Page 7 of A Dance With Devils
The slightest raise of one eyebrow, after she’s rebalanced herself from shock, and she crosses her arms over each other and stares. “And you’re here, why?” she asks.
“You left something at the bar.”
“I did? What?”
“Me.”
No flicker of interest. Not even a smile produced. Unusual for me given these genes I should be thankful for.
“I didn’t leave you there. I left. Period.”
“But we hadn’t finished our conversation.”
She sighs and starts turning back into the house, flicking her hand at the kid. “I haven’t got time for this,” she mutters. “Deal with it, Brett.”
The kid steps up closer, shoulders trying to broaden to prove his point about something I’m not the slightest concerned about. “He’ll lose if he tries, and you’ll always wonder about what ifs,” I call. She half turns to me, her eyes looking low at my boots rather than my face. “How about you invite me in rather than be rude.”
“Why would I invite you in?”
“Because of my face, which you like, and my ass presumably given that you were looking at it earlier.” Her lips finally twitch, body turning a little more. “Also, I can fix that power for you.”
Both her eyebrows shoot up. “What would uptown privilege know about power outages?”
“Invite me in. Find out.”She looks at the kid again, then me, then back into the house as if weighing her options. She hasn’t got any if she wants that power back on at this time of day. I’m the only one she’s got. The worst one she could possibly accept.
Chapter 3
Ally
One part of my head has stalker alert going on so fast I should be calling Whit, the other is all over the goddamned place about who the fuck he is, and yet the other can’t find any sensible reason to be scared. Fix the electrics? No one would come here to exact revenge under the guise of that. There are two other points I’m trying not to think about, as I listen to his footsteps cross the old doorway. One – how can a man with money make casually fucked clothing look so real? And two – how the hell is he going to fix anything to do with electricity?
I turn to look back at him when we reach the lounge, unsure about an arsenal of things I should be concerned about, not least the fact that this place must look like a pauper's hovel to him. Nothing’s been cleaned or tidied since I left this morning. Old dishes line every surface with dust half an inch thick under them because, yet again, both my asshole brothers couldn’t do a goddamned thing to help me out for once. And, as usual, there’s still the rank smell of the rat infested basement that hasn’t been dealt with.
“Where’s the inlet?” he says. I frown, not understanding what he’s talking about. “Where the power comes in?”
I point over to the entrance to the basement, inwardly cringing at the fact that the smell is going to get a whole lot worse for him when he opens the door.
“Got a tool kit?”
My head shakes, bare toes crossing over themselves as I watch him move purposefully around my home without even acknowledging the mess.
A few minutes of him in utter silence, Brett hovering over me like some protective body guard, and he eventually comes out and looks me over. A few more seconds and he heads into the kitchen before coming back out with a towel to wipe his hands on.
“One week,” he says.
“What? We can’t go without power for that long.”
He pushes some stuff off the side of the sofa and sits on it, long legs and firm ass perched on god knows what. “You misunderstand. I’ll get the power on in the next twenty minutes if you give me a week.” My frown increases, no idea what he’s talking about again. The fact that I’m clueless about whatever he’s saying seems to make him keep wiping his hands, a slow smile spreading as he tosses the towel and looks me over again. “Your skin, Ally Cat. I’m interested in it.”
Brett’s in between us before I can think, let alone talk. Every inch of his six foot frame seems primed and ready to attack and defend in the same breath. I grab at his shoulder, holding him back from even trying while I try to contemplate what the hell has just been said.
“Call your dog off. Better yet, send him away,” this guy says.
“I don’t even know how to respond to that,” I snap, still tugging Brett backwards.
He checks his watch and slides down the arm of the couch onto the main part, kicking his legs up onto the other arm of it as if he owns the place. “I’ll give you ten minutes to decide. But you should know that where I’ll take you is a damn sight better than here.”
My mouth flails around suitable responses, and then I wonder if I shouldn’t just let Brett off his leash so he can pummel eight bales of crap out of whoever this guy is and get him out of here. The fact that he seems so disinterested in Brett’s fuming frame makes me check that thought, though. Who knows what sort of damage could be done if I do? And he’s rich. One call to someone and this could go all kinds of off beam for kids on the wrong side of town.
