Page 19 of Dance of Devils
I’m prepared for this. Obviously, I’m not going to have him drop me off at a parked shitbox car that probably costs less than one hubcap on this thing. Which is also, you know,my home.
No fucking way.
I give him Val’s West Village address instead.
We drive in silence, him staring at the road, me desperately trying not to look athim. The whole time, I can’t stop touching the new clothes, like I’ve never felt this elegance and a level of wealth on my body.
I mean, I haven’t.
The gorgeous car pulls to a stop outside Val’s apartment building. Smiling weakly, I turn to Kir, shivering when I realize he’s already looking at me, those dark devil eyes piercing through my every thought.
“Thank you again,” I say quietly. “For all of it. Seriously.” I smile weakly. “Thank you, Mr. Nikol?—”
“Sir.”
I stiffen, my mouth going dry as heat floods my core.
Did he just say that? As in, call mesir, notMr. Nikolayev?
But if he can see the question on my face, he says or does nothing to answer it. He just keeps looking at me, those dark, gorgeous eyes eviscerating me as silence fills the inside of the car.
I chew on my lip for a moment.
“Thank you…sir,” I finally murmur.
Fuck me, why does that sound so dirty and hot?
“Try to be safer in future, Ms. Ellis,” he growls back.
I know the front door code to Val’s building, so I type that in, listening to the Aston Martin idling, feeling those devil eyes still on me. I open the door, slip inside, and turn to smile at him, giving him a dorky-ass wave that I instantly regret. I mean, cringe.
After I hear him drive off, I wait for a moment or two, then step back outside.
I’mnotgoing to try explaining to Val why I’m showing up at his place at this ungodly hour, banged up, wrapped in bandages, and wearing like six thousand dollars’ worth of “casual wear”.
He’s probably with someone, anyway. Or a couple of someones.
Instead, I walk to the subway, wait for a train, then head “home” to Pearl.
It’s almost dawn by the time I get there, and I’ve got rehearsal in a few hours. But until then, I need to sleep.
I block out the windows, lock the doors, then string the cable lock between the handles of the two front doors.
Can’t be too careful, right?
I keep the new clothes on, shivering a little as I pull my blanket up over me and curl up in the back seat, thinking of thestarkdifferences between my life and Kir’s. Of everything that happened tonight.
And, as sleep pulls me under, of dark, black, devil eyes.
5
BROOKLYN
It’s not a “moving”day for Pearl and I when I wake up a few hours later, thank God. I decide to skip Fit World, since I’mexhausted, and end up going back to sleep for another hour of gray early morning before it’s really time to go.
Carefully, I change out of the priceless clothes I fell asleep in, fold them neatly, wrap them in a canvas bag, and stow them in the bottom of my dance bag.
I’m the only one at the Mercury Theater when I arrive an hour and a half before morning company class starts. That’s on purpose, and not just to shower.
