“Sorry if I scared you.” Vic eyed me. “I wanted to give you something.”
I nodded for him to continue, trying to get my heart rate under control.
“You dropped this while yelling at me in the elevator earlier.” Vic reached out and took my hand. He unfurled my fingers and placed something cold on my palm. He closed my fingers against the cold object and, when my grasp was tight, he let go of my hand. Vic smiled and, without another word, walked away.
“Wait!” I called after him. He stopped and turned around. “Were you just at Zoe’s?”
I’d meant to check in on Zoe and make sure everything was fixed, but when I left her apartment to go home I couldn’t get my lock to work. Shocking, I know. So I went out to explore a little of late-night Santa Barbara (making sure to stay on the busy well-lit streets). I found this really delicious taqueria that served tacos made up of the weird parts of the cow like the cheek, head, tongue, and eyes. I figured I was trying something new so I might as well try an eye, right?
It was actually freaking delicious.
Now I was home and trying my fucking doorknob again. I don’t know what I was thinking… That because I’d given my old doorknob more time it would suddenly work? Yeah, actually, that’s what I thought.
“Yes,” Vic replied, pulling me out of my brain.
“Oh, um . . .” Shit. Where was I going with this? “Is everything fixed?”
Vic smiled. Wow, okay, I think my knees just buckled. I wasn’t aware that was even possible outside of romance novels.
“Yes,” he replied.
“That’s good . . .” I trailed off, my eyes trying to look anywhere but his gorgeous, smiling face. For an undeniable ass, he really was handsome. I hated that. Usually when a person is an ass, it’s not important if they’re Brad Pitt because I’ll still find them unattractive. For some reason, with Vic, despite his douchebaggery, I was still completely and utterly drawn to him.
Vic raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to say something more. When I didn’t, he started to walk away. “Why didn’t you tell me you were my landlord?” I sputtered.
“I assumed you knew,” he replied, amused.
“How? Because I’m a mind reader?”
“Or just a reader. My name is on your lease.”
“Oh.” I deflated.
“You did move in rather quickly,” Vic mused. I jumped, starting to feel like a rabbit with all the hopping I was doing. Suddenly he was so close he was practically pushing me against my door.
“Yeah, so?” I said, refusing to give up any more ground.
He shrugged. “Just an observation.” His breath was hot against my cheek. “You know,” Vic said, pressing closer, “I’d do anything to make my tenants more… comfortable.” Vic reached up and moved a stray strand of hair that had fallen into my face.
I shivered involuntarily. His eyes were locked on mine. Like a black hole, they were sucking and turning me into something new.
“Um . . .” I struggled for words as his fingers played with my hair. “Well, I could use some new locks. The keys work with them only fifty percent of the time.”
“Is that so? Someone you’re trying to keep out?” His words jolted me back to reality and I jerked away from his touch.
“What? No!” I denied his question a little too vehemently, and I’m pretty sure he could tell. The less people who knew about Dean, the better.
Vic narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing me. I didn’t back down and eventually he stepped back.
“Alright Lenny, you’ll have new locks within the week.”
“Thank you, Vic.”
Vic nodded and walked off. I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t watch him walk away.
I frowned. That was weird. It was almost like he was hitting on me. It didn’t feel like a come-on, it felt like ownership. He was controlling me, and I let him. I wanted him to. If he hadn’t asked who I was trying to keep out with my locks, I don’t know how far it would have gone. I touched my chest, my heart was practically beating out of my ribcage.
When Vic rounded the corner, I realized I’d been clenching the hand Vic had closed. I opened it up and gasped. It was my mother’s locket. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t known it was missing. In the years that I’d been wearing it, I’d never once lost it. Only a couple of days in Santa Barbara and it vanished without my knowledge.
I hurriedly clasped the locket around my neck, putting it back in its place. When everything was where it should be, I frowned again, staring at the spot where Vic had been standing.
I slid my back down my doorframe and sat on the floor. I was in way over my head. My landlord, my ex, my landlord, my ex . . . when was life going to stop being so damn complicated?
