by Sienna Blake
At her place, I follow her up the stairs to her apartment. I made the mistake of glancing up to see her ass peeking out from her dress. Shit. She’s not wearing underwear. After a moment of being mesmerized by the swing of her hips, I inwardly scold myself and avert my eyes. But that doesn’t stop my dick from reacting. Something that hasn’t happened in a long time. So screw me. I’m only human. And she’s a beautiful woman. A beautiful woman who has survived hell and who I shouldn’t get too close to.
I consider for a second following her inside and… She stops by her door and like a magnet I press right up against her. No, I can’t. Then I’d be no better than any of those other knuckleheads who just want to fuck her. She begins to melt right up against me and I can feel my erection growing even more. Bad idea.
“Don’t move,” I say, and I wonder if she can hear my voice is thick with lust. If she moves I’ll lose my cool and take her right in this goddamn corridor. No, you bad man. Step away from her.
But I don’t. Not yet. Obviously I’m a sucker for punishment. As I pull my jacket off her shoulders my fingers trace her skin. Shit. Has it been so long that I’ve I forgotten how soft a woman can feel? Or is it just her? Is she actually the devil cloaked in soft skin and fresh smelling hair that will be my undoing?
I need to touch her again. I can’t help it. I brush the hair from the back of her neck and hold her by her throat. I kiss her neck like I want to kiss her mouth; soft at first, then I taste her skin with my tongue. Dear God. She tastes like salted caramel. She moans and the sound reaches into my depths.
I have to go. Now.
“Be good, kitten. I’ll be in touch.”
With every ounce of strength I have, I force myself to walk back down those stairs and to my bike and ride away. Even as she runs after me, begging me with her eyes to stay.
I spend the next day pacing back and forth across the temporary apartment I keep in this city. I chose this apartment because it’s close to where she lives. To make it easier for me to keep tabs on her. But today I refuse to allow myself to follow her like I’ve been doing. I need a step back. To reassess. To make sure I know what the fuck I’m doing.
This wasn’t part of the plan.
Then I remind myself that I’m doing this for her. I’m doing this to help her. At least now she won’t be going to pick up random men and letting them do God knows what to her. My knuckles crack as they tighten into fists.
She needs to be reminded of how to be treated as a woman. I just want her to remember that there are good men in this world. And that she’s deserving of their attention.
Not me. I’m not a good man. But I can certainly pretend to be one. Just for now. Just until she remembers. Then no more. I can’t get involved, especially not with her.
I pause my pacing. Dress. She needs a dress. Not like those skanky strips of material that she wears out. Something classy. Something… elegant. Something green. Yes, green would go so beautifully with her skin.
But where the hell does one get a dress like that? I snatch my phone up and call Wylie, the only person in this world I trust.
His familiar voice comes on the line. “Good morning.”
“Wylie, where do I buy a dress?”
There’s a pause and he clears his throat. “For you, sir?”
Cheeky sonofa− “No, not for me. For a girl. No, a woman.”
“I see.” I can hear the amusement in his voice. “Well, they have these things called stores where you can−”
“I know that. But which store do I go to?”
“What’s the occasion?”
What is the occasion? What do you buy for a woman to wear on a date with the man who has been stalking her for days and searching for her for years? I shake this thought out of my head. “Something nice. Classy.”
“Very good, sir.” He proceeds to rattle off a few names of stores that go right over my head. Who would have thought this dress buying business would be so complicated?
I interrupt him. “Wylie, just give me an address.”
Three painful and confusing hours later, I’m in a swanky store with more light than clothing racks. I have bought a green dress in her size and am paying for it to be delivered tomorrow to her.
“Do you want to send a card with it?” the girl behind the counter asks me with a smile.
An idea hits me. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
As neatly as I can, I write my first note to her:
Hotel deCrystal bar. Friday 9pm.
I slip it into the envelope before the nosy cashier can see what I’ve written. On the envelope I write, “Dear…” I pause. Then I smile. She seemed to like it when I had called her kitten. That’s what she is to me; a soft innocent kitten in a lion’s world. I finish off the salutation on the envelope. “…Kitten.”
Then I leave instructions for the package to be delivered to her address at a time I know she’ll be home.
I’m a bit pleased with myself as I walk out the store. I was worried about how I would go about communicating with her again. I don’t want to give her my mobile number. But these notes will be perfect. Anonymous. It’ll keep us at arm’s length.
I didn’t bank on how much she would still get to me. I didn’t bank on how much I was looking forward to seeing her again. She arrives at the Hotel deCrystal bar wearing a red dress, more demure than the one she wore the other night but still… not the dress I bought her. What’s wrong? Didn’t she like it? Didn’t it fit?
After we’re seated she shoves the bag between us. “You sent this dress as emotional blackmail.”
Oh. I see. I didn’t even consider she would take it that way. “It isn’t emotional blackmail.”
“Really? Then… what the hell is it?”
“A gift.”
“What do you want for it?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why did you give it to me?”
