“Fucked up,” he muttered.
“What?” I whispered and he watched my mouth move which was uncomfortable but considering the fact I was whispering in a club, if he didn’t lip read, he’d have no idea what I said.
He leaned in and repeated, “I fucked up.” Then he went on, “With you. That scene. Fucked up.”
Yeah he did.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said back, this time louder so he could hear me. “Let’s just have this drink then I’ll, uh… go and, uh… check on things.”
His eyes held mine and I noticed the anger had leaked out of his. “What’s it take with you?”
I felt my eyebrows draw together. “Pardon?”
He leaned further in and I tried not to lean back because he seemed not to be angry anymore but I didn’t want to test it.
“What’s it take with you? Dinner?” he asked.
Oh God, please, do not ask me out. Please, please, please.
I was considering the option of informing him I was a lipstick lesbian, concerned about the fact this might turn him on more, when I felt it.
That swell of frightening, searing, vibrating heat.
I knew the feel of that so I knew he was coming.
Nick did too because his body jerked, his head whipped around and mine did as well, to see Knight stalking up to us, face a mask of unadulterated fury, eyes on his brother.
He stopped in front of Nick, chin tipped down, eyes scorching and I froze.
“Knight –” Nick started.
“You put your hands on a woman in my club?” Knight asked, his voice vibrating with that same heat he was radiating.
I debated the merits of inching away when Nick started again, “Knight –”
That was all he got out because suddenly, Nick wasn’t sitting next to me. Suddenly, Nick was out of his seat and flying across the dais. He slammed into the back of a couple of guys and some girls who all went down with him.
I jumped from the seat.
Knight’s head snapped around so his eyes could pin me to the spot which they absolutely did.
“Do not move,” he growled.
I stopped moving.
He looked back at Nick and so did I to see him getting up, three bouncers closing in, the people he took down with him also slowly coming to their feet and Nick’s entire VIP dais posse beating a hasty retreat.
“Lesson,” Knight clipped to one of the bouncers, the bouncer nodded and put hands on a now pale-faced Nick and instantly dragged him to the steps as another of the bouncers followed. Knight kept talking. “Find Anya’s friends. They don’t have a car, escort them home. They do, escort them to their car. And VIP vouchers. Now.”
Wow, that was nice. VIP vouchers at Slade. Everyone knew what that meant. Your own dais for you and your friends, your own cocktail waitress, your own bouncer and if you carried the voucher card, you drank for free.
I was thinking this therefore when Knight’s hand closed around mine hard, scrunching my fingers together somewhat painfully, it came as a shock.
I had no time to respond to this mostly because now I was being dragged to the steps. He didn’t release the pressure on my hand and I was working hard not to fall as well as keep up with him, so I didn’t make a peep as he prowled down the steps with me in tow. Then he prowled through the crowd around the dais, shoving them aside without hesitation. Then he prowled to the back of the club toward a door. A bouncer standing beside it opened it before we arrived and I saw it led to some lit stairs. Then we were through it and I was climbing the stairs, clamoring after a very swiftly moving Knight.
“Knight!” I snapped. “Slow down! I can’t keep up.”
Mistake. He jerked my hand as he turned and I started falling. He caught me, swinging me up in his arms as I cried out in shock and grabbed on like I did the night he carried me over the coats. Then we were up the stairs, he dipped down, opened a door and walked through. Then he slammed me down on my feet, hard, the movement jarring me and he closed the door. The music that was muted when we walked into the stairs disappeared completely when the door closed and I found myself facing down a seriously angry, seriously terrifying Knight Sebring in a private office to the strains of what sounded to my uncultured ears like Beethoven.
“What… the fuck… is the matter with you?” he asked slowly, his voice still vibrating, the fury still radiating and I blinked.
What?
I didn’t do anything.
And I thought he should know that and not mistake it.
So I yelled it, leaning toward him and everything.
“I didn’t do anything!”
