Unfinished Hero 01 Knight (9 page)

Nick, on the other hand, was done with Sandrine, her texts, her phone calls and her storming into his VIP section intent on making a scene and he’d chosen a terrifying way to communicate this to her.

And I knew
this
when I got to their side, opposite Vivica, got close and saw Nick had Sandrine by both upper arms. He’d jerked her so her body was against his, his face in hers and I knew his hold hurt because Sandrine’s beautiful face was twisted in pain.

“Nick, let me go,” she whispered, “you’re hurting me.”

“Am I gonna hear from you again?” he asked in a way I knew he was repeating himself.

“No,” she whispered.

“Had you, don’t want more, don’t want your shit,” he growled, still in her face and still clamped onto her. “Get me?”

“I get you.”

“Willin’ to make my point clearer, you even think you’ll have second thoughts,” he kept at it, pissed off in a way I didn’t think it would calm for a while and he had his hands on my friend so I got closer.

“Nick, please, let her go. She’ll be cool. I promise. Just let her go and we’ll be out of here,” I said loudly to be heard over the music but also softly in order to let him know I meant what I said.

Nick’s head turned to me and it took a lot but I didn’t quail.

Yep, definitely scarier than his brother. Knight Sebring had control. Nick Sebring absolutely did
not
.

“Nick, please, I promise, no more. Let me go. You’re
hurting me.
” That was Sandrine in a tortured plea but Nick’s eyes were on me and he didn’t let her go. He held on and held my eyes.

“You want me to let this bitch go?” he asked me.

“Yes,” I answered immediately.

“Then make sure this bitch gets the fuck outta here but you stay and have a drink with me,” Nick replied and my stomach clenched.

“No, let her go and we’re all outta here,” Vivica entered the conversation but Nick didn’t tear his eyes from me even as he gave Sandrine a shake. I heard her whimper so I knew either the shake had scared her or his hold had tightened.

“You gonna let me buy you a drink?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “Absolutely.”

“Anya,” Vivica said low.

“Let her go,” I said to Nick.

Nick looked back at Sandrine, pulling her up to her toes so she was nose-to-nose with him and visibly wincing.

“Bitch, I don’t see you, I don’t hear from you, I don’t even fuckin’
smell
you,” he growled then pushed her off, hard.

She staggered back on her four and a half inch sandals that I knew she’d return in the next week because they cost six hundred dollars, something she couldn’t afford. Vivica shot to her to catch her from falling.

I did too but I came up short when a hand clamped around the inside of my elbow.

My neck twisted so I could look at Nick who now had a hold of me.

“Drink,” he clipped.

My stomach in knots, my heart beating wildly, I nodded.

“Anya!” Vivica yelled and I looked to her even as Nick started to turn me to the back of the dais where there was a long, plush, raspberry colored booth seat.

“I’m good!” I yelled back. “Go! Just a drink and I’ll text you when I’m out.”

Vivica’s eyes went from me to Nick to another bouncer who was hovering that I hadn’t noticed until then and finally her eyes came back to me.

“We’ll be at the bar!” she shouted.

“You’re with that bitch, you’ll be in the fuckin’ street!” Nick shouted back, still dragging me. “You lose her, you stay up here.”

No. I didn’t want Vivica anywhere near there.

“Go!” I yelled.

Vivica held my eyes as she held Sandrine in the curve of her arm, a Sandrine who was now crying and staring at me, fear in her face. I lost sight of them when Nick let go of my elbow, slid an arm along my waist and turned me to face the direction he was taking me.

Crap. Crap.
CRAP!

God,
Sandrine
.

Seriously, some day that girl was going to be the death of me.

Right. A drink. I could have a drink with Nick.

Crap.

He sat us down, him too close to me and immediately his eyes went across the dais and his mouth opened up to clip a loud, “Yo!”

The cocktail waitress came scurrying. It was then I saw the bouncer who was hovering was now at the end of the dais, another black-suited bouncer was standing on the floor under him, he had his hands up to cup around his mouth and he was yelling something.

“What are you drinking?”

I tore my eyes from the bouncer, sucked in breath and looked at Nick.

“Sparkling water,” I ordered.

“Fuck, you fuckin kidding me?” he bit out.

Okay, that was the wrong answer.

He looked at the waitress. “Get her a cosmo. Me, Hennessy, Paradis.”

Her eyes bugged out a second before she pulled it together, obviously having witnessed the scene or just knowing Nick, and she scurried away.

Nick looked at me and announced, “Your friend’s a pain in my ass.”

She was a pain in mine too. Then again, at that moment, so was he.

I decided not to answer.

“Fuck, she thinks she can make me come and she owns me?” he asked.

I had no answer for that either, though, I had to admit, he was a screaming jerk but he was kind of right.

“You’re also a pain in my ass,” he declared.

What did I do?

I didn’t ask. First, I didn’t want to know. Second, I was trying not to throw up and/or have a heart attack and I thought both were priorities.

“Only way I know your honey isn’t locked up in ironclad panties is I’d see ‘em through that fuckin’ dress. Jesus, do you fuck anybody?” he asked.

“Um…” I mumbled but said no more mostly because this was none of his business, partly because I had, indeed, hit a long, dry spell and lastly because he was scaring the heck out of me.

I watched him pull a hand through his hair and it hit me that he slightly resembled his brother but not much. They both had black hair with a bit of wave in it but Nick kept his perfectly cut and styled with product. Nick also had blue eyes but they were nowhere near as vibrant as Knight’s. He was at least two inches shorter but still tall. And although Nick was built, he was slighter of frame.

