Page 64 of Wicked Intentions (Wicked Games 3)
Bewildered, I lift my head and squint at him.
He shrugs. “So I love Mary Poppins. Sue me.”
The door slides open soundlessly, revealing a lighted steel box about five feet wide and eight feet tall. When Ryan walks inside, the door slides shut behind us. With a subtle clang, the box begins to descend.
“Do you live near the center of the earth?” I ask his profile.
“Yep,” he answers instantly. “That’s why I’m so hot.”
He slants me a grin. I close my eyes against its brilliance and tuck my head into his neck.
“Where are we?”
“I told you. Home.”
“No, where?”
“The Bronx. Ish.”
“Either it is, or it isn’t.”
“Normally, I’d agree with you, but in this case, there’s a little wiggle room considering we’re not talkin’ horizontal coordinates.”
The elevator stops, the doors open, and Ryan walks out into pitch blackness. “Raindrops on roses,” he calls out.
Overhead lights blink on in orderly rows, revealing a bachelor pad that has probably starred in every male’s fantasy of a bachelor pad since the term was invented.
High ceilings. Exposed brick walls. Polished cement floors. Lots of steel beams and glass surfaces, and a smattering of leather furniture. A television the size of a school bus hangs on the wall, along with black-and-white abstract art suggestive of nude women. Not a single throw pillow or bright color in sight.
“Raindrops on roses?”
“And whiskers on kittens,” he says, nodding.
I look at him. “Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens?”
He beams. “Angel! You know The Sound of Music!”
I gaze around his underground sanctuary. It sizzles with machismo and is operated with voice commands taken from Julie Andrews movies. I ponder my predicament.
Only one reasonable explanation comes to mind.
“I’m dead, aren’t I? Just give it to me straight. I was shot sometime yesterday, and now I’m dead. And this is…purgatory?”
He scoffs. “This is heaven, baby!”
“Heaven? I am dubious.”
“That’s a one-hundred-ten-inch ultra-high-definition TV! And that”—he swings me around so I’m pointed in the direction of a large kitchen, gleaming with stainless steel appliances—“is a professional-grade chef’s kitchen complete with a grill, a griddle, a double-walled pizza oven, and an infrared salamander broiler—”
“Maybe purgatory was being too generous.”
Ryan purses his lips and considers me. “I know what you need,” he pronounces. Then strides through the living room, past the gargantuan television and arty nudes, past the built-in wine cellar and wet bar, around a wall composed entirely of live succulents in different shades of green, brown, and gray, and into his bedroom.
He stops in front of a bed approximately the size of a train platform. The duvet and sheets are black, as are the pillows. A trio of red candles reside on a black bedside table. A fuzzy black rug sprawls over the floor.
“So how many vampiresses do you usually sleep with in this thing?”
“Vampiress?”
