Cado (8 page)

The detective pinched the bridge of his nose and averted his gaze. “Honestly, I really don’t think you did. The timeline doesn’t add up. It was obvious the victim was killed in her hotel room. I don’t see how you could have gotten her all the way to your apartment without being seen. There are so many things that just don’t add up.” He stood and started pacing. “I’m hoping you have some information.”

“I—I don’t—”
Shit
. I didn’t know what to say. I started thinking up and discarding possible lies that could explain in a plausible way what happened.

“—was she a client?”

I’d missed the first part of what the detective had said, but the last part grabbed my full attention. “What? You mean at Club Elite?”

“No,” he ran his hand through his hair as he slid back into his seat, catching my gaze with his. “I mean, did she pay you for sex? Was she a client? Is that why you’re reluctant to—”

I stood abruptly, toppling my chair to the ground. “No! I’m not a fucking prostitute!” I pieced it all together quickly. My presence at the hotel, coupled with my attire…
shit.
I could see why he’d connected the dots the way he had.

“I won’t book you for solicitation under the circumstances. I just want answers,” he droned on. “Please work with me on this. If you don’t cooperate then I’m going to have to let you cool your jets in jail until you change your mind.”

Cool your jets? Who says that anymore?
I slammed my fists down on the table, the edge of the cuffs biting into my wrists painfully. “I’m not a prostitute. Since when does being an exotic dancer automatically translate to that?”

We stared at each other a moment, neither one of us speaking. Slowly Detective Anthony’s eyebrows raised. “Someone will be in shortly to take you to get booked.” He stood and stalked to the door. It looked like he’d read in my eyes that I wasn’t going to cave. The problem was that I couldn’t since the truth was beyond unbelievable.
Maybe I should spend my time in jail thinking up a somewhat plausible story.
Could I just lie and say I was a prostitute? The very thought pissed me off. It was possibly my only way out of the mess Lucian had put me in.

I dropped my forehead to the table. “Pride goeth before a fall,” I muttered to myself. It looked like I was about to become a prostitute as far as everyone was concerned.

I was beyond pissed. A word didn’t even exist for how beyond pissed I was. I had been pumping myself up to make the false prostitute confession so I could walk free but after I was booked no one came to see me. Not a single soul. I figured someone would have been sent to ask me again to cooperate after Detective Anthony’s effort to scare me. Nope. Instead, after I was booked I was left to stew alone in a holding cell.

It didn’t make sense. If I was booked, wasn’t I supposed to be put in with general population and given a uniform or something? But what did I know, the only information I thought I knew about that kind of stuff had been garnered from TV. So basically I had no clue what was going on. The not knowing part was worse than anything they could do to me, which was probably the point. I was cold and tired, and I just wanted to go—where? I didn’t have anywhere to go. I sure as hell wasn’t going to sleep in a bed where a dead body had been marinating in the sheets.

“You can stay with me. You’re always welcome in my bed.” Lucian’s smooth baritone sliced through the silence.

My heart jumped into my throat but I quickly regained my composure. I turned to glare at my golden god tormentor. He was standing just inside the cell, leaning against the bars with his arms crossed casually, as if our current situation was completely normal. He had on another tailored-to-perfection suit, this one a dark navy with wide pinstripes. His chiseled features were passive despite the glimmer of amusement in his cerulean gaze.

“You’re the one who got me in here in the first place,” I growled. And if I wasn’t mistaken, he’d commented on something that I’d been thinking, not commenting about out loud. Could he read my mind, or was he just really good at guessing since he knew about the dead body?

Lucian shrugged nonchalantly. “And now I’m offering to get you out.”

“Why? Why are you doing this to me?” I fought the urge to walk over to him so I could slap his arrogant, yet beautiful face. I had a feeling the act would be completely satisfying but it definitely wouldn’t help my case with Lucian. I settled on glowering my displeasure instead.

“I changed my mind.” He pushed off the bars with his shoulder and stood tall, his presence taking up more space in the room than it had a moment before. “I don’t want you to fuck anyone else. I find…” His voice trailed off as he seemed to pick at some imaginary lint on his suit. “Yes, I was jealous. The thought of you with someone else made me jealous. It’s not an emotion that I enjoy, nor am I accustomed to feeling it.”

“Okaaaay,” I drawled. Then it hit me. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I exclaimed as I lurched to my feet. “You let me be put in here so I can’t fuck anyone else.”
But how?
The body had already been found in my apartment and things had been under way— I tugged at my hair in agitation. “You were one of the witnesses, weren’t you?”
Wow.
Why hadn’t I put that puzzle together before? It was painfully obvious and it just served to prove how off my game Lucian caused me to be. He frazzled and confused me…fogged my brain completely. Turned me into a complete fool.

My mouth dropped open as his lips tipped up with amusement. “Bingo.” He moved towards me as I backed up. I didn’t have very much room to maneuver and before I realized what was happening, I’d toppled over onto the small cot. Lucian loomed over me, a smug smile adorning his face.

“What do you want from me?”

He reached his hand out for me, palm up. “Come. I want to show you something.”

“Fuck, no.” I shook my head fervently. “The last time you ‘showed me’ something—” I air quoted. “—somehow I ended up with a dead body in my bed. Thanks for that by the way.” I delivered him my best death glare.