He came at me, fast. I retreated, not as fast. I hit something, went into freefall and my bottom landed sideways in a chair, back to a cushioned armrest, legs over the other one. Knight leaned over me, one hand to the top back of the chair, one hand in the seat beside me, face an inch from mine.
God, God, God, he was scaring the hell out of me.
Why was he angry? At me!
“You put on that dress, didn’t you?” he whispered and it was sinister.
“What?” I whispered back.
“You… do not… leave your house… dressed like that… without being on the arm of a man like me,” he ground out on a terrifying staccato with scary pauses.
“A man like you?” I whispered.
“A man who’d shoot another man in the face he even looked at you. Yeah, Anya, a man… like… me.”
He meant that. He meant that. Every word. God, he meant every word of that.
“Knight, you’re scaring me.”
Yep, still whispering.
“Good,” he bit out, his eyes moved over my face for a while then he growled, “Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck… me.”
What now?
No, no. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want VIP vouchers either even though I could possibly sell them on the internet for half the cost of opening up a mountain retreat spa.
I just wanted to go.
Now.
“Can you move up so I can get up and get out of here?” I requested cautiously.
“Tomorrow, I’m giving you breakfast. I’ll pick you up at nine.”
I blinked.
Then, yes still whispering, “Pardon?”
“You heard me.”
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“Bullshit. Nine. You say no again I’m givin’ you breakfast anyway but only because tonight, all night, until morning, you’re tied to my bed.”
There it was. The whole body shiver I wasn’t sure was good, as in very, very good or bad as in very, very bad.
“Knight,” I breathed.
“Nine.”
“I have a client at eleven,” I blurted and his head jerked as his brows shot together.
“A client?”
“Acrylics. Um… fake nails. Standing appointment every two weeks. Her name is Shirley,” I explained though went overboard on the information because I was freaking out.
He stared at me and I felt my entire body heat from the infuriated blaze coming from his eyes.
Then he said, “Lunch, one.”
Oh God.
“Knight –” I repeated.
“Lunch, Anya, one. You come to me. My place. I don’t get a call up at one, the boys find you and bring you to me.”
He meant that too. God, he meant every word.
“You’re scaring me,” I told him quietly and honestly.
“Good, then you’ll do what the fuck I say,” he bit back. “Now, I’m gonna go, send up a drink and you’re gonna drink it while you wait for me to find a man I trust to take you out back so no man’s eyes are on you as you walk through my club. He’s gonna put your ass in a car and take you home. He’s walkin’ you to your door. He’s also doin’ a walkthrough of your place. You give him shit, he’ll tell me and I’ll punish you. Are you with me?”
“Not really,” I whispered.
“You will be,” he whispered back, pushed off and stalked to the door.
By the time he got there, I’d pushed myself up in the chair but had not been able to scramble out of it before he pinned me to the spot with his eyes.
“That dress, babe, you wear it again, it’s only for me.”
Then he disappeared through the door, I heard it lock from the other side and he was gone.
Chapter Five
Wars Fought Over a Face Like This
Call me crazy, heck, even I thought I was crazy, but the next day, at quarter ‘til one, I was in my car heading to Knight’s high-rise.
I did not call the police.
No, not me.
But I did call Vivica and Sandrine and gave them the lowdown because, if I disappeared, I figured someone should know where to begin to search for my body.
Last night, shortly after Knight left, a waitress came in accompanied by a bouncer who was there, I knew, so I wouldn’t try to escape.
I tried ordering a sparkling water again hoping that if Knight got that pissed that Nick put his hands on Sandrine, he wouldn’t order a bouncer to wail on me for ordering water.
He didn’t. They retreated and in order to attempt to calm my terror, I looked around.
