The Drazen World: Irrelevant (Kindle Worlds Novella) (3 page)

Five

I grumble under my breath at the stupid bell that’s ringing.

The sound comes again: a reminder I need to be somewhere other than hiding out in my small bedroom where the help—when we had them—once slept. This is the current form of communication between Maria and me since my father’s death. Three days after Monica’s wedding, he was found cold and stiff in his bed. Now, with father gone, there’s no buffer between us, and Maria’s abhorrence for me is flagrantly displayed.

She’s not shy, complaining about me to
me
. She’s quick to tell me I’m only living in her home because of a clause in my father’s will. She’s equally quick to share that her lawyer is still trying to work a way around it. That particular announcement was a week ago at the start of May.

I reach the sitting parlor just as she adjusts a pillow at her elbow.

“I require more tea,” she tells me. In our history together, she’s never called me by name and now only rings the bell and gives her instructions.

Across from her, Drazen sits bemused, yet silent, in an armchair. I feel his eyes bore into my back when I walk between them to get her empty cup.

“Hurry along. Jonathan and I still have business to attend to,” Maria says in that haughty way she speaks to everyone.

I’m at the vintage console I was told was part of a Norwegian monarch’s private collection, refilling her teacup, and though I should mind my own business, I move at a slower pace to listen about this
business
. I’m about to drop a second sugar cube into the dark, hot liquid since there’s nothing but silence behind me.

“Sugar is the devil.” Her signature laugh that’s not really a laugh agitates the balance in the room. “I’m watching my girlish figure.”

I turn to face the sixty-one-year-old woman who’s long past being a girl. “Here you go.”

Maria waves a dismissive hand at me
. So much for hearing about this business.

“Katherine, sit,” he commands.

I do with my knees knocking and knots the size of boulders in my stomach. When I dare lift my head, he’s looking over my choice of attire—dungarees with rips in parts of the front legs and a fitted T-shirt. I feel his eyes lingering on the swell of my breasts, my thighs, and even my toes in my flip-flops. When I glance his way, he’s smirking in his three-piece black suit. His green eyes are greedy, demanding.

I drop my head at the interest I see in them and fidget with the bottom half of my jean overalls wishing I’d worn something not so revealing. The three of us sit in silence with Maria’s cup grazing against the saucer making the only sound.

I look to my stepmother, catching myself before I call her name. The last time I made that mistake was the day my father was found, and I paid dearly. Her handprint was still visible at his small funeral. “What’s this all about?”

Instead of Maria’s voice, he tells me, “I’ve come with a proposal for you.”

“And that is?”

“Work for me.”

I grab hold of his offer, disregarding that it’s said to my legs rather than my face. Money is something I need desperately. It will get me a car to move around. My job prospects are few and far between because of the rotting economy and my reliance on public transportation, which isn’t easy to navigate in White Plains. But here’s an offer falling into my lap. “Where? When do I interview?”

He flashes a look, just one, at Maria.

Strawberry red infuses her face. She stands with a loud huff. “Use her up for all I care.”

Then she’s out of the parlor leaving me with Drazen and the unspeaking man by the window who instantly walks the same path as Maria, then closes the door.

Unbelievable. There has to be a secret, one I need to master so others will do my bidding like that. “How do you do that?”

He uncrosses his long legs, and my mind drifts somewhere it has no business going as I look at my brother-in-law. He drops his hands on his upper legs, and I know he somehow knows of my illicit thoughts, though he doesn’t address it. “Do what?”

I look away from his defined legs and try to give thought to what I’d like to ask him.
“Just now, you got Maria and that guy to leave the room. You didn’t say a word to either of them, yet they did your bidding. How?” I’ve never been
this
close to anyone with
that
much power.

“I demand to be seen.”

“Easy to say, hard to accomplish,” I mutter. But for him, it appears as instinctive as
breathing. I get back to the reason I’m seated in front of him. “You mentioned a job.” I’m more than interested in that. “What does it entail? When can I interview?” I ask again.

He stands. Everything about him mystifies me, the way he glides like a graceful gazelle over to the console where the teapot and pitcher of water rest, and the way his frame takes up as much room as it wants because it can.

“Water?”