A flash of anger goes through me when I realize that Jacob has caused her not to trust the intentions of any man. I knew this. But I didn’t realize the extent until now. I have to be so careful with her. “Because I wanted to.”
I see the disbelief in her eyes. “I won’t accept it.”
“You didn’t like the dress? You aren’t wearing it.”
“No. I’m not wearing it. I didn’t want to.”
“Okay then.” I won’t push her. I move the bag to the floor. Out of sight, out of mind. “You look beautiful regardless.”
She still doesn’t believe me or my intentions. Later she asks me, “Who are you? And what do you want?”
What do I want? I want to possess her. To have her. To protect her and fix her the way I can’t fix myself. I want to hunt down Jacob Tyrell, the man who ruined her life and break his neck with my bare hands. Then I want to shoot all the men in his stable who may have touched her too. I don’t say these things. Instead I smile. “Be careful what you ask me. You may not like the answer.”
“You don’t scare me.”
“Maybe I should.”
“No, I’ve known bad men, truly bad men. And you’re not one of them.”
“No?”
“No, you don’t feel like one of them. You think you’re bad. Maybe you’ve done bad things. But you’re not. Not really. You may think you’re beyond redemption, but… you’re not. You just need someone to remind you.” The words I used against her the other night are turned against me. This startles me and I’m sure my shock shows.
She knows I’m a bad man. She can sense it. But as she watches me with her soft amber eyes, there is absolutely no fear in them. Could she be right? Could I be redeemable? Could I?
“Touché,” I say. Suddenly I feel vulnerable. I don’t like this feeling. I scoop up my scotch and tilt back the glass. The familiar burning sensation in my throat and belly takes the edge off.
No, I think with a sinking heart. She’s wrong. I’m beyond redemption. I’m broken beyond repair. And I’ve done bad things to sate this rage in my heart. Bad things. Murderous things. It
was wrong. Even if none of the men I have killed have been innocent.
When I lower my glass, my face like my heart has hardened again.
But somewhere underneath it all her words echo like a long forgotten song.
You may think you’re beyond redemption, but… you’re not. You just need someone to remind you.
I thought I was going to be her savior. Who knew that she would turn out to be mine.
Chapter Sixteen
The present…
It’s been three days and she hasn’t come to me. I’m pissed off and antsy from the lack of sleep and this goddamn lack of information from my sources. Something is going on. They all seem scared to talk to me lately. This thing with her isn’t helping matters.
As I pound the bag I imagine it’s Jacob’s face. I am ready to see him again. I am ready.
Usually boxing makes me feel better. Or climbing the rope I have hanging from the roof. Or shooting something. But the nervous energy running under my skin doesn’t seem to want to go away.
I wonder if she’s been down here. I know she likes to train. Maybe she’d want to train with me? Then I remember she’s mad at me and my blood burns at the memory of her walking out of the dining room. I haven’t seen her since. Not in my room. Not in the dining room. Not even in the corridor outside of her room that I wander up and down sometimes at night when I can’t sleep because I’m too fucking busy thinking about her.
I wish I could give her everything she wants from me. But she just doesn’t seem to understand that I can’t give those things to her. I just can’t risk it.
She said it was over. But it can’t be over. She just needs some time. Don’t worry about it. She’ll come around. She will, won’t she? Won’t she?
I hear the door to my home gym open. It must be Wylie with my post-workout protein shake. I don’t bother looking at him I just hold a finger up to him to signal one second as I hear his footsteps walk to my side. I finish off my combo with a loud smack that sends the bag swinging wildly. I catch it and steady it.
Wylie is staring at me from my side, his hands clasped to his front. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand, the boxing wraps soaking up beads of sweat.
“Well done, sir. I’m sure that bag learned its lesson.”
I narrow my eyes at Wylie’s empty hands and then up at him. “You didn’t bring my shake.”
“Once again your powers of observation are astounding.”
I glare at Wylie. It doesn’t seem to affect him at all. “What’s got your goat now?”
“Allow me to speak freely.”
“Like you ever hold back,” I mutter.
“If you let her go you will regret it more than anything you already regret.”
“More than I regret hiring you?”
“You didn’t hire me. Your grandfather did.”
“Right. So why are you still here again?”
“I am still here because I am one of the two people left on this planet who cares about you. She is the other.”
“Well, you’re both idiots.”
“There is only one idiot in this room and I’m looking at him. Go and make things right with her before you lose her for good.”
I want to. I want to so badly. But, “I can’t. I’m cursed, Wylie. You of all people know I am.”
“Cursed?”
“How else can you account for it? Everyone I love dies. Mother, father, Hayley, L…” Shit. I can’t say her name ‘cause my damn throat closes up. It still hurts too fucking much.
“I’m still alive.”
I snort. “I don’t love you.” I’m lying. I do. He’s the only one who has been there my whole life. I love the old man. And he knows it. I sigh. “She’s better off not being in my life. She might not see it now but… one day she will.”
Wylie narrows his eyes at me. “Do you remember that God-awful card game that you and Hayley used to make me play with you?”
