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“You’re incorrigible.” Maybe I needed a glass of champagne to calm my nerves. The worst thing was that the doors opened in fifteen minutes and the artist had yet to arrive. Damn the flaky guy. I should have known better.
“I take that as a yes. Come on, confession time. Was he worth all the buildup? Did he do Zorro’s legend proud?”
I moved behind the bar before I answered her, grabbing one of the bottles of champagne from the cooler of ice. Almost immediately one of the two hired bartenders scurried over.
“I’ll do that for you, Ms. Brusillo.”
I allowed the waiter to take it from my hand. Then I realized it was shaking. I hadn’t been able to get Zorro out of my mind. He was just a man, for God’s sake. So what if I didn’t see him again? We’d played out a fantasy, nothing more.
Ugh.
I could still catch a whiff of his aftershave, the rich combination of cedar wood and exotic spices forming a unique fragrance that could only be described as raw sin.
Jasmine was beaming while I felt heat sliding up from my throat. I touched my neck, envisioning the possessive look in his eyes when he wrapped his long fingers around it, squeezing until I had difficulty breathing. I had a feeling his level of domination was more than I could handle.
The admittance didn’t make the cravings go away.
The slight pop of the cork surprised me, enough so I jumped, noticing Jasmine was watching me carefully. “Are you okay or did something happen you’re not telling me about?” she asked. “Or is this about what was dropped off.”
“Just the rat.”And the phone call. And my past. And the hot sex.God, I was a mess. “The rest of the evening was fine.”
“Fine?”
The bartender placed two glasses of bubbly on the counter then promptly disappeared. “Yes.”
She grabbed a glass and inched closer. “You can’t tell me that having sex with the hottest man in New Orleans was only fine. If so, then you and I need to have a long conversation about hot sex.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. At least she’d offered to be my wingman so to speak for the evening. She knew almost everyone in town, her exuberant personality exactly what I needed to keep people interested in Talon’s works of art. “No, he was amazing. The entire night was spectacular. I just… I don’t know. Something about him bothers me.”
“Do you think he’s out for something more than hot sex?” She tried to hold in her laugh but failed.
Maybe I was being ridiculous. “I don’t know.”
“Then do yourself a favor and ask the senator about him. If he was at the man’s mansion, I seriously doubt he’s some bad dude.”
I didn’t want to tell her that right after the crank phone call, I’d dialed the senator’s office. I’d left three messages with no return phone call. That had pissed me off.
It also kept me unnerved, although the senator didn’t know the reason for my call and he was a busy man. Maybe I’d have a chance to talk to him tonight.
“I know you’re right.” Still, the nagging remained. I was usually never wrong about a person. I’d survived on my own for three years because I’d been extremely careful who I befriended. One mistake would cost me far too much. “A toast to our friendship.”
She smiled as our glasses clinked. Sadly, the woman knew Eden, a fabrication I’d had as a child. Now I wasn’t certain what was real any longer.
“Are you going to see him again?”
I thought about her question. When he’d dropped me off, his words had been clear.“I’m going to fuck you every day.”A slight shiver coursed down my spine. His statement had been one of possession more than anything, as if there was nothing I could do about the fact he believed I belonged to him. “I’m not certain.”
“Hmmm… What about his name? Did he finally tell you?”
“No.” While the mystique surrounding his real identity had added to the level of excitement, the girl who’d been schooled in ways of avoiding an assault was left with a heightened level of anxiety. “We wanted to keep the charade going for a little while longer.”
“You mean the ultimate fantasy. That sounds super sexy to me.” Before I had a chance to respond, we both heard a knock on the front door. “Uh-oh. Don’t look now but your artist friend is here. And just look how he’s dressed.”
Like the dead, a zombie. I’d already known by the contracts he’d signed he wasn’t using his real name for his art. To go to this length in keeping his identity a secret only added to the angst and I wasn’t certain why. “I’ll let him in.”
“Let the games begin,” Jasmine said in passing.
The word did nothing but keep me on a steep precipice. For s few seconds a strange, haunting vision rushed through my mind. I could see myself walking toward the edge of a cliff overlooking a tumultuous ocean, wind whipping through my hair as a malevolent storm approached. I closed my eyes as I envisioned stepping off, floating free as my body plummeted toward the bank of rocks below.
