With Extreme Pleasure (2 page)

A
s much as he’d been tempted, King hadn’t walked off the set until yesterday, the last day of shooting, but now that he was done with all of Micky’s ad campaign nonsense, it was time to get his personal show on the road.

The elopement party was long over. The photo shoot was finished. The catching up he’d needed to do with his cousin was done. King may not have worn out his welcome, but he had worn to the nub his patience with this life and this place that wasn’t his.

He’d said his good-byes to Simon and Micky over a private dinner last night. Today, he’d smiled and shaken hands with everyone at Ferrer Fragrances who’d stopped by the conference room for a sandwich, a bag of chips, and a soda—a going away lunch to wish him well.

He’d flown up for the party and the shoot and the catching up, but had decided he was due a real vacation. And since he wasn’t of a mind these days to worry about the price of gas or global warming, he’d had Simon take him shopping last week for a vehicle worthy of the cross-country trip.

The shiny black Hummer H3 Alpha had been parked in the garage down the block from the Ferrer office now for five days, and ever since it had been delivered and valeted, King had been itching to get behind the wheel.

Simon, knowing the terror his cousin was on the two-lane blacktops that he traveled through Vermilion Parish, said King would do better to keep it parked and use their car service—unless, of course, he didn’t mind being hit with insurance claims, traffic tickets, and lawsuits that would tie him up in court for years.

Yeah, and no thanks.

But finally,
finally
, it was time to go.

He heaved the military duffel filled with his clothes and other crap behind the front seat, and checked the supplies in the cargo space he’d ordered laid in—a cooler he would fill with ice, food and drinks once on his way, along with a sleeping bag, one-man tent, and enough camping supplies to outfit his own scout troop for a month off the grid. This was going to be a hell of a road trip.

Damn if it wasn’t good to be King.

He slammed the rear door and headed for the driver’s, pulled it open, and climbed behind the wheel. He started her up, loving the sound of all those hungry horses, and checked the gauges, then programmed the GPS to get him from here to Pennsylvania. He’d figure out where to go next once he got there.

He was just shifting into D, which he’d decided stood for “drive like a madman until getting caught,” when the passenger door opened and Cady Kowalski climbed in beside him.

Without a word, she tossed a backpack half the size of his duffel behind her seat. And then she buckled her seat belt and faced straight ahead, still silent.

King waited, and waited, the engine running, finally shifting to the side and giving the spiky-haired waif an eye, “I think you’ve got the wrong bus, boo. I’m not making any side trips to Tibet.”

“Wherever you’re going is fine.”

“I’m going to Louisiana.”

“Like I said. Fine.”

“Let’s try this again.” He’d told her he was a jerk. It was time to live up to it. “Get out.”

She shook her head, sat on her hands, and hunched forward. “I can’t.”

“It’s easy.” He reached behind him for her heavy-ass backpack, shoved it into her lap. “You do the reverse of what you did to get in.”

Still nothing. No eye contact. No movement except her knees bouncing. And now no more talking.

She had on skinny frayed jeans, what looked like red plaid Converse sneakers, and a faded black logo T-shirt beneath a maroon hoodie left hanging unzipped.

The clothes made her look a lot younger than she’d appeared when wearing the black on black uniform of the stylists hired by Ferrer. And her looking younger made King feel every one of his close to forty years.

Screw it. He wanted to know. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-nine, why?”

Well, shit. Now he wasn’t feeling so old at all.

What he was feeling—besides irritated—was something that still felt big-time wrong, so he went back to being irritated instead. “Good, then you’re old enough to understand a threat when you hear one. Get out.”

“I can’t,” she said, and though he knew she hadn’t moved, he also swore her voice had flinched.

Christ Almighty.

He shoved open his door, jumped down, and stalked around the front of the SUV to her side, yanking it open and grabbing her wrist where she’d buried her face in her hands. He didn’t pull, he just held her, and he didn’t even hold her tight.

“Cady. I’m going home. To Louisiana. Understand?” When she still didn’t move, or even look at him, he weakened. “I can give you a ride to wherever you want to go, but that’s it. I don’t have time for games.”

“This isn’t a game,” she said, her voice muffled by her fingers and palms.

He let her go, grabbed her backpack from her lap, and before she could stop him, spun it like a Frisbee and sent it skidding across the floor of the garage. It hit a concrete pillar and stopped.

“What are you doing?” she screamed, launching out of her seat. “My laptop, everything I own is in that bag!”