Where is he going with this? “What game?”
“The game that required us to place cards face down in turn and call out what cards we claimed to have. All the other players had to yell out if they thought you weren’t telling the truth…”
“You mean Bullshit?”
“Precisely. I’m calling it now. Bullshit, sir. You’re not cursed, you’re just scared. You care about her and if you let yourself love her you might get hurt again, hurt beyond repair.” My gut burns as he speaks to me and I feel nineteen years old again. He steps closer to me and I spin away so I don’t have to look at the concern and pity etched on his face. He slides a hand onto my shoulder. The simple touch is both comforting and terrifying. “What happened fifteen years ago was not your fault. Neither was what happened three years ago. But if you let this slide with her, if you ruin this − the first good thing that has happened to your life in three long years − then that will be your fault.”
Chapter Seventeen
Snake checks that he’s alone in this corridor again before he slides the two pieces of thin metal into the apartment keyhole. When Jacob had been told that she may have broken into one of his sites at the docks here, he had sent Snake to scout it out for him. Because Jacob trusted Snake above all others. Snake would not fail him.
When Snake ran back the security tapes from that night at the warehouse he had caught sight of her face. When he recognized her, his heart had skipped a beat. Then a smile had crawled across his lips. The princess had found her way home. How she had found her way onto the Tyrells’ lot was another matter. But first, to find her.
He found her car abandoned on a nearby lot and the GPS had led him here. There are only twelve apartments in this building. A wad of cash to the building manager and a description of her had led him to this door.
He jiggles the pieces of metal and the lock clicks open. It’s highly unlikely that she’s still here. She wouldn’t have hidden herself for this long if she was stupid, but he pulls out his gun from under his jacket just in case.
That was the difference between her and all the others for Jacob… there was more to her than just looks and sass. She had brains and an innocence about her. She had an innocence about her. She had broken Jacob’s heart when she had turned on him. And for that, Snake would make her wish she was dead.
He had never liked her, even from the start. Brains on a woman are an unnecessary and dangerous thing. It leads to them thinking for themselves. And women should never be allowed to think for themselves. I mean, just look at what happened with her.
Snake pushes open the door and slips inside, leading with his gun, listening for any whispers of life. His eyes adjust to the dim light of the streetlight that shines in through the only window. As suspected no one is here. Snake shuts the door behind him and turns on his torch.
The studio apartment is old, small and cramped. Plaster cracks off sections of the ceiling and a discolored stain in one corner tells him that there is a leak coming in from the roof. He wrinkles his nose. This place has an old mold smell that has set in.
Stupid bitch. If she had just kept herself in line and her mouth shut then she would be living it up in penthouse suites and wrapped in Hermes and swimming in Tiffany diamonds. Instead the princess didn’t know a good thing when she saw it. And now she has to resort to living like this… like a damn pauper.
He moves through the apartment swiftly. There’s not much of her things to go through. Just some clothes, a single pair of cheap shoes. No jewelry. No photos or knick knacks. Nothing to indicate that this had even been her apartment.
Finally, he comes to her bedside table and he pulls open the drawer.
It’s empty except for a single book, a ratty second-hand thing. She must have had time to clear the apartment of personal items before she left. There’s nothing here to indicate anything personal about her and who she had become or where she may have gone.
Snake quashes the surge of annoyance. He didn’t become one of Jacob’s trusted employees by letting his emotions control him. No. He knows how to man
age himself like a carefully calibrated machine.
He’s about to close the drawer when he has a thought. Maybe she had written something in the book? Used it as a notepad? He snatches the book out of the drawer and flicks through the pages. Something white and rectangular falls out onto to the floor. He tosses the book on the bed. He bends to pick up the piece of folded paper and opens it up.
Bingo.
It’s a penciled drawing with four faces. Two women, one of which is her, and two men. Someone had written “Your family away from home” across the bottom in big scrawling handwriting. Snake scans the three smiling faces and he can’t help the grin that stretches across his face. She cares about these three.
That’s the problem with caring about people, as Jacob discovered too late about his little princess. They can be used against you. All Snake has to do is to find her “family away from home” and they would lead him to her.
Gotcha, you little bitch.
Then, oh, to give her the homecoming she deserves.
Chapter Eighteen
Kitten
In the late evening, there’s a knock on my door. I’m sitting in a bucket chair with curved arms but no back that I dragged to my window, staring out to the grey wet day, my eyes following the raindrops that roll off the leaves of the tree nearby. I don’t answer. And I don’t turn around.
I hear the door handle turn and the door creaks open.
“Kitten?”
I hate that my heart still flutters at his voice. “Go away.”
“Can we talk?”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“I have something for you,” his voice sounds so hopeful I almost give in and tell him to come in. Almost. Then I remember all the previous times I have given in to that bastard and my heart turns to stone. I sit up straighter and grit my teeth. “Unless it’s someone else from the force ready to take me away from here, I’m not interested in whatever bribes you have.”