Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
BLAIRE
Turn it on. I had to turn it on.
My subconscious didn’t want me to remember whatever secrets I had lurking in the shadows, even as the guilt over who I might be ate me away, bit by bit. There were bound to be consequences over decisions I’d made when I was powerful. Winder called me powerful.
But you didn’t get power without making a deal with the devil.
Needing something solid to cling to as the crowd parted, I grabbed Winder’s hand before he got too far. People were everywhere, some sprawled out on the mismatched furniture, some dancing offbeat to the loud music.
Leon lounged on his battered leather sofa like a king, surrounded by his fucked up peasants.
The woman lying on his lap’s eyes were completely unfocused, to the point where I questioned if she was even conscious for a brief moment, until she shifted.
Leon pinned us immediately, and his eyes brightened when he saw Winder.
Once he saw we were holding hands, his shrewd gaze started to evaluate me.
“Winder. You’ve had a busy few days. Haven’t seen you around.” He passed Winder the blunt in his hand. He took a hit and gave it back.
Winder blew out the smoke in slow circles, and I had never wanted to be high quite as badly. “Been interesting for sure. I’ll be back soon. I’m wondering if you can help me out.”
Petting the limp woman’s hair on his lap, Leon raised a brow. “You’re not one to ask for help.”
“Things change.” Winder shrugged, raising our joined hands as if to signal defeat, and I immediately realized why he wanted me here. Leverage. “This is Blaire. I’m wondering if you’ve heard anything about her.”
Leon’s eyes snapped to mine, and narrowed.
I was under his microscope. Breath was useless as he ran his gaze over my body, lingering a minute too long where my dress met my thighs.
He licked his lips, meeting my eyes once more, a predator.
He took a slow drag of his blunt, offering it to me without breaking eye contact. “Blaire, you said your name was?”
Winder nudged my side, and I remembered where I was, and what he asked me to do. Who he asked me to be.
“Yes.” I took the blunt, focusing. As far as I could remember, I had never smoked.
But somewhere, deep in my subconscious, I knew I must have.
I held the blunt to my lips, sucking in the smoke deep into my lungs.
Don’t cough. Don’t fuck this up. Don’t fucking cough.
Holding it for as long as I could, I passed it back to Leon, before exhaling in one big breath. “Blaire Barlowe.”
Leon looked away, shifting. I watched in shock as he took the blunt, and stubbed it out on the woman’s dress. She didn’t react until he pushed her. “Get off. Go find someone else to suck off tonight.”
Like a robot, she rolled to her feet, and disappeared into the crowd. Leon sat forward, forearms on his knees.
“Listen, Blaire Barlowe. I’ve heard your name. I’ve heard it from people who shouldn’t be saying your name. Because seeing you here in front of me now, I’m guessing there’s been some kind of mix up.” He stared down Winder. “I’m only telling you this because I owe you one for the Whitlock deal.”
The weed was hitting me hard, and everything Leon was saying wasn’t real. He was a bedtime story, a figment of my fucked up imagination.
Winder let go of my hand, and I wanted to call him back. “What are you saying, Leon?”
There were words, words on the tip of my tongue. Words that needed to be said, but I couldn’t quite remember them. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
“I’m saying your girl’s mixed up in shit that doesn’t involve her.” Leon’s voice was shorter this time, cutting through the air. “She’s on the list for some big people. People with a lot more sway than you or I have. People who would be pissed to hear me talking about them.”
“I need a name. Give me a name, and I’ll leave you out of it.” Winder took a step forward. Leon tried to hide his flinch.
“Conrad.”
Winder visibly paled. “You’re shitting me.”
“I told you she was mixed up in some bad shit. I’ve heard stories about this one, Winder. She’s pretty, so I understand the appeal. But is she just as pretty when she’s covered in blood?” Leon rested back against the couch, lighting his blunt again.
I didn’t like the way he talked about me like I wasn’t there. This was becoming less a bedtime story, and more a nightmare, and I’d had far too many of those lately. Besides, I could be just as scary. Winder had all but asked me to be.
It was impossible to know if the confidence came from Winder or the weed, but before I knew it I was closing the distance between myself and Leon. I sat on the couch next to him, curling my knees under me.
He turned to look at me, our faces strangely close.
I didn’t like the color of his eyes. They made me uncomfortable, like a cat I couldn’t trust not to strike.
I didn’t like Leon. Didn’t like his blunt or his weird eyes or his dumb brown hair.
So I smiled, and leaned in close, even though his cologne made me want to gag.
“You’re cute,” I murmured, dragging my nail across his cheek.
“You’re cute, but on the inside you’re ugly. ”
“Blaire.” Winder’s voice was a warning, but I didn’t care. We got what we needed from him, hadn’t we? Leon wasn’t a nice man, and he was hiding things from Winder.
