Page 8 of Capture
I peppered kisses along her bare skin as she sighed, and tears dropped onto the bed sheets. My hand rubbed along her arm, then down to her thigh.
The echoes of doors opening and closing down the hallway, frisky, sexy voices to relax and lure the client, high heels tapping on wooden floorboards, laughter, followed by silence.
Riley’s finger went to her left eyeball as she removed the green lens on the pad of her finger and placed it on the pillow. She then proceeded to do the same with her right eye.
“I have blond hair,” she told me quietly, brushing her hand along the part in her chocolate-colored hair. “I need to color it every four or five weeks.”
“To keep up the charade,” I added as my voice sounded harsher than I intended, but I couldn’t get past the pain pulsating in my chest.
She nodded as she licked her bottom lip. “I wore a mask like you did,” she sighed. “We are no different.”
I wanted to hiss back at her and say that she was wrong. We were not the same. I wanted to tell her that I would never betray the family that saved me. We were worlds apart. I would neverput an innocent man in prison. But I kept my mouth shut as I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of Riley metamorphosing into Annika.
The scent of hair was intoxicating, mingling with our body heat. My animalistic instincts urged me to slide my hand between her thighs to turn her on, because I had an overwhelming urge to fuck her until the bed broke, but my senses knew that was a bad idea.
Apprehensively, I waited for her to say the name.Say it.She was almost there. Dangerously close to revealing to me who she was.
She turned away from me to stare at the wallpaper, and my heart sank. I lost her. I lost the moment of the butterfly's emergence. I was about to leave in a huff to smoke a joint and drink some alcohol to cure my ills because this shit was doing my head in, but her hand tightly grabbed my forearm.
Her finger traced nauseating circles on my skin as I could feel her body tense and tremble, tension building as if a levee was about to break.
“Tell me your name,” I whispered into her ear, but she ignored me as her finger moved in circles on my skin. I took a deep breath to cool my shit, because my patience was running out.
“Say it,” I insisted, still keeping my voice low and flat so I didn’t scare her. “Say your name. Say it, Riley. Say it.”
Her finger continued to burn my skin in hypnotizing circles, and a brick of frustration burdened my chest. There was only so much I could take of her messing me around.
Her finger stopped moving in circles, and an invisible line was drawn on the white of my forearm. Then, another invisible line was drawn from the top of the first line, followed by a third line, a horizontal bar between the first two lines.
My heart slammed against my ribcage. I might’ve been mistaken, but I swore that was an A. Then her finger drew an invisible N, then a second N, and then an I.
“Say it,” I whispered again. “Say the name.”
She exhaled as her body seemed to shrink in the cocoon on my body.
“Annika,” she mouthed so softly as if she didn’t want to hear it herself. But I heard the name loud and clear, like a bloodcurdling scream in my ear.
Annika.
4
It was late, just after 11.30 PM, and I decided to take over Gunner’s shift guarding Riley. It’d been a busy night with a few issues arising, such as two dance girls, a bar staff member, and a Velvet girl calling in sick due to a virus going around. Mikky rose above his black mood and went onto the club floor to schmooze with the high-paying members, using his spectacular Kaiser charm that only appears when money is involved.
I texted Gunner that I was coming to take over my shift of guarding Riley, but after twenty minutes, he hadn’t replied, so I assumed he was asleep. I found Mikky on the floor, sittingat a table with two silver-haired men smoking expensive cigars, sipping top-shelf whiskey, relaxing back, talking trade and business.
I signaled to him that I was going upstairs, and he cocked his eyebrows, beckoning me to come over for a chat. “Tell Gunner to go home and get some sleep, as I don’t want him moping around here. He can go to my apartment and sleep in the spare bedroom, if he wants.”
“Alright, no problem,” I replied as I scanned the area to ensure everything was functioning. The burlesque girls enthusiastically danced the cancan while the bar was busy with members waiting to be served by the impeccably dressed wait staff in bleached white shirts and hair tied severely back.
“Ronan,” Mikky grabbed my attention to return to him. “Don’t touch her.” His eye narrowed in severe slits. “You hear me. Don’t touch her.”
“I promise, boss,” I answered with sincerity. But leaving Gunner up there alone with Riley was taking a risk. Yet Mikky had higher standards of me than his nephew, not just because I was his paid right-hand man, but because Gunner was broken and unreliable.
The scent of perfume infiltrated my senses when I ran up the back stairs into the Velvet rooms. Weirdly, I’d frequented this area more in the past week than in the last three years. I’d never been interested in what occurred in these rooms or the women who worked here.
All doors were closed with ‘Do not disturb’ signs on the doors as I was serenaded by wailing sex noises that were making me hot, unfortunately. The last thing I needed was to get horny as I descended on the girl I was attracted to, who sat alone in her room.
My shoes froze on the wooden floorboards when I realized someone was missing from the interior—Gunner. Where thefuck had Gunner gone? He had the key to her room, so how would I check on her?
