His Captive, The Unabridged Collection: Billionaire Dark Romance (3 page)

Rachel let her hand slide down and away, coming to cross with the other beneath her bust. Her head swivelled around again, sweeping her gaze across the patrons like a prison searchlight.

“You know, there are a lot of
real
nice men here,” she sighed with a shrewd nod. “Men of means. Real men. Might just bag yourself a sugar daddy if you play your cards right. Doesn't even have to be a rich man, honestly. How long has it been since you had a good fuck, anyway?”

The suggestion turned my mood sour almost immediately, and I couldn't help but respond a little bitterly.

“I don't need to tie myself down to a man for money. That's the whole reason we're doing this, isn't it?”

Rachel just rolled her eyes, groaning loudly.

“Well, isn’t it?” I persisted. I leaned closer to her, aware that my fingers knuckled the table’s edge a little harder than I wanted.

“Yeah, yeah. Just settle down a little,” she muttered, not looking me in the eye.

“I’m just saying that, uh… You know you said—”

“Are you high already? Drunk?” she sneered, her eyes squinted into slits. She leaned forward, resting her cleavage on the table’s edge and I worried for a brief moment that she would knock it over.

“No, I’m fine… I just wanted to say that—”

“You totally are,” she shot back with a smirk. “You are already stoned.”

“I’m not,” I croaked out over suddenly parched lips. Her lipstick seemed to become very bright, a neon smear that hung in the air. She swayed back and forth slowly, bobbing her head just enough, like a cobra.

“Stop that,” I whispered.

She chuckled low in her throat.

“Stop what? I’m not doing anything.”

She’s not doing anything. Stop talking. You sound high.

A long silence passed between us before the tension was broken by a man sidling slowly up to us. His hair was a gorgeous shade of auburn and wavy like I'd never seen. It coiled close to his head and my fingers itched, just thinking about touching it.

As he leaned casually between us, resting his forearms on the edge of the table, I let my eyes wander down the length of his ropy arms. He was fit, but didn't seem to be straining to burst out of his clothes like some of the self-absorbed bodybuilder types I'd seen. I stared up at him and he flashed me a little smile.

He must have seen my surprise, because he quickly brought his lips tight together and turned to Rachel. I rolled it back in my mind like an instant replay: he had smiled and I had winced.

Nice one, Jolie. What are you, 12?

But I couldn’t help but stare again. His teeth were jagged and crooked like they'd been knocked out and put back in wrong. Everything else about his appearance screamed money, from his immaculately tailored trousers and shirt to the subtle paisley print of his dark tie. The teeth just didn’t fit the rest of his physique. How did that happen? I wondered why he never did anything about it, latching onto that thought to keep myself from drifting off too far.

The world seemed to dim and dull a bit before bursting into a radiant mess of sensations, the lights and sounds of the bar at once overwhelming and sedating. I held tight to the table, trying to keep my composure as everything slipped out of my control little by little, like a sandcastle crumbling under the repetitive assault of the tide. What used to be regular lights turned into pulsing starbursts. The French techno wound itself into manic gibberish over a relentless throbbing beat.

Rachel sent a little knowing smirk to me across the table, but the man's attention was firmly on her. I was thankful for that at least. I managed to find something like a smile and stretched it over my sticky teeth. Rachel shot me a tight scowl. Apparently I had missed the mark.

Imposter.

Why didn’t I go stick my fingers down my throat when I first thought of it? Why? Now I was stuck in the middle of a luxury club with a swiftly declining ability to control what my face was even doing. I stretched my neck, shrugging my shoulders hard to try to order my muscles back into sense, convinced people were starting to notice me, to talk about how I didn’t belong there.

Perching my elbows carefully on the edge of the table, I folded my fingers under my chin. That seemed natural. Practically incognito. The man was talking and if I really concentrated, I could tune him in like an old radio. He had a very nice voice, smooth and a little high. It sounded like some kind of candy. Maybe taffy. I bet he sang in church or something.

“Listen... Fun as all this flirting is, you know why I'm here.”

Rachel feigned surprise and confusion, palms out, motioning toward me. I felt myself sway nearer to her.

“Ah, maybe you're looking for Rachel there, hm?” she purred with a wink.

What the hell is she doing?

I couldn't figure out if I'd heard her correctly, or if my addled brain was swapping words around like some kind of three-card Monte. Bronson turned to me, the smile just peeking out. I watched him intently to see if he would show his teeth again.

“So you’re Rachel, eh?”

I nodded, my head slightly wobbly on my neck.