I dug my nail in harder, scratching Leon’s face until he snatched my hand, squeezing my wrist so tightly it hurt. I narrowed my eyes, ignoring Winder stomping forward in my peripheral vision. “I wonder if all that ugliness will be on the outside when I cut your tongue out?”
“Blaire!” Winder grabbed me around my waist, pulling me off Leon who was growing steadily more red.
“You better control your fucking woman, Winder,” Leon spluttered. “I don’t know where you found her, but she better be worth the fucking trouble she’s about to bring down on you.”
I smiled at Leon as sweetly as I could manage, as Winder dragged me away. My nail had left a nice little scratch across his face, and while it wasn’t as much as he deserved, it pleased me.
Winder deposited me on the floor. “What the fuck was that?”
I shrugged, biting a cuticle. “You told me you wanted the powerful Blaire.”
“We needed him to want to help us. Not for you to threaten to cut out his fucking tongue!” he snapped.
I was feeling pretty good. Winder wasn’t going to bring me down. Besides, he was kind of cute when he was angry. “He gave you a name. And you told me not to trust anyone with a tongue that could lie. I was taking care of that half of the problem.”
“For fuck’s sake, Blaire.” Winder rubbed his temples, and sighed. “I can’t deal with this right now. Not with fucking Conrad. We need to go. Come on.”
I wanted to pout. I was having fun tormenting Leon, and now Winder was going to bring me back to my sad, high-less life, where I was scared and anxious about everything and everyone. I’d rather stay here, where my nightmares weren’t trying to kill me, and I didn’t hate myself.
Winder must have thought I followed him because he disappeared through the crowd.
A quick glance over my shoulder told me Leon was still watching me, probably waiting for me to be alone so he could flay me alive.
I turned and flounced away, ready to find Winder and convince him to stay for a few more minutes.
Two seconds into the crowd, a man grabbed at me, his hand pulling my already short dress even higher. I shoved him off. “Get away!”
All it managed to do was nearly trip me up, and expose even more of my leg, if that were even possible.
Winder was there before the man could reach me, bending his wrist back to a painful angle. “Touch her again and I’ll make sure you regret it.”
The man fell down with a squeak, rushing away as quickly as he could on all fours. We had made a scene, and I could still feel Leon’s eyes watching us. I didn’t like it. Maybe I should’ve threatened to gouge his eyes out instead of cutting off his tongue.
I let Winder take my wrist this time. “I knew the dress was going to be a problem. Maybe I should’ve stayed home,” I thought aloud.
Winder froze and spun on the spot. He narrowed his eyes, squeezing my wrist tighter than before.
He closed the gap between us, and I could feel the anger pulsing off his skin.
It was intoxicating, knowing it was me that made him angry.
I brought this passion to the surface of him. I wanted to taste every drop of it.
When he spoke it was a breath away from my lips, a whisper separating us from a step neither of us was ready for.
“Don’t you see how goddamn beautiful you are?
The dress isn’t the problem, Blaire. It’s you they can’t keep their eyes off of.
Eyes are one thing. They can look all they want, as long as you aren’t complaining.
Hands, though, hands will be an issue. People are so quick to forget their place, and claim something as theirs when it was never an option to begin with. ”
He thought I was beautiful. I wasn’t sure he meant to let those words escape, but they hung between us just the same. I bit down on my lip. “Are you saying I’m unavailable, or unattainable?”
His breathing steadied, his anger gone, leaving something just as tangible in its wake. “I’m saying, for all intents and purposes, you’re mine tonight, sweet girl. And if I only have one night with you, they better keep their fucking hands to themselves.”
A beat of silence passed between us, an unspoken acknowledgement of what he had just confessed.
If I only have one night with you… Did he mean what I thought he did?
I was high. Maybe I was overthinking it.
I wanted to ask him more, but he cut me off with a brush of his thumb against my cheek.
His touch burned my skin, a poison and an addiction at the same time.
“Kiss me,” he demanded.
I wasn’t about to question this one. I closed the distance between us, pressing my mouth against his soft lips.
There was a moment of hesitation as we touched, and then desperation took over.
His hand slipped from my cheek, grabbing the back of my head as he deepened the kiss.
Something built low in my core, a dormant feeling I hardly recognized.
I pulled away first, but he didn’t let go of my hair. Stunned, I blinked a few times to bring myself back to the real world. “What was that all about?”
Winder nodded over my shoulder to where I knew Leon sat. “He was still watching. I wanted him to have no doubt in his mind we were together.”
Oh. Was that all it was? My cheeks flushed, my high falling to the pit of my stomach as I realized that kiss meant different things to us. I couldn’t let it show. I’d be a fool if I let Winder know how I felt now.
He’d already told me at his house this would be an act. It was my own fault for getting caught up in the emotions of his close proximity, and a single, burning kiss already scarred across my heart.