Djinn and Tonic (3 page)

“Good,” Leila says. “I’m glad.”

I hesitate for a moment, and then go for it. “So...what’s your story? You said before you needed a fresh start, so you came here. What’s that about?”

Leila glances at me, and seems uneasy. “Oh, it’s a long story, and not a very interesting one.”

“You never know what I’d be interested in.” I reach over the counter, grab the soda gun and fill my glass with water. “I’m interested in you, for example.”
 

Jesus, did I just say that? I didn’t mean to.
 

I focus on sipping at my water to cover my flush of embarrassment. Leila turns on her stool, regarding me, several emotions flashing across her face: surprise, embarrassment, curiosity and maybe a little fear.

“You are, huh?” she says eventually, with a slight smile on her lips.
 

“Yeah, that just kind of slipped out.” I let out an awkward chuckle, and then decide on further honesty. “But it’s true.”

“A Freudian slip, huh? What else are you thinking about me that you’re not saying?” She’s inched over on her stool, just at the edge of my personal space.
 

I’m hoping I’m reading her body language right. “Oh...I don’t know,” I say, setting my glass down and looking at her. “You’re gorgeous.”

Leila’s laugh is an infectious, musical sound. “Is that right? Keep going.” She crosses one leg over the other, facing me.

“Um…”
 

There are a lot of things going through my mind: her lips look soft, a slight glimmer of lip balm on them; I wonder what her lips taste like.
 

“I’m wondering what flavor Chapstick you have on. What your lips taste like,” I hear myself say. I cover my face with my both hands and speak through my fingers. “God, I suddenly have no filters.”

Leila arches an eyebrow. “Filters are a nuisance anyway,” she says. “I’ve always believed in saying what you mean.”
 

Is it my imagination, or is she leaning in to me, ever so slightly?
 

I’m tipping toward her, thinking how badly I want to kiss her, and if kissing her is a good idea or not, what I would be getting myself into. “Yeah? So what are you thinking? Now that I’ve embarrassed myself.”

“Oh, so it’s my turn?” She’s definitely closer than she had been a moment ago. Her wide eyes are inches from mine, sparkling with amusement and secrets, and something I really want to believe is desire. “You haven’t embarrassed yourself at all. I’m glad you say what you’re thinking.”

“You’re avoiding my question.” Leila is facing me now, her feet between my legs, perched on the rungs of my stool.
 

I put my hands on her knees, and she doesn’t pull away.
 

“True,” Leila admits, a mischievous smile on her lips. “Okay, so what am I thinking? Hmmm. I’m thinking…you’ve got this rugged, sexy look going on, and that I’m digging it. I’m also thinking that you’re a little drunk.”
 

Leila’s fingers are plucking at a loose string on the collar of my shirt, and then they’re playing with a lock of my hair near my neck. It’s an odd intrusion into my personal comfort zone; touching someone’s hair is a strangely intimate thing. I don’t mind, though. Not at all. Not when it’s this beautiful girl doing the touching.
 

“I’m thinking...I like you,” she says, “and I’m hoping you’ll ask me out. There. How’s that for embarrassing yourself? Admitting something like that to the guy you’re interested in goes against every rule of the dating game I know.”

 
“I’ve never been too interested in the dating game anyway,” I say.

“Me neither. That’s part of the reason I moved up here,” she says. “I know I’m avoiding your original question, but...I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

“Fair enough.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Leila asks. “Or a wife?”

I shake my head. “Nah. Would I be here, talking to you like this if I did?”

“You’d be surprised what some guys will try, even when they’re involved with someone else.” Her eyes harden.

I shrug. “You’d be surprised how much it takes to surprise me. I’m a homicide cop, remember? I’ve seen just about everything.” I move my hands a little higher, from her knees to her thighs. “But, no. Short answer is, I’m not married, dating, or seeing anyone in any capacity.” I had been about to kiss her, but the moment seemed to have passed with the turn in the conversation.

“Well, that’s good. I wouldn’t like to have any surprises come up later on.” She glances down, then adds, “if there is a later on, that is.”

