Chapter 18
SILAS
Because we didn’t specify which home, I take her back to mine. She talks a lot when she drinks—well, more so than her usual chatty self, which is none.
“How long have you been friends with the stripper?” I ask her, since she seems to be in the mood for talking.
“Since I moved to town, and she isn’t just a dancer; her name is Nessa.”
“I thought you were a couple the first time I saw you at the club,” I tell her honestly. She casually shrugs as she peers out of the tinted windows, her eyes growing wider as we pass the electric gates.
“Where are we?” she finally asks.
“My home.”
Her eyebrows perk up, and she whistles as if impressed. But I know it takes much more to impress a woman like Leonore. I park the car at the front of my house, and before I’ve even opened my door, she’s out of the car.
“You have a lot of money,” she says as I step out of the car, and slams the door, careful not to step into the perfect hedges.
I watch her closely as she looks around, fascinated with the flower pots that line the brownstone before she walks up the stairs. She looks good tonight. She looks good every night, but there’s something slightly more carefree about her than usual.
“Do I?” I ask, slowly following her up the stairs, admiring the way she takes everything in. She’s a woman with an eye for detail. I don’t bring women here. Ever. But there’s something fitting about Leonore being here.
I tell myself I’ll eventually tell her about my uncle’s body being found, but the selfish part of me knows it’s the only thing I can hold over her head to see me again, most likely when she’s her usual sober self.
Not that she’s overly drunk now, but she seems …
curious. About me. And it strokes the part of me that’s had my eyes on her ever since I first saw her in the dead of the night, in her morgue with a scalpel in her hand.
She turns back to look at me. “You do, now open the door so I can continue to judge you.”
I hide my smirk as I unlock the front door, and when I push it open, I hold it, waiting for her to enter.
She steps past me, and her eyes immediately rise to the chandelier.
Her eyes take it in, and she turns back to look at me with a smile.
A fucking smile that has me doing a double take and wondering if the little raven I’ve known up until this point has done a body switch.
“You complain all the time about me wearing black. Yet you do, and as soon as I walk into your home, the first thing I see is this.” She waves a hand at the chandelier. “It’s black.”
“I like the color,” I say with a sly smile as I fold my arms over my chest and lean against the wall as I watch her in my home.
“Yeah, well, so do I.”
But she sure as shit looks good in a touch of red, and those fucking deep red lips have my cock twitching at the thought of them wrapped around it.
I shake my head as I walk past my foyer into the bar area.
There are a few swivel stools around the bar, plus a sitting area just a few steps off.
The bar is painted a dark green, and the backdrop is glass, with very expensive bottles behind it.
I feel her following me as I hold up a brown bottle of what I know is her favorite drink.
When I look over my shoulder, she immediately nods in approval.
I find the remote and press play on some music as she sits on the stool opposite me and watches me pour us both a glass.
“Nessa says I need to get laid,” she casually blurts out. My grip tightens on the bottle.
“I can help with that,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “Of course you can.”
But then why else would little Miss Troublemaker be here?
The music breaks the silence that follows, and I walk around as she takes her drink. I sit in the swivel chair, holding my own drink.
Watching her.
“Perhaps then we should do what we’re both good at,” I suggest.
“What’s that?”
“Action. Not just words.” Something we both fundamentally understand.
I’m also giving her an out. Not from my obsession, but from tonight …
if she wants it. Though, in the way her gaze blazes with hot need, I doubt that’s an option running through her mind.
Not when she knows I’ll happily spread her legs.
The boots she’s wearing have a slight heel, and she slowly lifts her foot and presses it against the barstool between my legs. Then she takes a sip with a small, mischievous smile.
Fucking evil. And so perfect.
“I want to see more of the woman I saw holding the gun the other night,” I say matter-of-factly. I’m waiting to explore the type of unhinged crazy that’s in her bloodstream. I haven’t been able to get the sight of that night out of my head ever since.
Her smile seems to curve even more as she says, “Change the song.”
I raise an eyebrow, surprised by how quickly she changes the subject, but I also understand that Leonore always needs to be in control. So do I. But I’m willing to give a little now and then, especially if it suits me. “To?”
“Anything, this is sad…” she says as she stands from the barstool and casually prowls the room as if she owns it, but she seems curious about every little detail.
Neither of us have once mentioned work. So then tonight, I’m assuming … is pleasure.
I pick a random playlist, and when the next song comes on, she stops and looks over her shoulder at me. Those emerald eyes shine with damnation as she says with ruby deep lips, “I like it…”