“None of this would have happened if you hadn’t run from me.” He kept his hand thrust out in open offering for me to take it.

“Where did you come from? How do you know about me? Just—” I clamped my mouth shut in frustration. I had too many questions and from the bemused expression on Lucian’s face, I had a feeling I wouldn’t be getting answers anytime soon. “And if I don’t want to come with you?”

“Then you stay here…indefinitely.”

I ground my teeth together. It wasn’t much of a choice, was it? Lucian’s ability had to lie somewhere in mind manipulation. How else could he be controlling everything the way he was? “You’ve painted me into a corner, haven’t you?”

“I’m giving you a choice. I’ve always been a fan of free will.”

“Giving me two shitty choices isn’t really free will. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.”

Lucian’s expression shuttered off and his eyes darkened to appear almost black, which I knew had to be a trick of the lighting. “You don’t know the definition of damned.” His hand shook as he closed it into a fist and withdrew his arm. “You’d be wise not to push me beyond my limits, little girl.”

Oh no he didn’t! Little girl? Really?
“Who the fuck do you think you’re calling little girl?”

In a flash Lucian had his hands threaded into my hair, his face a scant distance away from mine. My breath hitched as I took in his delectable scent, despite the situation. I’d only known him for a short time and it seemed like every encounter with us was that way— My body reacted to him no matter what else was going on.
My body is a traitor to my mind.

“Maybe I’ve misjudged the timing of things. Maybe you’re not ready for me at all. Because only a little girl would say such words about things she has no understanding of.”

What is he talking about with the timing of things?
Goose bumps erupted across my flesh and I licked my lips nervously. “I—I—” I was about to say I was sorry, but I wasn’t. Not really. “Then why don’t you enlighten me?” I bit the words out.

The way Lucian’s lips tipped up into a malevolent sneer made me instantly regret spurring him on. He would relish the challenge of showing me what I didn’t understand. After all, he seemed to be all about showing me stuff to begin with. Was a part of me spoiling for a confrontation? Probably. The problem was that I didn’t know quite what I was dealing with when it came to Lucian. So basically I was acting the fool with him…again. It was quickly becoming a habit for me when it came to all things Lucian—one that I needed to break immediately.

“You already know you made a mistake, don’t you? You sense it. I can see it in your eyes.” He moved closer to me, drawing his right index finger across my eyebrow to hover on my temple. “And what beautiful eyes they are. They see so much—and yet not enough. Never enough.”

He lunged forward so quickly I didn’t see him move. It was as if I blinked and suddenly his hands were on my shoulders, his hot breath fanning across my face. And then I had the distinct feeling of falling, my stomach dropping like I was on a roller coaster. I grabbed on to Lucian out of instinct, his face the only thing I could see as things blurred around us. I choked back a scream, the air catching in my throat. A roaring sound was the only thing I could hear. I was attempting to climb Lucian like a tree, to hang onto him for dear life, when everything stopped and I was thrown into pitch-blackness.

Lucian’s hands fell away from me and I scrambled after him, or in the direction I thought he’d gone. I bit my lower lip to keep from crying out to him, some thread of stubbornness rearing its ugly head. He didn’t want to hurt me. He didn’t bring me here, wherever it was, to hurt me. I was safe. He was just fucking with my mind, like he had been since the moment I’d met him.

I stood perfectly still, my heart pounding in my ears. I tried to hear around the erratic beat, straining for some kind of clue as to where I was. The silence was unnerving. “Lucian?” I hissed. “What the fuck?”

“Shhh… I want you to see,” his voice purred from all around me, or at least that’s the way it seemed.

“I can’t see anything in the dark.”

“Then you’re not listening hard enough.” His chuckle spun through me, causing me to shudder. How any one man could sound so menacing and enticing at the same time was beyond comprehension to me.

“I’m not playing some stupid ‘Confucius say’ game,” I grated. “If you think that I’m going to stand here and see with my ears or whatever other kind of crap like that then you’re sadly mistaken.” I refused to play any more of his stupid mind games. He clearly had the advantage so I just wouldn’t indulge in the ridiculousness. Maybe then he’d leave me alone.
But do you really want him to leave you alone completely?

“I’m not asking,” he rumbled from behind me.

I spun around and took a few steps forward with my arms out stretched. I stopped when I felt air move across my skin, sensing that Lucian wasn’t where he’d been a second ago. I crossed my arms and glared into the darkness. I couldn’t see him but I had a feeling he could see me. “You’re really starting to piss me off,” I growled.

When I got no response from Lucian I sat down right where I was and crossed my legs Indian style. When I still got nothing from him I leaned back flat on the ground and closed my eyes. I’d simply take a little nap while I waited him out. If he thought he could out stubborn me, he was in for a very rude awakening.

I fidgeted in the dark. I’d long since awakened from my little nap on the cold hard ground. I was more drained than before my slumber though, exhausted even, and my entire body ached. I was still fighting the urge to call out to Lucian. It was as if the air itself was waiting with baited breath for me to do just that, which was exactly why I wasn’t going to.
Fuck him
. Luckily I didn’t have to pee or I would have definitely cracked. Soiling myself was not something even I would do to prove a point. I guess my bladder was kind of my Achilles’ heel. I snorted to myself at that thought.
Yep, I’m tough as nails unless you force me to drink too much water.