“Why wouldn’t there be?”

“Well, I left you a pretty big opening to ask me out, but you didn’t.” Leila bites her lip and scratches at a stain on the leg of her jeans.

Drunk dumbass,
I scold myself. “Yeah, I guess I missed the boat on that one. Is it too late?”

“You’ll never know until you try,” Leila says, still not looking at me. But she’s smiling a little, and her eyes flick to mine, then away, and back again.

“So...do you want to go out with me? For dinner? Sometime?” I shake my head, irritated at myself. “Sorry, that didn’t come out right. Lemme try again. Leila, would you like to have dinner with me?”

Leila rolls her eyes. “You’re funny,” she says, a teasing grin on her face. “Yes, Carson, I would. I’m off this Tuesday.”
 

She’s tilting forward again, touching her lips with her tongue. There’s an invitation in her eyes. I watch her tongue wet her lips, watch her teeth catch her lower lip and let go.

I let myself fall forward, touch my lips to hers slowly and hesitantly, giving her every chance to pull away. But she doesn’t. Instead, she moves one of her hands from her knee to my thigh, and her other slips to my neck, pulling me closer, deepening the kiss.

Her breath is cold, like a winter wind, and her lips taste like cherry lip balm, with a hint of rum and Coke. I could have sworn a breeze had kicked up somehow, blowing through my hair, ruffling my shirt, and skirling Leila’s long raven-black hair around us.
 

Then I feel a quick, sharp pang of pain blast through the back of my skull, and darkness leaps up to swallow me.
 

As I fade into unwilling unconsciousness, I hear Leila shrieking and cursing, and I try to fight back, try to stay awake, but it’s no use.

The world goes black and silent.

Chapter 2: Spinning a Web

Leila

They found me. I can’t believe they found me. I mean, I figured they would eventually find me, but not quite so soon.
 

All I want is to be left alone. Is that so much to ask?

For my father and Hassan…yes, it is too much to ask. They think they own me, they think they can determine my life, they think they can make choices for me.
 

But if either of them think I’m going to just lie down and let them control my life, they have another thing coming.
 

Especially Hassan al-Jabiri. The arrogant bastard.
 

I know it was his thugs who came for me, who showed up at the bar and forced me to defend not just myself this time, but Carson. If I’d been alone, things might’ve gone differently. I might not have used so much…restraint. But Carson was there, and I couldn’t let him get hurt any more than he already was.

God…Carson.
 

Why did he have to show up? And why does he have to be so goddamn sexy and irresistible? Why did he have to kiss me? I might have sensed them coming. But Carson was there, watching me with his electric blue eyes, roving over me, devouring me. He was there with his spiked brown hair and big, hard muscles coiled like springs under his shirt. He was just sitting on the stool next to me, downing gin and tonics like he wished he could drown in them, tempting me with his hesitant flirtation. His lips touched mine and I couldn’t see or think or feel anything else.
 

I don’t know all that much about him, but I think he hides behind his job. He seems most comfortable talking about his work, and I can tell he wants me, but, for some reason, he doesn’t dare let himself think it.
 

I like the desire in his eyes. It’s not possessive, calculating, or domineering. It’s just simple male desire. Maybe “simple” is not the right word, but it is free of ulterior motives. He wants
me
just because I’m
me
. Not because of my family, or because of my father’s wealth and position within the clans. He doesn’t even
know
about any of that. I think he knows there’s a deeper story behind why I’m here aside from “needing a change.” He didn’t buy that at all, obviously. He’s a cop, after all, so I’m sure he can smell evasions and prevarications from a mile away. Part of me wants to tell him everything about myself. Which is stupid, idiotic, foolish. And dangerous, for him and for me. He doesn’t need to know anything about me. He doesn’t need my life story. He doesn’t need to know why I ran away from a spoiled life of sheltered privilege and endless wealth.
 

And he sure doesn’t need to know what happened at the bar. He doesn’t need to know who I really am…or
what
I am.
 

But part of me wonders: should I tell him? Will I end up having to tell him?

