18. Dragon #2
I pulled out my phone and played the messages on speaker. Richard rambled drunkenly until the message cut off. The gist was that he couldn’t be held accountable for words he said while in shock. It wasn’t his fault that he’d called me a cheap whore.
“He didn’t say that,” I muttered.
“He did now.”
I glared at Horse. “Why are you doing this?”
He grinned back at me while rubbing his sore shoulder. “You think I get this kind of action every day?”
It was my fault that he was bruised. That would mess with his team. I owed him. A lot. I could put up with him being annoying and relishing my humiliation.
We listened to the last message where Richard spoke in very clear, very stilted language that he would love to see me again and talk about how I wanted to deal with the pregnancy.
I sighed. “I should have called him and told him I didn’t want his money.”
“Maybe he wants to marry you. You blew his mind.”
I shot him a glare. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I do. A little suburbanite like him carried off by a dragon like yourself? Did you disappear without a word the morning after? That’s particularly harsh for a guppy like him.
I can see it now: him having the best night he’s never been able to imagine, then a month searching for you, never hearing from you.
The agony. Then you show up, drop a bomb, and then a few more because he wasn’t devastated enough. ”
I scowled at him. “You empathize with this guy? Are you saying you think it’s okay for him to drug me and kidnap me?”
His smile vanished as his expression became extremely serious. “Oh, no. I’m saying that he didn’t do it.”
I ran a hand through my sweaty, tangled hair. Perfect. Of course my hair looked like a nest. That’s why he kept bringing up the bird thing. “Then who did? His handler, or just a random sicko? This is Sin City.”
“Not a random anything. Someone doesn’t want him to be involved with you.”
“You really think he has people who would kidnap someone without his knowledge? That’s ridiculous.”
I got up and started for the door, but when I reached it, he scooted around me, pressing himself against the wood and looking down at me with his arms spread out, blocking me with his whole body.
“Move.”
He showed his perfect teeth in a wide smile. “I could, but first, you should think this through. You still have drugs in your system. You’re smart enough to know that you need to stay away from your usual haunts until we’ve figured this out. By that I mean your room.”
I glared at him. “Am I? You think I’m going to stay with you? There is no way I’d ever want you, even if you were the last man on earth.” My words were sharp, voice harsh.
A flash of pain crossed his face, and then he stepped aside, gesturing to the door like he was ushering me on my way. “Sure. Do your thing then.”
I shouldn’t have said that. It was mean of me. Really, really mean, when all he’d done was try to help. It wasn’t his fault that he irritated me so much. And he was right about this hotel not being safe, and me being vulnerable for the first time in my life.
I tried to smile and patted his shoulder. He flinched again. Right. Sore shoulder. My fault. “Sorry. You’re not that bad; it’s just the sex on the mattress you put me on bothers me almost as much as being drugged and kidnapped. I’ll stay with Nix for a while until we get this sorted out.”
He frowned, confused. “Sex on the mattress? You think I…While you were unconscious?” The look on his face was beyond horrified.
I sighed heavily. “Clearly you don’t need to drug women to get them to go to bed, and the bruises indicate that I was not a gentle victim. No, I’m talking about the other women you bring to your hotel room. Obviously willing. Because you’re you, and who wouldn’t be willing?”
He blinked and then smiled. “Other than you. I don’t bring women to my hotel room.”
I stared at him. “Don’t tell me, back room closets in the restaurants I frequent?”
He winced again. “Other hotel rooms. Because this is a private space, and sometimes women don’t want to leave when I’m ready to go, and so on.”
I looked over at the black bed that was mussed from me and him rolling on it together. “It’s a virgin bed?” It did not look like a virgin bed.
“Yeah. I guess so. I have a really good collection of olive oil.”
I stared at the large man who was no longer blocking the door.
“You have a what?” A sudden image of Horse greased in olive oil was incredibly disturbing.
I’d seen him mostly naked in a ring far too often, and it was easy to imagine him in even less.
Was he telling me about his sexual preferences in other hotel rooms?
He frowned at me. “In my kitchen. With my sugar. It’s a good kitchen. Fully stocked. Although if you stayed with Nix and Kitten, she’d take such good care of you, nursing you back to health and doing all the fun girly things southern belles do in the presence of a pregnant woman.”