“Here’s to Lennox! Or should I say . . . mazel tov!”
I clinked my glass against Lissie’s. I was out for drinks with my coworker celebrating the fact that I had just been granted my first solo-planning event: a bar mitzvah for some rich guy’s brat. I was elated.
“Who’s that guy? He’s staring at you.”
I followed Lissie’s gaze across the bar. It took me a moment to find who she was talking about. The area he was sitting in was shadowed and sinister looking. Once again, I wondered why Lissie had chosen this bar. She seemed more a fruity martini and Sex-on-the-Beach type person than hard-bourbon-and-scars type of chick, which was what this bar offered in spades. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see clearly who it was. How could I have missed it?
Vic.
Why was he here? And why was he staring at me?
“I don’t know,” I responded to Lissie, without thinking.
“Oh, well he seems to know you,” Lissie mused, sipping her drink.
I nodded, taking a drink of my Seven and Seven. I turned my attention back to Lissie, ignoring Vic’s presence.
“How long have you been at SSB?” I asked Lissie.
“Not long. Although it feels like forever sometimes, I can’t stand Bethany,” Lissie said, laughing and then lowering her voice to Bethany’s trademark, monotone chill droned, “‘Lissie!’”
I choked on my bourbon, stifling a laugh. I liked Lissie. She wasn’t as airheaded as her appearance made it seem. I guess that’s on me. Don’t judge a book by its cover, even if the cover has fake tits, fake hair, and wears six-inch stilettos. See? There I go again. Lissie is hot and I’m just jelly.
The Black Angel’s “Manipulation” came on over the speakers. I loved this bar. It had great music and great drinks, and the clientele looked like I felt: angry old sailors. I was glad Lissie wasn’t as she appeared to be and chose this bar to drink. I would much rather swap old war stories than get hit on by douchebags wearing designer jeans.
“How did you—” I was about to ask Lissie how or why she chose this place when I was interrupted.
“Dance with me.” It wasn’t a question. I looked up to say “no” to the loser asking me to dance in a bar where there is no dancing, when my words got stuck in my throat like taffy. Vic.
“What do you want?” I asked, rather rudely. And drunkenly. I think I slurred my words.
Lissie watched us raptly. If she had popcorn, she’d have been shoveling it into her mouth.
“A dance.” He smiled at me with a shit-eating grin.
I barely knew him, but he was always getting on my nerves. Literally on my nerves—it felt like he was stepping on them with steel-toed boots. I felt Lissie poking at me with her drink, the condensed water soaking through my sweater.
“Do it,” she hissed.
“Fine.” Fine? Did I just say fine? I guess so, because, ignoring his outstretched hand, I walked straight out to the middle of the bar and stood there with my arms folded like a pouting kindergartner. I felt like everyone’s eyes were on me, but in reality all eyes were on their drinks.
Vic peeled my arms from my side carefully and pulled me to his chest. I felt my breath disappear like wind in a cave. He was so calm and controlling, wielding me like a doll, and I was let
ting him.
“Hold me,” Vic said, and I did. I put my arms around his neck and relaxed as his arms drew around my waist.
“Why are you here?” I asked Vic, swaying with him. He was a surprisingly good dancer. Most men (see: boys) I’ve danced with had no idea what to do when the music turned on. With them, it ended up being less a dance and more akin to having our legs tied together in a three-legged picnic race.
“That’s a nice sweater,” Vic said, his eyes grazing lazily down my body. I blushed. I hadn’t worn the sweater on its own to work—it was the type of outfit that only worked with layers. Did anyone else see the episode of Scrubs where J. D. went on a date and wore his perfect “date” outfit? The more layers he took away, the more ridiculous he looked? That’s how my work outfit was today. But I figured, hey, I’m at this low-key bar with a friend, it doesn’t matter.
Ha! I forgot that it’s me we’re talking about. Of course it’s going to matter. Anyway, my sweater was too sheer. You could almost make out my bra, and you could definitely see the tattoo on my ribs. Oh, have I not told you about my tattoo? Well, that’s a story for another time.
