When the Escalade pulls onto the curb of my apartment building, I run my hand down the front of my blouse. Two scantily dressed women with blown out hair flock in close to the vehicle. They twist chewing gum around their fingers as they rake their sullied eyes down the length of Rico's body when he curls out of the back seat of the Escalade. After securing the button on his suit jacket, Rico dips his torso back into the vehicle to offer me a hand out. His kind gesture reinforces what I already know deep down in my soul: there's something more to this man than just cloaked darkness.
The women stare at me, bitter and shocked when Rico ignores their lewd propositioning as he guides me into the lobby of my building. The way he moves with such grace and animal arrogance, his allure demands the attention of every pair of eyes milling in the lobby of my apartment building, both male and female.
Snubbing the inquisitive stares rapt on him, Rico steers me into the elevator. The two men who have been shadowing us since we left my classroom move to the stairwell without a peep needing to be spilled from Rico’s lips. Our ride in the elevator is made in silence, but a vibrant buzzing sensation infuses the air surrounding us.
When the elevator dings open on my floor, Rico directs me down the corridor without stopping to gather his bearings. With his splayed hand hovering near the curve of my lower back the past five minutes, my body is achingly aware of the loss of his contact when he delves his hand into the breast pocket of his suit to produce a freshly cut key.
Shoving the key into the front door of my apartment, Rico turns his gaze to me. “You have twenty minutes to pack.”
“How did you get a key to my apartment?”
He removes the freshly cut key from the lock and places it back into his pocket. "Nineteen minutes now, Kitten," he advises, rudely ignoring my interrogation. “Do you want to lose another minute?”
My body instinctively jumps to his command before my mind has time to object. Following the same routine I do every day, I gather the mail off the floor, place it on the entranceway table, and hit my answering machine button. While pacing into my bedroom, the mature voice of my dad sounds down the line.
“Blaire! You won’t believe it. My raffles paid off. Your momma and I hit the jackpot! An all-expenses paid holiday to Europe! Three months! Can you believe it?”
I roll my eyes. “No, I can’t, and neither should you, Dad,” I mutter under my breath.
“The only catch is we leave tomorrow. Your mother’s gone crazy. She’ll be lucky I don’t take her out back and shoot her before we leave. Anyway, darling, with your school schedule and our windfall, we won’t see you before we leave.”
A smile stretches across my face when my mom's voice chimes into the background. "Don't forget to tell her about the postcards, Norm."
“Postcards. Yes, yes, I’ll tell her,” my dad says. “We’ll send you and your class postcards from each location we visit. We thought they could mark them on the big world map you have in your classroom.”
Heat creeps across my chest at the same time a stabbing pain hits my heart. My class last year spent the three months before summer vacation discussing which regions of the world we would like to visit the most. Surprisingly, the chosen locations varied significantly.
“Alright, darling, I have to go and help your mother pack before she leaves without me. Talk soon, sweetie. Bye,” my dad says before disconnecting the call.
My heart slithers into my gut. How long will it be until I see my parents again? Is this arrangement with Rico just temporary or permanent? Will I ever see my friends and family again?
“You will see them again, Kitten. I promise.”
I jump, startled. Rico’s movements are so agile I didn’t notice him standing in the doorway of my room. Pushing off the doorjamb, he paces closer to me. I watch him cross the room, riveted just by the way he walks. Graceful, yet authoritative.
“What can I do to help?” His tone is still commanding, but not as gruff as it usually is.
You’d think my first thoughts would be to plead for my release, but for some strange reason, I hand him my empty cosmetics bag and point to the small washroom located next to the entranceway of my apartment.
“Anything marked with a B is mine.”
Rico smiles a lazy grin that surges my pulse to the lower half of my body before spinning on his heels and ambling to the bathroom. Pretending I can’t feel an odd pain twisting my heart, I grab a handful of my clothing off the overflowing racks in my closet and pace to my suitcase sitting in the middle of my bed. My brisk strides slow when the answering machine switches on, announcing it's about to record a new message.
Dumping my clothing into my open suitcase, I lean on the doorjamb of my room just as the deep voice of Colt barrels out of the answering machine speakers.
“Still trying to work out where you placed your new tattoo, baby girl. I haven’t stopped thinking about it all weekend. Might need a private, in-depth search, starting at the cute little dip you have in your collarbone. . .”
The remainder of Colt’s message is lost when the answering machine sails across the room and smashes into a wall. It shatters into dozens of tiny pieces while also leaving a dent in the drywall of my living room.
With my heart hammering my ribs, I drift my eyes from the mangled remains of my answering machine to my entranceway table. Rico stares straight at me, unwavering and calm, a complete contradiction to the maniac who just demolished my answering machine in a rage of jealousy.
“What?” he asks, seemingly unaffected by my confounded stare.
When a trace of a smirk forms on his plump lips, the ache between my thighs has me grateful I’m leaning against a wall. Is it wrong of me to say his aggressive nature turns me on? Even having no recollection of our time together in Vegas, I know it would have been better than anything I’ve ever experienced. You can’t have his arrogance without skills to back it up, and just the way he holds himself reveals he’d be exceptional in bed. I bet he has the type of control that would make even the most rational woman go wild to unleash it.Wild enough they would marry him in a matter of hours.
My attention snaps back to the present when Rico mutters, “We only have fifteen minutes, Kitten, nowhere near enough time to work through your fiendish thoughts.”
My cheeks heat from his bold words as my brows scrunch. I’m in the process of packing my bags as I’m being forced to leave my hometown against my will, yet I’m getting hot and bothered from the wicked smirk of a man who is the equivalent of a stranger to me.
