Lies That Sinners Tell (The Klutch Duet 1)

“I bruise easily,” I offered, though I had no idea why I was trying to make an excuse for the man who’d done this. Maybe it was the menace in the air that told me the punishment would not fit the crime.

“He marked you,” the man repeated, his low baritone full of menace.

I swallowed hard.

The way his eyes focused on my discolored skin did something to me. There was an intensity there that shouldn’t have been present in a stranger. The way I responded to his touch, his gaze made no sense. It scared me. Terrified me.

He stepped back, hand no longer on my arm. I missed his grip, even though that made no sense. At all.

“Karson will be disciplined for that,” he announced, nodding toward my arm. “It was not my intention for you to be harmed or feel that your life was threatened.”

I raised my brow and folded my arms across my chest. “Well, what was your intention then? Because having me dragged off the dance floor and forced up here without an explanation, without giving me a choice in the matter, is pretty much communicating to me that I am definitely threatened,” I snapped, remembering that I was meant to be indignant right now, not turned on. “I’m sure you have no experience in that because you’re a man. A rich and powerful one, by the looks of it. Rich and powerful men have no clue that women feel threatened by all kinds of things because they have the luxury of never having to feel that. Better still, they get to do all the threatening stuff because it makes them feel powerful. Do you feel powerful now, buddy?” I glared at him.

He blinked at me, his face blank, cold. His features could’ve been carved from granite.

“We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” he clasped his hands together, his expression remaining stoic.

“You think?” I muttered.

“Can I offer you a drink?” he asked, nodding toward a lavish looking bar cart to our left.

“I’m a single woman who lives in L.A.. No way am I taking a drink from you,” I replied, bite to my tone.

His jaw twitched ever so slightly. I only caught it because I was watching him so closely. I didn’t know whether that meant he was amused or pissed off, but I felt myself wanting to find out. This seemed to be a man who didn’t show his emotions on his face or in his voice. Everything about him was cold, except when he touched me. My arm still burned at the memory.

“Very well,” he responded after a long silence. “Will you sit down?” he nodded to a plush looking chair in front of his desk.

“I’m not going to be here long enough to sit,” I stated firmly. Finally, I was finding my voice. My backbone. A little late to be sure. But at least it didn’t seem like I was going to be killed in the immediate future.

“As you wish,” he said as he moved over to the bar cart. His steps were unhurried, he seemed to glide across the floor.

Bottles clanged delicately, and liquid sloshed into a glass. He turned with a whisky glass in his hand then walked back to his desk, sitting behind it.

“Why do you come here?” he asked.

I stared at him. He was sitting in the chair casually, leaning back, inspecting me with those green eyes of his. “I beg your pardon?”

“Here,” he repeated, turning back to gesture to the dance floor below. “You come at least once a month. Sometimes more. Dressed to attract attention. Done up in a way that a practiced eye can tell is for you but nobody else. You don’t drink. You don’t accept offers from any of the men who approach you. You always come alone. Always leave alone. That means you do not come for sex. For connections. Which is why everyone else is here. So why do you come here?”

“You’ve been watching me?” I whispered, he words touching every bone in my spine.

He leaned back in his chair. “I watch everyone,” he countered. “I own this club. It’s my job to notice things. And you, pet, are begging to be noticed.”

“I’m not begging to be noticed,” I snapped back. “And I most certainly am not your pet.”

“Not yet,” he muttered in a way that chilled my blood. His eyes were filled with a promise. A threat. “You don’t want to answer my question?” he pressed. He wasn’t ordering me to answer, like he was probably used to doing. This man, sitting up here with his one finger of whisky, watching throngs of inebriated people below, he liked control. I could tell that.

I didn’t want to answer. Didn’t want to give him anything more than I already had, which was a lot since I’d blurted out intimate details about my life, my father and my cat. But then again, maybe that was the whole reason I was up here. He’d gotten suspicious that I came so often without an obvious reason. Maybe he thought I was some kind of spy, or cop, if he really was a criminal.