He stood in the V of the open door, blocking her way and forcing her to meet his gaze. He was done with this. He didn’t know what she wanted or what she thought she was doing, and he didn’t give a goddamn care.

Head down, she struggled to get past him. He wouldn’t let her. He wouldn’t budge. He was serious about not putting up with her shit, and he wanted to see that she got it.

Only that wasn’t what he saw when she finally gave in and looked up. What he saw was a viciously brutal black eye. And that wasn’t the only damage. Her cheek, her lip. She was mighty busted up.

She met his gaze for a second, then glanced quickly away, lifting tentative fingertips and touching the butterfly bandages on her forehead and cheek. “Believe me. I understand a threat when I hear one. But you’ve got to understand that I need to get out of here now.”

“Yeah,” he heard himself saying, while his mind got ready with the twenty questions he wanted to ask. “Get in. I’ll get your bag. I’ve got an ice pack in my gear. I’ll get that, too.”

“Thank you,” she said, boosting back up into the seat. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.”

If this girl who he’d met last week, this girl who he’d spent a few afternoons harassing had no one to turn to but him, there was something very large and very wrong going on here.

Something somebody needed to fix.

A hell of a road trip. Wasn’t that what he’d been thinking just moments ago? Hmph. Looked like this one was going to start out with a detour before he’d even driven a mile.

A
s he pulled out of the parking garage and checked traffic, King caught a glimpse of the backpack Cady clutched to her chest as if it contained a million bucks.

The backpack she’d said held everything she owned.

The backpack he’d flung across the floor like he would a bag filled with garbage.

Nice.

She’d had it with her every day at the shoot, and she’d pulled out her laptop more than once, grumbling when she couldn’t find an unsecured wireless network to get her onto the Web.

He couldn’t have known she had it with her now. He should’ve suspected, but he couldn’t have known.

That didn’t make his lack of respect for her property go down any better. In fact, it hung in his chest like a wad of day-old dry cornbread soaked in bad buttermilk, and he had to clear his throat twice to speak.

“Your backpack. Is that really all the stuff you own?” He glanced over, saw her turn her head and stare out the passenger side window.

Her voice bounced back at him off the glass. “It’s all I could get out.”

Get out?
“Get out of where?”

“My apartment.”

“Before it burned down? Before the rats and roaches took over?” He wanted a real answer, one that said something, not one leading to a string of questions that would take too long to reel in.

He wanted to know what he’d find dangling at the end of the line, and he wanted to know it now.

“Before either of my roommates came home.”

King braked abruptly as a cabby cut in front of him at the next light. He was too busy frowning over what Cady had told him to even think about honking or being pissed off. “Who do you live with? Jealous boyfriends? Jealous welterweights? Jealous black belts?”

She blew out a loud puff of breath. “Who
did
I live with is the question.”

He remembered. She’d mentioned something about needing to find a new place to crash. Now he was really curious about what her face had run into.

When she didn’t say anything else, he prodded. “And the answer would be?”

“Two girls I met on Craigslist,” she said, shrugging it off as she added, “They needed a third to split the rent. My building was going co-op, so I had to get out. I moved in six months ago.”

The light changed. The driver behind him sat on his horn. King checked his rearview and saw the delivery service’s logo and a middle finger flipped his way.

He kept his attention on Cady, ignoring the asshole driver behind him. “You moved in with them but didn’t know them? Before hooking up online?”

She was facing forward again, and she shrugged as the H3 crushed its way through the intersection to a loud blast of horns from all sides. “It was a three-way of convenience. It happens. You don’t live alone in the city unless you’re in a rent-controlled building, get paid way more than I do, or are sleeping with Donald Trump.”

He’d looked at real estate while he was here. He didn’t know why. Maybe the temptation of having Simon and Micky living just down the road instead of thousands of miles away had been too much to resist.

He’d resisted once he’d realized he could run a small fleet of shrimp boats for the price of two thousand square feet ten flights up.

He checked his mirrors again, changed lanes, watched a car behind him crunch bumpers with the delivery van, and found himself grinning ear to ear. A grin that faded when he remembered Cady. “You said you got out what you could before your roommates came home. Does that mean you left a lot of stuff behind?”

“Not a lot, no. My bed and dresser, which I’m sure they’ll give away when they realize I’m gone. Same with the clothes I didn’t have room for.”

“You’ve got room now,” he said, gesturing with a tilt of his head toward the Hummer’s backseat and wondering when he’d become a good Samaritan.

