Turn To Me (34 page)

“Do you mind?” I hissed.

Blane's eyes met mine and I instinctively stepped back at the rage I saw there, the wall of the elevator coming up against my back.

“Actually,” he bit out, “I do.”

The elevator dinged again, then Blane was dragging me out of it, his grip unyielding on my upper arm.  Not hard enough to bruise, but too tight to get away.  I stumbled next to him, my heels not made for moving at this pace.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked, holding on to my anger.

“We need to talk.”

“I don't want to talk.”  Like I wanted to hear his excuses, his explanations.  As if anything he had to say would erase the image of him kissing Kandi from my mind.  The thought made me angrier.

He was dragging me down a deserted corridor, it looked like it was a level with conference rooms, all empty at this time of night.  He stopped in front of a door marked Conference Room 125.  Opening the heavy wooden door, he pushed me inside, closing the door behind him.

The room was large, the ceiling at least twenty feet high, and only a few lights were half-lit.  A few large, round tables were arranged in the space, covered with black linen cloths.  Chairs were stacked along one wall.

Eager to get some space between Blane and me, I moved away, turning so my back wasn't to him.  I needn't have worried.  He'd halted inside the doorway.  Darkness shrouded him and I squinted to see him through the shadows, cursing the faint light I'd stepped into.

“What do you want, Blane?” I asked.  “What are you doing here?”

“I came to stop you from making a stupid move,” he answered flatly.  “But I see I was too late.”

My heart sank.  I don't know how he'd found out why I was here, but he had, and he thought I'd gone through with it.  I shouldn't care, but I did.  My eyes stung, which only made me angry.

“It's none of your business, Blane,” I choked out.  “I don't need you.  I can take care of myself.”

“Can you?” His voice was both skeptical and sad.  I squinted into the darkness, wishing I could see his face.  As if he heard my thought, he moved toward me.  Alarmed, I backed away.

“Kade told me what Simone wanted you to do tonight,” he said, coming closer. 

I ran into something and stopped, glancing around to see I'd come up against one of the tables.

“I paid that money to her already,” he continued.  “You coming here tonight was completely unnecessary.”

My eyes jerked to his in dismay.  “But...” I stuttered.  “But James said-”

“James?!”

Blane's shocked outburst had me clamping my mouth shut, aghast at what I'd just revealed.

“James was the one who-” Blane stopped, seemingly unable to complete the sentence.  Without another word, Blane turned on his heel, striding for the door.

“No!  Blane!  Wait!”  I scrambled after him, cursing my stilettos as they slowed me down.  In the dark, I couldn't see where I was going.  My heel caught on the carpet and with a cry, I fell, my ankle twisting sharply beneath me.

In seconds, Blane was crouching at my side.  “Are you all right?” he asked.

I grimaced, nodding.  “I just twisted my ankle.”

Without another word, he lifted me in his arms and set me onto a nearby table.  Dropping down, he lightly pressed my ankle, feeling the joint.  I hissed at the pain.  Damn it.  This was all his fault, I thought crankily.

“What do you expect when you wear shoes like these?” he asked.

“Well, I hadn't planned on running in them,” I retorted.

He didn't say anything to that, merely continued massaging my ankle, carefully bending my foot.  It felt a little better and I turned the joint in a circle.  No breaks, thank God.

Incongruously, I suddenly wanted to cry.  The sight of him bending down, taking care of me, reminded me too much of what used to be.  The anger over his betrayal was still there, but now I felt an overwhelming sadness, too.  I was glad I'd never told him I loved him.  That would have been humiliating.

That thought steeled my resolve even as I fought the urge to reach out and run my fingers through his hair.  He was wearing dark jeans and a deep green sweater, which I knew would make his eyes appear like emeralds.  The feel of his hands on my skin was bittersweet.

Blane swam in my vision and I cleared my throat, blinking rapidly.  Best not to dwell on it.

“I'll, um, find a way to pay you back,” I said roughly.  When he looked up at me, my breath caught.  I'd been right about his eyes and their brilliant depths held me mesmerized.

“You say that as if I care about the damn money,” he said flatly.

The fight was drained out of me, I was sick of arguing, so I just shrugged in response.

