Great, so all I had to do was duck when the daggers started flying. It brought back memories of the last time I got between a girl and her property. I was fourteen—a bad age for just about anything—and on the verge of having my heart ripped open for the first and last time. I couldn’t remember his last name, but Kevin was the only boy that would look at me. The other boys either ignored me or made fun of my red hair. I don’t know what was worse: being ignored, or being trashed along with all the other girls who fell somewhere in the middle. Kevin was pretty popular and a guaranteed route into the upper pecking order. I thought he liked me. When he put his hands under my shirt behind one of the homeroom trailers, I almost cried. Someone wanted to feel my boobs. His girlfriend—I found out later—didn’t appreciate the attention as much as I did.
Lisa Watts’ pedigree wasn’t much better than mine. Her family lived off of corn subsidies and farmed a few chicken houses, but she was smart and knew how to use her good looks to manipulate her way up the high school food chain. Any circumstance can be retooled with the right amount of money or good looks.
It was a Tuesday afternoon. I remembered because I had to suffer the humiliation for four days before the weekend mercifully arrived. Lisa Watts marched into the lunchroom and proceeded to pelt me with a jar full of formaldehyde she’d stolen from one of the biology labs. Oh, and on top of that, she let loose the thing in the jar along with the liquid. I never found out what it was, but it was definitely dead. The smell of the preservative stuck to my hair for days. They called me “the dead girl” for the rest of the school year.
“Here.” Leda handed me a glass of wine. “I’ll find Greer. Try not to get yourself killed while I’m gone.”
She disappeared into the crowd, leaving me wide open for all the amateurs. The room was surprisingly quiet for the number of people filling it, but it was the harmony of all the chatter that created the illusion of silence. I was hearing the great white noise of all the faces discreetly watching every move I made and whispering about me right under my nose.
“I suggest you go easy on the wine. I intend to keep you up all night.” The voice came from behind me.
I turned around to confront the man with the tacky pickup line, but he was too interesting to slap. His eyes were on mine, so I knew the comment was directed at me. “I beg your pardon?”
“My apologies. I thought you were someone else,” he said.
“Apparently.”
His eyes moved over my face, trailing down my neck before stopping at my clavicle. “I try not to offend women before I have the chance to impress them. Obviously, I’ve failed miserably at the latter.”
Either a well-honed pickup line, or he was planning to get lucky with a fuck buddy who had the same color hair as mine. I gave him the opportunity to clarify.
“I had a date tonight, but it appears I’ve been stood up.” His shoulders dropped, smoothing out the sharpness of his large frame as he leaned in to get a good look at me. “I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing. Can I get you another drink?”
“Won’t that spoil your plans for me?”
He smiled. “I’ll monitor you closely for signs of intoxication.”
We spent the next ten minutes chatting about how we ended up at Arthur Richmond’s party—my story a total fabrication—while my eyes scanned the room for Greer or Leda or that doll with the giant eyes.
“There’s a quieter room one floor up. Will you join me?”
On the one hand, it was generally a stupid idea to follow a complete stranger anywhere. On the other, I’d been abandoned in the middle of hundreds of strangers and wouldn’t be any worse off following this particular stranger someplace where I might not have half the room watching me. On the other other hand, Greer was being a real prick and needed to understand the consequences of leaving his date unattended.
His hands went up. “Harmless, I promise.”
“Are you going to tell me your name?” I asked.
“Daemon. And you are…”
“Alex.”
We left it at first names, which was fine with me. I had no intention of seeing him again, so why open that door?
As the elevator approached the next floor, my heart raced with the idea that it might keep going all the way up to the roof. Wouldn’t it be ironic, with all the possible scenarios, my death resulting from a case of bad judgment and a charismatic sex offender. I bit down on my lower lip to suppress a nervous laugh.
The door opened to the fourth floor, revealing a large atrium with a great view. The buildings on the street weren’t very tall, so the larger skyline was visible beyond the immediate neighborhood. I counted six other people in the room, all in various stages of hooking up, not very pleased with the sight of two more infringing on their privacy. “Maybe we should go back down,” I said.
Daemon took my arm and led me to the center of the room, looking in the direction of each couple, lingering on each just long enough to change their expressions. We were no longer the intruders, and something uncomfortable stirred in my gut as I realized I might have made a mistake.
The three couples disappeared as the elevator door shut, leaving us alone in the dim space lit only by the light reflected off the skyline. His eyes moved from the elevator to mine, cocking his head as he read my face. “What’s the matter, Alex?”
“I’m not feeling very well. Can we go back down to the party?”
“Have I done something to make you uncomfortable?”
I opened my mouth to invent a polite lie about low blood sugar, but he stopped me before the first word came out.
“Sit,” he said. “We haven’t had a chance to get to know each other yet.”
“I’d prefer not to.”
“I must insist.” His eyes tracked me as he circled to my right and then reversed around to my left. “I didn’t bring you here to hurt you. You have no reason to be scared.”
“You have a funny way of putting a girl at ease.”
“I have to be sure.”
“About what?”
