Alluring Attraction: Book 1 of Illicit Illusions Series

by A. F. Zoelle

  The small reassurance was a huge relief for Ryder, but it didn’t solve the larger problem at hand. He couldn’t think of anything to say or do, even as Hunter continued, “I can take care of myself.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about,” Ryder confessed in the faintest of whispers, almost completely drowned out by Jake’s shouts on the other side of the door. He couldn’t bear the thought of what Jake would do to Hunter once they were alone, but Ryder knew there was very little that could be done to stop it. The unwanted image of Jake cruelly dominating in a sexual situation enraged Ryder, and he hid his face against Hunter’s shoulder. It was too close to becoming a reality and Ryder couldn’t stand it, his anger flaring once again as he tried to banish the thoughts.

  Hunter didn’t know whether to be touched or annoyed by Ryder’s concern, but he accepted it all the same. Dropping his voice low enough to avoid being heard by anyone else but Ryder, Hunter still managed to sound arrogant as he argued, “You act as if that loser dog has any chance at ever defeating me.”

  It was such a typical response that Ryder couldn’t help but laugh despite the gravity of the situation. The amusement lasted but the briefest of moments before Ryder sobered once more and asked, “What can you do to not…you know…? I mean, there has to be something that can be done, right?”

  “I have my ways,” Hunter replied with a perverse undertone that managed to still affect Ryder on a primitive level.

  There was so much to say, but Ryder didn’t know where to start. He could only whisper, “I never wanted this.” He didn’t want to think about Jake touching Hunter, kissing him, or being with him in any intimate way. It was one thing to think about faceless strangers, but someone he knew was completely different—especially when that person was Jake.

  “Regardless, it’s happening,” Hunter coldly stated, bothered by the open look of distress that Ryder wasn’t even trying to disguise.

  Resting his forehead against Hunter’s chest, Ryder sighed heavily as he asked, “What can I do?”

  “Go home,” Hunter replied, resting his chin on Ryder’s head against his better judgment. He could feel Ryder still trembling and Hunter wanted him to leave before things got worse.

  There was a distinct disconnect between the safe feeling of being in Hunter’s embrace and the chaotic anger of Jake on the other side of the door. “Damn it,” Ryder muttered in defeat, burrowing closer still to Hunter. “There has to be something we can do!”

  Hunter wanted to tell Ryder to quit caring so much, but it would be verbal confirmation for Christophe. He knew that his every move was being monitored and Hunter had all but condemned himself to weeks without seeing his younger brother, Grayson. Thus, Hunter refused to debase himself with Jake when he had already lost the only motivation he had to “behave,” as Christophe called it.

  “Go home,” Hunter repeated, his tone kinder than he had intended.

  All Ryder could hear was the sadness in Hunter’s voice, which made his heart ache. Before he could respond, the furious banging on the door stopped and was followed by a single sharp knock. It made Hunter take several steps back, nodding the okay for Ryder to open the door. Ryder looked back at Hunter for a final time, his emotional turmoil clearly on display, before facing forward and opening the door with a blank look.

  Although Ishi was the perfect picture of professionalism, Ryder could see the tightness in her jaw. It upset Ryder on a whole new level to know that Jake was also affecting this kind woman. He clenched the doorknob tightly as he tried to calm himself once more.

  The silence was broken by the other attendant, who suggested, “Although there is a surcharge, perhaps a threesome would be an acceptable compromise for—”

  All of them vehemently objected “No” at once, each appalled for their own reasons.

  Looking rather put out over the rejection, the woman remained silent as Ishi softly addressed Ryder, “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to follow me.”

  Balking initially as he gave Jake a hateful glare, Ryder finally complied, but not before trying a final plea with his friend. “I’m asking you as a friend not to do this, Jake.”

  “Will you agree to stop seeing him?” Jake countered, doubting that Ryder would agree. When he received only a resentful silence, Jake shrugged as he looked at Ryder with mild disdain. “Maybe you’ll give this bastard up when you start to see him for the whore that he is.”

