It’d take practically no convincing on his part to get me to stay. I could see how it would play out. He’d tempt me with a single look and I’d be upstairs, tearing my clothes off so we could fuck in his bed.
So I went reluctantly to the camera on the tripod and spent a frustrating minute trying to figure out how to get the damn thing down. It was heavy, and I treated it with care as I turned it over in my hands, finding the latch where I could get at the memory card.
When it was done, I placed the camera on the center of his paint-splattered table, tucked the memory card in my purse, and searched for a piece of paper to jot my phone number down on.
For being an artist’s studio, one would have thought it’d be easy, but all I could find was a piece of wadded up newspaper in the trash. So I tore a piece off, grabbed a red colored marker, and scribbled out my name and number. Then I pinned the paper under the camera so he could find it when he woke and I was gone.
I cast a final look at him. His hand rested on the rug on the bare spot where I’d been sleeping, and the tinge of longing to return and burrow beneath it didn’t go unnoticed. You’ll see him again, I reminded myself. If for nothing else, he’d want that memory card back.
Chapter
TWELVE
Silas didn’t call the next day, which was surprising. He was probably pissed I’d skipped out on him without saying goodbye, and this delay was to teach me a lesson. If the roles had been reversed, I might have employed the same tactic.
By Friday I was nervous. It’d been three days since his gallery showing, so he’d made his point. Maybe I should have been relieved. Perhaps he’d decided it was worth the forty bucks for a new memory card so he could move on without a messy conversation. We’d had great sex, I’d told him I didn’t want more, and I had the pictures, so this was the logical end of things between us.
Only I hated it.
Friday afternoon I bought a card reader, and after dinner I hooked it up to my laptop. I’d held off until now, wanting to look at the shots together with Silas for some insane reason, but if he wasn’t interested . . .
Fuck me!
I scrolled through the raw images as my body burst into flames. I breezed through the beginning shots, only mildly interested in the ones of me alone, but once he came into frame, I swallowed hard. Out of habit, I glanced around my apartment before undoing the snap of my pants, forgetting that I was single and Matt wasn’t going to catch me looking at porn. The one time it had happened, he’d gotten embarrassed and fled the room, rather
than stay and join me.
I dropped my zipper and shoved my hand down my pants, touching myself as I clicked through the pictures, taking each one in. Not every image was perfect. Every few or so, the camera caught a bad angle. My thigh blocked the shot, or everything was out of focus except for an elbow, but even those in the series told the story of two people with explosive chemistry.
He’d captured one shot near the end where I was staring down at him. We were both glazed with sweat, his gorgeous arms wrapped around me, my breasts pressed against him, and the look in my eyes . . . it was the same look of hunger and lust I saw every night at the blindfold club. The look I’d been craving, only here I was the one delivering it. It was . . . provocative.
I got myself off looking at the pictures.
Twice.
In fact, I’d enjoyed myself a little too long and had to hurry to finish getting ready for my shift at the club. How could Silas not call? We’d been off the charts hot, and these pictures were the proof. I copied them to an external hard drive under a folder labelled ‘Recipes’ and stuck the hard drive in the bottom drawer of my dresser, like I worried at any moment there’d be a raid on my apartment seeking only the contents of this drive.
The beautiful tattoo on my shoulder mocked me as I slipped into a deep purple suit dress, and I covered it with a black jacket. During the train ride to the club, I scrolled through the news on my phone, scanning but not digesting any of the information. My head was too busy mulling over my options.
I knew were Silas lived. I could call the gallery and ask for him, or call Joseph and get Silas’s cell number. Then it dawned on me. Maybe this was a strategic move where Silas put the ball in my court and wanted to force me into action. If that was true . . . fuck. It was working. If I didn’t hear from him soon, I’d make that happen.
Marquis, club security, sat just inside the blindfold club’s entrance, and his eyes tightened into slits when he realized who it was. He pulled himself to his feet from the stool he’d been sitting on and towered above me. The move would appear casual and polite to others, but I knew better. He wasn’t rising because a lady had entered the room, he did it so he could assert a position of power and dominance.
When Marquis wasn’t a bouncer at the club, he boxed. His frame was lean and toned, not an ounce of fat allowed. I’d heard what he lacked in technique in the ring, he made up for with cruelty. He didn’t win half his matches, but he’d been successful in sending a few opponents to the hospital. Broken noses, ribs, a ruptured spleen. Aggression poured off of him, vibrating at a frequency too loud to be ignored. The only good thing about it was it kept the johns in check.
Marquis flashed a wide, fake smile, and his white teeth contrasted sharply with his black skin. I returned the same fake smile, and went through the interior door as he announced my arrival into the comm. I wasn’t afraid of Marquis, but was more comfortable when he wasn’t around. Our relationship was held together by the thinnest web of lies.
I hadn’t heard all the details of his arrest. The DEA had caught him with an automatic weapon, and he’d offered up the club to save his ass. He’d been less than thrilled when the FBI got involved and told him the only way to avoid prison was to help me infiltrate the club’s operation. He’d done it, though. Marquis vouched for me to Joseph, and after I’d proved myself, I was hired full-time. I’d even become the best sales assistant here.
Yet Marquis could turn on me at any time, and he looked like he expected the same from me. There wasn’t trust, only the unspoken agreement not to fuck the other person over. He seemed to be a ticking time bomb. The question wasn’t if Marquis would sell me out, only a matter of when it would happen. His resentment over his situation should have been self-directed, but instead he’d placed it all on me.
I swung by Julius’s office before heading into the dressing room. He was an enormous bear of a man, and the small desk only exaggerated his wide build.
“Wow, love the suit,” I said.
Dark wool clung expertly to him, and the deep red dress shirt looked, well, surprisingly sexy. Julius’s dark eyes lit up. “Thanks. Payton found a guy who makes custom stuff.”
His other suits were fine, but I could see the tailoring that went into it. Perfectly made for him, and what a difference. Julius had come a long way in looking the part of manager. More refined and elegant than his days as bouncer. A handful of the regulars, always older and white, had struggled with doing business with the man they’d written off as a thug.