He stood, standing close to me, his chest at eye-level.  I sighed inwardly, knowing that a week ago, I could've leaned forward and rested on his broad chest, been comforted by his strength.

Blane's fingers under my chin forced my head up until I was looking at him.  His thumb brushed the corner of my mouth.

“James did this, didn’t he?” he growled, his jaw in tight bands.  “What else did he do that I can't see?” 

Before I could stop him, he'd pushed my coat down and off my arms, examining my exposed skin as if searching for more marks and bruises.

“He didn't do anything that I didn't pay him back for,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.  I felt very exposed in this outfit, more vulnerable because it was Blane looking at me in it.

Blane frowned.  “He didn't...force you to...”

He trailed off, but I got the gist.  “No.  I recorded him saying some rather incriminating things, things that would destroy his career if they were made public.  So let's just say he came around to my point of view.”  I lifted my chin defiantly.

Blane's eyes glimmered, his lips twisting in a tiny smirk.  I couldn't help the curl of pleasure his approval gave me in the pit of my stomach.

His eyes dropped to my arms covering my chest, then lower to where the hem of my skirt had climbed to the tops of my thighs.  My skin burned as if he'd touched it and his hands, resting lightly on the bare skin of my knees, felt like a brand.  The air seemed to thicken in my lungs as I remembered the last time I'd sat on a table, only it had been a desk and it had been in Blane's office....

I abruptly pushed myself off the table, gingerly testing my weight on my ankle.  It hurt, but it would hold.  Blane's arm slid around my waist and I flinched at the touch of his hand on my naked back.  I tried to step away.

“Let go of me,” I told him.  “I'm fine.”

He didn't listen, shocker that, and instead pulled me closer to him, wrapping his arms around me and tucking my head against his chest.  I could hear his heart beat through the fabric of his clothes.  My fists clenched at my sides as I fought the overwhelming need to hug him back.

“God, Kat,” he began, his voice tight, “when I saw your car blow up last night, I was sure you were dead.  And tonight, when I thought you were here with some bastard...I wanted to kill him before I even knew who it was.”

I didn't know how to respond.  “I'm sorry,” I mumbled, though it was a ludicrous thing to say.

“You're sorry?” He gave a short bark of humorless laughter.  “That's the last thing you should be.  All of this - you nearly getting killed too many times, you having to put up with Kade, James a constant threat to you - this is all my fault.  Last night, I could have lost you forever.”

I looked up at him.  His eyes traveled over my face before softly running the back of his knuckles down my cheek.  I could feel every inch of my body pressed against his and a little voice in the back of my mind was urging me to forget about last night, forget about Kandi.  Who cared about that?  If Blane still wanted me, still felt something for me, I'd be a fool not to take what he offered for as long as he was offering it. 

Just like all the other women he had dated.

That thought brought me up short and I stepped back out of his arms.

“But you did, Blane,” I said simply. 

His face was a blank mask as I gathered my coat and purse and walked away, each step harder to take than the one before.  I could feel Blane's eyes burning a hole in my back and I didn't breathe properly until I reached the safety of the hallway.

I belted my coat tightly around my waist and left the hotel, dropping James's keys down a drainage pipe off the street.  Bitchy and vindictive?  Absolutely.  But recovering from lost keys and a broken phone was a pain in the ass, and I felt the least James deserved for how he'd treated me, not to mention that I would have liked to watch him retrieve his wallet from the toilet. 

I dropped Alisha's keys off at her apartment, which was how I found out how Blane had known where I was.  He had stopped by my place and Alisha, being worried about me, had told him where I had gone.  Well, that solved that little mystery.  I couldn't be mad at her though, she'd only tried to help me, and if things had worked out differently and I hadn't been able to get my hands on that stun gun, I would have been glad to see Blane show up.

It was late and I was exhausted when I let myself into my apartment and shucked my coat.  I reached for a lamp, but paused.  Perhaps it was a testament to how often I had uninvited visitors that seeing Kade sitting on my sofa in the ambient glow of my Christmas tree lights didn't surprise me all that much.

“What do you want, Kade?”  I wasn't in the mood to see him. 

“I saw you took a tour of my office.  Then left.  Something I remember quite clearly telling you not to do.” 