  When Ryder started to lunge at his friend, he was stopped by Ishi’s hand on his shoulder. Ryder spat, “I will never forgive you for this!”

  “Whatever, you’ll thank me later,” Jake dismissively predicted, sure that he was acting for his friend’s good.

  Ryder was about to launch into another verbal tirade, but the pressure of Ishi’s grip increased, grounding him. He wanted to have the last word, but nothing would come to mind because he was past the point of logic. Growling a final threatening warning, Ryder allowed Ishi to lead him to the elevator. The last thing he saw before the doors closed was Jake entering Hunter’s room. Ryder’s rage boiled over as he swore out loud, futilely pounding his fist against the elevator walls.

  Ishi was finding it hard to calm Ryder down, mostly because she herself was furious at what had just happened. She was still bristling over the phone call she had received from Christophe regarding Jake’s visit, and she knew that something else was going on between the three men. Christophe’s veiled threat of “Remember, girl: you work for me” still weighed heavily on Ishi, and she wondered how far she could push the boundaries of her responsibilities without repercussions.

  Instead of taking Ryder to the lobby, Ishi led him to the VIP lounge on the fifth floor. Ryder didn’t comment about the detour as he dutifully followed Ishi, sitting down on the black leather sofa. Ishi brought Ryder a glass of water that he reflexively accepted.

  “Can’t you do something to stop this?” Ryder desperately asked, feeling like Ishi was his last hope.

  Ryder’s expressive emerald eyes were silently pleading with her in despair, and it pained Ishi to answer, “No, sir.”

  Setting the water down on the coffee table in front of him, Ryder hid his face in his hands, his elbows on his knees. “This can’t be happening,” Ryder groaned, feeling nauseous over the whole thing. It was a small comfort to know that Hunter didn’t think he had put Jake up to it, but Ryder still felt disgusted by his so-called friend’s behavior.

  Although Ishi wanted to comfort Ryder and find out more about what was going on in the hopes that it would help Hunter, she knew that there was only so much that she could do without arousing suspicion. Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud knock on the door and Ishi’s heart dropped when she realized that there was only one person who would be on the other side. Forcing herself to move, Ishi walked over to the door, opening it with a formal bow to grant the man entrance.

  Ryder took immediate notice of the man that entered and he instinctively straightened up in response. He was a tall, solid man with graying hair, whose confident and calculating gaze implied strength and power. There was something about the man that made Ryder feel wary, and Ishi’s reaction wasn’t helping soothe his fears—she hadn’t looked up at him once.

  When Ryder stood up to greet the man, his actions caused the older gentleman to laugh as he appraised Ryder with cold brown eyes. “Respectful. I like that,” the man commented in a voice full of gravelly perversion. A shudder of disgust and fear surged through Ryder at the way he was being looked at by the stranger. “One good trait amongst many, I’m sure.”

  It was a weird comment, one Ryder didn’t know how to interpret. He wanted to look at Ishi for guidance, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the man. Something inside of Ryder was screaming caution, and he knew better than to disobey his instincts. “I’m not sure that I understand,” Ryder hesitantly said, carefully watching the imposing man.

  The older man approached Ryder with an arrogance that was startlingly familiar, giving Ryder his first real clue
as to the true identity of the person standing before him. “I am pleased to see that your earlier rudeness was only a temporary lapse in behavior,” the man said, but there was no pleasure in his cruel eyes, only ruthless cunning and steely calculation. He had Ryder cornered and would have his answers one way or the other. “It seems that boy has a knack for bringing out the worst in people.”

  “Boy?” Ryder repeated, wondering who the man was referring to and how he could possibly know anything about what had just occurred upstairs.

  Rather than answering Ryder’s question, the man held out his hand to him in a formal greeting as he introduced himself. “How rude of me. I’m Christophe Cole, the owner of this facility.”

  Shaking the hand of the man that Ryder considered the source of Hunter’s imprisonment, he felt incredibly dirty. Instead of lying about the pleasures and honor of meeting the man, Ryder chose a more tactful approach. “I apologize for the incident upstairs.”

