Logan considered my offer and then smiled. “Yeah, sure, that sounds cool.” He picked up his phone from behind the bar. “What’s your number, I’ll text you mine.” We exchanged numbers and then I shuffled off to hunt Alex down and pry him away from his friend.
Alex and the brunette had moved from where they had been dancing and I was annoyed that I had to go find them. I was pushing my way through a congested area around the left bar when I felt a hand grab my arm.
I turned around to find that Daemon had grabbed me and before I could protest, he was dragging me towards the back exit. He slammed open the door and pushed me into the alley behind the club. The door slammed itself back closed and Daemon grabbed my head with both hands and brought his mouth crashing down on mine. His tongue slid along the crease in my lips and I opened my mouth to give him entrance. He tasted like mint and I couldn’t help but enjoy his kiss. The passion blooming between us was canceling out my thought process and I was helpless to the sensations exploding throughout my core. I slid my hands up his rock solid chest and grabbed onto his shoulders as he kissed me. I caressed his tongue with mine and a possessive growl erupted from within him. I shoved my hands into his messy hair and pulled him closer towards me. He began to nip at my bottom lip and I moaned from the slight sting that it caused. My knees felt weak and I was suffocating from the heat between us. Only when it was necessary that we come up for air, did Daemon stop what he was doing.
I was left breathless and speechless and I’m sure my eyes were as huge as saucers. I continued trying to control my body’s reactions but then he slowly started kissing his way down my jaw, causing me to shiver. He planted a small kiss on the most sensitive part of my neck and then nipped at my ear. I forced my hands back to his chest and reluctantly pushed him away.
He had the look of a man obsessed but he let me go when I softly pushed at him. Daemon’s chest moved up and down with his heavy breathing and I could tell that his pants had tightened from our encounter. I took a moment to contain myself and looked up at him.
“What was that for?” That had to have been the most unintelligent question ever, but my mind was still trying to reboot after that kiss.
Daemon gave me a wicked grin and he started rubbing his hands over the goose bumps along my arms. “I noticed your boyfriend has moved on to someone else, giving me the perfect opportunity to claim what’s mine.”
I closed my eyes in an attempt to calm my heart rate. Never before have I been this affected by another person and I felt like a fish out of water. My body wanted to jump him here in the alley, but my mind wouldn’t stop screaming out that this was a bad idea.
“You saw that?”
His smile grew wider. “Yeah, I saw that. Care to share with me why your boyfriend is kissing another woman while he is out with you?”
I tried to play it off but I had a feeling Daemon wasn’t buying anything I was selling at the moment. “Would you believe me if I told you that Alex is certified in CPR and he was giving her mouth to mouth?”
Daemon remained quiet while he shook his head. We stood looking at each other while he rubbed his hands softly up and down my arms. The continued contact wasn’t helping calm me and I threw my hands up in defeat. “Fine. He’s not my boyfriend. We just pretend that we’re together so that I can avoid being hit on by other guys.” I gave him a pointed look. “Apparently, it’s not working when it comes to you.”
Daemon’s grin widened. “Apparently.” He reached his arms around me and started rubbing his hands along my lower back. My body arched involuntarily to his touch.
“Tell me where I can find you, Paige. I want to see you again and I want it to be outside this club.”
An inner battle began playing out within me about whether or not I should agree to seeing him again. Daemon is one of the most arrogant men I know and I was concerned that I could be falling prey to the game he was playing. I knew I should walk out of there and avoid him for as long as possible, but my heart clenched at the thought of not seeing him. I considered my options before answering his question.
“I’m not ready to tell you where I live. I’ll give you my phone number and we can see where it goes from there, but I have to warn you, Daemon, if you are looking for a girl you can order around, you are looking in the wrong place.”
Daemon continued to look at me with an expression I couldn’t figure out. “I’ll take what I can get with you, Damsel. If you can only offer me your number at this point, then I’ll be happy for having that.”
I shook my head in agreement and pulled out my phone. We exchanged numbers and once I had put my phone back in my pocket, his mouth was on me again. This kiss was soft and slow and it felt like he was worshipping my mouth. His arms reached around me and he pushed on my lower back causing me to arch my body against him. Another growl came from within him and it vibrated my body where it was touching his. My head was swimming in desire and I didn’t think I could take much more of this without losing control. Just when I was about to lose it for good, he nipped at my lip and pulled away. He appeared to be shaking off whatever reaction his body was having and his eyes held me in the most seductive stare. We didn’t speak for a few seconds and then he reached for my hand to lead me back inside.
Once we entered the club, Daemon bent down to whisper in my ear. “I’ve got to get back to work, Damsel, so you should find that ex-boyfriend of yours and start getting home. You WILL be hearing from me soon enough.” He nipped at my ear and then walked away. I stood where he left me attempting to balance myself from that experience. Once I felt that I could move without falling over I went back out in search of Alex.
I finally located Alex still attached to his brunette. Geez, get a room guys. I tapped on his shoulder and gave him a pointed glare when he broke free of her face and turned in my direction. Alex wasn’t surprised by my presence and understood that I was ready to go home. He turned back to his friend and kissed her quickly on the lips. Turning back to me, he introduced the brunette.
