and those that I do not even recognise, still entrenched in Delilah’s shindig. The man circling me in the dark is high-profile and I am a Lamb of high-profile figures. But I never suspected I would be here with him. Alone in a bedroom, conveniently bedecked with fresh linen, satin sheets and alcohol (to misdirect the shame) by my unabashedly scandalous friend.
When I first encountered Dimitri Kron four weeks ago, I had to have him.
But not like this.
Playboy, billionaire and attractive bachelor, Dimitri is one of those high profile men that seems to have no place in the halls of fame and yet he still succeeded at being graced with the ambiguous title, Socialite. Apart from one or two charity auctions, a magnificently decadent lifestyle and an assortment of scandals severe enough to make one’s hair curl, Dimitri’s foray into the media has been quiet. And yet he has been known for years, as the man everyone loves to hate.
The eager journalist in me, the small corner of my being devoted to garnering a story to make the others display some semblance of respect towards me, begged Delilah to introduce me to him. The girl knows everyone. At the ripe young age of eighteen, Delilah also fell under the mantle of Socialite and has flourished under its tender care ever since. She obliged me in my wish to have a cocktail or six with the infamous Dimitri and I approached the event with a fair amount of study beneath my belt. I knew that he claims to be distantly related to the Kron noble family, and that he is suspected to live with a number of women who all seem to fawn over him and revel in the attention granted to them by the jealous media. I knew that he styles himself something of a Hue Hefner, although his sole contribution to the media has been to provide ample fodder for the scandal rags who love to berate his decadent lifestyle one week and praise him on his genuine nature the next. I knew that he was voted most eligible bachelor last year and that he has hosted the Southern Debutantes’ Ball for three years running (the proceeds of which were deposited directly into the funds account for National Animal Welfare).
What I had been unable to uncover was his past before his foray into our city, or for that matter how long he has been here. The details of his lifestyle are murky and uncast, almost deliberately so, which I had assumed to be par for the course for any billionaire Socialite. But I had to admit, my curiosity (where before I had just wanted a good story to tell) was now piqued. Why ignore rumours of living with more than one woman? How has he garnered so much money and how does it keep growing?
Who was Addison Fleur? And is it true she mentioned his name in the note marking her suicide?
I wandered into the meeting like a smug cat that had succeeded in clawing its way into a mouse hole. But the Dimitri Kron I was to attend drinks with was calm, one might say tranquil, and soothing, but with a vastly extensive voice which boomed through the bar with his joviality one moment and growled with his aggression towards certain public figures and the heinous acts they may or may not have committed the next.
I have never met a man so charismatic as to feel comfortable and informal with him after only one drink. Dimitri made me feel these things. And much more than that.
He registered my enthusiasm with a soft chuckle which made me beam and, taking my hands between his, promised he would answer any questions a Mona Lisa such as myself, could throw at him – his words, not mine. I was instantly entranced, despite the corny compliment, much to Delilah’s amusement as she told me later, giggling over her eighth glass of chardonnay. The way poetic language seemed to flow from him, lilted with interesting notes of an accent almost faded into extinction, made me hang on every word. I wanted to listen to him speak forever, and by the end of the night, I had not been able to ask a single question, a point which he brashly brought up, insisting that we meet again in order to continue our discussion.
Delilah arranged it all, fervently embarrassing me at every opportunity she could scrounge up when we were alone together with her insistence that the man had never offered a second meeting before. He wanted me, she was sure of it. And as much as I would love to say my feelings were purely professional, I began to dream about him, at work and in my sleep. And when we did meet we would entertain hours of leisure time over drinks, coffee, films, parties, dinners and charity functions without ever approaching the subject of his past or, in fact, any of the questions I had neatly scribbled down in my notepad which seemed to follow me to every meeting like a lonely, forgotten puppy.