  Letting his fingers trail along the back of Ryder’s hand as he released him from the handshake, Christophe gestured for him to sit back down on the sofa. Ryder complied, feeling mildly disgusted by the questionable contact.

  Christophe sat down in the chair across from Ryder, mindful that there was still a witness who would relate what she could to his most prized possession. In fact, he was counting on Ishi to go running to Hunter to inform him the first chance she got. “It seems that you know something I do not,” Christophe stated as he laced his fingers together and rested his elbows on the armrests, planning to use the opportunity to find out everything he could about his adopted son’s recent activities.

  Suddenly, it felt like an interrogation and Ryder wished that Hunter had told him something about the man, to help him face off against such a fierce opponent. “In regards to…?” Ryder questioned, trying to force the man to speak specifically. He didn’t want to accidentally incriminate Hunter and get him into trouble.

  “You appear to have some concerns about your friend and my boy,” Christophe replied, noticing how Ryder’s fingers involuntarily twitched at the possessive phrase. “I came to find out what your specific objections were.”

  “Isn’t it a little late for that now?” Ryder asked, sounding more bitter than he meant to, because he couldn’t stop thinking about what was happening upstairs between Hunter and Jake behind the closed door.

  The undercurrent of emotion was one that Christophe knew how to manipulate, so he started trying to play on Ryder’s fears. “As I said, it seems that you know something I do not about the situation between those two,” Christophe restated, subtly laying his trap. “If you have a legitimate cause for concern, I would appreciate you telling me so that I may intercede and stop them.”

  Biting his lower lip, Ryder had a fierce war waging inside of him. As much as he wanted to tell the man anything to get him to stop Jake from being with Hunter, it felt like a dangerous ploy. It was obvious to Ryder that Christophe was looking for information, but he worried what the man would do with it. Deciding to start with the obvious, Ryder simply stated, “They hate each other.”

  “Why?”

  It was a deceptively simple question and Ryder realized that he didn’t actually have an answer for the man. It felt like a failure to admit “I don’t know,” but he did it anyway. After all his years of being friends with Jake, Ryder had never really received a clear answer about why his friend hated Hunter with such a vehement passion—something Ryder was deeply regretting at the moment.

  “Are you worried that he will get violent with my boy?” Christophe asked, having seen enough aggression from Jake to recognize the signs of someone who was quick to fly off the handle.

  “I’d like to think that he’s smarter than that,” Ryder muttered, although his faith was waning in his friend. “He tends to act before he thinks and is quick to anger.”

  Laughing darkly at the description, Christophe settled back into the chair and crossed his leg over his knee. “Do you know what the great thing is about dragons?” Christophe randomly asked, carefully watching Ryder.

  It was such an abrupt shift in the conversation. “No,” Ryder answered, the uncertainty clear in his voice.

  “Their claws are sharp, but their minds are sharper,” Christophe cryptically replied. “My Dragon is the sharpest of them all. Understood?”

  Ryder’s eyebrows furrowed as he processed the statement. He couldn’t stand the fact that this man referred to Hunter as “my Dragon” and “my boy,” but Ryder knew that wasn’t the point. “You’re saying that he can fend for himself?” Ryder guessed, feeling rather foolish for having to do so.

  “Indeed I am,” Christophe stated with a sly grin. “My boy is well trained in many arts.”

  It was a perverse statement that implied disgusting things. Ryder had to suppress a shudder of disgust. He didn’t like the look in Christophe’s eyes, much less the fact that they were trained on him at the moment.

  Sensing Ryder’s discomfort, Christophe smugly added, “As you well know by now.”

  That finally succeeded in making Ryder look down in shame, unable to stand Christophe’s almost sadistic look of pleasure. It was obvious that Christophe was a predator, and Ryder hated feeling like the prey.

  Christophe reveled in the misery exuding from Ryder for a moment before calling out to Ishi, “Girl, your presence is no longer required here.”