His brown eyes lowered and took on a strange but familiar expression as his pupils began to grow. The light from the surrounding skyline bounced off the shiny, black holes as they began to wave like tiny oceans inside his head. I took a sharp breath as my mind went back to Central Park.
“No.” My head shook as I took a step toward the elevator. The chances of that door opening before he got his hands on me were slim to none. I looked back at him as a snarl formed across his face. A dog getting ready to attack had a similar expression, and I froze from the mental image of a rabbit being torn apart by those teeth. This would hurt. Death is easy. Pain, on the other hand, is humbling.
I prepared for the strike. Instead, he took a step backward while his eyes focused on something behind me.
“The competition is fierce in this place.”
In spite of my reservations about taking my eyes off of the immediate threat in front of me, I turned to see who was standing behind me. I came face to face with Greer’s dueling partner from Crusades—Constantine.
SIXTEEN
My head swung back around toward Daemon, but he was gone.
“I see you’ve been a busy girl, Alex.” Constantine’s words rolled off his lips with a slight purr. “Does Greer know about this new man of yours?” His eyes dropped to adjust a diamond-studded cufflink before dragging back up to mine, stopping at my cleavage along the way.
He was interesting in all the wrong ways—a fascinating train wreck. Dressed completely in white—white white, not winter white—the darkness of his skin and hair contrasted shockingly with the snowy suit, which was obviously meant to make a statement. His eyes were no longer a deep black but more of a dark charcoal gray. I’d never seen anything like it, but based on what I’d witnessed at Crusades, I doubted he was just anything.
“Constantine,” I said.
“Con, please.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, Con, but I hardly know the man.”
“We weren’t doing anything.”
A forced smile formed on his face, stopping short of his cheekbones. “Your naiveté is charming.” He sized me up before taking a step closer. “Makes me want to school you in the art of—”
“All right. You’ve made your point. He was just a guy trying to pick up a girl at a party.”
“Believe me, Alex, he wasn’t just looking. That man was hunting. I should know.”
“God! What are you?” I snapped.
He sank into an oversized chair like a cat nuzzling into a soft lap—my lap. His eyes were darkening again in perfect coordination with the smile lifting on one side of his jaw. He really was shameless, and based on the suggestions he was slipping into my head, invasive, too.
“Tell me, Alex.” He buried his eyes in mine as his voice slipped around my flesh like hot, wet fingers. “Have you ever had sex that left you in a state of complete arousal for days?” His brows unified as he tilted his head to the side, “I haven’t had the pleasure of watching you—yet—so I’ll have to rely on your honesty.”
My mouth dropped, and I resisted the urge to feel around the floor for it.
“That is none of your business.” I could feel the crimson snaking across my face. My muscles tensed as the warmth turned into a radiating pulse, sending sensations of heat through all my parts from my knees to my navel. A hummingbird began to flap its tiny wings just below my sternum, traveling south with each thought he injected into my head. Those invisible fingers were everywhere.
“Mind altering, crippling sex, Alex,” he purred. “The kind that can turn the most sensible girl into a hardened criminal. ‘But your Honor…I did it for love.’”
His thighs spread over the expanse of the large chair as his hands worked the fabric of the armrests. I think he was waiting for my reaction, but when I gave none, his expression morphed into a textbook illustration of male satisfaction. “The kind that makes you a slave to your lover.”
I still didn’t move or speak. I couldn’t.
An earthy rasp came from somewhere deep in his throat. “Just a taste of what’s yours for the taking, Alex.”
He was out of his chair now, stalking me with the smooth movements only a big cat could pull off. “Sex that humbles you, terrifies you, lets you see how weak you really are.” He took another step closer. I could smell him, taste his essence. It was disturbing to acknowledge that I actually recognized it—the taste of carnality and pleasure all wrapped up in an invisible drug running up and down my veins.
“That a girl, Alex. Never run from it.”
I couldn’t move. Not one muscle would follow orders other than the ones he was silently hurling at me. The pressure continued to build through my core as he circled me. Invisible tentacles snaked across my body, lingering in all the right places. And just as the sensation stopped and I thought it might finally be over, it fired up like a match and matured into a fully ignited blowtorch.
A half moan escaped my mouth, and I realized what he was doing to me. Every muscle in my body tightened. I moaned as my eyes slammed shut and I reluctantly rode the roller coaster heading for the peak.
The ride ended as abruptly as it came on. I was relieved to avoid the colossal embarrassment of writhing on the floor in front of the satyr or any other random strangers who might step off the elevator.
My eyes flew open, expecting to see Constantine towering over me, locked on me, ready to play with me again.
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
A familiar smell filled my nose a second before I realized the eyes looking into mine were blue. Greer stood inches from my face, watching me deflate as the sensation to explode into a million particles dispersed.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, Alex, but the disappearing act better not happen again. We’ve got a job to do.” His head shook as he headed toward the elevator. “What the hell are you doing up here, anyway?”
“Well, if you’d shown up instead of sending the ice queen, I wouldn’t have had the chance to disappear, now would I?”