“It was bring-your-sweater-puppies-to-work day,” I responded lazily. Vic smiled at my stupid reply, but his gaze held the same horrifyingly intense hold on me. The black depths sucked me in to them. I loathed being with him. I felt like I had no control on myself. If he said jump I would catapult myself off the bridge, all too eager to meet the rocks below.
“Why are you here?”
“The same reason you are,” Vic replied.
He was here for cheap booze and girl time? Somehow I doubted that, and I said as much. Vic smiled a broad, knee-buckling grin. It really is unfair for someone to be that attractive. He could say “I’m going to kill you now,” with that smile, and I probably wouldn’t register what he was saying until after I was dead. That’s how Ted Bundy got away with all those murders for so long. Attractive people, man, they’re the undiagnosed plague of the world.
“I guess not the exact reason,” Vic countered.
“Then what?”
“For the beautiful women,” Vic responded.
I looked around. I wasn’t kidding before when I said this place looked like a haven for swarthy sailor types. Instead of giving in to the side of me that wanted to be flattered, I glared.
“Do you ever give a straight answer? Or do you just put on your charms and all the women forget what they asked, falling straight into your come-covered bed?” I stepped back, suddenly remembering why I wasn’t so keen on dancing.
Vic stepped forward, closing the gap instantly. Placing his hands on the small of my back, Vic resumed dancing with me. I was mystified by my response, instead of going back to Lissie I wound my arms around his neck.
“What women? I only see you, Lennox,” Vic grasped my arms and pulled me closer. “And you’re right about my bed. It is cleaned nightly, if that helps . . .” Vic trailed off, grinning.
I scoffed.
“I’m not interested in being another notch on your headboard,”
Vic raised his eyebrows in mock outrage. “Why, Lennox, I’m hurt. Besides,” he added, “we landlords have a code about these types of things.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. We even hold secret conventions.”
I rolled my eyes at his reply. Looking away, I counted down the seconds until the song ended.
Vic leaned in close enough that I could kiss him if I wanted to. My body went hot, and I swallowed at the sudden change in our proximity. My toes and fingers tingled, and the butterflies in my stomach upgraded to birds. I closed my eyes ready for something that could change everything.
Smooth, low sound filled my ears and caused my belly to tingle.
I blinked. Vic was singing to me. And it sounded good. He was singing “Manipulation” in my ear; his low, breathy, voice reverberated through my body. I closed my eyes again, doing nothing save feeling his voice in my body as he moved us both to the music.
I stumbled over to Lissie, unsure if I was stumbling because I was drunk or too horny to function.
“Wow,” Lissie said, staring at me with cartoon-wide eyes. I plopped down clumsily on the barstool and gestured to the bartender for another drink.
“Wow,” Lissie repeated.
I eyed Lissie as I gulped my drink down. “What?”
“What?” Lissie exclaimed, getting alcohol everywhere as she gesticulated wildly with her hands. “What? What was going on with you and that man? That’s what!”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
After the song ended, Vic let me go and walked out of the bar without another word. It was weird, suffice it to say. He basically Hiroshima’d my heart in the middle of a bar. I’d never felt that kind of magnetic pull and blatant animal attraction to someone I barely knew. Well, that’s not entirely true. I felt attraction to people I didn’t know all the time. But with Vic, it was different. I didn’t just want to have sex with him. I wanted him. Body, soul, everything. And that was the strange, terrifying, and all over nuclear aspect. I didn’t know him at all. So here I was, in a bar, dumbfounded and surviving the aftereffects of a nuclear attack by Vic.
“Nothing?” Lissie exclaimed, her voice rising with each sip of her drink.
“Not nothing, okay?” I responded, trying to calm her down. People were starting to look at us. “I know him, but that’s it.”
Lissie nodded. “You should do him. He’s into you.”
I shook my head. Unlikely. Vic is otherworldly gorgeous and probably rich, considering he owns the building I’m living in. He doesn’t need to be slumming it with the likes of me.
