Really, Vivica was right. Sandrine was living in a fantasy world. She’d had a Daddy who treated her like she was precious, told her she was beyond beautiful and spoiled her rotten. Then she’d had a high school boyfriend who did the same. Then in college, another boyfriend, the same. From birth to twenty-two, she’d had the golden life gliding on her beauty and feminine wiles. She hadn’t cottoned onto the fact that, after leaving college five years ago, she’d entered the jungle. And further, the particular jungle she chose to hunt in had bigger, more ferocious predators even after a number of them had already chewed her up and spit her out.
With no choice, I called a soft, “Goodnight,” and turned away.
I received no farewells.
I didn’t look back.
I headed to my coat and luckily I had something to do while I did it so I didn’t have to feel the eyes on me or see the looks. As I wended my way through bodies and muttered vague, “excuse me’s”, I was pulling my little (cheap but cute) purse open to pull out my cell.
By the time I got to the mouth of the hall, I had it out.
The apartment was strange. I thought this because it was huge. I’d never been in an apartment that large before. I didn’t even know they came that large. But it also had a bizarre layout.
Bizarre or not, it was cool and even if it wasn’t my thing and it didn’t look all that great now stuffed full of bodies and the detritus of a party, I couldn’t say it wasn’t stunning. It was.
You walked into a wide hall at the side of which one wall had two doors (closed) the other was just a wall that delineated the hall from the kitchen. This hall led to the living room which was mostly sunken, three steps down to the seating area. But around its perimeter was an elevated, wide, dark wood-floored area and two sides of the living room were surrounded by floor to ceiling windows.
Another hall led off this just as you hit the living room area. It was L-shaped. This had two doors down one side, one at the end and then you turned down the L and another door at the end of that hall.
Nick’s gorgeous bedroom. Where my coat was.
I wandered down the hall toward my coat, head bent, activating my phone. I got to the bend in the L when my phone went blank in my hand and my feet stopped as I stared at it.
“Crap,” I whispered, hitting the on button to no avail. I tried again. No go again. “Crap,” I repeated my whisper.
I needed a new phone. I knew this. I was saving for it and was only two paychecks away from buying it. My phone lost its charge in an hour and had been doing so for the last month and a half. My next phone was going to be a good one, not a cheapie. This was not because I wanted to keep up with the gadgets. This was because I’d been through three cheap phones in as many years and I felt this investment was sound. If I had a phone that cost three times as much as the ones I’d been buying but lasted for three years with zero headaches, I’d be ahead of the game.
I looked to the end of the hall where Nick’s bedroom was and was about to start walking again but my body froze solid.
This was because on the floor in the hall was a huge pile of coats.
I stared, shocked. I, myself, had put my coat on a pile on Nick’s bed. Now they were on the floor in the hall.
I looked from the coats to the end of the hall.
The bedroom door was open, the lights on and blazing, unlike before when I put my coat there and the lights were dim, romantic. An indication of a promise of what was to come for the girl who would be lucky enough (gag) to join Nick there later.
Jeez, some drunk idiot tossed all the coats in the hall. I hadn’t seen anyone acting like an idiot but there were people who were careening beyond inebriated to sloshed. This happened at an open bar where the booze was plentiful and flowed freely seeing as it was free.
I pulled in breath and walked to the coats. Doing a knees closed squat, I held my cell and purse in one hand and pawed through the coats with my other one. Finding mine, I yanked it out and straightened. I did this with my eyes aimed down the hall but unfocused. Then they focused when I spied the shiny silver, thin, curving, unbelievably cool cordless phone in a black dome base sitting on the nightstand in the bedroom.
That phone was the means to a taxi. One without having to ask someone in the living room if I could use their phone, interrupting Sandrine and Nick again or hoofing it on the sidewalk in hopes I’d find a payphone then standing outside in the cold to wait.
Excellent.
I carefully skirted the coats, having to step on some as it was impossible to move around them without doing this, and walked into the bedroom to the phone. I didn’t look around even though I wanted to take a closer look. I wanted more to get the heck out of there.
I picked up the phone from its base thinking the same thing I thought the first time I walked into that room. The room smelled odd. An attractive blend of some heady masculine aftershave or cologne and cigarette smoke. Yes, cigarette smoke. But it blended strangely well together making the room seem wicked but in a good way. Now, the cigarette smoke was the stronger of the two when before it was the aftershave/cologne smell and this was less attractive but more wicked.
I thanked the powers that be that taxis, something I rarely took because I could rarely afford them, had their numbers emblazoned on all their cars and had dialed in the four and one of the four, one, two, four, one, two, four number when I heard a low, smooth, very deep, definitely annoyed man’s voice asking, “What the fuck?”
My head swiveled and I froze in mid-dial.
The tall man with dark, disheveled, longish hair and freakishly masculine, markedly attractive features was standing in one of the two sets the arched French doors that led to the balcony across the room. He was smoking, he’d lost his overcoat and I saw he was wearing a deep lilac, slim-fit tailored shirt that showed he not only was tall but broad, lean and had a torso unmistakably packed with power,
Oh, and he was pissed.
