Dark Xanadu (2 page)

It had been two years, not since before Edward had died in a ski accident. She hadn’t closed herself off to the possibility, but she hadn’t found anyone who was quite right. “If they were perfect, they wouldn’t be men, now would they?” Monica had asked. Maybe her friends were right. Maybe she needed to work out some of that sexual tension.

“You’ll know him when you see him,” Stacy had said with a giggle. Angela scanned the crowd on the dance floor, but no one stood out among the sweaty, writhing bodies. She looked over the tables—all couples or larger groups. Finally she headed to the bar. Maybe the whole plan for the evening would seem better after a cocktail. Lose a few of her inhibitions and maybe she’d be ready to have a go with the man who supposedly had a monster cock and knew all about how to use it.

She blinked. The guy who sat at the bar stood out all right. He was older than the others, probably in his late thirties or early forties. He was built, too, his muscles straining a black T-shirt and leather jeans. Maybe this idea wasn’t so bad after all.

She sat on the stool next to him. “Hi. I’m Angela.”

He smiled at her, but the first part of his response was lost in the noise from the speakers. “Pleased to meet you,” came through well enough. She shifted closer, so that they could actually have a conversation. She’d asked about Morgan’s personality, but Stacy and Monica had changed the subject. In any case, he certainly had a winning smile.

“Pleased to meet you, too. Been waiting long?”

He chuckled. “An hour, actually.”

She glanced at her watch, even though she knew she wasn’t that late. She wasn’t late at all; the watch read eight o’clock on the dot. Maybe Stacy hadn’t communicated the time to one of them correctly. She was glad he’d waited.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “You look a little out of place here.”

She smiled. “So do you.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t have chosen this place for a meeting. Too noisy, for one thing.”

Angela took a deep breath. If she was going to do this, she might as well get on with it. She had to admit this man had her pulse racing and her skin tingling, and she hadn’t expected any of that from talking to Stacy and Monica. But still, to have a man for just one night—if he was worth having, she’d have heartbreak over it, and if he wasn’t, what was the point? But she wasn’t going to let go of him now. “Shall we go someplace else?” Angela asked.

Again his eyebrows went up.

So simple. So pointless, said a dissenting voice inside her head. She pushed it aside and nodded. She still wasn’t sure what she was going to do, if the moment came to actually “do it,” but she’d cross that bridge later. Right now she wanted out of the noisy college hangout scene.

His lips were moving. He was talking. “You know, you’re way—”

“Hey babe,” said another male voice. She turned to see who was talking.

The man who stood in front of her was blond, his tousled hair artfully messed up. He was a little on the short side, pale, slightly pudgy, and he wore tight black jeans and a T-shirt that read, simply,
12 inches. What else matters?

She stared at him for a moment.

“I’m Morgan,” he explained. “You must be Angela. C’mon.”

She glanced back at the man who sat with her at the bar. So he wasn’t Morgan at all. He hadn’t been waiting an hour for her, so he was probably waiting for someone else. Shit.

There was no way the self she knew was going anywhere with Morgan. Good God. She looked back and forth between the two men; the one she wanted to get to know better, the other one she was supposed to be waiting for. She had a gift for words when it came to writing advertising copy, but that didn’t mean she could come up with the right ones for awkward social situations. Somehow, she was rising out of her seat, as if her body had decided to follow Morgan without her heart’s or her mind’s assent.

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” said the man at the bar. “Her name is Victoria, and she’s with me. I think you’d better move along.”

She felt something crackle in the air between the two men, and her briefly foggy mind cleared. She sat back down.

Morgan blinked three times, and then shrugged. “Okay. Sorry, man. She looks a lot like a girl I was supposed to meet—some girl who’s really uptight about sex. I thought she was pretending she didn’t know who I was for a moment there.”

A moment later, he’d disappeared into the crowd on the dance floor. Until he’d called her uptight she was going to feel guilty about leaving him to spend the rest of the night looking for a girl named Angela, but now she grinned. “Thanks for the save.”

“No problem. You look like you needed it. My name’s Kent, by the way. Just moved out here from L.A.”

“Good to meet you. I didn’t catch your name the first time, and I assumed—”

“That was the stranger you were supposed to meet?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t going to sleep with him, anyway, but I’d agreed to meet him, at least. He doesn’t even know me. And I’m
not
uptight about sex.”

“Good to know.” Kent smiled, amused but not mocking.

The music blasted from the speakers again, and Angela made a megaphone of her hands, but he simply raised his voice. “We were going to go someplace quieter.” He got up.

She followed him until they were out on the sidewalk. At eight, it had turned dark, but the street had plenty of foot traffic due to the nearby University of Maryland. Still, at least the music wasn’t blaring and the hubbub was at bearable levels. It felt so good to breathe in the relatively fresh spring air after the cheap beer and sweat laden stuffiness of the dance club.

“So you were waiting for someone?” Angela asked.

“Yeah. I guess she forgot.”

It was hard to imagine that a man who looked like Kent got stood up very often. “Bummer.”

He shrugged. “She was recommended by a friend of mine, but I need people who are going to show up.”

“Need people for what?” She’d thought he was waiting for a date, but it didn’t sound like it.

He paused a moment before answering. “A bartender for my club. She wanted to meet in a public place, which was fine.”

“Your club? Like a nightclub?”

“Sort of. With private memberships. That was what I meant by taking you back to my place, but you’re certainly welcome to back out. It’s not open yet, and if there’s anyone there, it’s a couple my friends working on some of the fixtures. You really don’t want to make a habit of going places alone with strange men.”