It was only ever after the fact, when the sunshine warmth of his presence began to fade in his conspicuous absence that I would verbally berate myself before my dressing room mirror at my utter lack of self-control. What kind of reporter cannot even hold it together enough in front of a rugged man to ask him a few simple, non-invasive questions?
It’s no wonder, really, that my career is currently lagging on the edge of a dark, rocky precipice. None of my peers would have been so frivolous upon meeting the infamous, hated, and much sought after, Dimitri Kron.
And then I would go to sleep and my dreams would mimic the mockery of my soul. Visions of Dimitri would have me awakening with frustration. Frustration at my lack of will and burgeoning desire for a man that was only ever supposed to be a story. And when next we met I’d feel as though we had spoken only a few hours ago. My dreams edged into our conversations and I would engage him in discussions I felt we’d already resolved.
Two days ago, Dimitri had grasped my hand in his as we ducked into a cab, escaping the crowds waiting for us outside Newton’s Theatre. The driver had snatched at the wad of cash he was offered to not make a comment over the celebrity lounging in his backseat, and the money had miraculously disappeared from sight. The celebrity in question turned to me and I felt that shallow dip in my stomach which made me instantly want to slap myself for letting any man get to me like that. His eyes, since the moment I met him, when he had taken my hand in both of his and stared through my face, my skin, my flesh, my skull, had enraptured me; seemingly so sincere, even with a playful grin twisting his lips.
“I still owe you a story, yes?”
My mind rumbled with guilt once again at my inability to focus on the matter at hand as I found his words to be unimportant. But I pulled my hand out of his and drew myself up as much as possible, trying to distil some semblance of control through my spine, “Yes,” I grinned mischievously at him, “And here I was beginning to suspect that the last three weeks have been a decoy to deter me from uncovering your deep, dark secret.”
He raised an eyebrow with that same, smug, smirk gracing his lips. But before he could stop my sudden self-assurance I delved in, “So, Mister Kron, what skeletons are you keeping from me?”
My fingers curled closed around the edge of my journal, small enough to be unnoticed and large enough to carry a vast amount of script, buried and neglected in my pocket. But his hand reached out for my arm and, involuntarily, I drew in a shaken breath.
“It’s late, Eva,” My nerves tingled as his fingers squeezed lazily about my wrist, “Delilah said something about a do on Saturday. Something to do with her father winning his case. I can’t be certain of the details, my mind was on other things,” He smiled slyly at me, “However, the event is being held at her residence. Be there.”
&nb
sp; I gave him an exasperated look at that. After weeks of being in one another’s company, he had to have realised I loathed commands made on my time, but he winked disarmingly at me and once again I cursed myself for the ridiculous schoolgirl blush making my face light up like a paper lantern.
“I promise you, you will leave satisfied.”
The words practically made me sigh, but the tone of his voice and the heady look in his eyes made me cringe with my inability to greet him properly when the cab dropped me off at my flat.
And now he curls around me in the shadows, somewhere in this darkened room and I can’t think where to begin.
Dammit! The journal. I left it with my bag downstairs. Not the end of everything; surely Delilah will be keeping an eye out for my things. And besides, I have a memory like a vault; nothing he says will fall by the wayside.
“Dimitri,” I try not to whisper into the night-time haven surrounding me, but the quiet in this room makes me feel like my words are breaking the tender calm of a mausoleum. His cold fingers on my throat silence me as my back arches like a pleased, pleasured cat. My hair is lifted from the nape of my neck and I can feel soft, velvet-ice lips brushing against the sensitivity of my skin, making me shiver and want to crawl away, but also to crawl into him, causing muscles all along my spine to contract as I lean closer to him.
The rustle of his silken shirt against my bare back where the cocktail dress Delilah did me up in dips, eases my tension, as the need to have him spill his guts is subdued by his aptitude at soothing me, which becomes achingly apparent.
