As soon as I’m under some cover I text Pike back.
Me: Sorry. I had to take care of Lucielle.
It’s 2:40 am and I’m beyond exhausted.
Pike: When I call you need to answer. When you don’t answer, I will come and find you.
Me: Okay
The doorman opens the door and I step into the warmth of the lobby. My hair is dripping into my face. My pink T-shirt is plastered against my body and my canvas slip-ons squish water between my toes with every step toward the elevator. I’m covered in goosebumps. A shiver running up and down my back and tightening my muscles into knots.
Pike: Okay? That’s your answer?
I heave out a sigh and let the back of my wet head rest against the elevator wall. A chill starts in the middle of my back, spinning outward until it shakes me from top to bottom. My phone buzzes with another text.
Pike: I’m glad you are getting on the elevator right now.
My eyes snap open and I take a quick last glance around the lobby to see if Pike is watching me.
Me: How do you know that?
Pike: Taking care of you means many things, Caramia. You will learn all of them. I’m waiting by the elevator upstairs. We will talk about you leaving without saying goodbye as well. There will be new rules for you princess. Rules that when broken will earn you punishments.
His commanding voice rings in my ears even with the simple text message. I feel his presence around me. My belly tightens and...
My pussy is drenched.
Dripping.
C H A P T E R T E N
PIKE
I swallow hard and lick my teeth as I wait for the elevator to reach the fifty-first floor, to reach my apartment, delivering the world’s most precious cargo to me.
I woke an hour ago to a ringing phone. Not my personal cell. That one is reserved for very few.
No, it was my work cell. The one that is used only for business and only when there’s an emergency so urgent it can’t be left to anyone else. My life has been my work. The closest I’ve come to anything resembling a personal life would be my time at the club, and even that is at best an arm’s length venture.
I count very few of my many acquaintances as friends.
Not a single one as family.
I lost my parents when I was a teenager. They moved here from Hungary when they were newly married, and I was their only child. They were good parents. Hard working. Kept to themselves. Loved one another in their own obligatory way.
My father died in a construction accident on the job. Two months later, my mother was diagnosed with stage four liver cancer which had already metastasized. When they died within a few months of each other I was left to make my own way. And I did. I did it well. But family was never in the equation after that. My life has been work. Until Willow.
The pain I felt when I left Willow is something I said I could never endure again.
Love is the greatest risk of all. I never dreamed of anyone but her and now that she’s finally back in my life, finally making me whole again, the wound is being torn asunder. One phone call, unanswered, and I can barely breathe. I would give anything—not just my life, but everything I’ve ever owned or accomplished in my life—to be sure she doesn’t get hurt.
I do my best to put the call that woke me out of my mind. To promise myself I will find a solution other than the one that will destroy me to save her.
I’m fighting off the anger I’ve managed to soften in the last twenty minutes. First it was the business call.
Then in the next minute, I realized Willow wasn’t in the apartment.
After I finished the unpleasantness on the call, I dialed her and she didn’t answer.