CHAPTER THREE #3
Eventually, the customers stop coming, and the bar starts to clear out. I briefly wonder where Carlos went and why he isn’t back yet. When the clock strikes 12, a shiver rolls through me. Rafaelle looks at me with an expectant smile.
“Time to go, Liliana,” he drawls.
“One second,” I murmur, fisting my hands together behind my back. He gets to his feet and I take a wary step back. “I need to go and tell Bryan I’m leaving so he can lock up.”
I whirl around before he can reply to that, walking towards the employee room behind the bar. Bryan jumps out of his seat as soon as I open the door with wide brown eyes. He relaxes slightly when he notices it’s just me.
“Why are you so spooked?” I ask, frowning.
There’s not the least bit of urgency and fear in his tone when he replies, “You don’t know who that is?”
“No, who?”
He swallows and opens his mouth to reply, then seems to think better of it and clamps his mouth shut.
“He’s dangerous, Lily. You should stay away from him.”
“Why?”
He looks down at his shoes, rubbing the back of his dyed blonde hair.
“I can’t exactly say. If I tell you, he’ll know it was me. He could hurt me.”
My frown deepens, “Are you serious right now? What if he hurts me?”
He thinks about that for a moment and blows out a breath.
“He probably won’t.”
“Why?”
“Because he has a code.”
“Would you please make sense!” I snap.
“Just try and get away from him if you can, Lily. That’s all I can say.”
This is seriously annoying. I grab my jacket from on top of the table with rough, jerky movements before turning and walking out.
I’ve already kept him waiting for an hour and it’s probably in my best interest not to delay him any longer.
If he’s just as dangerous as Bryan claims, it would be in my best interests not to piss him off enough to act on his threats.
He’s still standing silently in front of the bar when I reappear. As soon as I reach him, he grabs my wrist and begins guiding me outside. Sparks shoot up my arm at the contact and I’m not even sure I’m really breathing.
I let him lead me outside, my brain moving super-fast as I consider the ramifications of all this. It isn’t until I spot the sleek, black expensive-looking car parked on the curb that I remember I have a mother waiting and depending on me.
One of the guards opens the back door for us to enter but I plant my heel into the ground, unmoving. Rafaelle looks down at me, amusement dancing in his expression.
“Is there a problem, Liliana?”
I hate the way he says my name. It lowers my defenses. Makes me want to believe everything that comes out of his soft looking mouth. I briefly wonder how he would taste. He already smells heavenly. Which is such a huge contradiction from the rest of his persona that I almost smile.
When my eyes lift to his again, I realize he’s waiting for me to answer the question.
“Uh, yeah. I’m not so sure this is a good idea. I don’t usually get into strangers’ cars.”
Or sleep with them on the first night for that matter. It’s not like I don’t do one-night stands. But they usually happen when I’m buzzed enough not to overthink them. Right now, I’m stone cold sober and regretting it.
“Don’t worry. I don’t bite,” he murmurs, voice like silk. “Not unless you want me to, of course.”
I roll my eye at the dumb cliché statement. Although the trepidation within my skin does dull slightly.
“Seriously,” he continues. “I won’t hurt you. I make it a point not to hurt women. It’s a principle of mine.”
So he does have a moral code. How the hell did Bryan know that?
“You threatened to roll me in a barrel and dump in the ocean,” I remind him.
“Technically, if I did that, I wouldn’t be hurting you per se. You would drown, sure but who would be responsible? The ocean.”
My jaw threatens to unhinge as I stare at him unwilling to believe he provided that fucked up argument.
He grins and it makes his eyes grow a little lighter. They’re still darker than hot coals but I get a brief glimpse at something underneath it all. Something, I suddenly want to see again with everything in me.
“I’m joking. I would never hurt you, Liliana. I can assure you of that,” he says, the sincerity in his voice reaching beneath my chest.
For some reason, I believe him. He leans closer, his voice just above a whisper.
“Look, I really, really want to ruin you, Liliana. And I know you want me to.”
In high school, my mother used to always complain that I was obsessed with chasing after things that weren’t good for me. She wondered if there was something fundamental within me that constantly drew me to darkness.
I thought I’d outgrown that. That maturity had brought with it some clarity and dispelled that impulsive need.
But I guess I was wrong. I haven’t outgrown it at all. It had simply been lying in wait and now he’s awoken it within me.
I could walk away. Lock that impulse forever. But I’d regret it. I’d constantly wonder where the night would have taken me and what it would have felt like.
So I steel myself and suck in a huge breath.
And then I get into the devil’s car.