Obfuscated by envious shadows, his skin lounges against my own as he strokes my face. When I close my eyes, I ignore the hidden objects surrounding us and I can veritably feel him moving around my body, surveying me in the night, even though he surely can see nothing but ink, the same as I. I reach out towards him, but fingers clutch at my wrist and push it back down by my side as those frozen-silk lips trace the passages and cliffs of my face again and a whisper carries to my ears from the cleft of my cheek, just as it dips to my neck, “Yes, Eva?”
“I have questions,” My hesitation is rife through my own mumble, I can hear it and it vexes me, much the same as the slight lilt to my words damns me, a moan almost, a signal of my forfeit in this fight.
“You do.” His voice, lilting sweetly to my ears makes my skin twitch and my blood sing as I feel it thrumming to my fingertips where it pulses beneath the pads of my flesh.
I want to touch him, but his bones still encasing my fluttering hands still me and I sigh beneath his lips as they nuzzle at my throat, condemning me to the annals of the story-less. I can feel my glorious future as a killer of reputations being stifled under his hands and, for the first time in weeks, I am aware of his reluctance to answer my, as yet, unasked questions.
It doesn’t bother me, though.
And his proximity doesn’t concern me anymore.
The implied scandal from Delilah’s Socialite acquaintances does not distress me.
His lips open at my throat and his tongue stirs a pent-up moan deep within as he grasps my chin in his hand and pulls at my flesh with his mouth, his tongue. The vague, bruising pain is intense and fleeting as the sensation of his body, writhing against me, trying to draw me in overwhelms my mind and causes the polarity in my head to shift.
I can’t quite sense where I begin and he ends. He fills me, he flows through me. Like a spirit of transcendence. For the moment it doesn’t matter that he is a billionaire and I am a simple reporter. That he has been known to associate with only the most beautiful women, and I am just me.
He pulls me to him in the dark, in a dance of refracted, ambient light and shadows jittering across his skin.
I am alone with him here, his flesh moulded to mine and his serenity distilling my own.
The rest of the world can fade, for all I care.
SUNDAY 16 November 2008… 07:48
The unobtrusive heartbeat of the electronica looping through Delilah’s stereo chimes with the gentle twirling of the fifties-style ceiling fan above me. My mind follows the pattern of the fan circling over the room, cutting into the dim illumination spilling across the roof in rotund, glowing pools. The music becomes a mantra as the current track plays over again. Come to think of it, it may have been playing before this as well. Accidentally repeating.
Am I dreaming?
“Eva, are you even listening to me?”
Lazily I glance over to Bram sitting beside me, “I wasn’t aware we were talking,” I mutter embarrassedly as I try to sit up, but an arm around my waist pulls me back down and I turn in Dimitri’s embrace, purring softly as he kisses my chest, the curl of his beard tickling at my skin, nuzzling up towards my neck.
“Things haven’t been the same, Eva. Your brother worries about you.” He hesitates, “I miss you.”
“It hasn’t been that long, silly. And besides, you brought it on yourself, Bram,” I whisper into Dimitri’s hair as he pulls distractingly at my shirt.
“Yes. Yes. I know. But I said I was sorry.” His whiny voice is but background music to the thrum of joy I feel at Dimitri’s fingers, “And I knew it was a mistake. And you have to admit, Cecily is far more attractive than you. At times I wonder how you two could possibly share a gene pool.”
I look up from Dimitri’s affections at those piercing, blue eyes I had always wanted to drown in, but could never really bring myself to love. “Is that supposed to make me fly back to you, Sweetheart?”
“Just an observation. I don’t expect you ever to come back to me. In fact I don’t see much of a future for you with this guy, either.”
“Well that settles it then, at least we understand one another,” I manage to respond in a near moan as Dimitri’s hands retreat from my body.
Bram grumbles from somewhere far away, “No, you don’t get it at all.”
Dimitri leans over me, cutting off my view of the ceiling, “There is no one more beautiful than you, Eva. You are my favourite.”
He hands me a glass of wine and I drink the strangely sweet bouquet as affection for him overwhelms me.
