Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 3) (5 page)

I wanted to leave, but
I was paralyzed.

Whatever I felt, it was
more than arousal. Of course I was rock-hard for her, but this was
something else. I was edgy and on the verge of losing control. And I
wasn’t okay with it.

This wasn’t just
another woman, a slutty girl at one of my clubs looking for a quick
fuck. She wasn’t after my money. She knew next to nothing about me.
And she was completely in my hands, without a past or a name. I had a
responsibility to hold it together, and I always held it together.
That was never a problem. Until right now.

All I had to do was
walk away. It was easy, and so fucking hard.

Just as I turned to
leave, I heard her stirring. “Who’s there?” she asked in a
thin, frightened voice.

Back turned, I stopped
in my tracks. “Just me. Drex. I came to check on you.”

“I’m not dressed.”

Barely awake and
already she was testy. She was a feisty little thing, no doubt about
it. After what she’d been through, I couldn’t really blame her.

“I know you’re
not,” I said, “I just –”

“What do you mean,
you
know
?”

I blew out a sigh.
You
picked up a woman who was clearly having issues. Don’t be surprised
that she’s not acting like the perfect guest.

“I wanted to make
sure you were all right.”

I heard rustling as she
stood up and started dressing. “You could have knocked.”

“I did,” I said.
“Three times.”

“You could have
knocked louder.”

It wasn’t enough that
I’d saved her from certain disaster. I needed to not worry about
her, and do a much better job of knocking.

She stepped up next to
me, all attitude and flowing damp hair. If I’d thought my clothes
would help disguise that sinful body, I was mistaken.

“Next time, please
warn me before you invade my privacy,” she said.

I frowned at her. “Are
you kidding?”

“You don’t see me
smiling.”

It was all I could do
not to drag her back out to my truck. “Listen, lady. You don’t
like my hospitality? Then I won’t subject you to it. I’ll give
you that hundred bucks you asked for – hell, I’ll give you a
thousand – and drop you off where I found you. You can fend for
yourself. Sound fair?”

She crossed her arms.
“Perfectly.”

The cotton shirt gapped
where she’d missed a button, revealing a porcelain-white glimpse of
her breast. She had no idea how sexy she was, and that made it even
worse.

“You don’t mean
that,” I said.

“Um, hello,” she
said. “My face is up here.” I glanced up to see her eyebrows
raised and her head tilted to one side.

“You missed a button,
that’s all. I was trying to help.”

“You try to help in
some pretty strange ways. Which reminds me, why
did
you have to kiss me, anyway? Was that really necessary?”

“Most women would
just be glad they got to experience it.”

She let out short
laugh. “Seriously? Are you that in love with yourself?”

“Love’s got nothing
to do with it.”

“I’m sure it
doesn’t,” she said. “It probably never will.”

Ouch
.
I didn’t want her words to sting, but they felt like vinegar on a
fresh wound.

It was almost as if she
could see my recent dating history projected on the wall like a bad
sex tape. One purely physical relationship after another, none
lasting more than five or six months. Lots of pretty girls who did
exactly as I instructed, but no challenges. Nobody who made me think,
or kept me awake at night.

“Didn’t you say you
were going to earn your keep while you were here, Blue Eyes?”

She twisted her full
mouth. “I wish you’d stop calling me that.”

“If you’d tell me
your name, I would.”

Now it was her turn to
feel the sting. Her eyes shot daggers at me. “You think I’m lying
about this? Pretending for the hell of it?”

“Of course not,” I
said, taking an apologetic step toward her.

She was so riled up her
cheeks were flaming red. “Stay where you are.”

“I will, if you tell
me what to call you.”

“I don’t know,”
she said, tossing a hand through the air. “Pick something.”

“Just – pick a
name?”

She gave me an insolent
shrug. “Why not?”

I’d tied women up,
spanked them, and made them crawl around after me on all fours,
begging to be fucked. But naming one – now that was a thrill I’d
never experienced before tonight.

I thought for a few
seconds. “All right, then. How about Jane?”

She leveled a deadly
gaze at me. “As is Jane Doe?”