“Okay… so tell me what I’m getting into.”

I shrugged coyly, unsure how to move the deal forward. I felt Rachel’s eyes boring into me and cringed in my skin. Even without looking at her, I could sense the small, frustrated shake of her head.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I imagined a scene transition like in a movie: a horizontal swipe that transformed me into her from top to bottom like a window washer’s squeegee. The smile I gave him was bored and confident. Sultry. Supreme. It was Rachel’s smile.

“It’s a sort of sedative,” I sighed like I had already explained this to him a thousand times. “It's a party drug, and it'll fuck you up like nothing else.”

“Like nothing else, huh?” he said, tipping toward me.

“It's about the strongest thing you can possibly get your hands on.”

“Where’d you get it?”

I felt my eyebrows go up, up, up at the corners and I just stared at him until his brow twitched and he glanced away.

He snorted uncomfortably and cut his eyes toward Rachel, puffing up defiantly through his chest. “Well… I’ve been everywhere. I really doubt you’re going to show me anything new.”

I shrugged one shoulder, throwing my hair back over one side and looking away like I was already mentally moving on to more interesting prospects. Rachel leaned in, eyes gleaming, apparently satisfied with the quality of my impersonation of her.

“Like, whatever, Bronfield,” I drawled, my eyes fixed on a far corner of the room. The television had switched to a commercial about travel or maybe a foreign beer. Images of white beaches and sky blue waves toppled over each other.

“Bronson,” he corrected me in a low, frustrated voice. Tiny bubbles of excitement burst just below my surface. Messing with him was really pretty fun. I could see why Rachel always looked so pleased.

“Yeah, I heard you,” I sighed after a long pause. Then I rolled my head toward him and sucked my lower lip between my teeth, wetting it with my tongue. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rachel duck her head to stifle a giggle. “Listen. This is medical-grade stuff, straight out of a pharmacy in the neighborhood. You won’t find anything cleaner, and we both know you can’t get it
anywhere
unless you’re already dying. You in? Because if not...”

He cocked his head, working his jaw back and forth. His eyes seem to harden as I stared at them, turning from light brown to coppery and metallic as an old penny.

He nodded firmly.

“Yeah. Okay. That's what I'm after.” He shoved his hand into his pocket for the money, absolutely no-nonsense and ready to be done with the transaction.

Rachel reached out suddenly, giving a soft tap to his arm and gently pivoting him to face her. She looked up at him with a smouldering, hungry stare.

“Why don't we talk about the nitty gritty, hm? Rachel here was just about to leave to meet a man over at the bar.”

I was?

Bronson frowned back at me, looking me up and down but then half-shrugging. Leaning on one forearm, he edged closer to her and quirked an eyebrow in challenge.

Rachel jerked her chin toward the bar and the first man in a suit she saw. His back was toward us, arms crossed in front of him. Over the curve of the leather chair, I could only make out the cut of his dark suit and the gleam of his hair.

My mouth fell open in protest. I wasn’t ready to be small-talking more strangers and really just wanted to hover at the table while she finished with Bronson. Hadn’t I done enough for one night? But she shooed me away, stabbing a very purposeful fingernail toward the man sitting at the bar by himself, her glare hard and impatient.

“Go on,
Rachel
,” she crooned through gritted teeth. “That man looks like he could use some company. I’ll finish your business.
Go.
”

Grudgingly, I slid from the bar stool and onto the tipsy platforms of my high heels. With a hard tug at my skirt I was suddenly standing upright again in the sea of people and music, trying to gain some sense of composure. The air and sounds swirled like oil, and I floated away like a toy boat in the direction she had pushed me.

Did he need company? He didn’t look lonely but he didn’t look overly friendly either. I couldn’t be sure, and squinted at his face and body language, trying to figure it out. With his arms crossed and body pointed directly at the bar, he certainly didn’t look like he was seeking a companion, at all.

But I couldn’t stop moving toward him. My legs worked in a clumsy, clopping manner, like a marionette with an amateur operator. Every step felt like I had barely escaped crumpling into a pile of twigs and fabric. The worst part was that I could see it all happening, but I couldn't stop it.

I eventually made my way to where the man sat, leaning my top half over onto the bar and taking a few deep, ragged breaths in celebration of reaching my destination. The air coming into me was too hot, like I was breathing in a jungle.

“Well, hello,” he murmured in a low, purring voice, leaning away from where I stood too close. Taking a moment, I tried to get his vitals: silky smooth but hard jawline, platinum watch, no wedding ring, exposed stitching on his suit lapels that meant
handmade
and
expensive as shit
.

