Chapter Nine
Lo and behold, the surprise destination was the same abandoned building where he’d set the trap she’d stepped into a few nights ago!
Violet just wanted this “surprise” to be over.
This blackguard.
If she harbored any doubt that she might have been mistaken that he knew it had been her, even a little sliver, it vanished the moment they dismounted and stepped into the building.
But this time, everything was different.
This time, men milled about and cigar smoke thoroughly infused the air.
And just what had the man meant about her being both his hellfire and holy water?
Was that good or bad?
Good and bad?
Was he mocking her hair? Her temper? It couldn’t be the latter, since, according to her friends, she had a rather good temper. The former? She inwardly snorted.
She loved her hair.
He could return to his underworld throne if he didn’t.
The words did, unreasonably, stir a tiny, extremely tiny, thrill in her.
In any event, she still didn’t know how he had recognized her that night.
She’d worn a cloak. Unless . . . the hair.
Entirely plausible. However, she couldn’t be the only woman in Brighton with this shade. She wasn’t any sort of rarity.
Be that as it may, she intended to escape as soon as possible. He might call it running, but what did that matter? He knew where she lived. Had a blasted key! So, in essence, she wasn’t running or even escaping. She was simply departing.
She peeked at the big man beside her.
His thighs had once again enveloped her on their way here. Blazes, she didn’t rightly know how to feel in that moment. Enjoy being cocooned in this oaf’s arms and legs or resent the fact that she’d once again been left with little choice but to obey.
Still, his obey is better than your brother’s obey.
What was she even thinking . . . Did that not make it even worse?
Violet decided she truly had to reflect on the direction of her wayward thoughts.
No woman should be pondering a man’s muscles while being willingly kidnapped.
And yes, she would still attach the word kidnap even after the word willing!
She’d been left without much of a choice.
Again. Though if she had to be honest, which she absolutely refused to be, her curiosity in their lair had been piqued.
And dashed the moment they arrived here. Now all she wanted to do was leave.
They stepped into the open space where she’d had her first run-in with Drake to the exact opposite of what she’d found before.
A fight raged at the center, bodies moving with brutal grace from what she could see through the cracks of the men, women, and the occasional boys circling them, cheering the combatants on with wild enthusiasm.
A real fight.
For a second, her blood ran cold as her eyes darted over the fighters and then the audience, searching for a matching head of short, red hair. Instant relief swept her, though the dread hadn’t vanished altogether, forming a pit in her stomach. He could still be here in this building.
“Something wrong?” Drake’s voice drawled in her ear, accompanied by a rush of breath.
She tilted her head away from the brute. “I’m just in awe of the scene.”
“Still pretending, are we?” the brute countered.
She glared at him. “Pretending what, exactly?” She wouldn’t offer up the truth just because he knew it. If he wanted to allude to something, he’d need to point it out!
“That you’ve never been to a fight.”
“This may come as a surprise to you, sir, but I haven’t.
This is my first.” She only knew about her brother’s moniker and all that through his loud boasting on nights he gathered with his friends, and quite honestly, because of that, she’d always found such events distasteful.
After all, he had enjoyed them, so they couldn’t be all that great.
“That so?”
Drake’s tone annoyingly slid over her like midnight silk. Could the man sound less provocative, please? “Yes, that is so.”
“Then I must be mistaken.”
She eyed him. “Mistaken about what?”
He shrugged. “You seemed to be looking for someone just now.”
“I am merely observing,” she replied crisply, heart secretly hammering at his observation. She hadn’t realized she’d been that obvious. “A woman can look without having an ulterior motive, can’t she?”
“It’s funny that you should use that particular phrasing.”
Curse this suspicious man. Her eyes locked with his. “It’s why you brought me here, correct? Just as it’s why you took me to your dungeon.”
“Mm.” His gaze dipped down her body before returning to her face with laziness. “Is that what you were doing the other night? Observing?”
Her pulse skipped. So here it was. A direct question.
There was no use in denying the truth. Not with a dog who’d sniffed out a bone. She would, however, stick to the story she’d parted with that night as well. Perhaps if she repeated it enough times, he’d believe her. Denial saved lives.
“I stumbled in by accident,” Violet muttered.
He grinned at her. Wickedly. “Finally admitting it?”
“Why not? You already knew.”
“You might have saved us both some trouble and admitted the truth the moment I first came to you.”
