TWO WEEKS LATER
I was exhausted, but I needed something to hype me up.
I glanced at the clock on the wall, and my shoulders slumped.
It was a little after midnight, and my sister, Courtney had expected me at her place for dinner at seven.
Not only had I missed it, but I hadn’t even managed to call her and tell her that I wouldn’t make it.
I grabbed my phone and sighed when I saw that it was dead. The last thing that I needed to do was drive home with a dead phone. I grabbed my charger from my desk and plugged it in.
I needed at least a good ten or fifteen minutes of charging time before I felt comfortable heading home for the night.
It had been like this since we moved into the office building.
I arrived at seven in the morning and didn’t leave until close to midnight.
Courtney had called me out on it a few times, which was why she demanded that I come to her place for dinner tonight.
She was a pediatrician, and even she didn’t work as long as I did most times.
“Damn.” I grabbed the final physical proof sheets for the magazine and checked them for color accuracy. I glanced at the clock again; only a few minutes had passed by.
I needed a change of scenery, and I walked out of my office and paced as I thought about the story that I was after. We were no closer to getting an interview with the mysterious Jabari Blackwood than when I’d first given the order. I stopped pacing outside a door marked “Rooftop.”
Last week, I heard a couple of men in business suits talking about having drinks on the rooftop bar.
I’d heard another woman on the phone saying that she was going to work late and catch dinner on the rooftop.
I had passed on the access option when I signed my lease.
It was an additional five hundred dollars a month, and that didn’t make sense to me.
Curiosity won out, and I opened the door and climbed the steps up to the roof. Everyone besides security had left for the evening, so I rationalized that I would be safe. I opened the door at the top of the stairwell and stepped out onto the terrace.
My jaw dropped at the beauty of the setup.
Three large screen monitors were mounted on three sides of a tower, a bar and café area sat in the front of the tower, and there was plenty of seating at the bar.
Casual sectional seats sectioned off seating groups around the perimeter of the roof.
Unlit candles sat at on small glass tables at each seating group, and planters with colorful, vibrant flowers separated each booth.
Four large outdoor fireplaces were positioned at various intervals along the perimeter of the bar.
The lights were still on underneath the bottom of the bar, but the TV monitors had all been shut off for the night.
It was empty and silent up here, a place where people could probably find a lot of peace.
I was certain it was very different during the daytime.
Checking it out made me reconsider turning it down.
I hadn’t even wanted the tour when they offered it.
My primary focus was saving as much money as I could.
The rooftop setup gave off club vibes and the perfect place to network.
I would definitely have to reconsider my membership status and write it off in my taxes.
I had only been on the roof for roughly a minute when I heard a loud clicking noise. I rushed back to the door and tried to pull it open to no avail. I scanned the area around the door, and I groaned in disappointment.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whined.
The biometric glass door had locked me in, and the only way to open it again was with fingerprint or facial recognition access. My ass knew that neither of those options would work for me since I had declined the package in my lease.
I could only be angry at myself for being nosy and sneaky.
I had no right to come up here, and now I was busted.
I couldn’t even call anyone to help me because my phone was still in my office.
All I had were the stupid proof sheets in my hand, and they weren’t worth a damn when it came to freeing me.
Although I knew it wouldn’t work, I just had to try. I pressed my hand against the scanner, and nothing happened. Then I positioned my face in front of the scanner, widened my eyes, and tilted my head. I prayed that maybe I looked like someone who did have access, and I could trick the system.
An alarm went off and red lights flashed from around the tower.
I almost pissed my pants. How embarrassing!
The only good thing that could come from this was if security came up to check it out, and I would be rescued.
I couldn’t hear myself think, my heartbeat wildly inside of my chest, and my stomach was in knots.
Several seconds later, the sirens and the lights shut off.
That infuriated me more because now I wondered if someone would come to check out what set the alarm off.
“Damn! Why do people have to use this stupid ass technology? I hate the idiot who came up with the idea to lock the roof like this! Why didn’t you have a lock to prevent me from getting up here in the first place?
What a dumb ass idea to lock me onto the roof rather than lock me out of it.
Only a manipulative control freak would put something like this in place! ” I shouted.
I rushed to the edge of the rooftop terrace and looked over. I groaned because it was too high up for me to scale. The building had twenty one floors for crying out loud.
“Why is this happening to me?” I shouted again toward the skies.
“Maybe because you’re violating privacy rights and access that you don’t have.” That voice was so deep, so sexy, and so panty-wetting that I wanted him to tell me, “Cum on this dick.” The voice set my body on fire, and I didn’t want the fire to be put out.
I spun around trying to determine where the voice was coming from.
Previously, I had only done a cursory scan of the area.
This time, I spotted a flicker of light in one of the corners of the rooftop lounge that I hadn’t paid attention to before.
It was darker in that section, and there were club chairs, a lounger, and a table in that section.
It was roped off like it was the VIP section or something.
I had assumed the entire rooftop bar had the same seating pattern as the right, the front, and the foremost part of the left section, but that wasn’t true.
This section was set up away from everything else.
My heart sped up when a tall figure stood and slightly emerged from the area.
He was still mostly hidden in shadow, and he wore all black.
The sweet smell of a cigar reached my nose.
I had ignored it at first, thinking that it was coming from one of the other buildings close by.
The end of the cigar glowed as he put it into his mouth again and took a pull on it.
I could see from the outline of his figure that he was tall, even taller than my five foot, ten inch stature.
He had one hand in his pocket, and he wore a suit, but I couldn’t tell much more than that.
His shoulders were bulky, and he appeared to be muscular and fine as hell, but I still couldn’t see his face.
I inhaled the exotic, sweet aroma of the cigar over the fragrant flowers all around us. There was something sexy about the way it smelled and the way he held it to his mouth.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” I asked the stranger as though I had the right to do so, as though I wasn’t the one intruding.
He sniffed and released a low chuckle. “You’re not in the position to ask questions.”
“I have as much right to be here as you do.”
“Beautiful and a liar. I’m not sure I like the combination.”
His voice sent a warm chill down my spine, and I wanted to know what he looked like. I hoped that the face didn’t disappoint because the body and the voice was giving deep back strokes and shower sex.
He took a step out of the darkness, but I still couldn’t make out his features because the moonlight shone directly in my eyes, leaving me at somewhat of a disadvantage. I wanted to move so that I could see him, but I also didn’t want to be obvious.
“It doesn’t matter what you like. How can I get out of here?” I asked in a snappy tone.
“You shouldn’t even be here.” His voice was clipped and held a warning.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“If you were supposed to be here, you wouldn’t have set off the alarm,” he replied.
I felt a little stupid because that was obvious, but oh well.
He took another step closer to me, and I inhaled his expensive cologne. I reveled in the rich scent he wore, and I could detect notes of coffee beans and oud.
I was familiar with them because I came from money, and my nose had learned to detect cheap cologne from moderately priced cologne to expensive cologne through the years.
I loved the way he smelled mixed with the cigar.
I could lay underneath a man like that all night and inhale his scent.
I could get intoxicated off his scent. Hell, I could cum off his scent.
Damn, Camilla, get your act together, I warned myself. I hadn’t been too pleased with myself for jumping back in bed with Nick, but I chalked it up to all the time that had passed since my last sexual escapade. Now here I was on the prowl, checking out a man who could be a psychopath.
“Well like it or not, I’m here. So how about you help me leave before I’m discovered?”
“Or how about I turn you in and get your lease revoked?”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Do you at least have a phone that I can use to call someone?” I asked.