Stay focused, Katie. Job description. Interview date.
Finding out those details are paramount even though I want to run from the room because of my forbidden feelings toward him.
“No.”

When he’s standing over me, there’s a glass of water in his hand. O
ur fingertips graze when I take it from him. The hairs of my arm stand up from the contact. Potent lust lands in the pit of my belly. It’s a new feeling but I easily recognize it from our other encounter on the deck. When a small sip of water hits my stomach, fear nitpicks at the lust there. What will he do when he sits down? How close will he be? Should I turn toward him when he’s seated? One of my legs begins to shake when that firm butt of his lands in the seat beside me. I watch it sink into the cushion, imagining it naked and running my fingertips over its fullness.

A large, slightly tanned hand covers my thigh, stilling my nervous movements and dulling the wantonness that arises whenever he’s near. “You and I have a lot in common.”

There’s no way that’s true.

He’s a god among men because of his wealth and power.

I barely have two nickels to rub together.

We
have nothing in common. I angle my body toward him. He makes me feel confident, daring, so I tell him honestly, “I doubt that.”

He’s obviously toying with me again. After our heated exchange at the reception, that was the only explanation I came up with. Instead of falling for his tricks as I almost did that evening, I need to wrap this up. I’ve amused him long enough, or better yet, I’ve been the butt of his obvious joke for too long.

“This job. What does working for you entail, Mr. Drazen? When can I interview for it?” My plan is to get him to tell me all about the job I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist, then flatly refuse and walk out on him.

His cool hand is over. His single touch is possessive when his fingers curl around and spellbinds me in the magic of his caress. I’m so caught up in the feel of
him
that he’s more than half-way through his indecent proposal before I hear him. “
The kind where you’re spread eagle under me, Ms. Smith.” He raises the inside of my wrist to his lips, teasing my skin with his hot tongue. “Your interview begins now.”

Water sloshes onto my dungarees and my shirt. His face is millimeters from mine as he bends on a knee in front of me. I can smell the faint scent of the coffee he consumed sometime today, the mint he used to mask the smell, and his cologne that swamps my senses. His takes the glass from me, placing it on the table; then his hands are on my thighs again. Warm and heavy. His smile, which shows very straight, white teeth, is charming despite his adulterous words.

“What’s your answer?” One of his hands unsnaps the top portion of my overalls, then untucks my T-shirt from the waistband.

Just when I open my mouth to tell him to back off, his fingertips are on my skin, on the flesh at my waist. It’s impossible to carry on a conversation when his warm hands go farther up my tee, but somehow, I manage to groan out, “What about your wife?” My half sister? That should’ve made it easier for me to pull away, slap his hand away from my body. All I do is moan as his audacious hand nears my bra.

“What about her?” he flippantly asks, exhaling some of his sweet breath in my face. “Will you take the job? You’re perfect for it.”

His compromising seduction shouldn’t be working. I should be on my feet, indignant at his proposal. I try to stop myself from leaning toward him and silently acquiescing
.

“I knew I’d chosen well.” His words are muffled into my neck.

My tee is off me and on the floor. His clever fingers make quick work of the bra that took me a few good seconds to put on earlier today.

“You are a wonder,” he breathes out, pushing me back onto the couch so my breasts are in the air. His thumbs skim along my ribs, then up higher, cupping my size Bs. “Not too much. Just enough.” His copper head lowers, and he pulls a nipple into his mouth while his hand plays with the other breast.

Under his hand, my heartbeat thumps away as I experience my first intimate contact. Instead of pushing him away, my fingers stroke his nape while he continues to feast on one breast, then the other. A strange tightening tugs on my lower belly. I rub my legs together, not understanding anything but feeling the heaviness between them. A dam is about to burst if he continues to suck on me like that. I want him to end it, put me out of my misery. One of his hands slips in between the thick fabric of my overalls and finds its way over my panties.

He lets go of my nipple. “Fuck. You’re soaked,” he kind of moans out. His index finger hovers over the place between my legs that’s throbbing with need. My body is demanding something. It wants what he has. “You like this?” He taps on my tight bud that’s dripping wet.

I thought I was above this
.
But I’m not. I scandalously squirm against his mischievous finger. I need more. More friction. More than one tap.