She looked over her shoulder in the same direction, then turned to stare straight ahead once again. “The furniture’s secondhand and not worth worrying about. There are some outfits I’d like to get, but I can live without them. Vintage stuff I found in resale shops.

“Oh, and my shoes,” she hurried to add as if suddenly realizing her good fortune. “I’ve got a lot of shoes. Mostly, though, I could use more clothes than I had time to grab. I was in a hurry this morning, and not thinking too clearly after the emergency room.”

King’s stomach tightened around the drill bit churning there. “Who sent you to the emergency room? One of the girls? These wonderful roommates?”

“I never said they were wonderful,” she reminded him, then stopped talking, making King wonder if that was all or if she was going to say more.

Finally, she moved her backpack to the floor and pulled a knee up into her seat, turning to face him. “Does the offer of your backseat come with a list of conditions?”

He supposed it should, but…“No.”

“So I don’t have to tell you what happened?”

To her face? Or to her spirit? Because this girl…? She was not the same Cady Kowalski who’d had her hands all over his hair, whose breasts he’d mentally felt up when she’d leaned over him to spritz and spray.

Yeah, he wanted to know what happened. And the Kingdom Trahan who’d spent his first four adult years at the farm in Angola, Louisiana’s State Penitentiary, would’ve said, “Damn straight.”

But those days were long gone, and he was no longer that man. Hell, he was a different man today than he’d been just last year when his cousin had walked back onto Le Hasard after half of their lifetimes apart.

And so what he said was, “You only have to tell me what you want me to know. And how to get to your place. I don’t know which way is up around here.”

She gave him directions as he drove, taking him into a part of the city he hadn’t yet seen during his trip. He wasn’t sure where he was, upper or lower or east or west, but he did know that whatever Cady’s split of the rent—

It was too much. The place was a dump.

“I’m on the fourth floor,” she told him as he pulled up in front of the building sandwiched in the middle of a block of similar ones. “I know it looks like crap, but the apartment itself is nice.”

“I won’t be taking your word for that,” he said, shoving open his door and circling the front of the vehicle to her side. When it became clear she was making no move to follow, he opened her door and offered her a hand. “I don’t know vintage from Velcro. You have to come in.”

C
ady didn’t seem the least bit interested in coming in, a situation that would’ve been more hassle than King was willing to deal with had she not decided instead to talk.

“It wasn’t one of the girls,” she told him. “Not all of it anyway.”

His gut tightened up again, her voice was so small, so fragile. “Who was it?”

“Alice’s boyfriend, Tyler.”

Heat flared behind his eyes. “Are you going to tell me what happened? In case I run into him on the stairs? I’ll need to know whether I should let him pass or dump him over the banister.”

It was the first time since she’d climbed into the SUV’s front seat that he’d seen her smile. At least it looked like a smile. It was hard to distinguish the movement of her mouth from the grimace that followed when she brought her fingers to her split lip.

“We were drinking last night. Me and Alice and Tyler and Renee.”

“Renee’s the third roommate,” he guessed, and Cady nodded to confirm.

“I woke up around four to pee, and realized Tyler was in my bed. He was passed out, but neither one of us were dressed. I grabbed my panties and T-shirt from the floor and ran to the bathroom. Alice gave me this”—she said, pointing to her lip—“while I was sitting on the toilet.”

Christ Almighty. “Did he rape you?”

“I don’t think so. Things didn’t smell like sex, if you know what I mean, and I wasn’t sore or raw, not that I necessarily would be.”

Yeah, definitely TMI. All of it.

“But I really don’t think we had sex. Tyler was wasted long before I even started drinking. And he was still going at it when I went to bed. If he was able to get it up after that, then Alice’s one lucky girl.”

King had thought before that something was wrong, but this was even too weird for him. “The sex thing. It’s not a big deal? Not knowing if you were raped?”

“Like I said. I doubt Tyler did more than crawl into the wrong bed. The clothes thing, I don’t know about. Last night’s not a blur, it doesn’t even register.”

“At least until four
A.M.
”

As if she had no intention of leaving her seat, Cady pulled both of her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “The bashing hour.”

King wasn’t much for coaxing, but if that’s what it was going to take…“What happened after Alice hit you?”

“She hit me again. And again. Renee finally dragged her out of the bathroom long enough for me to wipe and pull up my underwear. By then, Tyler was up stumbling around, deflecting Alice’s accusations that he’d been after me for months and telling her I’d seduced him. He slapped me once, called me a liar when I told him he was full of shit.”

“Had he? Been after you for months?”