Oh my.
And.
Oh crap.
“Uh…” I mumbled then mumbled no more as he swiftly knifed sideways, clearly to stub out his cigarette then his angry, dark gaze sliced back to me as his long legs started bringing him to me.
Crap!
“You got a cell in your hand,” he informed me. “You need to hit my room and my phone?” he asked.
Yes.
Pissed.
“Uh…”
He was moving across the room so I again shut up.
This room, too, had a sunken level. The large bed was on the normal level and it was covered with a black satin comforter (yes, satin) with black satin cases on the pillows (satin!) which meant satin sheets. The black lacquered headboard was very tall, as tall as me. The footboard was at least half a person high. The head of the bed was flanked with two black lacquered nightstands that were elegantly shaped and topped with lamps with slim, glossy black bottoms and wide but squat ivory shades. The bed was sitting on an ivory rug that had a slender black border edged in a thicker ivory.
The same rug was in the sunken area that also held an ivory, sweep-lined couch tumbled with black toss pillows and an equally sweep-lined black armchair with ivory toss pillows that had a matching ottoman. There was also an oval, black lacquered coffee table down there and tall, now illuminated floor lamps flanking the couch that coordinated with the lamps on the nightstands.
Up three steps was another area with a matching but narrow rug that looked made to fit the space. On either end were identical, tall, black lacquered chests of drawers topped with bigger lamps with wider bases but like the floor lamps they somewhat matched the ones on the nightstands.
All the lights were turned on including the three overhead ones which had stunning arrays of pinned but dangling crystals covering them.
And last, there were three doors along the wall. Two closed. One opened though not lit but I could still see it was a bathroom.
I took all this in distractedly because he was making his way to me and I was paralyzed.
> He was moving up the steps closest to me as he called, his eyes slightly narrowing, “Hello? Are you breathing?”
“I thought this was Nick’s room,” I blurted and he stopped suddenly by the footboard of the bed.
“It’s not,” he ground out.
Yep. Totally. Pissed.
And yep.
Totally.
Scary.
Terrifying.
Utterly.
“I need to go home,” I whispered. “I came in a taxi and I need to call one to take me home. My cell, it’s acting up. It doesn’t hold a charge for more than an hour. It’s dead. I should have known. I didn’t think. But I came here with my girlfriend so I guess I thought she could call. She’s staying though. And I put my coat in here and I thought it was Nick’s room seeing as he told us to put our coats in here. I just thought I’d use your phone real quick and get a taxi. I’m so sorry. I had no idea this wasn’t Nick’s room and I was intruding. Truly. I’m very sorry.”
I stopped talking and he stared at me.
It was then I saw his eyes were blue. A strange, startling, dark, vibrant, Prussian blue.
And they were beautiful, the color, the shape, the long, curving lashes.
My breath stuck in my throat.
Then his eyes dropped but not to my breasts, my hips or my legs.
To my arm which was attached to my hand that was clutching my purse, my cell and had my coat draped over it.
Then they cut back to my face.
Then in his smooth, deep voice, he declared, “I’ll take you home.”
I blinked.
He moved.
I braced but before I could do a thing about it or say a word, he slid his phone from my fingers, leaned deep into me and I smelled that the aftershave or cologne was his.
I was right. It was attractive. So attractive all I could do was stand still and take in that glorious scent.
He put the phone in its charger then leaned back and took my coat from my arm.
At that, I came out of my freeze.
“Um… I don’t –” I started but clamped my mouth shut when his fingers curled around my upper arm and suddenly I found my body turned so my back was to him.
“Arm,” he ordered and I twisted my neck to look at him at the same time I tried to force myself to breathe.
“What?” I whispered.
He was standing behind me with my coat held up for me to slide into.
“Arm,” he repeated, sounding a lot less patient and considering he didn’t sound patient at all before, this was even more terrifying.
“I think –” I started but said no more when his hand shot out, grabbed my wrist and pulled it back. It wasn’t rough, it didn’t hurt but I was shocked all the same.
Then he dipped my coat and slid it up my arm.
“Other arm,” he commanded and, without delay, I awkwardly switched my purse and cell to my other hand and reached behind me to find the sleeve of my coat.
In no time I felt his hands settling it on my shoulders then one moved, wrapped around my bicep and suddenly I was facing him. Then I was moving with him to the door, his hand still on my arm.
I struggled but I found my voice.
“I’m really okay with a taxi,” I told him as he pulled me out of the room, slightly tugged my arm and brought me to a stop.
Totally ignoring me, he curved his torso around the door, did something around the knob, then came out, his hand going the other way and then the lights were extinguished making the room go black. Then he closed the door, locked it, pocketed the key and turned us to the hall.
He did all of this with his hand still holding my arm.
It was at this point I realized my heart was racing and I was finding it difficult to breathe.
Then I stopped breathing altogether when he shifted quickly, bending into me. I had time enough to sway an inch away from him before I was up in his arms.
My legs flying through the air, reflexively, I slid one arm around his hard-muscled shoulders, the other one swinging out in front of him to grab my hand at his neck and hold on as he strode over the coats, walking right on the pile.