“Have a nice life,” Bram snipes from his dark, cold corner.
I force my mind up through the stifling folds of sleep, semi annoyed with myself. Why think of Bram? Why? I finally have a perfect gentleman in my clutches – my heart catches in my throat – and I spoil it with dreams of an ex. A bad ex. An ex that slept with my sister of all people. And that trip of not being as attractive as my insipidly perfect, china-doll sister? Typical. And here I thought I was done with berating myself and my appearance because of what men may think. At least even my sub-conscious has picked up on how valued I am in Dimitri’s eyes. He will never betray me that way. He can have any girl, but it’s me he’s chosen.
I reach above my head and stretch. My eyes close involuntarily as shudders of pleasure traverse my spine and creep through my arms and legs. Small nuances of pain twinge in my abdomen and thighs. A Cheshire smile crawls over my lips.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and for a moment, confusion rifles through my head. How much did I drink? No, I only had one or two. Where the hell am I? This is isn’t my place and it sure as hell is not Delilah’s. Delilah’s apartment is nice, but she’s not nearly wealthy enough to afford the heirlooms and antiques that are scattered across a myriad of surfaces in here. Oil paintings, with a suspiciously older veneer than what I am used to, bedeck the walls. Beautiful statuettes and figurines stand atop artistically wrought furniture of polished wood I can’t name. The bed I find myself in is carved into a four poster sans-hangings and lavished in bottle green and cream linen, matching the velvet textured paint of the walls.
The smell of jasmine and some other sweet-scented creature sifts through the room. Arrayed in various shadowed hiding places around me, I spy foliage disguising itself as furniture. That explains the scent. As does the small, crystal vase beside the bed with a cutting of jasmine hanging sadly from its stalk.
My keen intuit
ive mind concludes that I must be in Dimitri’s house and a savage pleasure warms my heart.
A knock at my door distracts me from my musings on the elegance and sophistication surrounding me just as I reach my hand towards my cell phone placed politely on the mahogany cabinet beside the bed.
“Are you awake?” A familiarly, intoned voice calls from the door.
“Cecily?”
The door opens and my sister bobs in, carrying a tray with a china tea pot, two cups and a bowl of what looks like biscuits on it. She sways towards the open side of the bed and sets the tray down, expertly pouring a stream of golden red from the pot. She hands me one of the delicate, ornamental cups and sits pertly on the edge of the bed, waiting for me to accept the offering.
“What are you doing here?” I mutter, trying to comprehend the situation at hand. If I am in Dimitri’s home then why is my sister here with me? She’s never met him.
Has she?
Wait. There was something. Dimitri. Hue Hefner. Could the rumours be accurate? If so, am I now a part of some sort of harem for the rich and famous Dimitri Kron who is said to keep girls like party favours? One to remind him of each eventful gathering? A chill seeps through my chest like heartburn and my eyes well up so that I quickly swipe at them, trying to keep Cecily from noticing my discomfort. How can I have even thought that? Dimitri is attractive, rich and generous. It’s his prerogative to do whatever he likes. I should just be grateful that he sequestered me here. It proves how much he thinks of me.
Oh god. What am I saying? I’ve become one of those girls overnight. The type of female that women like me feel pity for.
And how did my dear, devoted and oh-so-charming sister arrive here to greet me first thing in the morning? Is she now competition once again? With her Chinese bobbed hair spun from obsidian silk and her sparkling brown eyes set above a pert little nose and pouting lips. All this exquisitely compliments her inherently natural figure, curved and full where beauty calls for it and lithe where men will notice. Compared with me and my boring brown hair, boring brown eyes, boring complexion verging on pallid next to her alabaster. Not to mention my boring, dumpy figure which my mother always tells me is because I had not attained her sterling genetic make-up, as Cecily did. The thought of me being any competition for my little sister makes me scoff.
The Key (Sanguinem Emere) Page 2