Cady shrugged, the motion small. “It’s news to me if it’s true. I’m hardly ever home to see any of them. I work long hours. I go out with friends.”

“Your roommates aren’t friends?”

“We’re friendly, but we don’t hang out.”

“Who do you hang out with?”

“Depends on the occasion. Girls I work with, usually. One who works at the coffee shop on the corner.”

“Then why climb into my truck instead of going to one of them?”

She cut her gaze up to his. “None of them were leaving town.”

“A girl beat you up because she thought you slept with her boy toy. And you’re leaving town?” Yeah, she’d given him a story, but it wasn’t making sense in the scheme of the other things going on here.

No one left town because of a split lip, a busted cheek, and a hellacious black eye. Move out, sure. Lay low, keep her distance, disappear, okay. That he could see.

But hitching a ride to Louisiana—or a yet-to-be-determined point along the way—was taking things way too far considering she wasn’t even friends with the jerkwads who’d done the job on her face.

Before he could press further, Cady jumped from the Hummer and hurried down the sidewalk to the stoop. Hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt, she jogged up the short flight of stairs, stopping when she got to the door.

She looked back, her eyes big and wide and scared as she met his gaze. “You coming with me or not?”

He slammed the door she’d left open, set the locks and the alarm because he was no man’s fool, and followed, hunching his shoulders against the wind that decided to blast down the canyon of the street and ruin his day even more. Goddamn cold-ass spring.

She took the four flights of stairs at a quick climbing jog. He took them two at a time to keep up. The lighting was dingy at best, the paint on the walls peeling at the bottom and water stained at the top. The smells of garlic and curry and bad tennis shoes hung strong in the air.

When they reached the fourth floor, she dug a loose key from her jeans pocket. He took it from her hand and went in first. He wouldn’t know if anything was out of order, but he’d much rather have someone come at him for trespassing than go after Cady when she walked through the door.

He knew that Alice had turned her lip into a Bing cherry and her eye into a puddle of mud, while big bad brave Tyler had slapped her. Who knew what the other roommate was capable of, or who might be lying in wait? And one more blow? Her face was liable to cave in.

No one met them at the door, and Cady locked it behind them, then headed down a short hall to her room. King, on the other hand, took his sweet time. She’d been right when she’d said the apartment was nice.

It wasn’t nice in the uptown and upscale way Simon and Micky’s place was, but it wasn’t the shithole he’d expected, having judged this particular book by its run-down cover that faced the street.

The living area had a big cushy sectional in a red and blue plaid, end tables holding ceramic jug lamps with navy shades, and a matching throw rug over the hardwood floor and under the coffee table with its thick glass top.

Another part of the same big room, the kitchen and eating area continued the color scheme, and the whole place was neat and clean with no sign of violence or bloodshed marring the furniture or floors.

He left the front of the apartment and walked down the hall. Framed photos taken in nightclubs and bars hung on the walls. He stopped in the doorway of Cady’s stamp–sized room, watching as she crawled into the closet with a roll of black trash bags.

“Who’s the photographer?” he asked, gesturing with a lift of his chin toward the pictures.

“Alice. I’ve actually worked on some of her shoots.” Cady jerked clothes from the rod and rolled up the garments, hangars and all. She filled one bag, grabbed another, needed a third when she started in on her shoes. “Who knew she’d turn out to be a lunatic bitch?”

King glanced around the small room. The twin bed with the purple velvet spread would’ve been a tight fit for two adults—or even for one, bumped up the way it was against the walls between which it was wedged.

The rest of the tiny space was taken up by a scarred dresser with a bench and vanity mirror. That held rows of more lotions and sprays and other girl goop than he’d seen anywhere but on store shelves.

Women. “You taking all that stuff, too?”

Cady looked up from sorting her shoes, then leaned back against the wall of the closet, finally tossing him a small carry-all. “If you want to just scrape it all into this, that would be great.”

Scrape. That he could do. And then he cringed at the sound of glass on glass as the bottles tumbled to the bottom of the bag.

“Glass? Hello? Breakable?”

“Hey, you get what you pay for, and my name’s not United Van Lines. Besides, I figure we’re in a hurry here. You can grab some tape and bubble wrap later.”

“Assuming there’s anything left to salvage,” she said, tossing a bag of shoes to the bed and crawling out of the closet. “That should do it. They can do what they want with the rest.”

“Let’s go then,” King said, hefting the two heaviest bags, one over each shoulder, before stepping from the room into the hallway and into the barrel of a gun.