Holy crap!
Once free of the coats, he bent and dropped me to my feet. It again wasn’t rough but it wasn’t gentle and my body jolted when my feet hit floor. I had no time to recover, not from being on my feet again, not even from being off them, not from the easy way he swung me into his arms like I weighed as much as a body pillow.
Not from any of it.
Not before his fingers curled around my upper arm again and he propelled me down the hall and around the bend in it.
Okay, I had to get control of this situation and do it now.
I opened my mouth to do just that at the same time I was about to tug my arm from his hold when he stopped abruptly, stopping me with him. Then his head slightly cocked. His angry, blue eyes cut to me and I forgot I had to get control of the situation and do it now. I forgot everything.
Then for some reason he adjusted me, not gently, not cruelly but definitely firmly to the side of one of the doors in the hall.
He let me go and without knocking, he opened the door but where I was situated, I couldn’t see inside.
I heard a woman’s horrified gasp and a man starting, “What the –?”
“I gotta take someone home,” my unwelcome ride told the couple. “You got that time to turn off the fuckin’ music, empty this fuckin’ place of bodies and clean up as much as you can. She wants to finish that ride you’re meanin’ to give her, she helps you clear out this place. She doesn’t help, get her ass outta here too. You don’t want me to come home to see you not takin’ me seriously and I hope you get me ‘cause I’m not fuckin’ with you, Nick, and I am not happy.”
Then he stepped out, closed the door, grabbed my arm again and pulled me down the hall.
My first thought was that he’d just walked in on Sandrine and Nick.
My second thought was obviously Nick had a less spectacular room.
My third thought was that he’d positioned me to the side of the door. I found this surprising and intriguing because he’d heard them in there. They couldn’t have gotten far but they definitely were moving things on. Still, he’d shielded me from whatever was behind that closed door and I didn’t know what to make of it.
We’d rounded the other hall on our way to the front door when I cleared these thoughts and came back to the matter at hand.
“Um… listen, uh…” Damn! “Um, I don’t know your name but –”
“Knight,” he stated, cutting me off.
“Right, Mr. Knight –”
“No, Knight,” he interrupted me again then stopped me by one of the doors in the hall, let me go and opened the door.
“That’s what I said, Knight,” I told him. “Now, Mr. Knight –”
He came out of that door with his overcoat and turned his eyes to me.
I interrupted myself then when they hit me and I clamped my mouth closed.
“No, not Mr. Knight. Knight. My name is Knight.”
I stared up at him as he shrugged on his overcoat and then asked, “Your Christian name is Knight?”
“If that means first name, yeah,” he answered, grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall to the front door.
As he did, curious at this information even though I should be seeing to other business, I asked, “With a ‘K’?”
He looked down at me as he opened the door, “Yeah, babe, with a ‘K’.”
Then he pulled me out the door.
“That’s an unusual name,” I muttered.
“Yeah,” he agreed, dragging me down the luxuriant hall toward the elevators.
“I kind of like it,” I blurted because I did but after I blurted that I kind of wished I didn’t.
“I can die happy,” he murmured.
I pulled in breath at his murmured, mild sarcasm which was kind of funny instead of being rude and this man did not strike me as a guy who could be funny, ki
nd of or otherwise.
He pulled me to a stop at the elevator and I watched him lean in and tag the button. This was when I saw he had hands that matched his body. Attractive. Long fingers. Well-veined. They weren’t professionally manicured but his nails were well-kept even if his hands looked like the hands of a man who didn’t have a lavish bedroom in an opulent apartment and wore expensive shoes, tailored shirts in a color that suited him so well a stylist had to pick them for him and pricey overcoats.
Time to stop thinking about his hands and sort this.
“Knight, I appreciate the offer, really. Thank you but truly, I can get a taxi home.”
“Yeah, you can but you aren’t.”
“I –”
His eyes sliced to me and I braced.
“Listen, babe, I take you home I’m doin’ something. Something that requires my attention. Like driving, getting a woman home safe then driving back here. This will give me time maybe to calm down. And this will take my mind off the fact I wanna rip Nick’s dick off, shove it up his ass and send that motherfucker over my balcony.”
Without my brain telling them to do so, I yanked my arm free of his hold, my feet took me one step away from him and my hand came up to press against the gleaming, wood-paneled wall by the elevator as I stared up at him.
I didn’t know if he meant this. I didn’t think he did. It would be bad form to toss your roommate over a balcony even if he did have a party you obviously weren’t invited to that happened to occur in your own home. Not to mention, it was highly illegal.
I did know he was angry.
And last I knew he didn’t mind sharing that and just how angry he was and doing it to a woman he did not know in any way. He’d dragged me through an apartment, didn’t let me finish hardly any sentences and picked me up to carry me over a pile of coats that he obviously threw in the hallway.
I had my hand on the wall because my legs were shaking and I needed it there to help hold me up. And my legs were shaking because I remembered he terrified me. And there was reason. He was terrifying.
As I stood there wondering if I should scream at the top of my lungs or turn on my cheap (but cute) high-heeled sandal and run as fast as I could, something happened.