I crossed my arms,
daring her to come up with something better. “Why not?”

“It’s as good a
name as any, I guess,” she said. “Kind of goes with this part of
the country.”

“Calamity Jane,” I
said.

“Plain Jane,” she
shot back.

“You’re far from
plain,” I said with a smile. “But you knew that already.”

She blushed a pretty
dark pink. Wow. Under all that bluster and fire, she was the kind of
woman who blushed.

And that was exactly the kind of
woman who got to me.

My nylon gym shorts
slipped low over her round hips, barely clinging, threatening to slip
lower every time she moved.

The shirt had a cruel
way of sliding over her breasts, offering shadowy glimpses of her
hard nipples. She could hardly have looked more tempting if she’d
been wearing seamed stockings, stripper heels, and nothing else.

And her panties – she
probably wasn’t even wearing them after what that little piece of
pink silk had been through. But I wouldn’t think about it. I was a
civilized man, and I didn’t treat gorgeous women like sex objects.

At least that’s what
I told myself so I wouldn’t lose my fucking mind while we ate
dinner on the terrace.

“Is there any more
chicken?” she asked, scooping up a forkful of spinach. The breeze
ruffled her hair, blowing a silky strand across her face. I could
still feel that hair in my fingers from grabbing her earlier. It was
thick and fine, the perfect length for pulling. I imagined putting
her on all fours and kneeling behind her, drawing her head back until
her gorgeous neck curved and she whimpered for mercy.

“One piece left,” I
said. “It’s all yours.”

“Thanks.”

She hardly looked at me
as she ate, filling her cheeks, taking one big bite after another. I
tried not to stare at her butter-slick lips and the sensual way she
licked the corners of her mouth. Halfway through her last helping,
she glanced up and gave me an embarrassed smile. “Sorry,” she
said. “I’m pretty hungry.”

“Of course you are.”

I had a dozen questions
on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t ask any of them. How old
are you? Where are you from? What do you do for a living? Her life
was only three days old, and something about that fascinated me. She
was brand new, open to any intense new experience I might want to
give her.

But she was also scared
and traumatized.

I couldn’t take
advantage of a woman in her state, though Christ knew I wanted to.
She was somebody’s daughter, maybe somebody’s wife. Even that
thought wouldn’t banish my inappropriate but extremely persistent
erection.

“That was delicious,”
she said.

“Thanks, but it
wasn’t even close.”

“It was the best I’ve
ever had…in the last three days.”

She smiled. Whoever she
was, whoever she belonged to, she was very special. Maybe her husband
had gone crazy with jealousy one night and that was how the whole
thing started. I could easily imagine going ballistic if another man
so much as looked at her. The blast of pure testosterone driving me
as I shoved the guy’s face into the nearest brick wall.

But I wasn’t like
that anymore, was I? I was a trustworthy, low-drama, no-headline CEO
type. That’s what my investors wanted, and that’s what I gave
them. Even if I still had a primitive side I tried hard to restrict
to the bedroom.

Not that anybody had
tempted that side of me lately. And when it did happen, it was more
like going through the motions, fantasizing I was with a different
type of woman. A woman more like, well, the one sitting across from
me.

“How long are you
staying here?” she asked.

The one question I
couldn’t answer. “As long as it takes to track down my father.”

“That’s who you’re
looking for?”

“Yes,” I said,
reaching for my glass of cabernet. “He took off by himself about a
week ago.”

Jane gave me a curious
frown. “What do you mean, took off?”

Here
we go
. Damn. Elijah was not my favorite topic of
conversation; in fact, I made it a point to keep him a very
well-guarded secret.

But then, he was no
secret to the cops and prison wardens down here. He’d been racking
up felonies for so long, he was practically a folk legend. The man
was one part Jesse James, one part Whitey Bulgur, with a record that
read like a loser’s to-do list: assault, attempted murder, bribery,
car theft, and on and on through the alphabet to weapons possession.

After my first arrest
at twenty-one for illegal gambling, he’d taken a hard swing at me
and missed. But what he’d said had hurt a lot worse than a broken
nose. “Apple don’t fall far from the fucking tree, does it? You
got my blood, and you’ll never amount to nothing.”