Their facial features, however, were not the same. Not at all. Nick was handsome but he didn’t pack the punch of Knight’s pure, aggressive, masculine beauty. Not even close.

He dropped his hand and looked at me.

“Fucked up,” he muttered.

“What?” I whispered and he watched my mouth move which was uncomfortable but considering the fact I was whispering in a club, if he didn’t lip read, he’d have no idea what I said.

He leaned in and repeated, “I fucked up.” Then he went on, “With you. That scene. Fucked up.”

Yeah he did.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said back, this time louder so he could hear me. “Let’s just have this drink then I’ll, uh… go and, uh… check on things.”

His eyes held mine and I noticed the anger had leaked out of his. “What’s it take with you?”

I felt my eyebrows draw together. “Pardon?”

He leaned further in and I tried not to lean back because he seemed not to be angry anymore but I didn’t want to test it.

“What’s it take with you? Dinner?” he asked.

Oh God, please, do not ask me out. Please, please, please.

I was considering the option of informing him I was a lipstick lesbian, concerned about the fact this might turn him on more, when I felt it.

That swell of frightening, searing, vibrating heat.

I knew the feel of that so I knew he was coming.

Nick did too because his body jerked, his head whipped around and mine did as well, to see Knight stalking up to us, face a mask of unadulterated fury, eyes on his brother.

He stopped in front of Nick, chin tipped down, eyes scorching and I froze.

“Knight –” Nick started.

“You put your hands on a woman in my club?” Knight asked, his voice vibrating with that same heat he was radiating.

I debated the merits of inching away when Nick started again, “Knight –”

That was all he got out because suddenly, Nick wasn’t sitting next to me. Suddenly, Nick was out of his seat and flying across the dais. He slammed into the back of a couple of guys and some girls who all went down with him.

I jumped from the seat.

Knight’s head snapped around so his eyes could pin me to the spot which they absolutely did.

“Do not move,” he growled.

I stopped moving.

He looked back at Nick and so did I to see him getting up, three bouncers closing in, the people he took down with him also slowly coming to their feet and Nick’s entire VIP dais posse beating a hasty retreat.

“Lesson,” Knight clipped to one of the bouncers, the bouncer nodded and put hands on a now pale-faced Nick and instantly dragged him to the steps as another of the bouncers followed. Knight kept talking. “Find Anya’s friends. They don’t have a car, escort them home. They do, escort them to their car. And VIP vouchers. Now.”

Wow, that was nice. VIP vouchers at Slade. Everyone knew what that meant. Your own dais for you and your friends, your own cocktail waitress, your own bouncer and if you carried the voucher card, you drank for free.

I was thinking this therefore when Knight’s hand closed around mine hard, scrunching my fingers together somewhat painfully, it came as a shock.

I had no time to respond to this mostly because now
I
was being dragged to the steps. He didn’t release the pressure on my hand and I was working hard not to fall as well as keep up with him, so I didn’t make a peep as he prowled down the steps with me in tow. Then he prowled through the crowd around the dais, shoving them aside without hesitation. Then he prowled to the back of the club toward a door. A bouncer standing beside it opened it before we arrived and I saw it led to some lit stairs. Then we were through it and I was climbing the stairs, clamoring after a very swiftly moving Knight.

“Knight!” I snapped. “Slow down! I can’t keep up.”

Mistake. He jerked my hand as he turned and I started falling. He caught me, swinging me up in his arms as I cried out in shock and grabbed on like I did the night he carried me over the coats. Then we were up the stairs, he dipped down, opened a door and walked through. Then he slammed me down on my feet, hard, the movement jarring me and he closed the door. The music that was muted when we walked into the stairs disappeared completely when the door closed and I found myself facing down a seriously angry, seriously terrifying Knight Sebring in a private office to the strains of what sounded to my uncultured ears like Beethoven.

“What… the fuck… is the matter with you?” he asked slowly, his voice still vibrating, the fury still radiating and I blinked.

What?

I
didn’t do anything.

And I thought he should know that and not mistake it.

So I yelled it, leaning toward him and everything.

“I didn’t do anything!”

He came at me, fast. I retreated, not as fast. I hit something, went into freefall and my bottom landed sideways in a chair, back to a cushioned armrest, legs over the other one. Knight leaned over me, one hand to the top back of the chair, one hand in the seat beside me, face an inch from mine.

God, God, God, he was scaring
the hell
out of me.

Why was he angry? At me!

“You put on that dress, didn’t you?” he whispered and it was sinister.

“What?” I whispered back.

“You… do not… leave your house… dressed like that… without being on the arm of a man like me,” he ground out on a terrifying staccato with scary pauses.

“A man like you?” I whispered.

“A man who’d shoot another man in the face he even looked at you. Yeah, Anya, a man… like…
me.
”

He meant that. He meant that. Every word. God, he meant
every word of that.

“Knight, you’re scaring me.”

Yep, still whispering.

“Good,” he bit out, his eyes moved over my face for a while then he growled, “Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck…
me.
”

What now?

No, no. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want VIP vouchers either even though I could possibly sell them on the internet for half the cost of opening up a mountain retreat spa.

I just wanted to go.

Now.

“Can you move up so I can get up and get out of here?” I requested cautiously.

“Tomorrow, I’m giving you breakfast. I’ll pick you up at nine.”

I blinked.

Then, yes
still
whispering, “Pardon?”

“You heard me.”

I shook my head. “I can’t.”