“But then I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of locking you up in your own dungeon,” she quipped, unable to resist. “I’m curious. How did you recognize me?”
He reached out and caught a tendril of hair between his fingers. “Quite an unforgettable color.” Leaning in closer, he said in a low tone, “Quite an unforgettable voice.”
She barely managed avoiding clutching her heart at that. “What a memory you have then, since we’d never formally met.”
“One glance, one sentence is enough.”
What an inconvenient skill. “How fortunate you are.”
He brought the tendril of hair up to his nose and inhaled before letting it slip through his fingers. “Your life,” he murmured, “happens to intersect with mine rather suspiciously of late.”
What the devil?
Violet almost caught that same tendril and gave it a whiff as well. Don’t rise to the bait, Vi. “A coincidence,” she said, feeling pressed.
“Suspicious,” he countered back.
She scoffed. “What does your suspicion have to do with me? Handle it on your own time, and don’t interfere with mine.”
He suddenly laughed. “How are you so bold all of a sudden?”
“Haven’t I been bold all this time?”
“Yes,” he conceded. “How did you know about the fake fight I set up?” His smile turned positively evil. “Well, you wouldn’t have known it was fake, now, would you?”
She lifted her chin. Madness. This conversation. Here, no less. Amidst all the pounding flesh and shouts. Could he not have had it on the horse? Where she at least didn’t have to look at his handsome face? “Like I said, by chance.”
“And yet you moved through the dark like someone who’s done it before.” He let those words stretch before he added, “More than once.”
Well, when a woman had to avoid a drunken brother almost every night, she learned a thing or two. “As you might have noticed, I am a woman who lives alone. It’s prudent to possess a certain practical sense.”
“Was it prudent to be skulking about cloaked at night? Just what were you doing that you unwittingly stepped into my trap?”
“That’s private.”
“Does this private matter have anything to do with me?” His eyes bore into hers. “You see, I believe that it does.”
“I assure you,” she said, forcing her voice steady, “you’re mistaken.”
“I’m usually not with these things, and you,” his gaze swept her face, “are running out of ways to deny it.”
“Oh, there are still plenty of synonyms for ‘entirely by happenstance.’”
“Then make a list for me.”
A list? I beg thy pardon? Before she could summon a response, the brute reached for the hem of his shirt and removed it with one smooth motion, exposing his heavily muscled body. And Lord, every inch of him seemed carved from the same uncompromising strength.
Her eyes flew wide. “What are you doing?” she hissed, voice strangled. She darted a panicked glance at the crowd. “Put your shirt back on! People are looking!”
“What do you think I’m doing?” he asked unbothered, as though stripping half-naked in front of a roaring audience was the most natural thing in the world.
“I have no possible way to imagine what might be running through the mind of a man such as yourself!”
He tossed the shirt at her. She caught it, which was frankly impressive given that every coherent thought had just evacuated her mind entirely. The man flexed those sculpted slabs of strength dusted faintly with dark hair.
Saints preserve her.
Her mouth went inexplicably dry. Who would have thought the first time she saw the naked chest of a man, it would be in public? Utterly tragic! Truly breathtaking . . .
Violet nearly choked. “Are you serious?”
“You came here that night for a fight, did you not, Violet? Here I am giving you one.” His gaze swept the crowd, and the onlookers parted for him at once. “That’s why we are here.”
“How do you know I won’t just slip away when your attention shifts?”
“You won’t.”
So confident. She arched a brow and crossed her arms. “You can’t know that.”
“I know,” he murmured with a ridiculous smirk. “When I step into that ring, little spitfire, your eyes will not be anywhere else.”
Cocky brute.
“And if I do leave?” she challenged.
That smirk twisted into a grin promising trouble. “Then I’ll simply come find you.”
She absolutely believed him.
*
Drake stepped up to his opponent as the crowd drew back in a slow, instinctive ripple, forming a tight circle around him.
Ox stood waiting for him, cracking his knuckles, his face already bruised and covered in blood, grinning at him.
Heh. Drake returned the smile with a faint curl of his mouth, the same one that usually sent lesser men reconsidering their evening.
He rolled his shoulders once, twice, thrice.
He could sense Violet staring at his back. He wanted to gauge her reaction when he fought. Wanted to absorb it. That was the only way to dig down to the truth of her.
Even the devil stepped back to watch.