I’d spent every
minute since proving to myself that family didn’t equal fate. My
father’s DNA hadn’t ruined my half-brother, and I’d be
goddamned if it would ruin me.

Jane blinked as she
waited for my answer. If she’d been anyone else, I’d have shut
the conversation down or changed the subject. But the way she looked
at me with those piercing blue eyes – it was impossible to dodge
her question.

“He’s been in and
out of jail since I was a kid,” I said. “He was finally released
two years ago after a twelve-year term. I hoped he’d simmer down
with age, but a couple of strokes have made him even more
unpredictable. I hired somebody to look after him in Houston, but
that only lasted a couple of months. Last week he slipped out of his
apartment and took his neighbor’s car. Friday I got a call from a
contact of mine in the Chimayo police department. My father’s here
again, up to Christ knows what. That’s what I’m trying to find
out.”

“Is there anything I
can do to help?” Jane’s pale eyebrows went up, giving her a
sweet, earnest look.

It was a nice offer,
but come on. She was having a hell of a time just helping herself.
“Thanks, but you’ve got enough to deal with,” I said.

“It sounds like you
do, too,” she said.

So the woman had a
little humility, after all. “I didn’t have to get out of my
truck.”

She looked at me over
the rim of her wineglass. “I guess I’m glad you did. Now.”

My guts twisted. I was
a sucker for a little encouragement – from her, anyway. “You
didn’t seem glad at the time.”

“You were just
another stranger I had to worry about.”

“If you were so
worried about strangers, why’d you start talking to bikers?”

She smiled. “I
stopped being picky about who I talked to about two and a half days
ago. That doesn’t mean I stopped worrying.”

“But bikers?” I
said with mock disappointment. “The Dead End? What a dive. I
thought you had better taste.”

“Apparently, I don’t.
But look on the bright side. I’m probably a really cheap date.”

With a playful grin,
she stood up and started clearing the plates. God help my sorry ass
if she bent over too close to me.

“You don’t have to
do that,” I said. “You’ve had a long day.”

“I told you I’d
earn my keep, and I meant it.”

“Jane…”

It took her a second to
realize that I was using her new name. She stopped and glanced up,
her eyes faintly amused. “Yes?”

“I’ll let you clear
the table if you promise me one thing.”

“Name it.”

“Tomorrow we’ll
talk to my friend at the police department to see if anyone’s
looking for you.”

She stiffened. “Not
the police again.”

“I understand what
happened to you that night, but this’ll be different. I promise.”

Damned if I didn’t
see a glimmer of trust in her eyes. “I just...I don’t want to be
a spectacle. I’ve had enough of that.”

“You don’t have to
go with me,” I said. “I just want to ask them a few questions.”

She considered me
through her long, dark lashes before reaching for the pepper grinder.
“All right. But don’t expect to find out anything.”

“I’ve got no
expectations at all.”

“Maybe that should be
my new motto,” she said with a sexy little shrug.

Dishes balanced in both
hands, she walked toward the kitchen. How could she look that
luscious in nylon gym shorts? And why hadn’t I changed before
dinner into something less dusty and wrinkled? Why did I care?

It had been a long time
since I’d wanted to impress a woman. The girls I met were impressed
in advance by who I was and what I could do for them, whether it was
fuck them senseless or get them a job.

But Blue Eyes – Jane
– knew me as the guy who’d kissed her in front of a bunch of
Bandidos. The asshole who’d barged into her room. She didn’t know
enough to be blown away or nervous. Even with no makeup and wearing a
man’s clothes, she was more confident than anybody I knew.

And those feet. If they
were that sexy bare and without polish, I could only imagine how
they’d look painted red in stilettos.

“Drex!”

I jumped up from my
chair. She was hollering for me as if she’d just seen a tarantula
or an armed robber, both of which were very good possibilities around
here.

In two seconds I was in
the house, heart hammering, ready to do battle. As soon as I got to
the kitchen, I stopped dead in my tracks.