“Uh, hey Paige, this is Jill and Jill, this is my good friend, Paige.” Jill and I exchanged waves and I motioned Alex to the front entrance. I started walking away while he said his goodbyes and then followed after me. We walked in silence to the car and climbed in. Alex started pulling away when I remembered David’s texts from earlier in the evening.
“Hey Alex, you might want to hurry home.” He glanced at me in question and I explained. “David texted me earlier needing the cavalry to come riding in. Apparently Annie’s newest guy isn’t one of David’s favorite people.”
Alex laughed. “Well I’m not surprised. I’ll get there as fast as I can.” And with that, we were off to the rescue.
Chapter Seven
Alex and I arrived at the apartment in no time. We jumped out the car and flew up the three flights of stairs. Alex went inside first and we heard Annie giggling loudly. I walked in behind Alex and caught sight of David standing in the kitchen. I immediately turned and walked over to where he was standing.
David turned to look at me and his face was a mixture of disgust and apprehension. I raised my eyebrows at him in question and he used his head to indicate in the direction of the living room. I heard Alex introducing himself to Annie’s boyfriend and Annie giggled again. Alex came into the kitchen to join David and me.
Using his thumb to point back in the direction of the living room, Alex asked, “What the hell is that?”
David turned to Alex with a scorned look. “That is Annie’s new boyfriend Chris. He’s a 36 year old loser who works at the local flea market as a janitor. He’s not going to be able to work for the next four to six weeks because of his injury and he’s already convinced Annie that she should loan him some money to help with his bills. Annie thinks he’s gorgeous and believes she is in love with him. They’ve know each other for a little over twenty-four hours and he’s convinced her to give him four thousand dollars! Have I done a good job in explaining what that is?”
Alex’s eyebrows shot up a
nd I dropped my face into my palm and groaned. I began shaking my head in silent protest. I looked back up at David and he looked like he was about to explode. I turned to Alex to ask his opinion.
“So, is he a bad looking guy?”
David let out an insulted gasp. “Well, if any man in this room should be judging the beauty contest, it should be me. He’s not a bad looking guy, it’s just that his personality is obnoxious and he is an obvious mooch. Poor Annie is completely smitten with this guy and she has no clue that he’s using her. I mean, what kind of person asks another person to borrow money within twenty-four hours of meeting them?”
I thought that over for a moment and then voiced my guess. “A bank customer?”
Alex laughed and David gave him a pointed glare. “Oh sure, chuckle it up, Chuckles, but while you’re busy finding this amusing, we’ve got a serious problem in there. What are we going to do about this?!”
I crossed my arms over my chest and huffed out a breath. “Unfortunately, Annie is a grown woman. If she wants to give her money to some guy, the only thing we can do is suggest against it. She’s ultimately the one who will make that decision and there’s nothing we can do to prevent her from making that mistake.”
David shot his head towards me. “Nothing you can do? Are you kidding me?! We can lock her in her room, take shifts watching her, deny her outside communication and internet access, and install a two way key lock and not give her the key. There’s plenty we can do. My question is, just how far are we willing to go to keep her from doing this?”
Alex patted David on the back. “How will Annie go to work if we have her locked up?”
David put his finger to his mouth to think about what Alex said and then responded. “I’ll tell them she’s ill. I’ll take over her cases until she comes to her senses and then she can have them back when she gets over this idiot.” He gave Alex a thumbs up. “Good attention to detail.” He turned to me. “Paige you should take some notes from Alex’s good thinking. It might help you out in that career of yours.”
I uncrossed my arms and pushed myself up from the counter. “I guess I need to go in there to see what we are dealing with. Maybe if I can find enough issues with the way he looks I can appeal to Annie’s superficial side.”
David pointed to the living room. “Go.”
I sighed and turned toward the living room. “No problem. I’ll just go in there and take control of this situation.”
I took a few steps towards the room when I heard a low moan and a high pitched sigh.
Ew.
I turned around. “Um, no. I’m not going in there.”
Alex tried to suppress a grin while David acted like he was dry-heaving over the sink; well, at least I think he was acting. I walked back over to where they were standing and hopped up to sit on the counter. “Guess we’ll be here for a while.”
David finished hacking up his hairball, looked up from the sink and stamped his foot. “Oh no, I am not getting stuck in the kitchen while she gets her dirty going on the living room couch!” David marched into the living room and cleared his throat loudly. “Excuse me! Could you two possibly stop licking, and tugging and touching all over the community seating area? There are other people here; although I can understand how it would be difficult to know that with your eyes closed and your tongues shoved down each other’s throats.” David crossed his arms and forcefully nodded his head. “Now have some decorum people and stop pretending like you are horny teenagers in the living room.”
“Get the fuck out of here faggot!”
OH HELL NO! I did not just hear that.
David’s body tensed and his jaw dropped at what Chris had said.
My fists started to clench as Alex and I ran into the living room. Annie started yelling at Chris, finally coming to her senses. As I rounded the corner, I saw Annie pushing Chris away by shoving a pillow in his face. I ran around to stand next to Annie while Alex moved over to stand next to Chris. Annie pulled the pillow from Chris’ face and I gasped.