  Ryder’s eyes snapped up to find the woman bowing low in acquiescence. He had nearly forgotten that Ishi was present, but Ryder feared what her absence would bring.

  “Are there any further orders, sir?” Ishi inquired, hoping against all odds that Christophe would give her permission to stop whatever was happening upstairs with Jake. Between Ryder’s fear and her boss’s glee over the potential disaster, Ishi was beyond worried for Hunter.

  “No,” Christophe answered, watching out of the corner of his eye as Ryder visibly wilted before him. “The boy can take care of himself. He wouldn’t be worth his status if he couldn’t hold his own against someone of such a low caliber, after all.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ishi flatly replied, knowing better than to look at Ryder for a final time to assess how he was doing. She quickly vacated the room, saying a silent prayer for Ryder to be okay.

  Only after the door closed, leaving the two of them alone, did Christophe arrogantly comment, “After all, I trained him to be the best. I will accept nothing less.”

  There was nothing that Ryder could say to that, so he remained silent and forced himself to look up at Christophe once more, trying not to think about what that “training” involved. “You have no intention of stopping them,” Ryder stated, feeling a ripple of rage wash over him, even as he tried to restrain his reactions in front of the dangerous man.

  “Why would I?” Christophe asked with a shrug. “You provided insufficient evidence for me to put a stop to something I explicitly authorized.”

  A noise of indignant protest escaped Ryder before he could clamp down on it, and the flash of ire in his green eyes betrayed him more than words ever could. Christophe felt the thrilling rush of aggression that accompanied that fierce look, and he could easily see how his adopted son had been captivated by the fiery man. Ryder was a bright spirit that Christophe not only wanted to dominate, but wanted to break in the process. There were few things in life that gave him greater pleasure than the fight of resistance.

  “Consider this your warning,” Christophe coldly informed him, discovering that he liked the look of uncertain fear on Ryder almost as much as his defiance.

  “Warning?” Ryder repeated, fearing that he was on the verge of being banned from the brothel. As much as he hated that Hunter worked at Cole Corporation, for Christophe, Ryder would hate not being able to come and see for himself that he was okay in such a hellish place.

  “I control all,” Christophe informed Ryder as he stood up and clasped his hands behind his back to walk closer. “This is my domain, and that boy you unwisely have feelings for is my property.”
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  The fact that Christophe referred to Hunter as personal property further incensed Ryder, and he struggled against losing control of his emotions. Now was not the time to crack. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ryder defiantly growled, trying not to panic.

  “You deny that you harbor feelings for my boy?” Christophe sneered as he looked down at Ryder. “Forgive me for not believing you.”

  “With all due respect, sir, you are taking it out of context,” Ryder tried to defend himself through gritted teeth.

  “Am I?” Christophe questioned in disbelief before smiling darkly, standing directly in front of Ryder. “Then enlighten me, boy.”

  Ryder opened his mouth for a quick retort, but nothing would come out that was appropriate.

  The silence caused Christophe to seize upon the opportunity to goad, “You don’t even know, do you?”

  “Sir—”

  Christophe interrupted Ryder to challenge, “Shall I give you the chance to prove me wrong?”

  The pace of the conversation was starting to trip Ryder up and he flatly asked, “And how would you propose I do that?”

  “I’ll let you have an hour with any other employee here, free of charge,” Christophe offered, confident that Ryder would turn him down despite his generosity.

  “What would that prove?” Ryder irritably asked, trying to buy time.

  “That you’re still at the point where you think Dragon is the only one who can satisfy you,” Christophe replied, before his expression darkened. It sent a shiver of fear through Ryder at the unspoken promise of harm behind that look. “Although I wonder how true that is.…”

  Ryder was getting more and more confused by Christophe’s roundabout logic, and he demanded, “What are you implying?”

  Reaching out and grasping Ryder’s chin, Christophe leaned down to look him in the eye. “I’m saying that you’re more infatuated with Hunter than with Dragon,” Christophe told Ryder, the chill of disapproval hitting him hard.