He was just the right sort of man, just like Rachel would want, but now I didn’t know what to do with him. What would she do? I tried to still see myself as her but the image was fading fast. With every second, I was forgetting how she smiled, how she stood, how she talked so easily to people.

“Hey, hi,” I muttered, my voice a strange bark. “I’m new here. I’ve never been here.”

What am I even saying? What does that mean?

“Well... all right,” he said with a bemused squint. “I confess I’m not very familiar with this place either. Seems friendly enough. May I buy you a drink?”

I nodded haltingly. I could feel how ridiculous I looked, a half-paralyzed marionette. With a determined, quick breath I stood up tall, tits out, and steadied myself with one arm against the bar.

“I think so, yes. Thank you,” I mumbled, unable to think of what else to say.

The man nodded slowly, then sat up and let his hands drop to his lap, lacing his fingers together there.

“Two dirty martinis, Belvedere,” he said to the bartender who had efficiently appeared, just loud enough to be heard.

“That’s a great name for a bartender,” I said, my words garbled and thick in my mouth.

“It certainly would be.”

Swallowing, I smiled as pleasantly as I could. “It would be?”

He cocked his head half-sideways with a sympathetic squint.

“Belvedere is a vodka,” he explained in a low voice.

Embarrassment curdled on my tongue. “Of course it is. I knew that. That’s why I said—”

“—Of course you did,” he interrupted, shaking his head.

He chuckled and smiled from one corner of his mouth. I could feel it—he was mocking me. I couldn't blame him.

Belvedere… I mean it was a TV show? Is that what I was thinking? That this guy in a suit worth more than my aunt’s truck would be familiar with Nick At Night sitcoms? God I’m an idiot.

I should go. Run away. There must be other men.

As if to defy myself, my right foot hooked around the back of my left ankle. I wasn’t going anywhere. Instead I threw my weight out over one hip, leaning against the rail like a teenager. Closing my eyes, I sought the beat of the techno music and tried to tether myself to it like a towrope. In a few moments I could feel it seeping through me, pulsing in my arteries, bright and hard as a mallet strike.

“Oh, you're... you're a bit tipsy already, aren't you?” he murmured, watching me intently. That low voice made me want to lean in farther and farther.

“I might be, just a little,” I admitted, glad to clear the air. “No sense in stopping now, I suppose.”

The bartender slid two martinis toward us, the glasses nearly opaque with frost. Taking the stem between my fingers, I threw the stranger what had to be the most awkward wink in history, and he laughed openly. It was good-natured enough, but I was fuming behind the veil of the drug-induced bliss.

I couldn’t tell how much of an idiot I looked. I felt like a drunk driver in my own body, swerving all over the road despite two hands on the wheel. Was it passable? Squinting through a sudden blur caused by a change in the music, I laughed breezily back at him and held the glass in a polite salute. His smile seemed like an endorsement of my act. With a small shake of his head, he moved toward me, glass held aloft.

Placing a hand at my thigh, he gave a sudden, secret squeeze as he leaned in, tipping the rim of his glass against mine. I breathed slowly, trying to process the sensation of his fingers through my skirt. It was such a strange transgression, so immediately close to my sex and not entirely gentle. Yet as the bright feeling pulsed hotly, it didn’t seem entirely out of place. It seemed almost necessary, as though I had been craving exactly that touch for a long time.

You’re drunk, Jolie. You should go.

“I'm not usually a social drinker,” he growled, low and confidential in his throat. The words seemed to slide into me as his fingers left my thigh. They didn’t fill the bright void his absence made. In a few seconds, the impression faded, making me wonder if I had really felt it at all. Was that a dream? Maybe a wish?

“Well then I’m lucky I caught you on a sociable night,” I said, almost shyly. The cold glass fit perfectly against my lower lip and I let a small amount slide over my tongue. The salt was intense.

He chuckled suavely. “No… I should consider myself lucky to have bumped into a beautiful woman like you. Will you tell me your name?”

I gulped inelegantly. Rachel
did
say I was pretty, but... beautiful or interesting enough for a man like this, absolutely not. Especially not at that moment. I giggled, but it wasn't at his flirting—I just suddenly remembered that this strange drug had, in fact, apparently made me someone worth talking to, just as promised.

I slurred a bit but tried hard to make my mouth move properly at least. “I'm Rachel.”

My voice sounded so foreign I flinched from it. He raised a brow, letting his glass hover just over his open lower lip. Something hard flickered across his dark, shadowed eyes.

