“Excuse me. Hey!” He stops but doesn’t turn around straight away. He waits a beat, like he’s building up to it. “I need some details from you about your girlfriend. You can’t just leave her here to wake up alone.”
Finally, he turns. His jaw is clenched so tight the veins in his temples throb with the flow of his pulse. He just stares at me. His shirt has dried out now but it’s still clinging to him in the most distracting fashion, the arms of the material rolled up one turn to reveal strong, tattoo-covered biceps. Ink in black and blue and red surges down his arms in waves. His almost black hair is spiked every which way, tousled, still wet; delectable. I kick my own ass when I realize I’m checking him out.
You’re mad at him, Sloane, remember? He was just leaving. Going to walk right out of the door.
“You think you can at least give us some history before you vanish into the sunset. Or sunrise,” I say. He blinks at me, and then folds his arms across his chest. He opens his mouth to say something and stops himself. Scowls. He turns toward the door and it looks like he’s considering bolting anyway. Bastard.
“On second thoughts, if this is because of you, then maybe you should go,” I say. There are no bruises on the girl’s body but I’ve seen enough cases of domestic violence to know that it’s not always physical. A broken spirit can be just as damaging as a broken bone. This guy could have made his girlfriend’s life so miserable that she simply wanted to end it. The scars on her arms say this wasn’t the first time she’s tried it, either.
Tall, Dark and Handsome glares at me with a pure fury that makes me rethink my suggestion. He faces me properly, like he’s committing to sticking around now, and finally speaks. No, he growls. “I’m not her boyfriend. And I’m not leaving her.”
My stomach lurches. That…
That voice.
Holy…I hold my fingertips to my lips, scrutinising every last square millimetre of him. “Do I know you?” I whisper.
A cruel smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “No.”
Relief floods through me, but my body refuses to accept the sensation. “I could swear I recognised your voice.”
“I was born here. We all sound the same, sweetheart.” He continues to deny it, but with every word my stomach twists a little further. I hear that voice in my dreams; I’d know it anywhere. I’m not wrong. I am so not wrong. This…this is him. The guy who brought in the tiny, broken girl is the very same guy who tied me up and fucked me senseless two years ago. The guy who took my virginity. His brooding eyes are fixed on me with such intensity, that I know he’s just waiting for me to realize.
“I—I need to know who your friend is,” I stammer, and he smiles. It’s a breathtakingly wild and treacherous thing, seeing this guy smile. The gesture’s so sharp it could flay a man alive.
“Carrie. Her name is Carrie.”
“Insurance?”
He shakes his head. His eyes never leave mine. “I’ll pay.”
“You’ll need to go speak to reception. Give them your credit card details. And your name.”
He smirks, looks down at his shoes and then raises his eyes to mine again so that he’s looking up at me from under those dark eyebrows. “I’ve got cash. And you don’t need to know my name. Better if you didn’t. Better you forget I was ever here.”
He starts pacing backward, arms still folded across his chest, and I act without thinking. A part of me is already wondering where the nearest phone is so I can call the cops, but the rest of me follows him down the corridor. Damn, stupid body.
“Wait! I—don’tmakemedothis!”
“Do what?”
“I don’t know! I—it was you. Admit it. Admit that it was you.”
“I didn’t hurt Carrie.” His smirk vanishes, replaced by a cold and calculating stare.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
He pouts, and any remaining doubts I might have had are banished just like that. Those lips—I may not have seen them in the dark, but I sure as hell felt them. He’s the guy. He sees it now. Knows that I know for sure. “Maybe I do know what you mean. That doesn’t change the fact that you should forget I was ever here. Best for everyone involved. You don’t want to know me, sweetheart.”
His arrogance is freaking unprecedented. I take four hurried steps and stab my index finger into his chest. “You!”
Up this close, he’s so tall it’s frightening. “Me,” he agrees.
I ask him the one question that’s been burning in my mind for the past two years. “Did you have anything to do with Eli’s death?”
He looks away, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. That’s a yes if ever I saw one. “Let’s just say Eli and I had a disagreement.”