“He is!” Lissie insisted. “You should have seen the way he was looking at you. God, I’m wet just thinking about it.”
I laughed. If nothing came from Vic and me, at least I’d made a new friend.
I stumbled home some time later, after more drinks than I could count, and a rather awkward game of Never Have I Ever . . .
“Never have I ever done a three-way,” Lissie said.
I had to drink. Lissie looked shocked. I was getting much drunker than I had planned to during that game.
“Never have I ever . . . had an abortion,” Lissie offered, still clutching her full shot.
I eyed her warily then drank again. Lissie clasped a hand to her mouth.
“I had no idea! I assumed that was a gimmie,” Lissie said, trying to apologize.
“Sure.” I slurred.
“You go, this is getting mean.” Lissie said.
“Fine. Never have I ever . . . done cocaine.” Other drugs, yes, but I stayed away from the “hard stuff.”
Lissie looked at her drink and then took a big gulp. I looked at her, my eyes wide with surprise.
“It’s a long story,” she finally said.
“Aren’t they all?” I slurred.
Lissie nodded at my reply and we agreed that Never Have I Ever had run its course.
As is customary when I’m drunk, it took me at least three times to get my key in the lock. When I opened my door, pitch blackness greeted me. Only small dots of electronic light hung in the darkness like fireflies. I flipped the light switch, and the room was immediately awash with bright yellow light making my blurry eyes water.
I took off my shoes and let my toes feel the hardwood floor. It was cold and sobering. I walked over to my laptop and picked it up. I was drunk and in the mood to stalk. I wanted to see if Vic had an online presence that could be infiltrated. Me? I didn’t have one. Having a psycho ex-boyfriend after you meant that you couldn’t exactly check in on Foursquare or post photos on Instagram.
I sat cross-legged on my wingback chair and opened my laptop, ready to do some snooping. An alert bubble in the right-hand corner of the screen let me know I had email. I opened it without thinking. The key phrase: without thinking. Drunken people don’t think.
I gulped. Two years ago, I had given naked pictures of me to Dean for Valentine’s Day. It sounded like he was
showing them to random people on the street. I could feel myself becoming nauseated. It probably wasn’t the best idea to get shitfaced and then read emails from my psychopathic ex-boyfriend. There were four other emails from the same address. The rational part of me said to delete them—the drunk, stupid part of me kept reading.
I skipped pretty quickly past that one, it wasn’t so bad.
I took a deep breath. He hadn’t really found me. He was just trying to freak me out. I scrolled down to the bottom of the email and noticed he sent attachments. I didn’t open them, but I could see the thumbnails. They were horrific. Pictures of women bound and gagged, clearly against their will. Some of the women were dead. They were all bound and gagged in some way. Some more so. Some had been penetrated.
It happened before I could feel it. The vomit. It came up and out before I could even make it to the restroom. Luckily, I had a waste bin right next to me. I vomited up not only the night but everything that Dean had done to me. I felt like I vomited for ten minutes straight, but when I looked at the time it had only been a minute.
I was exhausted. I deleted the other two emails without reading them and pushed the laptop off my lap. Stumbling to my bed, I fell into a fitful sleep.
My alarm woke me with an ear piercing shriek. I had half a mind to throw it across the room when I remembered that I had a job. I got out of bed and immediately regretted moving. My head banged in protest. My body’s organs were holding their own protests complete with picket signs.
“Urrrghh.” I hadn’t been this hungover since high school. What the hell had I been thinking? I quickly dressed and left my apartment. When the elevator dinged open, I cursed.
“You look well,” Vic said.
I stepped into the elevator. “Well that’s good, because I feel like shit.”
Maybe it was the lead filled balloon in my stomach, or maybe it was the innumerable Seven and Sevens and shots, but I wasn’t feeling too tactful. To his credit, Vic didn’t say anything. We rode down in silence while I contemplated the life of a Jackie-O impersonator—at least I could wear the big glasses.
You Own Me (Owned Book 1) Page 3