“Tell me yes.” His eyes are almost black, glistening with a tempting desire that I’m drowning in. He taps on the bud again, and I hear my body’s juices seeping out of me. “You’re dripping. For
me.
I can help you but only if you tell me yes.” He’s inside my panties now, at the bud, rubbing against it softly.

I’m nothing but nerve endings. My entire being is connected to that small place where he is. I nod. He increases his pace.

“Use your words, Katie.” His chuckle is darker than his eyes; evil lives in it, but I don’t care as long as his spellbinding finger stays at my core.

“Yes,” I grunt out when his finger moves faster over me, and I widen my legs for him, for what’s about to happen. “Please, don’t stop,” I beg. All my pride vanishes the closer I get to the ecstasy he can unlock.

There’s a rap on the parlor door.

His finger leaves my panties in a rush to stand to his feet. Tightly wound, I look up at him, confused about what’s happening. “Pack what you need. We leave in ten minutes.” Gone is the charm and seduction. In its place is a brusque man.

“What?” I’m lethargic from the new sensations he’s awakened within me.

His finger, the one that was on me, is at his lips, and then he slips it inside his mouth. I crumble. My body gushes in pleasure. My breathing comes out in short puffs while my legs shake through my first release.

“Remarkable,” he says, passion back in his tone. Then he pulls his finger from his mouth. He adjusts himself in his pants while I’m still a puddle of tingly nerves.

There’s another knock. “You have a meeting in an hour and a half,” a voice says through the closed doors.

I come back down to earth and see only his broad back.

“Don’t take longer than the ten minutes. I’m n
ot playing games. You come willingly or not at all; it makes no difference to me. I’ve already paid Maria a king’s ransom for one-year of your service.”

I’m all alone in the parlor, left to wonder what’s happening.

Six

No one cries when I walk down the stone steps I once played on as a young girl. Maria doesn’t follow behind me remorseful for her lifetime of hate. I have a lonely bag from my high school days stuffed with as many things as it’ll hold. When I make it down the last step, the man who was in the parlor with Drazen is right there with a hand stretched toward me.

“Your bag, Ms. Smith.”

I let go of my nervous grip on the strap and hand it to him. I look back at the sprawling home and its shut door. Facing forward, I breathe out, recalling the two times I chased Monica across the lawn believing we were playing hide and seek when she was really running away from me. Then I look at the steps I would jog down when my father returned from his business trips, until he scolded me to stop because my behavior was unseemly. I should be glad to be rid of this place with one set of rules for Monica and another for me. But I’m not. It’s my home. The only one I’ve ever known.

“It’s time.” Drazen is by the back door of his luxurious oversized car, waiting.

It is time to leave. Past time. But as I get near him, I hesitate. Behind me isn’t a home, it isn’t a sanctuary or a place that’s a safe haven for me. For the first time, I call it what it is ... a bedlam, one where every corner and room is filled with loneliness and despair.

Despite all this, it’s familiar to me.

The silent taunts from Monica and her friends, the blatant cold shoulder from Maria, the whisperings that stop when I arrive by the maids ... those I know. I don’t know the man at the door, waiting on me, who offered me a job no one in their right mind would take. Even if he made my heart leap inside Maria’s parlor for the first time ever or unlocked sexual pleasure so heady that I’m on the verge of begging for more. Even still,
that’s
also the same man who paid a “king’s ransom for a year of my service.” One of my feet hedges back up the step, up to the cold place I know.

“Katie.” Drazen moves just a little from the open door he holds while both my feet are now planted on the lower stair.

Fear of the unknown twists and turns in my stomach, forming knots of uncertainty. I believed I
was
ready to leave. When I was a child, I believed that anywhere but
here
would be better, nicer ... but now that I’m faced with the prospect of actually leaving, I can’t.

Drazen’s strides are full of unbridled machismo and an apparent dominance that draws me to him. Both his large hands are at my waist and when he leans toward me, I’m intoxicated by his commanding aura. “Come with me.” Hesitancy, though distant, still gnaws at me, keeping me rooted in place. Drazen steps up on the landing with me. Short breaths crash against my chest as I watch one of his hands leave my waist and capture the side of my face. His mouth, so devilish in its persuasiveness, is at my ear. “Come with me, Katherine,” he repeats low.