My breath caught as he turned around and offered the perfect view of what elegance should look like. A charcoal suit with a light gray shirt fit his tall, perfectly proportioned frame beautifully. Greer was a tailor’s dream, capable of wearing a faded T-shirt as confidently as that eight-thousand-dollar suit he had on.
“Armani?” I asked curtly.
“What?” His face tightened. “No.” He was a stone waiting for my next mundane question. “Are we through with my suit?”
I answered with my eyes, and then looked around the room for Constantine. It seemed that all men had a way of disappearing on me this evening. Probably better that he had disappeared, because a face-to-face with Greer would have brought the NYPD, and I’d never hear the end of how I ruined the chance to find the amulet.
The elevator door opened, and he turned to step in. “Are you coming?”
I followed him into the elevator. He did his best to ignore me while I stood there looking at him. “Really, Greer. You’re acting like you’re ten.” He must have seen me with Constantine, because he was teetering on the edge of an explosion. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was jealous. But I did know better. His hand hit the big red STOP button, and I had the unpleasant feeling I was about to regret my words. The small car halted, jolting me against the wall before ascending back up to the deserted floor. The elevator chimed as the door opened. I refused to move so Greer helped me along, snapping me up by the waist and carrying me back into the atrium. My stomach dropped when he walked back in and pressed the STOP button a second time, presumably to keep it in place so we might have some uninterrupted alone time.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Take it easy, you big bull!”
He laughed—at me.
He flipped the light switch on, then changed his mind and flipped it back off.
“Mood lighting?” I asked, sarcasm dripping off both words.
There was no pretense in the way he came toward me. He stopped within a yard of me faster than I could register. “You know, every time I lay eyes on you,” he began, “I think to myself, Alex is getting smarter. She’s finally beginning to understand that she’s fallen into a precarious world with even more precarious scumbags waiting to fuck the senses right out of her.”
“Wha—”
He pressed his fingers to my lips to silence me. “Do you know what that thing—mind fucking you—is?”
That’s what Constantine was doing?
“Greer, I—”
“Don’t, Alex.” he gritted out between clenched teeth.
I shut up and waited for him to berate me for all my poor choices, telling me what a fool I was to let something like a satyr within earshot of me. Good Lord. What would have happened if he’d shown up a few minutes earlier and found Daemon practically inserting his eyes into me?
His eyes shut as his inner disciplinarian softened. Feet planted firmly on the floor, jaw muscles flexing, steel façade perfectly in place, he proceeded to tell me in the most stoic way why the likes of a satyr was a very bad thing.
“Before you know what’s happening, he’ll have you so enthralled you’ll be permanently repulsed by the touch of any other man.” His tone was so subdued we could have been discussing the weather. “It usually doesn’t go that far, though. Satyrs usually play with their prey and then move on to something more interesting.” He moved closer, that stoic veneer changing into something more volatile. With perfect control, he crossed right over my personal boundaries and nailed me with those blue eyes. “But not you, Alex.” The back of his hand grazed over my cheek and then across my lips. “You’re something very interesting—the perfect trophy. Just a kiss, Alex. That’s all it takes.”
His suit brushed the front of my dress, and an involuntary moan escaped my throat be
fore I could suck it back in. No need to search for my Achilles’ heel—he found it.
His eyes raced back and forth between mine, looking for that smart girl he though he knew. “Come on,” he said. “Our host has arrived.”
Arthur Richmond was anything but intimidating. The most threatening thing about him was his mustache, and even that seemed out of place on his pale, tedious face.
Greer and I got off the elevator just in time to run smack dab into Leda and Morgan.
“There he is,” Leda said under the lip of her martini glass.
“Where the hell have you been?” Morgan asked.
I glared back with just as much cat. I distinctly recall you ditching me, princess. I thought it wise to keep my comments to myself, seeing that our host was heading straight for us.
Arthur Richmond walked up and extended a hand to Leda. Obviously smitten by her beauty, he licked the corner of his mouth a moment before introducing himself. Morgan was next, but this time he let out a quiet “Hmm” as he slid his hand around hers.
There was something…oh…lecherous about the man, but not in a satyr kind of way—more like a registered sex offender kind of way.
“And who are you?” He swung his eyes to my breasts first before lifting them up to my face. I don’t think he even realized he did it. It was just the normal sequence of events for a man like Richmond. In order of precedence: start at the cleavage, size up the girls, and then make your way up to the less important face.
We hadn’t rehearsed the plan. In fact, there wasn’t one. I had no idea if I should use my own name, make up an alias, or go mute hoping he thought I was just another dumb bimbo.
I darted my eyes at Greer for some badly needed instructions, but now he was MIA.
“Alex,” I said.
“Alex…” He fished for a last name.
“Kelley—Alex Kelley.”
Other than a slight pause, he showed no reaction when I said my name. Maybe he was just another murder groupie with a fetish for the macabre. “Is that short for Alexandria?” An attempt at charm, but I’m afraid nothing remotely charming would come from Arthur Richmond.
The Amulet Thief (The Fitheach Trilogy Book 1) Page 15