The walls were a rich, warm red, not blood, bordering on wine. A huge, dark wood desk covered in stuff. Knight worked, that was obvious. Laptop, multi-line phone, papers and folders strewn, two (that I could see) expensive-looking pens lying on top of papers, big manila envelopes, etc. There was a high-back black, swish-looking swivel chair behind the desk, in front of it, two supple, burgundy leather chairs. There was a matching sofa against the wall, in front of it a dark wood coffee table. In a corner, another dark wood table, this round with five, burgundy leather chairs surrounding it. A long, low chest against the wall opposite the couch, on it were bottles of booze. No fancy decanters. Just a bottle of Jack Daniels, one of Grey Goose, one of Tanqueray, one of Patron tequila. A variety of heavy, cut, crystal glasses. Down from the booze and glasses, a smooth piece of warm-colored wood intricately, artistically and interestingly carved into the shape of a voluptuous female’s torso from neck to top thigh, arms wound behind her back, the wood and curves of her figure all waves, undulating with the grain. It was fantastic though I didn’t want it to be because that would say Knight had good taste (or even better than I already expected) and I didn’t want to think anything good about him.
But there was further proof of it in the prints on the wall. Enormous panoramas of black framed, cream matted, black and white shots of Denver skylines.
There was a credenza behind Knight’s desk also covered with work detritus. On one side there were two narrow cases with glass fronts that held a whopping huge collection of CDs. Mounted on the wall was a slim but tall CD player that held ten CDs. It was a work of art, I’d seen it on the website of where he bought me my phone and although I didn’t check the price, I knew it had to cost way more than my phone. To top that, there were awesome speakers set on curved wood stands in each corner of the room.
After I was served my water, I sipped it and waited. I did this as I stared at the heaving club through the big, what I knew was one-way window that started at my waist and took nearly the rest of the wall. And I did this watching the dancing bodies, the lights, the flirting, the laughing all bizarrely incongruous as the strains of soothing classical music drifted around me.
I would not guess Knight was a classical man. I would guess he was an unbelievably good-looking psychopath but not one who listened to Beethoven (or whoever).
But there it was.
I had about ten minutes to sip my water before I was whisked away by a bouncer who didn’t introduce himself, didn’t speak and looked somewhat like the Incredible Hulk but without green skin. But even though I didn’t know his name, he walked me up to my apartment, walked through it then, luckily, walked out of it.
I did not dream of Knight last night mostly because I did not sleep a wink.
What I did do was get up, prepare carefully for my confrontation with him, call my friends to share my story and organize my stuff to take my client.
Incidentally, neither Vivica nor Sandrine were hip on me confronting Knight Sebring on my own. Vivica because she was smart enough to be terrified and equally smart enough to do the right thing, like call the cops. Sandrine because she had a taste of the Sebrings last night, she didn’t like it much, it pierced the Daddy’s Little Princess fortress she wandered through life behind and she was terrified for me. I was pleased this fortress was pierced and hoping that maybe she’d wake up a bit but I was absolutely not pleased by how this happened.
We would see.
Now I was wearing my best pair of jeans. And also my best pair of high-heeled, brown boots (yes, crazy, but I wanted height and the toe was pointed so if I had to kick him in the shin, that would sting). I paired this with my best sweater, cashmere, a pale pink, another secondhand store purchase. It had a super-low dip in the back. But I covered up the expanse of skin it would show with a creamy, pointelle racerback tank. Sure, you could see my pink bra straps and often the sweater drooped off a shoulder but I also had on my smart, blazer-style brown leather jacket (bought two seasons out at a discount designer warehouse at the outlet stores in Castle Rock). I didn’t intend to take off the blazer so the sweater didn’t matter anyway.
Smoothed out hair. Enough makeup to hide I had no sleep but subtle. A spritz of perfume mostly out of habit. Silver hoops in my ears also mostly out of habit. And the rest, just me.
Unfortunately, the only parking spot I could find was around the corner and half a block up from his place. This meant, after I fed the meter enough to give me fifteen minutes wondering why in this ‘hood they didn’t give Sundays free, when I hit the lobby of his place to see the doorman worked Sundays, I was seven minutes late.