Desire lives in his command. I take a chance to lift my head up, meeting his dark gaze. An eagerness, a salacious craving blares out loud and clear from the depths of his green eyes. There’s no mistaking his intentions, his desire ... he’s not trying to mask it. I melt at the sight. My nod is slight but like a dog with a bone, Drazen latches on to my minute compliance. His bright smile disarms me but it’s the chaste kiss that hints of
more
on my lips that completely relaxes me.

“You won’t regret this.” He leads me to the back of the car. Once inside and seated, I realize the doubt from before vanished at his touch. When he’s beside me in the dark car with its tinted windows and soft, black leather seats, I’m not the least bit tearful or reluctant.

I want
this
... whatever it is, whatever it may cost me.

“Let’s go,” he tells the driver.

Those are the only words spoken as the car coasts away. I get a final glimpse of the broken-down stable where no horses live any longer. Then I catch a quick view of the dying grass that’s not fit for any of the thoroughbreds, if we had them, to graze. The car drives under the arch with its missing letters that once read Faulkner and through the long-ago pearly white gates, which are now muddy-brown rust.

Yeah, let’s go.

I look over at Drazen whose thick, copper hair is neat at the sides and a little full at the front. With his head down and all his focus on the tablet on his lap as he talks into a cell phone at his ear, there’s nothing left for me to do but sleep.

From the depth of my slumber, I hear my name being whispered. “Katie,” he calls again. His nose skims against my cheek, tugging a moan from between my lips. “Katie.”

Our eyes meet when I open mine. Drazen’s lips, which were created to torment me, are on mine. His tongue slips hot and slick in my mouth. It glides over my tongue, exploring and commanding my attention. My groans fill the back of the vehicle when the kiss intensifies. Sadly, it’s over too soon.

“We’re here” is all I hear from the same deep masculine voice from the outdoor terrace and Maria’s parlor before the back door opens.

Drazen’s large hands fall away from the sides of my face. His eyes are soft and almost restful as they gaze up me. “Go on in, Katie.”

He helps me over his long, strong legs, and then I’m standing on a circular driveway. He remains in the car while I view the house in front of me. From the Georgian stone that stretches hundreds of feet, I can tell the interior will be luxurious with state-of-the-art appliances, maybe an outdoor hot tub in the back, and a separate wing where their staff sleeps.

“This way, Ms. Smith.” The same man who took my knapsack is at the open front door.

I’m not two seconds into the wide foyer when Monica saunters down the long winding marble stairs wearing a slim-fitting dress, her brown hair resting against her shoulders with its usual center part.

“Mrs. Drazen.” The man passes by her, my lousy bag in his hand. She flicks her fingers at him.

She and I are still in the same position, not talking, when he comes back in pulling two suitcases.

“You have everything?”

I jump at Drazen’s smooth, baritone voice behind me.

“Yes,” the man says. I’m coming to the slow conclusion he’s some kind of manservant to my brother-in-law. “I’ll be in the car.”

Drazen stands beside me while Monica remains by the stairs. If she’s angry, I can’t tell because her face is a mask of expressionlessness. No raised eyebrows, no tightening of lips, no tapping of her feet. She stands across from us regal in her inscrutability while I would’ve crumbled on the expensive floor had Monica’s husband not reached for my sweaty hand. The seconds he holds it for restores my nerves, momentarily, until he releases it to speak.

“Monica, Katie. Katie, Mrs. Drazen,” he says as if I haven’t lived with the woman all my life or hadn’t witnessed their marriage one month back. “Katie’s to be my ... ” Even the village idiot could read the pregnant pause. “She’s my
personal assistant.”

She doesn’t ask him any questions about my job or where he’s going. She doesn’t approach him as a typical wife would with smiles and kisses, nor does he leave my side to go to her.

“Katherine.” He looks my way, just once, green eyes warm as if he wants to say more but doesn’t. He leaves as quietly as he entered.

Click. Click.
That’s her heels on the checkered black and white marble tiles, carrying Monica toward me.

“Welcome to hell, personal assistant.”

And hell it becomes.