Part of me wants to confide in him and throw myself at him simply because of the purity of his desire for me.

Men have always pursued me, flirted with me, charmed me and hit on me, but I could always see the greed and the motive lurking behind their gazes. I can feel it in their hands when they try to charm their way into my pants and into my father’s ear and bank account. Hassan, above and beyond all the rest, has motives for wanting me that have nothing to do with who I am. He doesn’t want Leila; he wants Leila
Najafi
. He wants the name and the weight behind it, the power that will be his once the alliance between our clans is sealed.

I refuse to be a pawn in their stupid games of power. I am a woman, not a chess piece. I want a man to love me for who I am, not for what I have, or who my father is. I don’t care about their alliance. I don’t care how powerful our joined clans will be, how much power we will wield over the other clans, I don’t even care how vast our wealth will be once—
if
—the alliance is sealed.

The alliance, after all, hinges on me, and I refuse to be a part of it. I have refused Hassan’s clumsy, oafish advances. I have denied my father’s orders. I ran away from the only home I’ve ever known to get away from both of them, and their politics and their positioning and their avarice.

Carson Hale, when he fixes those hard, intense blue eyes on me, wants me without knowing anything of that. Perhaps it is only lust at this point, but I’ll take that over Hassan’s version of desire, which isn’t desire but lust for my body, and need for control, and hunger for power all mixed together.
 

My fear is that Carson will vanish once he realizes that what trails behind me is a freight train of baggage. Plus, he’s a cop, and my family runs on the opposite side of the law. Yet another reason I fled Chicago.
 

It’s all so complicated already, and now Carson is, unwittingly, in the middle of it. He has no clue, and he sure doesn’t know how confused I am right now. He has no idea how alluring, how tempting he is to me. My heart tells me it’s not just lust, though. There’s something else in the way he looks at me, in the way he talks to me. He’s come to me three times now when he’s upset or confused, and he talks to me about it. I like to think he came to The Old Shillelagh as much for me as for the gin and tonic, although I can’t say for sure. I mean, there has to be a dozen other places he could have gone to get drunk, all closer to the precinct or to his apartment.
 

But he comes to
my
bar. That has to mean something, right?

Whether it does or not, I had no business involving him in my tangled-up mess of a life. The problem is, he’s now involved, most likely to his detriment.

I should go see him, shouldn’t I? I mean, he’s in the hospital with a concussion and possibly even broken bones, and all because of me. I should make sure he’s okay. I should find out what he knows, what he suspects, and get his version of events.

I have to allay his suspicions, don’t I? For his own protection, I have to lead him away from the truth.

Who am I kidding? I’m going because I want to see his rugged face and feel his hands touching me. I’m going because deep down I want to feel his lips on mine again. Knowing that Carson Hale is the last person on earth I should be getting romantically involved with doesn’t change what I feel about him.
 

I’m flushed with lust for him. The only question is whether my prudence will be stronger than my lust. Because that’s all it is: lust. It’s physical. He’s hot, he’s strong, and he’s a damned good kisser. It’s not emotional at all. I don’t
feel
anything for him at all. It’s simply hormones and pheromones.
 

Right?

*
 
*
 
*

He’s sitting up in the hospital bed, the thin white blanket pulled up to his hips, pillows propped behind his back. He’s eating green Jell-O. The lights are dimmed, the TV on mute, and he’s staring at the TV without really seeing it. The hospital gown is too small and is untied, showing his muscular arms and the bandages around his ribs. I can see the band of his black underwear peeking out from between the front and back of the gown where the blanket doesn’t cover him. Even standing in the doorway, watching him, I want to run my hands across his abs, around to the small of his back and under the band of his underwear. I shove my hands in my pockets.

He notices me, and his eyes light up. He sets aside the Jell-O and clicks off the TV using the controller attached to the bed.
 

“Leila! I wasn’t expecting you…come in, sit down.” He tugs the blanket higher and tries in vain to make the gown close around his side.
 

If I’m being honest, I’m glad it doesn’t close. I like the glimpses of his skin, of his powerful physique.