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“Seek, and you will find,” he recites. Then more pressure. More tasting. More him. “Knock—”
It shouldn’t be possible so soon, but I’m orgasming again, caught beneath a tidal wave of sensation. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Somehow though, I can still hear him, relentless in his narration.
“Knock, and the door will be opened to you,” he says into me. “Remember that. I am a man of my word, Tiena.”
Tiena.Her name rings in my brain like a warning bell toll, outlasting even the ravages of ecstasy. I tense, and damn near instantly, he pulls away, rising to his feet.
For a second, he paces, raking his hands through his short hair while I watch, too breathless to move.
“I could fuck you now,” he finally tells me, his voice grated and thick. “Taste you again. Bend you over the table and show you what you’ve been missing. What that bastard has denied you. But I don’t waste my gifts on the unwilling, Tiena. You want to be mine? Prove it to me.” He returns to the desk and shoves my legs together, so suddenly I gasp at the shocking emptiness left behind. Then he stands back, tugging at the collar of his shirt. “I’ll give you a day,” he snaps, storming for the door. “Go. Horatio will take you home. Get out.”
He’s gone before I have the presence of mind to regain control of my breathing. When I do, a watchful figure stands in the doorway.
“I take you home now, Miss,” Horatio says sternly.
My clothing, or lack thereof, doesn’t seem to matter to him. He ushers me unceremoniously through the house and into a spacious garage containing over a dozen luxury cars. His choice is a plain, black sedan, and moments later, I’m before Pedro’s apartment—only Horatio doesn’t seem content to let me enter the building alone.
He parks in an underground garage and follows me up a service elevator and straight into my apartment. Only at the door does he seem content to let me out of his sight.
“A day,” he says, parroting Jaguar’s deadline. “You contact him when ready.”
He retreats, and when I finally wrestle the door closed, I lock it. Then I brace my weight against it and sink to the floor, too stunned to move. Whatever drug his doctor supplied me with is wearing off. I feel every ache and pain. My back hurts worst of all. The skin feels itchy and inflamed. Infected?
The potential health complications are the least of my worries, however.
When I finally have the sense to scan the rest of the apartment’s interior, I note that something feels…off. The furniture is as I left it, the curtains drawn shut over the windows—but there is a smell in the air I don’t recall noticing before.
It’s sharp, like vinegar, and yet sweet like cologne. A unique smell that itches at my brain as though I should recognize it. I know this smell. But how?
Confused, I stand and find myself blindly following its invisible trail, through the kitchenette and down the hall, into the bedroom.
This space is not as I left it. The bed has been neatly made and adorned with what I assume are giant, misshapen sequins at first. Hundreds of them are coating the beige comforter and dotting the floor.
One step closer brings what they are into clearer focus, however.
Not sequins—butterflies. Real ones, all of them dead.
All of them grim reminders of a past I thought I’d left behind.
God, I can even hear his voice, cruel and smug.I’m back, my little butterfly. Did you miss me?
Diego.
Diego.
Diego.
And all I can do is scream.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
Alot can change in a blink of an eye. The people you once trusted can become enemies, and your enemy...
He might be your only comfort once the tables turn. The sad part is that I never intentionally seek out Julian Domingas.
He comes running to me. Much like a predator sensing bleeding, dying prey. He’s ravenous, and I make for an easy meal.
“Horatio.” His voice proceeds him into my borrowed apartment, sharp with alarm. As he storms in through the front door, he cuts a striking figure against the beige interior. Only God knows how he got here so fast. Did he follow after I left with Horatio? From his expression alone, I can’t tell. “Status?” he calls out.