If Knight was livid, screw him.
This was going to stop, now. Both him and his brother. And I was going to make that point. Personally.
If it didn’t, the next stop, the police.
“Miss Gage,” the doorman greeted, smiling at me, freaking me out that he knew my last name and picking up the phone, “Mr. Sebring said you’d be arriving. I’ll ring up.”
Then before I could say word one, he had the phone to his ear.
I took in a breath, smiled back because he wasn’t a jerk, just one – no, two – of his tenants were and I settled in to wait, mentally girding for battle.
Then he put the phone in the receiver, smiled again and invited, “Mr. Sebring says to go right up.”
Apparently, after he exposes the full psychopath, he forgets how to be a gentleman.
Whatever.
I tossed another smile at the doorman then stomped to the elevators trying not to look like I was stomping. Though, I did stub my finger with the strength I used to jab the elevator button.
Doors to one of the two sets opened, I walked in and they closed on me.
And as they did, where I was, the confrontation imminent, belatedly, I considered this might not be the best idea.
Before I could rethink, the doors opened and I was nearly bowled over by two men wearing navy pants, matching navy shirts and carrying boxes.
“God! Sorry!” one of them exclaimed.
Movers. On a Sunday. Weird.
“No problems,” I muttered, skirted them, sucked in breath and headed to Knight’s door.
Right, go in, say what I had to say and get out.
When I got there, the door was wedged open with a triangle of wood.
There was music coming from inside, it was soft, it was also classical, it was all piano and I didn’t even have a guess as to what it was.
I reached in, knocked on the door and called, “Knight?”
“Kitchen,” I heard his deep voice call back.
Yep, psychopath out, gentleman gone.
I walked down the hall and nearly bumped into two more men in navy pants and matching shirts who were carrying a mattress.
Was it Knight who was moving?
“
Sorry, sorry,” I muttered, squeezing back against the wall to the kitchen and sucking in my stomach (like this would help, still, I did it) as they lumbered by me.
They passed. I righted myself, saw the living room in all its grandeur without bodies, empties and ashtrays and decided it sucked he wasn’t awesome and into me but psychotic and into me and turned the corner to the kitchen.
Then I stopped and stared.
No suit. Black tee, worn, fitting him way, way, way too well across the muscles of his back with, from what I could see with just his torso partially twisted to me, a faded out Metallica insignia. Faded jeans that also fit him way, way, way too well and since I had his back I could see his ass in them so I knew this for certain. Bare feet. Thick, black hair now definitely needing a cut, tousled and messy. Hands engaged in unwrapping something in white butcher paper. Face expressionless but no less gorgeous. Vibrant blue eyes on me.
Holy crap.
Metallica?
“Babe, come here.”
An order.
I instantly jolted out of my Knight’s a hot guy reverie.
Jerk!
I didn’t go there.
Instead, I asked, “Are you moving?”
“Fuck no,” he answered. “Kickin’ Nick out. You’re late. Come here.”
I crossed my arms on my chest. “Actually, no. I don’t have time to go there. I’ve only got fifteen minutes on the meter but it won’t take that long to say what I have to say to you.”
His eyes never left me as I spoke and they stayed on me when I was done. They did this a while. Then they stayed on me as he moved to the phone, pulled it out of its charger, hit a button and put it to his ear.
“Spin? Yeah, Knight. Listen, there’s a blue Corolla parked somewhere on the street, rosary beads and St. Christopher medallion hanging from the rearview. Meter’s gonna run out. Feed it. I’ll get the keys to you to move it into the garage in ten, maybe fifteen. Yeah?” Pause then, “Great. Later.”
Then he put the phone down and went back to his butcher wrapped meat.
I stared.
Knight looked down at meat, declaring, “Shit car, babe. Gotta get you something decent.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my car,” I snapped.