His tone was biting, making a shiver of unease creep down my spine.  I squared my shoulders.

“Seeing as how you have a rather detailed file on me,” I retorted, “I’m surprised you’d expect any different.”

“Yes, the file currently decorating my floor.  The file you're all pissed off about.  The one I refuse to apologize for making.” 

He'd gotten to his feet and taken three steps, stopping only when he was directly in front of me.  I swallowed, but I wasn't going to back down.  That was my new mantra – no one was going to push me around anymore.

“And where the fuck have you been?” he continued.  His eyes dropped, skimming down to my shoes and back up.  “Dressed like that, I can only guess you thought you'd keep your appointment for Simone.”

“I took care of myself,” I said defensively. 

“I'll bet you did.”

The derision in his tone set my teeth on edge.

“I didn't screw him, Kade,” I snapped.  “I blackmailed him.”

Kade frowned.  “Blackmail?  Who?”

“James.”

“James Gage?”

At my nod, Kade's brows lifted in surprise.  “Junior?  James Gage – the D.A.?  You blackmailed the District Attorney?”

I nodded again.

His eyes narrowed as they flicked down to my chest.  I fought the urge to cross my arms.

“And how far did it get before you pulled off your Big Plan?”  The words were soaked in his usual sarcasm, igniting my temper.

“That's none of your business,” I spat.

“Dressed like that, I'd be surprised if he let you go before screwing you, no matter what you threatened.”

I was furious.  How dare he criticize me?  “Oh, you like the outfit?” I preened, smiling tightly as I smoothed my hands down provocatively over my hips.  “You should, after all, you bought the shoes.”

It seemed I'd once again taken Kade by surprise, but he recovered quickly, his lips twisting in a smirk.

“Then I should take a closer look.”

Before I could react, he'd crouched down and slid a hand behind my knee, pulling my stiletto-clad foot off the floor to rest on his thigh.  Off-balance, I clutched his shoulder so I wouldn't topple over.

“What the hell are you doing?” I sputtered, my nerves jangling all kind of alarms at his touch.

“Taking a closer look at the merchandise,” he said calmly. 

I gritted my teeth.

“These are definitely Come Fuck Me shoes,” he said, leisurely inspected my foot.  “They must have set you back some.”

“Well, you were quite generous last time you were here,” I sneered, trying not to think about the feel of his hand sliding along the back of my knee or how he was so near, I could feel his breath on the inside of my thigh.

“It was stupid of you to send all that money to the bill collectors,” he said flatly, reminding me of how he'd come by that information.

“Why the file, Kade?” I asked.  “Why would you put me under the microscope like that?  Invade my privacy?”

“You were dating my brother,” he said, his use of past tense making me wince.  “I told you once before that I won't take chances with Blane.  I needed to find out who you were.”

Kade looked up at me, the blue of his eyes like a shock to my system.  A lock of his hair had fallen over his brow.  Again I was reminded of a fallen angel, beautiful and dark.  His self-appointed role as Blane's protector lessened my anger, though I still felt violated. 

“It seemed to be very...thorough,” I protested, wishing he'd stop touching me.

“Yeah, well, that's what it became.”

I looked at him, confused.  What was he talking about?  He'd stopped examining my shoe and now just studied me, slowly running his hand up behind my leg until his fingers curled around the back of my thigh.

I had heard of someone undressing you with their eyes, but had never experienced it – until now. 

Kade's gaze felt like almost a physical touch as it fell on my hips, my stomach, my breasts.  With James, I'd felt dirty when he had looked at me.  With Kade looking at me as though he could see through to my skin, my body responded completely differently.  My nipples tightened, straining at the thin fabric covering them.  Desire pooled between my legs and my breath came faster.  It was wrong and I knew I shouldn't think of him in that way, but he was heartbreakingly lovely and was gazing at me as though I was one of his moon pies about to be devoured.  After being betrayed by Blane, being wanted by Kade was an unexpected, sinful pleasure.

He slowly stood, his hands trailing up my thighs, catching the hem of my skirt.  I stiffened when his fingers brushed my bare skin.

“How about I stay in your bed tonight instead of the couch?” he whispered in my ear.