I was staring at the drunken idiot from the bar.
I looked down to see that the hand that I broke was in a splint. Why didn’t I pick up on that when Annie told me how she met him?! I looked over at David, pointed at Chris’ splint and shouted, “It’s the guy from the club! The one that left with a broken finger!”
David’s eyes widened when he remembered my story about Tomb. I looked over to find that Annie and Alex were clueless because I had never given them the full story of Saturday night. I realized that the fastest approach to dealing with this would be to quickly tell Alex.
“He was one of the pigs from Tomb. He grabbed my ass and I broke his finger trying to pull his hands off of me.”
Alex put Chris into a headlock and started lifting him from the couch.
“What the fuck man! Let go of me!” Chris shot me an evil glare and then pointed in my direction. “That whore was shaking her ass for everyone to see and then broke my finger when I touched her. She was coming on to me and then she went all psycho bitch when I tried to dance with her!”
I’m not sure what shade of red my face must have turned after hearing Chris’s versions of the events from that night at Tomb. I was already absolutely disgusted by what he called David, but then to add those lies? It was apparent that Chris needed a good ass kicking. “Alex, you know me well enough to know that this fucktard is lying through his teeth. Get him out of my sight before I rip his fucking head off.”
Alex nodded and then jerked Chris off the couch and tightened his hold. Chris grunted when Alex intentionally pushed his legs into the coffee table as he turned Chris towards the front door. Alex was yelling at Chris as he walked him out. “Get the fuck OUT of this apartment and don’t you dare show your bigoted face around here again!”
Alex continued to drag Chris to the stairs and I ran out the front door to see where Alex was taking him. Alex walked as far as the stairs and then released Chris, slightly shoving him down the first step. Chris turned in my direction and his face was purple from rage. Veins stuck out of his neck and his nostrils were flared as he screamed at me. “You are going to pay for this bitch! I’m going to fucking kill you for this!”
Alex shoved Chris farther down the stairs and then crossed his arms over his chest while he glared at Chris in challenge. Chris stared Alex down for a couple of seconds and then turned around and stalked down the three flights of stairs. Alex and I waited on the landing until we saw that Chris got in his car and drove away.
Alex and I walked back into the apartment to find a pissed off David attempting to console a crying Annie. We all sat down in the living room waiting for Annie to calm down. Alex was still breathing heavy from having to drag Chris’ large form out to the stairwells and I kept alternating between sitting down and jumping back up to pace the room. Annie calmed down after another ten minutes and David was the first of us to be able to speak.
“Well, that was fun. Annie, you should invite your boyfriends over more often. I rather enjoy being called filthy names in my own home by assholes who like to grope women in bars.”
Annie started bawling again and I glared at David for being insensitive. He shrugged his shoulders at me. “What?! We’ve been warning Annie about these kinds of guys since we’ve met her and she refuses to listen. Maybe it’s time for us to be a little more blunt to drive the message home.”
Annie sniffled loudly and then wiped at the tears falling down her face. “How was I supposed to know that Chris was like that?!” She pointed at David. “Everything was fine until you decided to play penis patrol and yell at us like we were children.”
My jaw dropped. “You have to be kidding us Annie. That guy was a major creep! And what the hell were you thinking agreeing to loan him so much money? I was heading in here to talk some sense into you before David said what he did, and the situation wouldn’t have ended any differently once I saw who you were making out with in our apartment. So stop blaming David! If anything, you should be apologizing for
bringing an ignorant bigot into our home for us to deal with! Seriously Annie, your choice in men is insanely bad and this crap has got to end. Open your freaking eyes once in a while and take a hard look at what you are doing to yourself…”
Alex touched my shoulder to stop me from my tirade. I opened my mouth to continue but closed it again when I realized that Alex was right. Now was not the time for this discussion and we were all exhausted and angry. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Annie, I’m sorry for screaming at you. I know you didn’t know that Chris was like that. Maybe we should all just call it a night and resume this conversation tomorrow.”
David hugged onto Annie and then helped her back to her room. Alex and I were left in the living room staring at each other. We were quiet for a couple of minutes before Alex finally started speaking.
“Why didn’t you tell me about what happened at Tomb Saturday night?”
I shrugged my shoulders and took a moment before answering. “I was tired when I got back that night. I didn’t think it was necessary to give you a play by play when the situation was handled.”
Alex shot me an angry look. “You didn’t think it was necessary?! Paige, that guy threatened to kill you.”
I waved off Alex’s concern. “He threatened to kill me at Tomb too. I’m not worried about it. Chris is obviously in need of psychological help and he’s a loser. I’ve run into plenty of men like him in my life Alex and I’ll run into plenty more. It’s not worth recanting the tales every time something like that happens.”
Alex moved from the chair he was sitting in to sit by me on the couch. “Paige, trust me when I tell you, I know that you have a special gift for pissing people off. But you have got to start telling people when things like that happen. What if that guy had followed you home from the club? He could have seriously hurt you, or worse.”