Dark Favors

“This better not be a trap,” I said coolly. Amber’s words had gotten to me. I shouldn’t have been scared, and I hadn’t really been until I’d arrived at the estate itself.

“A trap?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re outside?”

“Yes.”

“Come in.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I said.

“What? Why not?”

“Because this is the way people get murdered, Nathan.”

“Have you forgotten your manners already?” He asked, lowering his voice. The tone he used went straight to my core, making me hot and bothered and annoyed. I hated how he could use just a couple of choice words to manipulate me and make me want him.

It wasn’t very fair.

I already wanted him more than was healthy for me, but there was something else happening. He had stood me up. He had made me wait. He hadn’t called me, and he hadn’t texted me, and he hadn’t done anything. He’d let me wait, alone at the office, for what seemed like an eternity.

That didn’t seem very kind to me.

“You stood me up,” I said, snapping at him. “I think manners have gone out the window. Now are you fucking here or not?”

My words came out harsh, but I didn’t feel the passion I was snapping them out with. I tried to sound angry, to sound mad, but really, I felt defeated. I had such a big fucking crush on this guy, and we were really just no good for each other. We were using each other. I wanted him for...well, to feel good. To feel alive.

I still didn’t know why he was using me.

There was definitely something he wanted.

A guy like Nathan Locke didn’t look twice at a girl like me without a damn good reason. There was something he was going to get from me, whether I wanted to give it or not, but what? That was yet to be seen.

“Look at the house,” he said. His voice was cool and even, but controlled. That was so him. He was always in control. He wasn’t like me: getting angry or wild for no damn reason. He was just always there. He always seemed to know exactly what was important, and he always seemed to understand exactly how to handle me.

I hated it, and I loved it, and I was confused by it.

I looked at the house.

“What?” I whispered.

“Look up, Paige.”

I looked up. There, on the second floor of the house, in a window, was Nathan Locke. He was in a suit, of course, and he was standing there on the phone.

“I am not going to murder you,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Now come inside, Paige.”

“Okay.”

I ended the call and stared at the house. I stared at Nathan. He looked at me for probably an entire minute, and then he stepped back from the window, vanishing into the shadows of the space. Where was he going? What was he doing?

More importantly, why did he want me here?