His gaze held hers for a moment. That was good, sensible advice. Heck, even fucking Morgan would have been safer, since her friends knew where she’d be and knew who he was. She didn’t want to back down, but she knew she should.

“Call a friend,” he told her. “Let her know where you are.” He pulled out his wallet, and handed her a California driver’s license. The picture matched him; even a driver’s license mug shot couldn’t make him look bad.
Kent Allard Carlisle
, read the license.

“Where are we going, though?”

He handed her another card. It was red, with black print. On the left was the silhouette of a domino mask, tilted at a forty-five degree angle, with purple ribbons dangling from it.
Dark Xanadu
, the card read,
For adventurous adults
. There was a Beltsville address.

She tried to think about whom to call. The usual suspects were out—they’d been the ones to set her up with Morgan in the first place. Dee hadn’t been involved in that, but Dee would be horrified that she was going out with a man she’d just met. Her mother was out for the same reason.

“Tell them you’ll call them again in an hour, and to call the police if you don’t,” he told her. Her eyes must have given away how startled she was at the mention of the police, because he added. “I’ll keep you safe. But you don’t know that. Having a friend ready to call the police doesn’t mean that you’re in danger—it means you’re taking the precautions you need to
stay
safe.”

She nodded slowly. She’d call her younger sister, Valerie. She hadn’t thought of her at first, because Valerie lived up in Massachusetts, but Valerie wouldn’t freak out. She hoped. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed, her other hand still holding the two cards. It was a little cold still, not cold enough to wear a jacket if she was spending most of her time inside, but too cold to stand out for long without one. Her black dress left her lower legs and her shoulders bare. It would be even colder in Massachusetts.
Come on, Valerie, pick up the phone.

“
Hello?”

“
Val, it’s me, Angela.”

“Hey, sis! How’re you doing?”

“Fine, I think.” It was definitely too cold to be standing outside with her shoulders bare. She had a coat in her car. “I called to ask a favor.”

Valerie chuckled. “Well, that’s a switch, anyway. What is it?”

“I’ve met this man, and he’s opening a club, and I’m going to go see it. The thing is, I don’t really know him, and the nightclub isn’t open yet, so…”

“Is he good looking?”

“Oh, yeah.” Angela gave Valerie a description, trying to ignore the fact that Kent could hear her half of the phone conversation. Still, safety was the point of calling, and she’d be safer if Val had a description to give to the police. Heck, she was safer if Kent
knew
she had given a description. She finished with the address of the club, and Kent’s name. She didn’t figure the California address from his license would be that helpful.

“So what’s the favor?”

“If I don’t call back in an hour—9:15—call the police and tell them I’m missing.”

There was silence on the other end. “Okay, Angela,” Valerie said at last. “Do you have reason to believe this guy is trouble? Because if you do, I don’t want you going off with him at all.”

“None at all,” Angela assured her sister. “I hardly know him. You’re not going to believe this, but I picked him up in a bar.”

Valerie laughed. “You’re right, I don’t believe it. But I can barely wrap my head around the idea that he might have picked
you
up in a bar. Don’t get so carried away you don’t call me back, because I
will
call the police if you’re not right on time.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, I think you’ve looked out for me a time or two. Maybe a hundred. Happy to return the favor.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too, sis. Be safe.”

Angela clicked the phone closed, and turned to Kent. “Done.”

Kent nodded approvingly. “Good. Giving a description of me was a good idea.” He tilted his head in the direction of the shops along the main drag. “My car is parked on one of the side streets. I’ll give you a lift.”

His car turned out to be a black Lexus sedan that shined as if it was new. It must have set him back a pretty penny. “What do you do?”

He chuckled as he opened the passenger side door and held it open for her. “I ran a home security business in California. I got the attention of a national firm, and they bought me out. Now, I run a nightclub.”

“Sweet,” said Angela, sliding in.

“You’re very brave,” he remarked as he got in the car. The engine purred to life as he twisted the key into the ignition.

Why a compliment from this man she barely knew made her heart melt, she didn’t know. Her head worked on what he said. “How so?”

“Going off with a man you’re attracted to, but facing up to the fact that isn’t entirely safe. Lots of women would ignore the danger. Others wouldn’t risk it. But to look your fantasies straight in the eye and do what you actually need to do to make them safe enough to explore, that’s bravery.”

“So you’re my fantasy, now, are you?” she asked. Morgan apparently thought of himself that way, but she thought this man was different. He’d said it calmly, though, without bluster. And he wasn’t all wrong—he was drop dead gorgeous, and from the sounds of it, rich.

He chuckled. “I didn’t mean it so specifically. But you do have a fantasy of breaking out of your normal routine and living a little more on the edge. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been waiting for that Morgan fellow. I rather doubt you’re uptight. Just cautious.”

“My friends set me up with him. He’s supposed to be God’s gift to women, from what they all say.”

“Could be. If so, I think someone has clued him in, because he seemed to share that opinion.”

Angela laughed. “You think maybe? So what about you? Are you God’s gift to women?”

“Well, put like that, in the singular, there can be only one, so if it’s Morgan, I guess I’m out of the running.” He smiled, and then got serious and shook his head. “I don’t think I’m right for most women, not at all. Some few, perhaps.”

“We few, we happy few,” murmured Angela.

“Henry the Fifth?”

Angela smiled. “Yes. You’d be amazed at how many women like tall handsome men who happen to be rich and cultured.”

“I’m flattered. But there’s rather more to me than that. Here we are.” He turned right, down a side street, and then quickly right again into a parking lot with two cars in it, although it probably had space for fifty. Where College Park had been alive at eight, this area was dead, the businesses mostly closed at this hour, except for a corner gas station.