“Ah. I'm Rafe, but... you're not Rachel, no. Not at all. Such a naughty little liar you are.” He slid closer to me, his hand back at my thigh and tightening slightly.

I did feel that before. I did. That happened.

“Tell me the truth,” he growled, suddenly serious. The music rose around us, looping us together.

I shook my head tightly, my lips pressed together as though Rachel had cemented them shut.

He stood, rising from his bar stool to stand just inches from me. His face hardened into marble before my eyes as his fingers tightened around the muscle at the top of my leg.

“Tell me the truth.”

I couldn't decide whether the pounding of my heart was an effect of the drug or the electricity his touch sent up into me. He could have asked me anything in that moment and I would have answered. I tipped my chin up at him, bottom lip firmly between my teeth before I spoke.

“Jolie,” I admitted helplessly. “My name's Jolie.”

His breath fell over my cheeks as he paused, his eyes flickering over my face and the skin below my collarbones.

“That's better,” he said with a soft, relieved sigh. The tension between us seemed to dissolve like mist and I breathed in the spicy, piney scent of some expensive cologne. “A beautiful name for a beautiful creature. Very appropriate, isn't it?”

His hand slowly slid away from my thigh and he sat back in his chair, though he turned to face me more fully. I couldn't help but feel flattered by his words and that smooth voice seeming to come both from outside and inside my mind. When he smiled at me, a humid warmth percolated through my belly.

See? You did it. You did fine. Rachel would be proud.

Instantly, I found my eyes wandering the crowd for Rachel to see if she had witnessed my tiny victory. Squinting across the darkened club, I could just barely make them out. Another man had joined the table, and while Rachel seemed to be sitting with her usual confidence and poise, Bronson looked less than pleased. Surly, even.

A sharp whistle drew my attention back to Rafe. “What's so interesting over there, hm?”

He leaned back from me and I shifted from foot to foot. I fought the urge to stand at attention, like a soldier.

“I'm not boring you, am I?”

“No, I’m sorry… I was just looking for my friend.”

“You’re free to go,” he said abruptly.

“No no!” I barked, jumping a little at the sound of my own voice. My hands flew up, palms out like I was surrendering.

“Then you'll pay attention to me when we're talking,” he nodded.

His voice was hard, and while it was definitely a command, it was said with the casual ease of everything else that had come out of his mouth since I came over. There was something about being directed that way that sent a shiver through me, and I found myself pressing in a little to listen to him.

“I will,” I promised, my voice barely above a whisper.

I nodded to reinforce the idea of my promise and stared down obediently at his clasped hands, waiting to hear what he wanted to say next. He had perfectly shaped, pale nails and long, thick fingers cupped around an empty space as though ready to catch something.

My pulse thrummed loud in my ears as I waited, hoping he would speak again. I kept my eyes demurely down so he would know I was sincerely waiting for his attention.

Every time he looked at me, I felt my heart race just a little. Then when he looked away, my skin cooled. His presence was absolutely massive, and made me feel at once safe and... hunted. I felt like willing prey before a benevolent carnivore, like he could snap me up at any moment and I'd be fine with it, but I knew he wouldn't.

I stared at his hands for a few long moments, then let my gaze wander over his cuffs then coat sleeves, wondering if he was going to make me stop. I mentally traced the creases in his fine coat at his elbows, and lingered along the ziggurat of his lapels. I could practically feel the fabric under my fingertips.

He sat, still and taut as though ready to pounce. But I didn’t feel threatened. I knew he was allowing me to inspect him. Not a single one of his jet black hairs was out of place. His suit was tailored and beautiful, just as black as his hair—and, perhaps a bit more unsettling, his eyes. I rationalized to myself that it was simply the lighting, but there was an indistinct, inky depth behind them.

His full lips pouted ever so slightly with every word that came out of his mouth, and I soon found my eyes fixated there, rather than on his dark eyes. For a brief moment I realized he was speaking again and then his words seem to drift away, the world vibrating and hushing like I'd been plunged again deep underwater. Only when he cocked his head to the side a bit, his brow raised, did I understand that I'd entirely missed what he was saying.

“I—I'm sorry, I... I didn't catch that. The music, it's so loud,” I stammered.

I brought my eyes to his quickly, realizing that they were still focused on those full, beautiful lips.

“No, it's not.”

He stood then, smoothing his suit and buttoning the trim jacket. “I told you to pay attention.”

“No, wait—”

Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode out of the bar. I watched him leave, surprised to find myself unconsciously swaying after him like a reed in a wind, a choking whimper caught in my chest.