Page 402 of Tormented Billionaire Romance Series

“Really?”

“Sure is.As a matter of fact, if we decide we just can’t wait to drive all the way back here for more fucking after dinner, I could get us a suite upstairs.” Nudging her with my elbow, I said temptingly, “Five-star accommodations, just as good as my place. A whole night of fucking in a hotel bed. And, in the shower.”

She respondedwith a smile that was so different from the demeanor of the “wholesome girl next door” that I’d taken her to be. I devilishly twitched my eyebrows back at her and gave her another nudge, tempting her a little more.

It wasall going so well. It was one of the best, sexiest times I’d ever had with anyone. I was seeing some really great possibilities with Corinne. I was starting to believe there was a real future in front of us — a future full of the best sex that either of us ever had.

Naturally,when we got to the lobby, there had to be something to break the spell.

Earlier,I had feared the worst about Kane. I had feared that he would always keep turning up again and again, whenever I least expected him and least wanted him. And, it was the worst possible time to learn how right I was.

As soon asCorinne and I stepped off the elevator, we heard the loud, rude, raucous hammering on the front door and that voice ringing out, partly muffled, from the other side of it.

“Elijah!Let me in! Didn’t you hear me ringing the bell, man? Let me the hell in! Come on, man, don’t blow me off! Let me in!”

Corinneand I both froze in our tracks, looking at the locked door and who was right outside pounding on it. She shot me a worried look. I felt myself go pale looking back at her.

The bangingon the door was totally unwelcome after the banging that had gone on in my bedroom. Kane saw us through the glass door pane and glared in at us, pounding on the frame.

“Damn,”I muttered. “Now?”

“What’s wrong with him?”Corinne asked.

I was tempted to ask,How much time do you have?But we had no time at all, not with my crazed “buddy” thumping the front door like a wild man.

“Stay behind me,”I told her, staring across the space between where we were standing and the door where Kane pounded. Nervously, she took a step back to where she could see over my shoulder.

Her voice tense,she asked, “What’s he going to do?”

My fists flexing,I answered, “He won’t hurt you.”

Kane bellowed through the door,“What the hell are you waiting for, dude? Let me the hell in NOW!”

His shouts puta dryness in my throat and a coldness on my skin. The only thing worse than a crazy bastard is a crazy bastard who makes demands. “Stay there,” I said to Corinne. Bracing myself for the worst — which, coming from Kane, could be really bad — I went for the door. He stopped pounding on it, but kept glaring crazily through the glass, at my approach.

Flinging open the door,I decided that the only way to deal with Kane was to put him on notice from the very first second that I wasn’t going to have any of his crap tonight. “Kane, what the hell?” I snapped. “People live here!”

He stomped inside,shoving me aside and fixing his stare right on the frightened face of Corinne. “Iknowpeople live here,” he growled. “I’m not interested in people.”

Going back as faras I did with Kane, I’d seen him all kinds of moods. And as of now, I couldn’t believe the stupidity and blindness of my younger days when I actually thought of the sleazy mess of a human being in front of me as a “friend.” I hated what it said about me back then that I was ever friends with this wild-eyed monster. I knew him when he was happy, usually because of some shady or larcenous thing that he’d profited from or got off on. I knew him when he was sad, usually because of his absent lowlife of a father or his stoned, drunken mother. I knew him when he was scared, and when he was mad. And, I knew him when he was on something.

Right now,from the hopped-up look in Kane’s eyes and his attitude — part caveman, part spoiled brat who wanted what he wanted when he wanted it — there was no doubt in my mind that he was on something. And from what those hopped-up eyes were focused on, in the only way that he was able to focus now, it was obvious what it was he wanted.

And,what I was damned if I was going to let him get.

I couldboth hear and feel the fear in Corinne’s voice when she took another wary step back and said my name. “Elijah…”

The lookon Kane’s face turned my stomach. “Corinne. Hey, how’s it going? You’re lookingsopretty tonight.”

He took a lurchingstep in her direction. I put myself between them. “Look, we were just on our way out. You ought to get going, too. Someplace where you can lie down and sleep things off.”

Kane actually laughed at that— the most sickening laugh I’d ever heard. “Lie down? Lie down? Hey, that’s a good idea. Let me just have a word with Corinne.” He shouted over my shoulder. “Hey, Corinne!” I didn’t have to turn around and look. I could feel her cringing at him.

When Kane triedto take another step and actually reached out his arm for Corinne as if he could stretch for her, I blocked both his step and his arm. The drug-soaked dickhead actually looked at me as if I were the one with the problem. “Elijah, what are you doing, man? I just wanna talk to your pretty, pretty girlfriend, here? She’shot,man. You can see how hot she is…”

“Yeah, I can see that,”I said. “Just like I can see what kind of shapeyou’rein. Just step back, okay?”

“I can’t step back,man. I just wanna be friendly with her, that’s all.” He called over my shoulder to her, “Babe, I just wanna be friends!” I could feel Corinne not just cringing now, but flinching.

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